Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/britishamericaneOOfultrich BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE BY ROBERT IRVING FULTON DEAN OK THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY AND PROFESSOR OF ORATORY IN THE OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY THOMAS CLARKSON TRUEBLOOD PROFESSOR OF ORATORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAlJ GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY ROBERT IRVING FULTON AND THOMAS CLARKSON TRUEBLOOD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 912.8 ^5 (gfte satfteneum 33reg< GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. PREFACE This volume is the outgrowth of a clearly defined classroom demand for a critical study of the message and methods of the great English and American orators whose utterances have molded public opinion and guided the destinies of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations. Its object is to conserve the stu- dent's time by providing, in one book, that which he has here- tofore secured by a somewhat erratic study of many volumes. Our method is that of " precept and example," giving those salient points in the lives and experiences of the orators treated that may serve as a guide to the student of oratory, and fur- nishing as much of their selected speeches as may be profit- ably studied and assimilated within the time assigned to this subject in the curriculum. Our plan is to stimulate a study of the sources of oratorical power growing out of the person- ality, motives, and methods of the orators considered ; to set forth the occasion, the circumstances, and the object of some of their most effective speeches ; and to reprint such inspiring examples of eloquence as may enrich the mind of the student and strengthen his ideals of public speaking. Our selection includes twenty-two of the most noted Eng- lish-speaking orators of the past one hundred and fifty years. We have not undertaken a review of the oratory of a more re- mote past or a study of the many excellent present-day speak- ers whose careers have not yet closed. The desire for a consid- eration of other celebrated debaters and orators, even in the period chosen, may be felt by some of our readers as it is by iii iv BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE US, but our choice has been carefully made, and limited space precludes an extension of the list. It is believed, however, that a close study of these will reach better results than a cursory view of a greater number of speakers. A prefatory list of the authors read in the preparation of diis book would be necessarily incomplete, if not suggestive of invidious distinctions ; but we wish to acknowledge here our indebtedness to many sources of information, such as books on oratory and orators, history, biography, magazine articles, and newspapers. Out of a mass of biographical material we have considered each orator from the viewpoint of his art, and have attempted to make such analysis as will reveal the main essentials of his success as a pablic speaker. We trust that this conservation of oratorical thought may be attractive to the general reader, and that teachers and stu- dents in secondary schools and colleges may be interested in this, another effort to diffuse knowledge that may aid in the study of that art of arts — oratory. ROBERT I. FULTON THOMAS C. TRUEBLOOD CONTENTS PAGE Alphabetical List of Orators ix Alphabetical List of Speeches x CHATHAM I 1. Against the Stamp Act 5 2. Attempt to subjugate America 8 (i) America Invincible 8 (2) Reconciliation 9 (3) Savage Warfare 12 3. English Constitution, The 15 BURKE 18 1. Conciliation with America 23 (i) Restoration of Order 23 (2) Objections to Force 25 (3) Just Concessions 28 FOX 32 1. American War, The 39 2. Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures 40 (i) England the Aggressor 40 (2) Policy of the Bourbons 43 (3) War a State of Probation 45 PITT THE YOUNGER 48 r. Abolition of the Slave Trade 53 (i) Immediate Abolition 53 (2) Incurable Injustice 57 (3) Atonement for Injustice 60 ERSKINE 63 I. Defense of Stockdale 69 (i) Distortion of the Context 69 (2) Libel not designed 72 (3) Liberty of the Press 75 V vi BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE PAGE SHERIDAN 78 I. Trial of Hastings 86 (i) -Hastings's Maladministration 86 (2) Begum Charge, The 89 (3) Cruelties inflicted 92 O'CONNELL 96 1. Repeal of the Union loi (i) Repeal Inevitable loi (2) Ireland for the Irish 104 (3) Freedom for Ireland 107 2. Demanding Justice 109 BROUGHAM 112 I. Parliamentary Reform 118 (i) Property Qualification 118 (2) Full and Free Representation 122 BRIGHT 126 1, Free Trade 132 (i) Odious Corn Laws, The 132 (2) Protection a Source of Pauperism 135 2. Defense of Canada 139 GLADSTONE 143 I. Domestic and Foreign Affairs 149 (i) Agricultural Distress 149 (2) Foreign Policy 152 (3) National Equality 154 ,,^- 2. Home Rule for Ireland 157 HENRY 160 1. Call to Arms, The 168 2. Adoption of the Constitution . . 171 (i) Liberty or Empire 171 (2) Genius of Democracy 174 (3) The President a King 177 HAMILTON i8r 1. Compromises of the Constitution 189 (i) Coercion of Delinquent States 189 (2) Regulation of Commerce 193 2. United States Senate, The 198 (i) Senate. a Check upon the House, The 198 (2) State Governments Necessary 201 CONTENTS Tii PAGE CLAY 203 1. Greek Revolution, The 211 2. Sixty Years of Sectionalism 214 (i) Dissolution and War Inseparable 214 (2) Menace of Secession 217 WEBSTER 220 I. Reply to Hayne 228 (i) Matches and Overmatches 228 (2) Massachusetts and South Carolina 231 ^3) Principles of the Constitution 234 (4) Liberty and Union 239 CALHOUN 242 I. Compromise Measures 246 (i) Slavery and Disunion 246 (2) Abolition or Secession 249 (3) Preservation of the Union "... 251 CHOATE 254 I. Age of the Pilgrims, The 259 (i) Early Heroism 259 (2) Foundations of Puritanism 262 (3) Struggles at Plymouth 265 EVERETT 268 I. Character of Washington 275 (i) Contrast with Napoleon 275 (2) Solitary Eminence, His 278 (3) Moral Grandeur, His 280 LINCOLN 282 I. Political Issues . 291 (i) House Divided, The 291 (2) Nebraska Policy, The 293 (3) Nationalizing Slavery 295 (4) Social Inequalities 298 , (5) Distinction of Parties 300 (6) Disturbing Element of Slavery 305 (7) Liberty and Prosperity 308 PHILLIPS 313 1. M^urder of Lovejoy 323 2. John Brown . '. T 326 3. Toussaint L'Ouverture 330 viii BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE PAGE ^ BEECHER 333 I. Civil War in America 341 (i) Principles of Self-Government 341 (2) Regulated Christian Liberty 345 (3) Difficulties of Union 350 (4) Freedom and Prosperity 354 (5) Moral Conflict, A 357 BROOKS 362 I. Sermon of Greeting 369 (i) Hopeful Outlook, A 369 (2) Incarnation of Christ 372 (3) Confirmation of Christ's Testimony 376 GRADY 380 1. New South, The 385 2. Race Problem in the South 391 (i) Racial Conditions 391 (2) The Issue 396 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ORATORS PAGE Beecher, Henry Ward 333 Bright, John 126 Brooks, Phillips 362 Brougham, Henry 112 Burke, Edmund 18 Calhoun, John C 242 Chatham (William Pitt, the Earl ok) . . . '. i Choate, Rufus 254 Clay, Henry 203 EksKiNE, Thomas 63 Everett, Edward 268 Ftix, Charles James 32 Gladstone, William Ewart . 143 Grady, Henry Woodfin 380 •Hamilton, Alexander iSi • Henry, Patrick 160 Lincoln, Abraham 282 O'CoNNELL, Daniel 96 Phillips, Wendell 313 Pitt, William, the Younger 48 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley 78 » Weuster, Daniel 220 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SPEECHES Abolition or Secession Calhoun Abolition of the Slave Trade Pitt . . Adoption of the Constitution Henry . Against the Stamp Act Chatham Age of the Pilgrims Choate . Agricultural Distress Gladstone America Invincible Chatham American War, The Fox . . Atonement for Injustice F/tt . . Attempt to subjugate America Chatham Begum Charge, The Sheridan Call to Arms, The Henry . Character of Washington Everett . Civil War in America Beecher Coercion of Delinquent States Hamilton Compromise Measures Calhotui Compromises of the Constitution Hamilton Conciliation with America Burke . Confirmation of Christ's Testimony Brooks . Contrast with Napoleon Everett . Cruelties Inflicted Sheridan Defense of Canada Bright . Defense of Stockdale Enkine Demanding Justice O'Connell Difficulties of Union Beecher Dissolution and War Inseparable Clay . . Distinction of Parties Lincoln Distortion of the Context Erskine Disturbing Element of Slavery Lincoln Domestic and Foreign Affairs Gladstone Early Heroism ' Choate . England the Aggressor Eox . . English Constitution, The Chatham Foreign Policy Gladstone X ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SPEECHES Foundation of Puritanism Choate . . Free Trade Bright . . Freedom and Prosperity Beecher . Freedom of Ireland O'Conne// Full and Free Representation Brotighafn Genius of Democracy, The Henry . Greek Revolution, The C/a-y Hastings's Maladministration Sheridan Home Rule for Ireland Gladstone Hopeful Outlook, A Brooks . House Divided, The Lincobi Immediate Abolition Pitt . . Incarnation of Christ, The Brooks . Incurable Injustice Bitt . . Ireland for the Irish O'Conne// Issue, The Grady . John Brown Phillips Just Concessions . Burke . Libel not designed Erskine Liberty and Prosperity Lincoln Liberty and L^nion Webster Liberty of the Press Erskine Liberty or Empire Hetiiy . Massachusetts and South Carolina . . ." . . . Webster Matches and Overmatches Webster Menace of Secession Clay . . Moral Conflict, A Beecher Moral Grandeur Everett . Murder of Lovejoy Phillips National Equality Gladstone Nationalizing Slavery Lincoln Nebraska Policy, The Lincoln New South, The Grady . . Objections to Force Burke . . Odious Corn Laws, The Bright Parliamentary Reform Brougham Policy of the Bourbons Fox . . Political Issues Lincoln Preservation of the Union Calhoun Principles of Self-Government Beecher Principles of the Constitution Webster Xll BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Property Qualification Brotigham Protection a Source of Pauperism Bright . Race Problem in the South, The Grady . Racial Conditions Grady . Reconciliation Chatham Regulated Christian Liberty Beecher Regulation of Commerce Hamilton Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures Fox . . Repeal Inevitable O" Connell Repeal of the Union O'Connell Reply to Ilayne Webster Restoration of Order Btn-ke . Savage Warfare Chatham Senate a Check upon the House, The .... Hamilton Sermon of Greeting Brooks . Sixty Years of Sectionalism Clay . . Slavery and Disunion Calhoun Social Inequalities Lincoln Solitary Eminence Everett . State Governments Necessary Hamilton Struggles at Plymouth Choate . The President a King Henry . Toussaint L'Ouverture Phillips Trial of Hastings *. Sheridan United States Senate, The Hamilton War a State of Probation Fox . . PAGE ii8 135 391 391 9 345 193 40 lOI lOI 228 23 12 198 369 214 246 298 278 201 265 177 330 86 198 45 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM I William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham j(i 708-1 778), had his early training at Eton and at Trinity College, Oxford. On account of ill health he did not finish his college course but spent much time in travel on the con- tinent of Europe. While his collegiate training was not so extended as that of some of his compeers, yet he possessed a high order of intellect, a retentive memory, and the tenacity of purpose which enabled him to accomplish more as a statesman than any of his contemporaries. His rhetorical studies were very thorough. While at Eton and Oxford, and for years afterwards, he devoted himself to the study and translation of the Greek and Roman orators. Demosthenes was his model, and it was his favorite 2 '" ' '^'MmSH -A N.D ^AMERICAN ELOQUENCE pastime to translate at sight and read aloud the masterpieces of the great Greek. To perfect his style still further he read and reread the sermons of Dr. Barrow, the most celebrated English preacher of that time. That he might gain a perfect knowledge of English words he studied Bailey's Dictionary twice through and knew it by heart. Words whose meaning was not easily remembered he embodied in sentences, that the context might better fix the meaning. His training in elocution was unusual. Probably no man of genius since Demosthenes and Cicero went through an equal amount of drudgery to effect his purpose. Like the great Athenian, to master his gesture and poise and to perfect his articulation he practiced before a mirror. He gained vocal power and compass of voice by reading aloud and declaiming the most eloquent passages of the ancient orators. He gained fluency and diction by untiring practice in expressing orally his own thought on public questions. Physically he was highly equipped by nature. He was tall, imposing in presence, and princely in bearing. His presence and magnetic personality were attractive to the eye before he began to speak. His voice combined sweetness and power, now like a flute and now majestic as a great organ. As an orator Chatham commanded every source of power — conciliation, pathos, ridicule, taunt, and exultation. With his keen intuition he saw at a glance what others had to reason out. His language was simple, almost devoid of figures, and was perfectly understood at the first hearing. He chose to repeat and amplify, that none should misunderstand. Having himself mastered the subject, he labored hard to make it plain to his audience. Though his ideas and the course of his speech were fully worked out, yet he depended on the occa- sion for his choice of words. Possessed of the gift to analyze complicated subjects, and having great fluency and a lofty PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 3 imagination, he was the better able to adapt himself to the audience and give rein to his enthusiasm. For this reason he found it irksome to prepare a set speech. It handicapped him in his power over an audience. He lost force and, strange to say, dignity at such times, and his phrases lacked the purity and classical energy of his extempore efforts. As Macaulay puts it : "His merit was almost entirely rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or in refutation, but his speeches abounded with lively illustrations, striking apothegms, well-told anecdotes, happy allusions, passionate appeals. His invective and sarcasm were terrific. Perhaps no English orator was ever so much feared." In action he was so varied and skillful as to have been called the Garrick of the forum. So piercing was his eye and so expressive his face that his opponents were awed into silence by the severity of his mien. His great strength as an orator and statesman lay in the purity of his motives. Nobody doubted his sincerity and his keen sense of the national honor and dignity. The spirit of liberty animated his whole life. The American people will never cease to Jionor him for his tireless efforts in their be- half. "I rejoice," he says, "that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." And again he exclaims, " If I were an American, as I am an Eng- lishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never ! " So courageous was he in his attacks on Walpole, and so influential did he become in Commons that Walpole cried out, " We must muzzle that terrible cornet of horse." It was the weight of his character, his moral elevation, his integrity, his firmness of purpose, and his determination to be reckoned 4 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE with that made the opposition respect his opinions and desire to silence him. Coupled with his honesty of purpose, his force of will, and his impulsiveness, there was a certain au- thority in his manner, an autocratic temperament, and a domi- nating turn of mind that was distasteful to his friends and galling to his enemies. But in spite of this weakness his place in history is secure. Harvard University ranks him with Demosthenes, Cicero, St. Chrysostom, Bossuet, Burke, and Webster as one of the seven great orators of the world. He came in the golden age of modern oratory and must be classed among the most powerful, if not the chief, of English- speaking orators. Chatham was the ideal popular statesman. Under his leadership England reached the highest position among nations. He cannot be ranked among the great debaters, but he was a great advocate and was listened to with profound attention from the time of his first speech in Commons. He combined all the elements of supremacy as an orator. Franklin exclaimed, '' I have sometimes seen eloquence with- out wisdom, and often wisdom without eloquence, but in him I have seen them united in the highest degree." Of Chatham's speeches few have been preserved complete. They are only fragmentary, but of unparalleled power. Many of them relate to conditions in America previous to and dur- ing the American Revolution. The speech against the Stamp Act was made in 1766. Other speeches on taxing America followed in 1774 and in 1775, and on the American war, in 1777, and his last speech was on the dismemberment of the Empire in the conceding of independence to America. He opposed independence, but believed it was not even then too late to conciliate the colonies and retain them as loyal provinces. PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 5 AGAINST THE STAMP ACT When Lord Grenville brought forward the Stamp Act for the taxation of America, Chatham protested against the measure and spoke most elo- quently against its adoption. The following is taken from his speech deliv- ered in the House of Commons, January 14, 1766. Gentlemen, Sir, have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. Several have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But this imputation shall not discourage me. It is a lib- erty I mean to exercise. No gentlemen ought to be afraid to exer- cise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have profited. He ought to have desisted from his project. The gentleman tells us America is obstinate : America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three mil- lions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. I come not here armed at all points with law cases and acts of Parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the cause of liberty. I would not de- bate a point of law with the gentleman : I know his abilities. I have been obliged to his diligent researches. But, for the defence of lib- erty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm ; on which I dare meet any man. Since the accession of King William, many ministers, some of great, others of moderate abilities, have taken the lead of govern- ment. None of these thought or even dreamed of robbing the colo- nies of their constitutional rights. That was reserved to mark the era of the late administration : not that there were wanting some, when I had the honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American Stamp Act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the depth of their distress perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the 6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE imposition ; but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America ! Are not those bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom ? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier for America, — I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legisla- tive power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When two countries are connected, like England and her colonies, without be- ing incorporated, the one must necessarily govern ; the greater must rule the less ; but so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. The gentleman asks, " When were the colonies emancipated ? " I desire to know when they were made slaves. But I will not dwell upon words. When I had the honor of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office ; I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good ; I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them ; and I will be bold to affirm that the profits of Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, are two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, three- score years ago, are at three thousand pounds at present. These estates sold then for from fifteen to eighteen years' purchase ; the same may now be sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This is the price America pays for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can fetch a peppercorn into the exchequer by the loss of millions to the nation ? I dare not say how much higher these prof- its may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people by natural population in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced that the whole com- mercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged ; and you have en- couraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 7 have been laid on the continent in favor of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty ! A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength, of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously med- dled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops ; I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America, out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there. But, on this ground, — on the Stamp Act, — when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause even your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace ? — to sheathe the sword, not in its scab- bard, but in the bowels of your countrymen ? Will you quarrel with yourselves now that the whole House of Bourbon is united against you ? — while France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, and withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty? while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer, — a gentleman whose noble and generous spirit would do honor to the proudest grandee of the country .? The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the mad- ness which you have occasioned ? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. — Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed^ absolutely^ totally^ aftd immediately. 8 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE THE ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE AMERICA This speech was deUvered in the House of Lords, November i8, 1777. The report of it was afterwards carefully corrected by Chatham himself. It is considered the greatest of his orations. I. AMERICA INVINCIBLE I rise, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove ; but which impels me to endeavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my senti- ments. I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace, I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which approves and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment ! It is not a time for adulation. The smooth- ness of flattery cannot now avail, cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the lan- guage of truth. We must dispel the delusion and the darkness which envelop it ; and display, in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors. My lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation where we can- not act with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to remon- strate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known ; no man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve any- thing except impossibilities ; and I know that the conquest of Eng- lish America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your armies in the last war effected everything that could be effected ; and what was it ? It cost a nu- merous army, under the command of a most able general, now a noble lord in the House, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 9 cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there ? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern force, the best-appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has re- tired from the American lines. He was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and with great delay and danger, to adopt a new and dis- tant plan of operations. We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more extravagantly ; pile and accumu- late every assistance you can buy or borrow ; traffic and barter with every pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince ; your efforts are forever vain and im- potent ; doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely. For it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies — to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder ; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cru- elty ! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a for- eign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never ! n. RECONCILIATION The address referred to in the first line of the following extract is the Address to the Throne proposed by the House of Lords. The independent views of America have been stated and asserted as the foundation of this address. My lords, no man wishes for the due dependence of America on this country more than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of independ- ence into which your measures hitherto have driven them, is the object which we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, con- tending for their rights against arbitrary exactions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots ; but con- tending for independency and total disconnection from England, lO BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE as an Englishman, I cannot wish them success. For, in a due constitutional dependency, including the ancient supremacy of this country in regulating their commerce and navigation, consists the mutual happiness and prosperity both of England and America. She derived assistance and protection from us ; and we reaped from her the most important advantages. She was, indeed, the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my lords, if we wish to save our country, most seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most beneficial subjects; and in this perilous crisis, per- haps the present moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success. Let us wisely take advantage of every possible moment of reconciliation. I would participate to them every en- joyment and freedom which the colonizing subjects of a free State can possess, or wish to possess ; and I do not see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property, and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire or Surrey, or the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim ; re- serving always, as the sacred right of the niother country, the due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent supremacy of the State in regulating and protecting the navigation and com- merce of all her subjects is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of the whole empire. You cannot conciliate America by your present measures. You cannot subdue her by your present, or by any measures. What, then, can you do ? You cannot conquer ; you cannot gain ; but you can address ; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the mo- ment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my lords, the time demands the language of truth. We must not now apply_the flattering unction of servile compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war to maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, im- practicable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM II not contribute a single effort, nor a single shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty ; I only recommend to them to make their retreat. Let them walk off; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them. My lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful sit- uation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the dis- grace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, and contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, for- eign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now stop short. This is the crisis — the only crisis of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we slav- ishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, noth- ing can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied miseries and '" confusion worse confounded." Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this impending destruction .? I did hope that instead of this false and empty vanity, this overweening pride, engendering high con- ceits and presumptuous imaginations, that ministers would have humbled themselves in their errors, would have confessed and re- tracted them, and by an active, though a late repentance, have en- deavored to redeem them. But, my lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice nor humanity to shun, these oppres- sive calamities ; since not even severe experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament must interpose. I shall, therefore, my lords, propose to you an amendment to the address of his Majesty, to recommend an immediate cessation of 12 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE hostilities and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and permanent prosperity to both countries. III. SAVAGE WARFARE Lord George Germaine of the ministry had authorized the employment of the Indians in America to fight the colonists. This was supported by Lord Suffolk, who declared that the English had a right to employ the " means that God and nature put into our hands." But, my lords, who is the man that has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage ? To call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman sav- age of the woods ; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. Unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character. It is a violation of the consti- tution. I believe it is against law. It is not the least of our national misfortunes, that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine ; familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier ; no longer sympathize with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, " that make ambition virtue ! " What makes ambition virtue ? — the sense of honor. But is the sense of honor consistent with a spirit of plunder or the practice of murder? Can it flow from mercenary motives, or can it prompt to cruel deeds ? Besides these murderers and plunderers, let me ask our ministers, what other allies have they 'acquired ? What other powers have they associated to their cause ? Have they entered into alliance with the king of the gypsies? Nothing, my lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be consistent with their counsels. I am astonished ! shocked ! to hear such principles confessed — PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 1 3 to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country ; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention ; but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the throne, polluting the ear of majesty. " That God and nature put into our hand ! " I know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature ; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife — to the cannibal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating ; literally, my lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous battles ! (Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my lords, they shock every sentiment of honor ; they shock me as a lover of honorable war and a detester of murderous barbarity. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel and pious pastors of our church ; I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their Godji appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges to inter- pose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit of humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I in- voke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain ; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion, the 14 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Protestant religion, of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us ; to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and rela- tions, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child ! to send forth the infidel savage — against whom? against your Protestant brethren to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible hellhounds of savage war! hellhounds, I say, of savage war. Spain armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America ; and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty ; we turn loose these savage hell- hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion ; endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity. My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, consti- tution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships, and the united powers of the State, to examine it thoroughly and decisively and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of our religion to do away these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this House and this country from this sin. My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles. PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 1 5 THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION A speech delivered in the House of Lords in reply to Lord Mansfield, January 9, 1770. The question was as to the right of Mr. Wilkes to repre- sent the county of Middlesex in Parliament. My lords, I must beg the indulgence of the House. I do not pretend to be qualified to follow that learned lord minutely through the whole of his argument. No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him in the other House, and always listened to him with attention. I have not now lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever. Upon the present question I meet him without fear. The evidence which truth carries with it is supe- rior to all argument ; it neither wants the support nor dreads the op- position of the greatest abilities. If there be a single word in the amendment to justify the interpretation which the noble lord has been pleased to give it, I am ready to renounce the whole. Let it be read, my lords ; let it speak for itself. In what instance does it interfere with the privileges of the House of Commons ? In what respect does it question their jurisdiction, or suppose an authority in this House to arraign the justice of their sentence ? The Constitution of this country has been openly evaded in fact ; and I have heard with horror, and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle. What is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject, which we must not approach with- out awe, nor speak of without reverence — which no man may ques- tion, and to which all men must submit ? My lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long since exploded ; and, when our kings were obliged to confess that their title to the Crown, and the rule of their government, had no other foundation than the known laws of the land, I never expected to hear a divine right, or a divine infallibility, attributed to any other branch of the Legislature. My lords, I beg to be understood. No man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would to preserve to them their just and legal authority. Within l6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the bounds prescribed by the constitution, that authority is neces- sary to the well-being of the people. Beyond that line, every exer- tion of power is arbitrary, is illegal; it threatens tyranny to the people, and destruction to the State. Power without right is the most odious and detestable object that can be offered to the human imagination. It is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction. My lords, 1 acknowledge the just power, and reverence the constitution of the House of Commons. It is for their own sake that I would prevent their assuming a power which the constitution has denied them, lest, by grasping at an au- thority they have no right to, they should forfeit that which they legally possess. My lords, I affirm that they have betrayed their constituents and violated the constitution. Under pretense of de- claring the law, they have made a law, and united in the same per- sons the office of legislator and judge ! The noble lord assures us that he knows not in what code the law of Parliament is to be found ; that the House of Commons, when they act as judges, have no law to direct them but their own wisdom ; that their decision is law ; and if they determine wrong, the subject has no appeal but to heaven. What then, my lords? Are all the generous efforts of our ancestors, are all those glorious contentions by which they meant to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a certain rule of living, reduced to this conclusion, that, instead of the arbitrary power of a king, we must submit to the arbitrary power of a House of Com- mons ? If this be true, what benefit do we derive from the ex- change ? Tyranny, my lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a num- ber of tyrants. But, my lords, this is not the fact ; this is not the Constitution. We have a law of Parliament. We have a code in which every honest man may find it. We have Magna Charta. We have the Statute Book and the Bill of Rights. My lords, this is not a vague or loose expression. We all know what the constitution is. We all know that the first principle of it is that the subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium of any PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 1/ one man or body of men (less than the whole Legislature), but by certain laws, to which he has virtually given his consent, which are open to him to examine, which are not beyond his ability to understand. Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so I may call them when com- pared with the silken barons of modem days) were the guardians of the people ; yet their virtues, my lords, were never engaged in a question of such importance as the present. A breach has been made in the constitution — the battlements are dismantled — the citadel is open to the first invader — the walls totter — the consti- tution is not tenable. What remains, then, but for us to stand fore- most in the breach, and repair it, or perish in it ? My lords, this is not merely the cold opinion of my understand- ing, but the glowing expression of what I feel. It is my heart that speaks. I know I speak warmly, my lords, but this warmth shall neither betray my argument nor my temper. The kingdom is in a flame. As mediators between a king and people, is it not our duty to represent to him the true condition and temper of his Subjects .? It is a duty which no particular respects should hinder us from per- forming ; and whenever his Majesty shall demand our advice, it will then be our duty to inquire more minutely into the cause of the present discontents. Whenever that inquiry shall come on, I pledge myself to the House to prove that, since the first institution of the House of Commons, not a single precedent can be produced to justify their late proceedings. There is one ambition at least, which I ever will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life. It is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause of the individual, but of every freeholder of England. EDMUND BURKE Edmund Burke (1730- 1797) was a man of eminent scholarship. His preparation for college was made at a Quaker academy near Dublin. At the age of fourteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he remained six years, receiving both the bachelor's and the master's degrees. He was especially fond of the classics, and committed to memory large parts of Virgil and Horace. Of the English classics he was most fond of Milton and Shakespeare. He was also a constant reader of the Bible, having gained his taste for its pages through the director of the Quaker school, "under whose eye," he says, " I read the Bible morning, noon, and night ; and have ever since been a happier and better man for such reading." This accounts in great measure for the imagery and illustration, almost oriental in character, which pervade his discourses. His later studies in literature were devoted mainly to poetry, oratory, history, and philosophy. Milton was his de- light because of his '* richness of language, boundless learn- ing, and scriptural grandeur of conception." Bacon was his 18 EDMUND BURKE 19 favorite philosopher, and his knowledge of other subjects was widely extended. Possessed of a genius for application, a thirst for learning, and a prodigious memory, his knowledge was well-nigh universal, for he became the best scholar of his day. After leaving college he devoted himself for a time to the study of law. This proved distasteful to him and he gave it up for a literary career. Five years he spent in travel and in the society of eminent men. In order to gain vocabulary and expressive diction he wrote regularly. Even during his college course he contributed to periodicals and translated a part of one of Virgil's poems into verse. Demosthenes was his favorite orator, though his style in after years resembled more nearly that of Cicero. As a con- versationist he had no superior. Samuel Johnson, noted for his gifts in conversation, says of Burke : ''His stream of talk was perpetual, and he does not talk with any desire for distinction, but because his mind is full. Take him up where you please, he is ready to meet you." This gift of language and expression was his greatest asset when he came to make public addresses. Physically Burke was not robust. He was ungainly, tall, awkward, and of a severe countenance. Personally he was not prepossessing. His gestures lacked ease, his body was not well poised. He wore glasses, and it was not easy for him to hold with his look the interest and attention of an audience. His style was less simple and direct than that of any of his great contemporaries. Not content with plain unadorned argu- ment, he elaborated with figures of speech and excursions of fancy and imagery which tired the mind by its minuteness and subtlety. It is said that there are more metaphors in a page of his speeches than in all of Webster's. While he lacked 20 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the simple, business-like, compressed argument of Webster or Fox, yet "his whole composition," says Rogers, "glitters and sparkles with a rich profusion of moral reflection." There is no greater master of metaphor, and notwithstanding the copiousness and magnificence of his imagination and expres- sion, the great merit of his discourse lies in the fact that it is unified in design and arrangement and is saturated with thought. Goodrich declares that " no one ever poured forth such a flood of thought ; so many original combinations of inventive genius ; so m.uch knowledge of men and the work- ing of political systems ; so many just remarks on the relation of government to the manners, the spirit, and even the prej- udice of a people ; so many wise maxims, so many beautiful effusions of lofty and generous sentiment ; such exuberant stories of illustration, ornament, and apt allusion ; all inter- mingled with the liveliest sallies of wit or the boldest flights of a sublime imagination." Burke was not remarkable for his powers of delivery. His voice was light and high-pitched, harsh during the calmer portions of his speeches and hoarse in the more earnest parts, rising often to a shriek. He spoke rapidly and vehe- mently and there was a very noticeable brogue in his speak- ing. Earnestness was the most striking and most effective element in his oratory. The influence of his speech was greater when read than when heard. Mathews says on this point, that " instead of seizing the strong points in a case by throwing away inter- mediate thoughts and striking at the heart of his theme, he stopped to philosophize and to instruct his hearers," often becoming tedious to members of the House. In the words of Goldsmith, he" r, . went on refining And thought of convincing While they thought of dining. EDMUND BURKE 21 On this account he was called the " dinner bell of the House of Commons," for when he rose to speak many of the mem- bers left their seats. Even so distinguished a man as Lord Erskine had to confess that he crept out on all fours behind the benches during Burke's speech on '' Conciliation with America"; a speech which, after having read and reread it, he declared to be the most remarkable discourse ever made in Commons. It was Burke's sustained luxuriance and magnif- icence which drove the people away. In fact, many of his speeches were elaborate political lectures. "The exuberance of his fancy was prejudicial to him. Men are apt to doubt the solidity of a structure that is covered with flowers." Fox says on this point : "It injures his reputation ; it casts a veil over his wisdom. Reduce his language, withdraw his images, and you will find that he is more wise than eloquent." While he was reverenced as a prophet during the earlier years of his parliamentary career, he lost influence and friends when he took so bold a stand against the French Revolution. His enemies began a systematic policy of insult to silence him, by coughing, laughing, and sarcastic cheering. Once when he rose to speak with a bundle of papers in his hand, a member sprang to his feet and said, " I hope the honorable gentleman does not mean to read that large bundle of papers and bore us with a long speech." This so angered the irritable Burke that he rushed out of the House. What shall be said of the place in history of this many- sided man .? Intellectually he was one of the giants of his- tory. Rufus Choate calls Burke "the fourth Englishman," ranking him with Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton. He was a political prophet "whose predictions," says Lord Brougham, " have been more than fulfilled." In him were combined the poet and the philosopher, and he was more wise as a philos- opher than as a legislator. Strong in his convictions, he had 22 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the courage to maintain them. He was the first to advocate the independence of parHamentary representatives. It was the open expression of this independence in his Bristol speech which lost him his seat from that borough. In no sense can he be said to be a partisan. Though all England opposed his stand on the French Revolution, he maintained his posi- tion and wrote his far-famed " Reflections on the French Revolution." As an orator he is given a place among the seven great orators of the world. This rank is not so much on account of his ability to influence the immediate audience as because of the tremendous effect of his speeches on the public mind through the medium of the press. He is called the " philo- sophic orator " of the English language. While he was in- ferior to Fox and Chatham in his sway over an audience, yet, according to Goodrich, " he has been surpassed by no one in the richness and splendor of his eloquence ; and has left us something greater and better than all eloquence in his countless lessons of moral and civil wisdom." Of several hundred of his speeches only six have been pre- served and these were written out by himself for publication. His first published speech was in 1774 on "'American Taxation." The next was in 1775 on "Conciliation with America," in which he declared that " taxation and represen- tation are inseparably conjoined." The third was his speech at Bristol in 1 780, in which he advocated parliamentary inde- pendence of representatives ; the fourth, his speech on the " East India Bill " ; fifth, the " Nabob of Arcot's Debts," delivered in 1785, thought by many to be his greatest effort ; and sixth, parts of his two speeches in the "Trial of Hastings," characterized as " the greatest intellectual effort ever made before Parliament." EDMUND BURKE 23 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA This speech was delivered in the House of Commons, March 22, 1775, in support of measures looking toward a peaceful settlement of the troubles with the American colonies. It was a three hours' speech, and was called by Mackintosh " the most faultless of Burke's productions." I. RESTORATION OF ORDER To restore order and repose to an Empire so great and so dis- tracted as our^is merely in the attempt an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. Judging of what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason to recommend it. The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle in all parts gf the Empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or precisely marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex govern- ment. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course and its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the Colonies in the mother country, to give permanent satisfac- tion to your people ; and, far from a scheme of ruling by discord, to reconcile th'em to each other in the same act, and by the bond of the very same interest, which reconciles them to British government. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed 24 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE upon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people when they hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. It has nothing of the splendor of the project which has been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord. It does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents, who will require the interposition of your mace at every instant to keep the peace among them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other. The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide, are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained some ground. But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us ; because, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our imaginations. The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object, is the number of people in the Colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and color, besides at least five hundred thousand others, who form no incon- siderable part of the strength and opulence of the whole. While we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have two millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations. I put this consideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation ; because, sir, this consideration will EDMUND BURKE 25 make it evident to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. It will show you that it is not a paltry excrescence of the State ; not a mean dependent, who may be. neglected with little damage, and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling of such an object ; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do so without guilt ; and, be assured, you will not do it long with impunity. II. OBJECTIONS TO FORCE Burke discusses at length the trade between England and the Colonies. He declares that commerce has been greatly augmented and calls it the " food that has nourished every other part of England into its present mag- nitude." He then speaks as follows : Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. I am sensible, sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail is admitted in the gross ; but that quite a different cpnclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. First, sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again ; and a nation is not gov- erned which is perpetually to be conquered. My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force ; and an armament is not a victory. If you do 26 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE not succeed, you are without resource ; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconcili- ation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kind- ness but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape ; but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit, because it is the spirit that has made the country. These, sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of pol- icy which ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its population and its commerce — I mean its temper and character. In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is thQ predominating feature, which marks and distin- guishes the whole ; and, as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable when- ever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies, probably, than in any other people of the earth, and this from a variety of powerful causes, which, to understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. EDMUND BURKE 2/ First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of English- men. England, sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored her freedom. The Colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant ; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are, therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object ; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point which, by way of eminence, becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened that the great contests for freedom in this country were, from the earliest times, chiefly upon the question of taxing. The question is not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame. What, in the name of God, shall we do with it ? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your Colonies and disturbs your government. These are : to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes ; to prosecute it as criminal ; or to comply with it as necessary. The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition. Your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery. In this situation let us seriously and coolly ponder. What is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been many and ZS BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE ferocious ? What advantage have we derived from the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have been severe and numerous ? What advances have we made toward our object by the sending of a force which, by land and sea, is no contempt- ible strength ? Has the disorder abated ? Nothing less. When I see things in this situation, after such confident hopes, bold prom- ises, and active exertions, I cannot, for my part, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not correct. III. JUST CONCESSIONS Burke calls the ocean an insuperable barrier to England's authority over the American colonies, and that to attempt force is not " judicious, decent, or merciful." lie bewails the fact that England should enter upon this war because the King is not pleased with the conduct of the colonists. He pro- poses, therefore, If the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable, what way yet remains ? No way is open but to comply with the American spirit as necessary! or, if you please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and concede, let us see of what nature the concessions ought to be. To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look at their complaint. The Colonies complain that they have not the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They complain that they are taxed in Par- liament in which they are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If you mean to please any people, you must give them the boon which they ask ; not what you may think better for them, but of a kind totally different. Such an act may be a wise regulation, but is no concession, whereas our present theme is the mode of giving satisfaction. The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act EDMUND BURKE 29 the worse for being a generous one ? Is no concession proper but that which is made from, your want of right to keep what you grant ? I am not determining a point of law. I am restoring tran- quillity, and the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort of government is fitted for them. That point nothing else can or ought to determine. My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our Colonies into an interest in the Constitution, and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indul- gence. One fact is clear and indisputable. The public and avowed origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes on new questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade laws. My resolutions, therefore, mean to establish the equity and justice of a taxation of America, by grant and not by imposition ; to mark the legal competency of the Colony assemblies for the support of their government in peace and for public aids in time of war ; to acknowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful and bene- ficial exercise, and that experience has shown the benefit of their grants and the futility of parliamentary taxation as a method of supply. The question now is — whether you will choose to abide by a profitable experience or a mischievous theory ; whether you choose to build on imagination or fact ; whether you prefer enjoy- ment or hope ; satisfaction in your subjects or discontent. The Americans will have no interest contrary to the grandeur and glory of England, when they are not oppressed by the weight of it; I confess I feel not the least alarm from the discontents which are to arise from putting people at their ease ; nor do I apprehend the destruction of this Empire from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow citizens some share of those rights which I have always been taught to value myself. 30 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred bloo^, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government ; they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges an- other ; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation ; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple conse- crated to our common faith ; wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship Freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have. The more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Deny them participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Em- pire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your regis- ters and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. It is the spirit of the English Constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army ? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline } No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people, it is their attachment to their. government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious EDMUND BURKE 31 institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us, — a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opin- ion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to elevate our minds to the great- ness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests not by destroy- ing, but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all that it can be. CHARLES JAMES FOX Charles James Fox (1749- 1806) inherited the blood and even the favor of the Stuarts of England, and was also a lineal descendant of Henry IV of France. His father, Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Hol- land, was a man of dissolute habits, who was determined that his son should be sur- rounded with every luxury that money could procure, and yet whose sole ambition was to make of him a great debater and a powerful states- man. Accordingly he did all in his power to contribute to that end, and superintended with great care the lad's early training. Under competent in- structors young Charles early formed a taste for study, and devoted himself to the classics, to modern languages, and to other branches of a liberal training. He spent four years at Eton, where he distinguished himself both for scholarship and dissipation. Later, at Oxford, he devoted himself to the severest mental discipline and yet did not cease his vicious habits. His favorite studies were the classics, history, and eloquence. Classical literature was one of his chief recrea- tions. He read Demosthenes' speeches as readily as the speeches made*in Parliament. Homer, Euripides, Virgil, and 32 CHARLES JAMES FOX 33 Shakespeare were his favorite poetSj and he found in Euripi- des an argumentative style much to his taste. Fox says him- self that " the study of good authors, and especially poets, ought never to be intermitted by any man who is to speak or write for the public, or indeed who has any occasion to tax his imagination, whether it be for argument, for illustra- tion, for ornament, for sentiment, or for any other purpose." After leaving Oxford he spent much time in travel on the continent, where his already excellent knowledge of the mod- ern languages became minute and profound, and at the same time he attained a considerable knowledge of the masterpieces of art in the galleries of Europe. As a student of oratory Fox must be ranked among the most persistent and successful. He was not only a constant reader of the best specimens of eloquence, but he compelled himself to commit and declaim the most stirring passages. He accepted every opportunity to debate at Eton and Ox- ford, and thus began early to acquire and develop his splen- did powers of argument and expression. To perfect his elocution he devoted much time to Shakespearean reading and to theatricals, in which he attained considerable celebrity as an actor. Thus he overcame in great measure his defects of voice and manner and the natural tendency to be discon- certed on first rising to speak. One of the chief sources of his success lay in the fact that he embraced every opportunity to speak, and created opportunities when they did not present themselves. He is accused of attaining his skill at the expense of those who heard him. We are told that after he entered Parlia- ment, at the age of nineteen, he tasked himself to pre- pare and speak on every important measure that came up, whether he was particularly interested in it or not, or whether at first he knew anything about it or not. This was done for 34 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the sake of perfecting himself in the art of debating, and of gaining wide knowledge of affairs. '' During five whole ses- sions," he once said, '' I spoke every night but one, and I regret that I did not speak on that night too." His style lacked ornament and was somewhat loose and careless, but it was terse, full of point and good sense. His speeches do not read as well as those of some of his compeers. When told that a speech read well, he said, '' Then it must have been a bad speech." In compactness and massiveness of style his speeches cannot be compared with those of Er- skine and Webster. He believed in amplification. He says in regard to repeating arguments : " It is better that some should observe it, than that any should not understand." Erskine says that " he was in the habit of passing and repassing his subject in fascinating review, enlightening every part of it, and binding even his adversaries in a kind of spell, for the moment, of involuntary assent." Burke called him ''the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." Argu- ment was his delight. He could keep before him all the points of an opponent's argument and quickly discover the vulnerable parts. It was most exasperating to his opponents to hear him state their side of a case stronger than they could do it themselves, and then tear it to pieces. At such times argument was heaped on argument, until no point of attack was left open to his adversary. Taunt could not disconcert him. Happy in retort and repartee, '' he had astonishing dexterity in evading difficulties and turning to his own ad- vantage everything that occurred in debate." Some of the distinguishing features of his oratory are these : his simplicity and unity, the habit of bending every energy toward eliicidating the main points, and of selecting great principles as the heart of his speech and then sur- rounding and entangling his opponents ; the absence of any CHARLES JAMES FOX 35 preconceived arrangement of matter or language ; his choice of words (" Give me an elegant Latin and a homely Saxon word," he said, "and I will always choose the latter"); his abundant sarcasm (his side blows at his opponents, as he rushed on with his arguments, aroused his audiences even more than his loftiest strains of eloquence) ; his unfailing mem- ory and great fund of information. It was not the length and roundness of his periods that weighed so heavily, but the truth and vigor of his conceptions. Fox's manner on rising to address an audience was awk- ward ; he would hesitate, knew not what to do with his hands, fumbled his papers, and went lumbering along with a kind of careless air which did not disappear for several minutes ; but gaining impetus, his strong personality, his vehement ges- ture, his involuntary exclamation, his choking utterance, con- vinced those who were at first disappointed in him that he was sincere. But when he got deeply into his subject his genius kindled. He forgot himself and was changed into another being. Mr. Goodwin says, " I have seen his counte- nance light up with more than mortal ardor and goodness ; I have been present when his voice was suffocated with tears." Few if any ever surpassed Fox in earnestness. It was con- tagious. His audience caught the same spirit. Sheridan re- marked that '' he spoke with lightning rapidity and with breathless anxiety and impatience." His sweetness and power of tone, his pathos and impetu- osity, his intellectual strength and his intense personality, united to make him the greatest of debaters and one of the first of the English orators. While he was less far-reaching than Burke, he had more tact, could better adapt himself to his surroundings, and hence was more convincing and useful as a legislator. An English writer institutes this comparison between Fox and his great rival, the Younger Pitt: " Pitt's 36 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Style was stately, sonorous, full to abundance, smooth and regular in its flow ; Fox's free to carelessness, rapid, rush- ing, turbid, broken, but overwhelming in its swell. Pitt never sank below his ordinary level, never paused in his declama- tion, never hesitated for a word ; Fox was desultory and ineffective till he warmed ; he did best when provoked or excited. He required the kindling impulse, the explosive spark." Mackintosh calls him ''the most Demosthenian ora- tor since Demosthenes." But Lord Brougham thinks the points of difference were numerous and important. He would not compare the men except as you compare any two great and powerful speakers. He thinks that Fox lacked the power of Demosthenes, though he had the skill, possessed by few in so great a degree, of keeping close to his subject. Good- rich, in commenting on these differences of opinion, remarks that in some respects '' Fox was the very reverse of the great Athenian ; as to others they had much in common. In what- ever related to the forms of oratory — symmetry, dignity, grace, the working up of thought and language to their most perfect expression — Mr. Fox was not only inferior to De- mosthenes, but wholly unlike him, having no rhetoric and no "ideality; while at the same time, in the structure of his understanding, the modes of its operation, the soul and spirit which breathes throughout his eloquence, there is a striking resemblance." Fox had a generous, noble heart and quick sensibilities. This is the spring and fountain of his eloquence. Without manly and generous feelings, a sympathetic and ardent spirit, amiable social qualities, and warm affections, no man can reach the hearts of the people. Spontaneity was his supreme gift. Study of oratory did much for him, but the effusion of the divine spirit counted for more. Though not the great- est English orator, he was the most gifted. Two things CHARLES JAMES FOX 37 prevented his reaching the highest pinnacle : first, he was wanting in compactness of matter and strength of style, which come by care and diligence in writing, — he left too much to inspiration and too little to study ; second, he was wanting in moral stalwartness. One biographer remarks of him : " Recklessness and vice can hardly fail to destroy the influ- ence of the most splendid abilities and the most humane and generous disposition. Though thirty-eight years in public life, he was in office only eighteen months." The ideal orator and statesman must be every inch a man, heart as well as brain. It is remarkable that one whose youth was so dissolute, whose whole life was partly given to vice, should accomplish so much as a statesman. Nothing but the strongest of con- stitutions and the most cheerful and buoyant of dispositions could have withstood so much. But for his dissolute habits which lost him public confidence, his brilliant intellect and his political sagacity might have won for him the highest honors in the gift of the English people. His eloquence was in great measure neutralized by his reputation for reckless- ness. The people could not dissociate him from the gamester. They had too much self-respect to yield themselves entirely to his influence. These words of Dr. Price, thundered from the pulpit, more than any other one cause, thwarted Fox in his ambition to become premier : " Can you imagine that a spend- thrift in his own concerns will make an economist in manag- ing the concerns of others ; that a wild gamester will take due care of the state of a kingdom .? " Notwithstanding Fox's fascinating influence and his immense popularity with his' countrymen, they withheld their suffrages from him. They admired his talents, but their verdict was, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." This indifference on the part of his countrymen stung him into partial reform. He set to work with redoubled energy to the business of the House and 38 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE became more and more influential in state affairs. Posterity must credit him with the reforms he made in his character, and look beyond to the ennobling, far-reaching influence of his career, for his life was a stirring protest against hu- man oppression. In the darkest hour of the early history of America he dared to be the first to raise his eloquent voice against the hateful Stamp Act and the tyranny of George III. Fox's speeches on American affairs come to us only in fragments, but he joined with Chatham and Burke in opposi- tion to the Stamp Act and "taxation without representa- tion." Other of his published speeches are as follows : 1. On the '' East India Bill," delivered in the House of Commons, December i,.i783. 2. A second speech on the '' East India Bill," dwelling on the '' Secret Influences " to defeat it, delivered in the House, December 17, 1783. 3. "The Westminster Scrutiny," a speech on the inves- tigation of the election returns from the city of Westminster, delivered in the House, June 8, 1784. 4. On the " Russian Armament," delivered in the House, March i, 1792. 5. On "Parliamentary Reform," delivered in the House, May 26, 1797- 6. On the " Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures," an an- swer to Pitt's proposal not to treat with Bonaparte, delivered in the House, February 3, 1800. CHARLES JAMES FOX 39 THE AMERICAN WAR From a speech on conditions in America, delivered in the House of Commons in 1780, by Charles James Fox. He was the first to deplore the attitude of the British king toward the American colonies, and to rejoice in the resistance and the triumphs of the colonists. We are charged with expressing joy at the triumphs of America. True it is that, in a former session, I proclaimed it as my sincere opinion, that if the ministry had succeeded in their first scheme on the liberties of America, the liberties of this country would have been at an end. Thinking this, as I did, in the sincerity of an honest heart, I rejoiced at the resistance which the ministry had met to their attempt. That great and glorious statesman, the late Earl of Chatham, feeling for the liberties of his native country, thanked God that America had resisted. But, it seems, '" all the calamities of the country are to be ascribed to the wishes, and the joy, and the speeches of Opposition." O miserable and unfortunate ministry ! O blind and incapable men ! whose measures are framed with so little foresight, and executed with so little firmness, that they not only crumble to pieces, but bring on the ruin of their coun- try, merely because one rash, weak, or wicked man, in the House of Commons, makes a speech against them ! But who is he who arraigns gentlemen on this side of the House with causing, by their inflammatory speeches, the misfortunes of their country ? The accusation comes from one whose inflammatory harangues have led the nation, step by step, from violence to violence, in that inhuman, unfeeling system of blood and massacre, which every honest man must detest, which every good man must abhor, and every wise man condemn ! And this man imputes the guilt of such measures to those who had all along foretold the consequences ; who had prayed, entreated, and supplicated, not only for America but for the credit of the nation and its eventual welfare, to arrest the hand of power meditating slaughter, and directed by injustice! What was the consequence of the sanguinary measures recom- mended in those bloody, inflammatory speeches .? Though Boston 40 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE was to be starved, though Hancock and Adams were proscribed, yet at the feet of these very men the Parliament of Great Britain was obliged to kneel, flatter, and cringe ; and, as it had the cruelty at one time to denounce vengeance against these men, so it had the meanness afterwards to implore their forgiveness. Shall he who called the Americans " Hancock and his crew " — shall he presume to reprehend any set of men for inflammatory speeches ? It is this accursed American war. that has led us, step by step, into all our present misfortunes and national disgraces. What was the cause of our wasting forty millions of money and sixty thousand lives ? The American war ! What was it that produced the French rescript and a French war ? The American war 1 What was it that pro- duced the Spanish manifesto and Spanish war.? The American war ! What was it that armed forty-two thousand men in Ireland with the arguments carried on the points of forty thousand bayo- nets ? The American war ! For what are we about to incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions ? This accursed, cruel, diabolical American war ! REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES Delivered in the House of Commons, February 3, 1800. Napoleon had usurped the government of France, had become First Consul, and had made overtures of peace to the king of England. Pitt the Younger, then prime minister of England, having no belief in the permanence of Napoleon's power, rejected the overtures. Fox condemned Pitt for refusing to treat, and censured him for the " severe and unconciliating terms in which a re- spectful offer of negotiation had been rejected." I. ENGLAND THE AGGRESSOR Sir, my honorable and learned friend has truly said that the present is a new era in the war, for, by traveling back to the com- mencement of the war, and referring again to all the topics and arguments which he has so often and so successfully urged upon the House, and by which he has drawn them on to the support of his measures, he is forced to acknowledge that, at the end of a CHARLES JAMES FOX 4 1 seven years' conflict, we are come but to a new era in the war, at which he thinks it necessary only to press all his former arguments to induce us to persevere. All the topics which have so often mis- led us — all the reasoning which has so invariably failed — all the lofty predictions which have so constantly been falsified by events — all the hopes which have amused the sanguine, and all the as- surances of the distress and weakness of the enemy which have satisfied the unthinking, are again enumerated and advanced as arguments for our continuing war. What ! at the end of seven years of the most burdensome and the most calamitous struggle in which this country ever was engaged, are we again to be amused with notions of finance, and calculations of the exhausted resources of the enemy, as a ground of confidence and of hope ? Gracious God ! were we not told five years ago that France was not only on the brink and in the jaws of ruin, but that she was actually sunk into the gulf of bankruptcy ? Were we not told, as an unanswerable argument against treating, " that she could not hold out another campaign — that nothing but peace could save her — that she wanted only time to recruit her exhausted finances — that to grant her repose was to grant her the means of again miolesting this country, and that we had nothing to do but persevere for a short time, in order to save ourselves forever from the conse- quences of her ambition and her Jacobinism?" What ! after having gone on from year to year upon assurances like these, and after having seen the repeated refutations of every prediction, are we again to be gravely and seriously assured that we have the same prospect of success on the same identical grounds ? And, without any other argument or security, are we invited, at this new era of the war, to conduct it upon principles which, if adopted and acted upon, may make it eternal ? If the right honorable gentleman shall succeed in prevailing on Parliament and the country to adopt the principles which he has advanced this night, I see no possible ter- mination to the contest. No man can see an end to it ; and upon the assurances and predictions which have so uniformly failed, we are called upon not merely to refuse all negotiations, but to 42 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE countenance principles and views as distant from wisdom and justice as they are in their nature wild and impracticable. I must lament that the right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] has thought proper to go at such length into all the early circumstances of the war. I do not agree with him in many of his assertions. I do not know what impression his narrative may make on other gentle- men ; but I will tell him fairly and candidly, he has not convinced me. I continue to think, and until I see better grounds for chang- ing my opinion than any that the right honorable gentleman has this night produced, I shall continue to think, and to say, plainly and explicitly, '' that this country was the aggressor in the war." Will any gentleman say that if two of the great powers should make a public declaration that they were determined to make an attack on this kingdom as soon as circumstances should favor their intention, that they only waited for this occasion, and that in the meantime they would keep their forces ready for the purpose, it would not be considered by the Parliament and people of this country as a hostile aggression ? And is there any Englishman in existence who is such a friend to peace as to say that the nation could retain its honor and dignity if it should sit down under such a menace ? I know too well what is due to the national character of England to believe that there would be two opinions on the case, if thus put home to our feelings and understandings. We must, then, respect in others the indignation which such an act would ex- cite in ourselves ; and when we see it established on the most in- disputable testimony, that declarations were made to this effect, it is idle to say that, as far as the emperor and the king of Prussia were concerned, they were not the aggressors in the war. CHARLES JAMES FOX 43 II. POLICY OF THE BOURBONS Fox, while condemning the atrocities of the French, shows the outrages practiced on Poland and other countries by the powers in league with Eng- land ; and holds it inconsistent not to treat with the French when the coun- tries offending against Poland are taken into alliance. Sir, I am not justifying the French ; I am not trying to absolve them from blame, either in their internal or external policy. I think, on the contrary, that their successive rulers have been as bad and as execrable, in various instances, as any of the most despotic and unprincipled governments that the world ever saw. I think it im- possible, sir, that it should have been otherwise. It was not to be expected that the French, when once engaged in foreign wars, should not endeavor to spread destruction around them, and to form plans of aggrandizement and plunder on every side. Men bred in the school of the House of Bourbon could not be expected to act otherwise. They could not have lived so long under their ancient masters without imbibing the restless ambition, the perfidy, and the insatiable spirit of the race. They have imitated the practice of their great prototype, and, through their whole career of mischiefs and of crimes, have done no more than servilely trace the steps of their own Louis XIV. If they have overrun countries and ravaged them, they have done it upon Bourbon principles ; if they have ruined and dethroned sovereigns, it is entirely after the Bourbon manner ; if they have even fraternized with the people of foreign countries,- and pretended to make their cause their own, they have only faithfully followed the Bourbon example. They have con- stantly had Louis, the Grand Monarch, in their eye. Now, sir, what was the conduct of your own allies to Poland ? Is there a single atrocity of the French, in Italy, in Switzerland, in Egypt, if you please, more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in Poland ? What has there been in the conduct of the French to foreign powers ; what in the violation of solemn treaties ; what in the plunder, devastation, and dismem- berment of unoffending countries ; what in the horrors and murders 44 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE perpetrated upon the subdued victims of their rage in any district which they have overrun, worse than the conduct of those three great powers in the miserable, devoted, and trampled-on Kingdom of Poland, and who have been, or are, our allies in this war for religion and social order and the rights of nations ? " Oh, but you regretted the partition of Poland ! " Yes, re- gretted ! you regretted the violence, and that is all you did. You united yourselves with the actors ; you, in fact, by your acquiescence, confirmed the atrocity. Let unfortunate Warsaw, and the miserable inhabitants of the suburb of Praga in particular tell ! What do we understand to have been the conduct of this magnanimous hero, with whom, it seems, Bonaparte is not to be compared ? He entered the suburb of Praga, the most populous suburb of Warsaw ; and there he let his soldiery loose on the miserable, unarmed, and unresisting people. Men, women, and children, nay infants at the breast, were doomed to one indiscriminate massacre ! ^Thousands of them were inhumanly, wantonly butchered, and for what? Because they have dared to join in a wish to ameliorate their own condition as a people and to improve their Constitution, which had been confessed by their own sovereign to be in want of amendment. And such is the hero upon whom the cause of religion and social order is to repose ! And such is the man whom we praise for his discipline and his virtue, and whom we hold out as our boast and our dependence ; while the conduct of Bonaparte unfits him to be even treated with as an enemy I " But France," it seems, " has roused all the nations of Europe against her" ; and the long catalogue has been read to you, to prove that she must have been atrocious to provoke them all. Is it true, sir, that she has roused them all ? It does not say much for the address of his Majesty's ministers, if this be the case. What, sir ! have all your negotiations, all your declamations, all your money, been squandered in vain ? Have you not succeeded in stirring the indignation, and engaging the assistance, of a single power ? But you do yourselves injustice. Full as much is due to your seductions CHARLES JAMES FOX 45 as to her atrocities. You cannot accuse France of having provoked all Europe, and at the same time claim the merit of having roused all Europe to join you. No man regrets, sir, more than I do, the enormities that France has committed ; but how do they bear upon the question as it at present stands? Are we forever to deprive ourselves of the benefits of peace because France has perpetrated acts of injustice ? Sir, we cannot acquit ourselves upon such ground. We have negotiated. With the knowledge of these acts of injustice and disorder, we have treated with them twice ; yet the right honorable gendeman cannot enter into negotiation with them again. The Revolution itself is no more an objection now than it was in the year 1796, when he did negotiate. For the government of France at that time was surely as unstable as it is at present. III. WAR, A STATE OF PROBATION Fox calls attention to the fact that Pitt refused to treat because of the instability of the French government and because of certain outrages they had committed, and declares that Pitt himself had twice opened negoti- ations for peace in the midst of the outrages referred to. Now he accuses Pitt of wanting "to keep Bonaparte some time longer at war, as a state of probation," to see " if he will not behave himself better than heretofore." I hope by this time we are all convinced that a republican government, like that of America, may exist without danger or injury to social order or to established monarchies. They have happily shown that they can maintain the relations of peace and amity with other states. They have shown, too, that they are alive to the feelings of honor ; but they do not lose sight of plain good sense and discretion. They have not refused to negotiate with the French, and they have accordingly the hopes of a speedy termina- tion of every difference. We cry up their conduct, but we do not imitate it. Where, then, sir, is this war, which on every side is pregnant with such horrors, to be carried ? Where is it to stop ? Not till we establish the House of Bourbon ! And this you cherish the hope of 46 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE doing, because you have had a successful campaign. So that we are called upon to go on merely as a speculation. We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a state of probation. Gracious God, sir ! is war a state of probation ? Is peace a rash system ? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Are your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war ? Cannot this state of probation be as well undergone with- out adding to the catalogue of human sufferings ? "But we must pause ! " What ! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out — her best blood spilled — her treasure wasted — that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves — oh 1 that you would put your- selves in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite ! In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the batde of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings. They were fighting, they knew, to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarch. But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting — " Fighting ! " would be the answer ; " they are not fighting ; they are pausing." " Why is that man expiring ? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?" The answer must be : '' You are quite wrong, sir ; you deceive yourself — they are not fighting — do not disturb them — they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agony — that man is not dead — he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another ; they have no cause of quarrel ; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting — there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it what- ever ; it is nothing more than a political pause ! It is merely to try an experiment — to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself CHARLES JAMES FOX 47 better than heretofore ; and in the meantime we have agreed to a pause in pure friendship ! " And is this the way, sir, you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world — to destroy order — to trample on religion — to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature ; and in the prosecution of this system you spread terror and devastation all around you. Sir, I have done. I have told you my opinion. I think you ought to have given a civil, clear and explicit answer to the over- ture which was fairly and handsomely made you. If you were desirous that the negotiation should have included all your allies, as the means of bringing about a general peace, you should have told Bonaparte so. But I believe you were afraid of his agreeing to the proposal. WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER William Pitt, the Younger, second son of Lord Chatham (1759-1806), prepared for college under private tutors. He was not a rugged boy and it was thought wise not to send him to the public schools. At fourteen he entered Cambridge University where he remained seven years un- til he had taken his master's degree. He inherited rare qualities of mind and had lofty ambitions, even as a child. At the age of seven, when his father was made an earl and given a seat in the House of Lords, the boy exclaimed, " Then I must take his place in the House of Commons." So mature was he in thought and as- piration that it was said by Windom, " Pitt never was a boy." His every effort seemed bent toward the one end of fitting himself for parliamentary work in order to take his father's place in Commons. A de- voted student, he applied himself to his tasks to the full extent of his physical strength. Pitt became one of the best classical scholars of the day. At the time he entered college he was well acquainted with Greek and Latin, but by the time he finished his course there 4S WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 49 was scarcely a Greek or Latin author of eminence that he had not read. He was also fond of mathematics, which he after- wards declared was a source of great profit in the development of his logical faculties. In English literature his favorite studies were Shakespeare and Milton. He committed to memory the choicest passages from both of these poets, and was especially fond of reciting the sublime and measured passages of *' Paradise Lost." The early training which bore strongest on his future career in Commons and added to his readiness to meet the attacks of the opposition was his unabating zeal and constancy in the ap- plication of the principles of logic. He declared that he '' owed his power to the study of Aristode's Logic in early life, and to the habit of applying his principles to all the discussions he met with in the works he read and the debates he witnessed." Dr. Prettyman, his tutor, says, '' It was a favorite employ- ment with him to compare opposite speeches on the same subject, and to examine how each speaker managed his own side of the argument. " He carried this training still farther and went and sat in Parliament and heard the best speakers, that he might catch their excellences and refute or strengthen their arguments. This accounts for his marvelous dexterity in calling up and answering long trains of argument in par- liamentary debates. Like his father, Pitt studied the Bible for its imagery, and read and reread Dr. Barrow's sermons for clearness of diction. It was this which developed in him fluency, majesty of diction, and correct expression. According to Lord Rosebery: "His father would make the boy of an evening read freely into English the passages which he had construed with his tutor in the morning. It was to these lessons that he always attrib- uted his ready copiousness of language. What was scarcely less valuable, Lord Chatham, who made it a point to give daily 50 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE instruction and readings from the Bible to his children, en- couraged his son to talk with him without reserve on every subject ; so that the boy, who seemed to have returned the boundless affection with which his father regarded him, was in close and constant communication with one of the first minds of the age." Not only was the course of his thought thus molded and his fluency and richness of language acquired, but his study of turns of expression and English idioms gave him a force and elegance of style equaled by few. It was high praise of a political opponent who said: ''Nothing seemed wanting, yet there was no redundancy. He seemed by intuition to hit the precise point, when, having attained his object as far as eloquence could effect it, he sat down. " Fox could not withhold his admiration, for he says "that although he himself was never in want of words, Pitt was never without the best word possible." Lord Rosebery says : "His diction was his strongest point. His power of clear, logical statement, so built up as to be an argument in itself, was another. And as a weapon too often used, he had an endless command of freezing, bitter, scornful sarcasm, 'which tortured to madness,' exercising a sort of fascination of terror over Erskine and Sheridan." Pitt toiled still harder than did his father to perfect his method of speaking. He made it a point to declaim regularly, under his father's direction, passages from the poets and orators. This gave him not only a full, voluminous voice, but one that was flexible and penetrating, which, with his clear enunciation, reached every part of the House of Commons. He believed that the vocal instrument to be played upon effectively must first be attuned — must be given depth, reso- nance, and strength. He therefore set to work with all dili- gence to build up such an instrument, and he succeeded, for we are told that his majestic tones and stately, sonorous sentences were the delight of the House. WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 5 I In figure he was tall and slender, in bearing dignified, in gesture animated, but not always graceful. His face was full of sweetness and charm, with eyes that held attention by their brightness. The great point in his delivery was his calm sincerity, his cool-headedness, and clear discernment. Eng- land had never known so young a statesman with so old a head. There was a kind of glamour in his youthfulness which was attractive to the multitude and gave him greater influence than could have been wielded by an older man equally wise. Next to Fox he was the greatest debater of the Revolu- tionary 'period. His first speech in Parliament at the age of twenty-two, one month after he took his seat, made it evident that a new power had entered Commons, In 1781, when Burke brought forward a bill for economic reform, Pitt was called on by his friends to speak in favor of it. At first he declined to do so, but when repeatedly called for, he rose and, with entire self-command, took up the argument with all the skill of a practiced legislator, added to an elegance of diction rarely surpassed, and a fervor and richness of thought that fairly captivated the House. The effect was electrical. His friends gathered around him and offered congratulations, and Burke said when he grasped his hand, ''You are not merely a chip of the old block but the old block itself." His readiness in debate enabled him to withstand the on- slaughts of the combined force of Burke, P'ox, and Sheridan in those memorable parliamentary battles. "Above and be- yond all," says Lord Rosebery, "was the fact that Pitt, young, unaided, and alone, held his own with the great leaders allied against him. Exposed to the heaviest artillery that wit and fury and eloquence could bring to bear, he was never swayed or silenced." When Parliament was dissolved and the elec- tions were held, Pitt was returned with a triumphant majority over the coalition. 52 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE The supremacy of Pitt was due to his strength of character and his honesty and sincerity of purpose. Not timid or wavering in mind, "unallured by dissipation and unswayed by pleasure," he kept his course in spite of prejudice and party clamor. The people gave him their confidence because he was constant and patriotic, because he turned not aside from what he conceived to be the path of duty. He spoke from conviction, not from love of display. He was able, elo- quent, dignified, and discrete. "He had the courage, the weight, the standing, the speaking power," and his talents, though superior and splendid, never made him forgetful of his allegiance to a kind Providence. His oratory was of a different type from that of his father. Chatham was probably the greater genius, but not the stronger mind. ''While the one swayed the hearts of his countrymen by the vehemence of his own feelings, the other guided their wills and formed their purposes by the intense energy of his understanding." The father was rapid, sublime, electric ; the son quiet, chaste, placid. The one awed into acquiescence, the other argued into conviction. The father was an orator by nature, the son by art. Pitt was superior to his father as a debater, was simpler, not so imaginative, or so fond of display, had a better-trained mind and appealed more to men's understanding. His speeches were packed with facts, and often state secrets were used with telling effect on his audi- ences. His single purpose in speaking was the highest good to the greatest number. Wilberforce declares that ''every other consideration was absorbed in one great ruling passion — the love of his country"; and Lord Rosebery closes his sketch of Pitt with these words: "There may have been men both abler and greater than he, though it is not easy to cite them ; but in all history there is no more patriotic spirit, none more intrepid, and none more pure." WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 53 The coming of this orator has been compared to the rising of the tropical sun.. At the age of twenty-two, in the proudest era of EngHsh eloquence, he spoke with the wisdom of a mature statesman, and placed himself at once in the front rank of the world's great orators. Not many of Pitt's speeches have been preserved in full. The greatest of them were carefully written out by himself after they were delivered, and are as follows : 1. ''The Abolition of the Slave Trade," delivered in Com- mons, April 2, 1792. 2. "The Rupture of Negotiations with France," delivered in Commons, November 10, 1797. 3. " Refusal to negotiate with Bonaparte," delivered in Commons, February 3, 1800. ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE Delivered in the House of Commons, April 2, 1792. Over five hundred petitions against the slave trade had that year been laid before Parliament. Mr. Wilberforce moved for its immediate suppression and supported his motion with a powerful speech. Mr. Dundas opposed the measure with a speech in favor of gradual rather than immediate abolition. Mr. Pitt joined in the debate in a speech from which the following extracts are taken, " one of the ablest pieces of mingled argument and eloquence which he ever produced." I. IMMEDIATE ABOLITION The point now in dispute is as to the period of time at which the abolition of the slave trade ought to take place. I therefore congratulate this House, the country, and the world, that this great point is gained ; that we may now consider this trade as having received its condemnation ; that its sentence is sealed ; that this curse of mankind is seen by the House in its true light ; and that the greatest stigma on our national character which ever yet existed is about to be removed ; and, sir, which is still more important, that 54 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE mankind, I trust, in general, are now likely to be delivered from the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race ; from the severest and most extensive calamity recorded in the history of the world ! If they can show that their proposition of a gradual abolition is more likely than ours to secure the object which we have in view ; that by proceeding gradually we shall arrive more speedily at our end, and attain it with more certainty, than by a direct vote imme- diately to abolish ; if they can show to the satisfaction both of myself and the committee, that our proposition has more the appearance of a speedy abolition than the reality of it, undoubtedly they will in this case make a convert of me, and my honorable friend who moved the question. They will make a convert of every man among us who looks to this as a question not to be determined by theo- retical principles or enthusiastic feelings, but considers the practica- bility of the measure, aiming simply to effect his object in the shortest time and in the surest possible manner. One of my right honorable friends has stated that an act passed here for the abolition of the slave trade would not secure its aboli- tion. Now, sir, I should be glad to know why an act of the British Legislature, enforced by all those sanctions which we have undoubt- edly the power and the right to apply, is not to be effectual ; at least, as to every material purpose. Will not the executive power have the same appointment of the officers and the courts of judi- cature, by which all the causes relating to this subject must be tried, that it has in other cases ? Will there not be the same system of law by which we now maintain a monopoly of commerce ? If the same law, sir, be applied to the prohibition of the slave trade which is applied in the case of other contraband commerce, with all the same means of the country to back it, I am at a loss to know why the actual and total abolition is not as likely to be effected in this way as by any plan or project of my honorable friends for bringing about a gradual termination of it. The argument of expediency, in my opinion, like every other argument in this disquisition, will not justify the continuance of the WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 55 slave trade for one unnecessary hour. Supposing it to be in our power, which I have shown it is, to enforce the prohibition from this present time, the expediency of doing it is to me so clear that, if I went on this principle alone, I should not feel a moment's hesitation. What is the argument of expediency stated on the other side ? It is doubted whether the deaths and births in the islands are, as yet, so nearly equal as to insure the keeping-up of a sufficient stock of laborers. In answer to this, I took the liberty of mentioning in a former year what appeared to me to be the state of population at that time. My observations were the clear, simple, and obvious result of a careful examination which I made into this subject, and any gentleman who will take the same pains may arrive at the same degree of satisfaction. Do the slaves diminish in numbers ? It can be nothing but ill treatment that causes the diminution. This ill treatment the aboli- tion must and will restrain. In this case, therefore, we ought to vote for the abolition. On the other hand, do you choose to say that the slaves clearly increase in numbers ? Then you want no importations, and, in this case also, you may safely vote for the abolition. Or, if you choose to say, as the third and only other case which can be put, and which perhaps is the nearest to the truth, that the population is nearly stationary, and the treatment neither so bad nor so good as it might be ; then surely, sir, it will not be denied that this, of all others, is, on each of the two grounds, the proper period for stopping farther supplies ; for your population, which you own is already stationary, will thus be made undoubtedly to increase. The House, 1 am sure, will easily believe it is no small satis- faction to me, that among the many arguments for prohibiting the slave trade which crowd upon my mind, the security of our West India possessions against internal commotions, as well as foreign enemies, is among the most prominent and most forcible. And here let me apply to my two right honorable friends, and ask them, whether in this part of the argument they do not see reason for immediate abolition .? Why should you any longer import into those 56 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE countries that which is the very seed of insurrection and rebellion ? Why should you persist in introducing those latent principles of conflagration, which, if they should once burst forth, may annihilate in a single day the industry of a hundred years ? Why will you subject yourselves, with open eyes, to the evident and imminent risk of a calamity which may throw you back a whole century in your profits, in your cultivation, in your progress to the emanci- pation of your slaves ; and, disappointing at once every one of those golden expectations, may retard, not only the accomplishment of that happy system which I have attempted to describe, but may cut off even your opportunity of taking any one introductory step ? Let us begin from this time ! Let us not commit these important interests to any further hazard ! Let us prosecute this great object from this very hour ! Let us vote that the abolition of the slave trade shall be immediate, and not left to I know not what future time or contingency ! Will my right honorable friends answer for the safety of the islands during any imaginable intervening period ? Or do they think that any little advantages of the kind which they state, can have any weight in that scale of expediency in which this great question ought undoubtedly to be tried ? On the present occasion the most powerful considerations call upon us to abolish the slave trade ; and if we refuse to attend to them on the alleged ground of pledged faith and contract, we shall depart as widely from the practice of Parliament as from the path of moral duty. The result of all I have said is, that there exists no impediment, no obstacle, no shadow of reasonable objection on the ground of pledged faith, or even on that of national expediency, to the abo- lition of this trade. On the contrary, all the arguments drawn from those sources plead for it, and they plead much more loudly, and much jnore strongly in every part of the question, for an immediate than for a gradual abolition. WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 5/ II. INCURABLE INJUSTICE Pitt exposed the enormities of the slave trade, which had made the African coast the scene of intolerable cruelty and bloodshed, disgracing the character of the Christian nations engaged in the traffic. But now, sir, I come to Africa. That is the ground on which I rest, and here it is that I say my right honorable friends do not carry their principles to their full extent. Why ought the slave trade to be abolished ? Because it is incurable injustice ! How much stronger, then, is the argument for immediate than for gradual abolition ! By allowing it to continue even for one hour, do not my right honorable friends weaken, do not they desert, their own argument of its injustice ? If on the ground of injustice it ought to be abolished at last, why ought it not now ? Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a single hour ? From what I hear with- out doors it is evident that there is a general conviction entertained of its being far from just, and from that very conviction of its in- justice some men have been led, I fear, to the supposition that the slave trade never could have been permitted to begin, but from some strong and irresistible necessity ; a necessity, however, which, if it was fancied to exist at first, I have shown cannot be thought by any man whatever to exist at present. This plea of necessity, thus presumed, and presumed, as I suspect, from the circumstance of injustice itself, has caused a sort of acquiescence in the continu- ance of this evil. Men have been led to place it in the rank of those necessary evils which are supposed to be the lot of human creatures, and to be permitted to fall upon some countries or in- dividuals, rather than upon others, by that Being whose ways are inscrutable to us, and whose dispensations, it is conceived, we ought not to look into. The origin of evil is, indeed, a subject beyond the reach of the human understanding ; and the permission of it by the Supreme Being is a subject into which it belongs not to us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral evil which a man can scrutinize, and where that moral evil has its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can clear our consciences by 58 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE this general, not to say irreligious and impious way of laying aside the question. If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be incurred were it removed. I therefore desire to ask, what can be that greater evil which can be stated to overbalance the one in question ? I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of eighty thousand persons annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations in the most enlightened quarter of the globe ; but more especially by that nation which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all. Even if these miserable beings were proved guilty of every crime before you take them off, of which however not a single proof is adduced, ought we to take upon ourselves the office of executioners ? And even if we condescend so far, still can we be justified in taking them, unless we have clear proof that they are criminals ? Think of eighty thousand persons carried away out of their coun- try, by we know not what means ; for crimes imputed ; for light or inconsiderable faults ; for debt, perhaps ; for the crime of witch- craft ; or a thousand other weak and scandalous pretexts ; besides all the fraud and kidnaping, the villainies and perfidy, by which the slave trade is supplied. Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually taken off ! There is something in the horror of it that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that there exists in Africa something like to courts of justice ; yet what an office of humiliation and meanness is it in us to take upon ourselves to carry into execution the partial, the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such courts, as if we also were strangers to all religion and to the first principles of justice. Thus, sir, has the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of trade, misguided in our policy, and unmindful of our duty, what astonishing — I had almost said, what irreparable mischief, have we brought upon that continent] How shall we hope to obtain, if it be possible, forgiveness from Heaven for those WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 59 enormous evils we have committed, if we refuse to make use of tliose means which the mercy of Providence hath still reserved to us, for wiping away the guilt and shame with which we are now covered. If we refuse even this degree of compensation ; if, know- ing the miseries we have caused, we refuse even now to put a stop to them, how greatly aggravated will be the guilt of Great Britain ! and what a blot will these transactions forever be on the history of this country ! Shall we, then, delay to repair these injuries, and to begin rendering justice to Africa ? Shall we not count the days and hours that are suffered to intervene, and to delay the accomplish- ment of such a work ? Reflect what an immense object is before you ; what an object for a nation to have in view, and to have a prospect, under the favor of Providence, of being now permitted to attain ! I think the House will agree with me in cherishing the ardent wish to enter without delay upon the measures necessary for these great ends ; and I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of duty, and of justice, that the Legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those impor- tant objects to which I have alluded, and which we are bound to pursue by the most solemn obligations. Grieved am I to think that there should be a single person in this country, much more that there should be a single member in the British Parliament, who can look on the present dark, unculti- vated, and uncivilized state of that continent as a ground for con- tinuing the slave trade; as a ground not only for refusing to attempt the improvement of Africa, but even for hindering and intercepting every ray of light which might otherwise break in upon her ; as a ground for refusing to her the common chance and the common means with which other nations have been blessed, of emerging from their native barbarism. 6o BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE III. ATONEMENT FOR INJUSTICE Pitt painted a glowing picture of the prospect of African civilization, de- claring that this was a leading object of the measure proposed. He called attention to the fact that England herself was once polluted by human sac- rifices and was a mart of slaves. "Great numbers were exported like cattle from the British coast and were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market." We, sir, have long since emerged from barbarism. We have almost forgotten that we were once barbarians. We are now raised to a situation which exhibits a striking contrast to every circum- stance by which a Roman might have characterized us, and by which we now characterize Africa. There is, indeed, one thing wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting even to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves ; we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and unde- niable pretensions to civilization. We were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans are at present. But in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, favored above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivaled in commerce, preeminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and estab- lished in all the blessings of civil society. We are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty. We are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion ; and we are protected by impar- tial laws and the purest administration of justice. We are living under a system of government which our own happy experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed ; a system which has become the admiration of the world. From all these blessings we must forever have been shut out, had there been any truth in those principles which some gentlemen have not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the case of Africa. Had those principles been true, we ourselves had languished to this hour in that miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 6l degradation, in which history proves our ancestry to have been immersed. Had other nations adopted these principles in their conduct toward us, had other nations applied to Great Britain the reasoning which some of the senators of this very island now ap- ply to Africa ; ages might have passed without our emerging from barbarism ; and we who are enjoying the blessings of British civili- zation, of British laws, and British liberty, might, at this hour, have been little superior, either in morals, in knowledge, or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of Guinea. If, then, we feel that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which could have befallen us; if we view with gratitude and exultation the contrast between the peculiar blessings we enjoy, and the wretchedness of the ancient inhabitants of Britain ; if we shudder to think of the misery which would still have overwhelmed us had Great Britain continued to the present times to be a mart for slaves to the more civilized nations of the world, through some cruel policy of theirs, God forbid that we should any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and preclude the light of knowledge, which has reached every other quarter of the globe, from having access to her coasts. I trust we shall no longer continue this commerce, to the destruc- tion of every improvement on that wide continent ; and shall not consider ourselves as conferring too great a boon, in restoring its inhabitants to the rank of human beings. I trust we shall not think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the slave trade, we give them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the world, and that we shall now allow to Africa the opportunity, the hope, the prospect of attaining to the same blessings which we our- selves, through the favorable dispensations of Divine Providence, have been permitted, at a much more early period, to enjoy. If we listen to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue this night the line of conduct which they prescribe, some of us may live to see a re- verse of that picture from which we now turn our eyes with shame and regret. We may live to behold the natives of Africa engaged 62 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE in the calm occupations of industry, in the pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which at some happy period in still later times may blaze with full luster; and joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigor- ate the most distant extremities of that immense continent. Then may we hope that even Africa, though last of all the quarters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those blessings which have descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world. Then, also, will Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it can be called) of no longer hindering that continent from extricating herself out of the dark- ness which, in other more fortunate regions, has been so miich more speedily dispelled. It is in this view, sir, — it is in atonement for our long and cruel injustice toward Africa, — that the measure proposed by my honor- able friend most forcibly recommends itself to my mind. The great and happy change to be expected in the state of her inhabitants is, of all the various and important benefits of the abolition, in my estimation, incomparably the most extensive and important. I shall oppose to the utmost every proposition which in any way may tend either to prevent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total abolition of the slave trade — a measure which, on all the vari- ous grounds which I have stated, we are bound, by the most press- ing and indispensable duty, to adopt. THOMAS ERSKINE Thomas Erskine (i 750-1 823), unlike the great orators contemporaneous with him, had Httle scholastic training. His farriily, though of the nobility, were in straitened circum- stances. After completing the high-school course in his native city of Edinburgh he spent a few months at St. Andrews University, though not as a regular matriculate. He had little Latin and scarcely more of Greek than the alphabet. At the age of fourteen, when most boys of rank were in college, he gave up his course and entered the king's navy, where he remained four years. The great redeeming feature of these years was the fact that he gained not only physically from active service at sea but also mentally from extensive travel which is the best substitute for diligent study in the schools. On his return from sea he determined to give up the navy and devote himself to the study of English literature. For two years he pursued this work with great ardor. Large portions of Shakespeare and Milton were committed to mem- ory. The many speeches in the play of "Julius Caesar" and 63 64 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE in the second book of '' Paradise Lost " were his deUght and were declaimed over and over. At the age of twenty Erskine purchased a commission in the army. While there he had ample time to devote to the study of English, which afterwards, in his speeches, was freer from admixture with other tongues than that of any of his great contemporaries. He obtained such a mastery of Milton and Shakespeare and their spirit that it is said. he could carry on a respectable conversation in quotations. On this point Dr. Johnson remarks, that ''he who would excel in eloquence must give his days and nights to Shakespeare and Milton." Erskine devoted two years to this kind of study, which gave him a rich fund of ideas and the best of English from which to choose his eloquent words. Not only was Erskine versed in the literature of our language, but he became an earnest student of men. His experience in the army and navy, gained from travel and in mingling with so many and so great a variety of human beings, gave him the best opportunity to know men — how to take them, how to deal with them, how to influence them, and the effect of reason and passion upon them. Like Patrick Henry, Erskine made men his life study. His love of fun and frolic, his wit, his humor, his good nature and companionship, drew men to him. This mingling with men and knowing them added greatly to his ability in after years as a pleader before the bar, and aroused, in a no less degree, that keen perception of the varying moods of his public audiences. As a result of his travel, his acquaintance with literature, and his knowledge of men, Erskine became a brilliant conver- sationist. BosweU spoke of him as one "who talked with a vivacity, a fluency, and a precision which attracted particular attention." This gift of eloquent conversation was the basis of his public speaking. THOMAS ERSKINE 65 On his return to London an incident occurred which was destined to change his whole Hfe work. He happened into the courts at Westminster, where he met his old-time friend and benefactor, Lord Mansfield, the most learned judge on the English bench, who was presiding on this occasion. The judge showed him marked courtesy and even invited him to a seat with him on the bench. During the progress of the trial, in which the ablest attorneys of England were engaged. Lord Mansfield explained the points of the case. Erskine listened with deep interest. But when they were through he began to reflect on their method of presenting the case, and found, in spite of his ignorance of the law, that some points were not made as strong as he thought they might have been. That day he dined with Mansfield, and during the course of their meal Erskine asked the judge if he thought it possible for him to become a lawyer. The judge neither encouraged nor discouraged him. But the old ambition of Erskine's boyhood, and the earnest desire then expressed by his father that he should become a professional man, now crowded upon him. He could not be rid of it, and although the prospect was gloomy, considering the support necessary for his wife and children, he determined to enter upon the study of law. He took up his residence at Cambridge, and after three years he was admitted to the bar and began his career as a lawyer at the age of twenty-eight. It is not necessary to record the circumstances of his first law case. We choose rather to speak of his elements of power. It is sufficient to say that although the court was against him, yet his earnestness and ability in presenting the case and urging the principles involved, won him the ver- dict. '' Never," says Goodrich, "did a single case so completely make the fortune of an individual. Erskine entered West- minster Hall that morning not only in extreme poverty but 66 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE with no reasonable prospect of an adequate subsistence for years. He left it a rich man. It is said that while retiring from the hall he received thirty retainers from attorneys who were present. Not only was his ambition gratified, but the comfort and independence of those whose happiness he had staked on his success as a lawyer were secured for life. Some one asked him how he dared to face Lord Mansfield so boldly on a point in which he was clearly out of order, when he beautifully replied, ' I thought of my children as plucking me by the robe and saying, ''Now, father, is the time to get us bread." ' " Erskine's style is distinguished for its purity and strength. There is no straining after effect. It is chaste, polished, har- monious. Not being a classical student, he acquired his knowledge of the language through his study of the English authors. His extensive vocabulary, his choice of words, his varied imagery, his copious and animated description came largely through his intimate acquaintance with Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible. Few of the great orators had a style freer from admixture with the Latin and the Greek. In this particular John Bright's style most resembles that of Erskine. Both men were simple and rhythmical in style and seldom indulged in figures of speech ; both believed that when there was a choice between a word of Latin or Greek origin and an Anglo-Saxon word, the latter was invariably the stronger. Unity and strength characterized Erskine's every utterance. His speech hinged around a great central principle, and each step was felt to bear on that point. His reasoning was com- pact and powerful, and the order in which he set forth his arguments showed a mastery of the human mind. "Like a skillful general," says Mathews, "he massed his forces on one point of assault. Instead of frittering away the strength of his reasonings by arranging them under many different heads, THOMAS ERSKINE 6/ he proposed a great leading principle to which all his efforts were referable and subsidiary. As the rills and streams of a valley meet and mingle into one torrent, so the arguments, facts, and illustrations in one of his speeches were made to rush together into a common channel, and strike with tremen- dous impact on the mind." Not only did Erskine possess a splendid style, but the greatest force of his oratory lay in his powerful delivery. In personal appearance he was of medium height, slender, and finely proportioned. He combined elegance of figure with fascinating manners, and was the kindest and most genial of men. Though of a nervous temperament and rapid in his movements, he was dignified and graceful in his bearing and gesture. His features were regular and handsome. The most striking part of his countenance was his eye, which, when he was speaking, illumined with the glow of his genius. He studied his jury intently, man by man, to note the effect of his every word. According to Lord Brougham, "Juries have declared that they felt it impossible to remove their looks from him when he had riveted and fascinated them by his first glance." His voice was clear and penetrating, at times verg- ing on to sharpness and shrillness, but it was usually full and ample, far-reaching in quality, and often mellow and sweet. Though not so powerful and resonant an organ as that of Chatham or Clay or O' Council, yet it was agreeable, and capable of the most brilliant flights of eloquence. The effect of his speaking was little short of marvelous. Lord Campbell calls his first speech in defense of Captain Bailey the "most wonderful forensic effort which we have in our annals." The immediate effect was not to clear Captain Bailey but to make his own fortune. His demeanor toward the court was always considerate and respectful. He was uniformly courteous to the opposing 68 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE counsel, and his power over juries was unrivaled. He im- pressed and swayed the courts at will. His devotion to his client was complete, and he had great power of application to the mastery of the case in hand. His intensity of purpose, his lively statement of the facts and the law, his great earnestness, his nimble wit and repartee, combined to make him the most fascinating of advocates. When he rose to speak there was no emptying of benches, no yawning of judges, no going to sleep of jurymen ; but, on the contrary, every available nook and corner was occupied by people eager to listen to the varied and fascinating periods, the touching language, and the fervid eloquence of the great lawyer. Erskine's parliamentary career was by no means so brilliant as his work as a lawyer. His manner was better suited to the courts than to the legislature. At any other period than that which boasted of Pitt, Fox, and Burke, who outshone him in Parliament, Erskine would have made his mark ; but he lacked political information. He was out of his element when not dealing with legal matters. Living in that period of great orators whose reputation had been made before he entered Parliament, and conscious of the fact that he must sustain his reputation as a great advocate, Erskine felt that he was overshadowed and out of his element. This feeling was heightened by Pitt's attitude toward him when Erskine rose to make his maiden speech in the House. Pitt sat with pen and paper in hand ready to take notes for reply. He wrote but litde and gradually relaxed his attention. Penally, with the utmost contempt, he thrust the pen through the paper and threw them both to the floor. Erskine could not recover from this expression of disdain ; "his voice faltered, he struggled through the remainder of his speech, and sank into his seat dispirited." But while Erskine was not acknowledged to be a leader in parliamentary affairs, no one denies him the THOMAS ERSKINE 69 foremost rank among forensic orators. As Charles Kendall Adams has said : "He was identified with the establishment of certain great principles that lie at the foundation of modern social life — the rights of juries, the liberty of the press, and the law of treason." According to James L. High, "There have been profounder jurists, there have been abler judges, there have been wiser statesmen, but as a forensic orator he stands without a rival and without a peer." The following are the most celebrated of his great speeches : the " Defense of Bailey," the " Defense of Hardy," the " Defense of Stockdale," the " Defense of Hadfield," the " Defense of Lord George Gordon," the " Defense of Paine," and the "Rights of Juries." DEFENSE OF STOCKDALE This speech was delivered before the Court of King's Bench, December 9, 1789. Stockdale was a London publisher, who issued a pamphlet regard- ing the trial of Warren Hastings, in which the author, a Scottish clergyman, reflects severely on the House of Commons. It was moved by a member of Commons that the attorney-general be directed to prosecute Stockdale for libel on the Commons. I. DISTORTION OF THE CONTEXT Gentlemen, to enable you to form a true judgment of the mean- ing of this book and of the intention of its author, and to expose the miserable juggle that is played off, out of one hundred and ten pages only forty or fifty lines are culled from different parts of it, and artfully put together so as to rear up a libel, out of a false con- text, by a supposed connection of sentences with one another, which are not only entirely independent, but which, when compared with their antecedents, bear a totally different construction. In this manner the greatest works upon government, the most excellent books of science, the sacred Scriptures themselves, might be 70 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE distorted into libels by forsaking the general context and hanging a meaning upon selected parts. Thus, " The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God " ; the Attorney-General, on the principle of the present proceeding against this pamphlet, might indict the publisher of the Bible for blasphemously denying the existence of heaven, in printing "There is no God," for these words alone, without the context, would be selected by the informant ; and the Bible, like this book, would be understood to meet it. Nor could the defendant, in such a case, have any possible defense, unless the jury were permitted to see, by the book itself, that the verse, instead of denying the existence of the Divinity, only imputed that imagi- nation to a fool. I mean to contend that if this book is read with only common attention, the whole scope of it will be discovered to be this : that, in the opinion of the author, Mr. Hastings had been accused of maladministration in India, from the heat and spleen of political divisions in Parliament, and not from any zeal for national honor or justice ; that the impeachment did not originate from govern- ment, but from a faction banded against it, which, by misrepresen- tation and violence, had fastened it on an unwilling House of Commons ; that, prepossessed with this sentiment, the author pur- sues the charges, article by article, and enters into a warm and ani- mated vindication of Mr. Hastings, by regular answers to each of them ; and that, as far as the mind and soul of a man can be visible, I might almost say embodied in his writings, his intention throughout the whole volume appears to have been to charge with injustice the private accusers of Mr. Hastings and not the House of Commons as a body. This will be found to be the palpable scope of the book ; and no man who can read English, and who, at the same time, will have the candor and common sense to take up his impression from what is written in it, can possibly understand it otherwise. Gendemen, b'efore I venture to lay the book before you it must be yet further remembered that the trial of Mr. Hastings at the bar of the Lords had actually commenced long before its publication. THOMAS ERSKINE 71 There the most august and striking spectacle was daily exhibited which the world ever witnessed. A vast stage of justice was erected, awful from its high authority, splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable from the learning and wisdom of its judges, captivating and affecting from the mighty concourse of all ranks and conditions which daily flocked into it, as into a theater of pleasure. There, when the whole public mind was at once awed and softened to the impression of every human affection, there appeared, day after day, one after another, men of the most powerful and exalted talents, eclipsed with their accusing eloquence the most boasted harangues of antiquity ; rousing the pride of national resentment by the boldest invectives against broken faith and violated treaties, and shaking the bosom with alternate pity and horror by the most glowing pictures of insulted nature and humanity; ever animated and energetic, from the love of fame, which is the inherent passion of genius ; firm and indefatigable, from a strong prepossession of the justice of their cause. Gentlemen, the question you have, therefore, to try upon all this matter is extremely simple. It is neither more nor less than this : At a time when the charges against Mr. Hastings were, by the im- plied consent of the Commons, in every hand and on every table ; when, by their managers, the lightning of eloquence was incessantly consuming him, and flashing in the eyes of the public ; when every man was with perfect impunity saying, and writing, and publishing, just what he pleased of the supposed plunderer and devastator of nations, would it have been criminal in Mr. Hastings himself to have reminded the public that he was a native of this free land, entitled to the common protection of her justice? If Mr. Hastings himself could have stood justified or excused in your eyes for publishing this volume in his own defense, the author, if he wrote it to defend him, must stand equally excused and justified ; and if the author be justified, the publisher cannot be criminal, unless you have evidence that it was published by him with a different spirit and intention from those in which it was written. Could Mr. Hastings have been condemned to infamy for writing this book ? 72 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation, to be driven to put such a question in England. Shall it be endured that a subject of this country may be impeached by the Commons for the transactions of twenty years, that the accusation shall spread as wide as the region of letters, that the accused shall stand day after day, and year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against him ; yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, be permitted to submit anything to the judgment of mankind in his defense ? If this be law (which is for you to-day to decide), such a man has no trial ! That great hall, built by our fathers for English justice, is no longer a court, but an altar ; and an Englishman, instead of being judged in it by God and his country, is a victim and a sacrifice ! If you think, gentlemen, that this common duty of self-preserva- tion to the accused himself, which nature writes as a law upon the hearts of even savages and brutes, is nevertheless too high a privi- lege to be enjoyed by an impeached and suffering Englishman ; or if you think it beyond the offices of humanity and justice, when brought home to the hand of a brother or a friend, you will say so by your verdict of guilty ; the decision will then be yours ; and the consolation mine, that I have labored to avert it. A very small part of the misery which will follow from it is likely to light upon me ; the rest will be divided among yourselves and your children. II. LIBEL NOT DESIGNED Erskine here sets forth the principles involved in the law of libel. He shows that if the spirit and intention of the author are good, and that it is his design to discuss the measure and not bring contempt upon the govern- ment, any hasty or heated single expression should be dealt with indul- gently by the courts. I ask, as counsel for Mr. Stockdale, whether, when a great state criminal is brought for justice at an immense expense to the public, accused of the most oppressive cruelties, and charged with the robbery of princes and the destruction of nations, it is not open to any one to ask. Who are his accusers ? What are the sources and THOMAS ERSKINE 73 the authorities of these shocking complaints ? Where are the am- bassadors or memorials of those princes whose revenues he has plundered ? Where are the witnesses for those unhappy men in whose persons the rights of humanity have been violated ? How deeply buried is the blood of the innocent, that it does not rise up in retributive judgment to confound the guilty ! These, surely, are questions which, when a fellow citizen is upon a long, painful, and expensive trial, humanity has a right to propose ; which the plain sense of the most unlettered man may be expected to dictate, and which all history must provoke from the more enlightened. When Cicero impeached Verres before the great tribunal of Rome, of similar cruelties and depredations in her provinces, the Roman people were not left to such inquiries. All Sicily surrounded the Forum, demanding justice upon her plunderer and spoiler, with tears and imprecations. It was not by the eloquence of the orator, but by the cries and tears of the miserable, that Cicero prevailed in that illustrious cause. Verres fled from the oaths of his accusers and their witnesses, and not from the voice of Tully. To preserve the fame of his eloquence, he composed his five celebrated speeches, but they were never delivered against the criminal, because he had fled from the city, appalled by the sight of the persecuted and the oppressed. It may be said that the cases of Sicily and India are widely different; perhaps they may be; whether they are or not, is foreign to my purpose. I am not bound to deny the possi- bility of answers to such questions ; I am only vindicating the right to ask them. Gendemen, I am ready to admit that his sentiments might have been expressed in language more reserved and guarded ; but you will look to the sentiment itself, rather than to its dress — to the mind of the writer, and not to the bluntness with which he may happen to express it. It is obviously the language of a warm man, engaged in the honest defense of his friend, and who is brought to what he thinks a just conclusion in argument, which, perhaps, becomes of- fensive in proportion to its truth. Truth is undoubtedly no warrant for writing what is reproachful of any private man. If a member 74 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of society lives within the law, then, if he offends, it is against God alone, and man has nothing to do with him ; and if he transgress the laws, the libeler should arraign himself before them, instead of presuming to try him himself. But as to writings on general subjects, which are not charged as an infringement on the rights of individ- uals, but as of a seditious tendency, it is far otherwise. When, in the progress either of legislation or of high national justice in Par- liament, they who are amenable to no law are supposed to have adopted, through mistake or error, a principle which, if drawn into precedent, might be dangerous to the public, I shall not admit it to be libel in the course of a legal and bona fide publication, to state that such a principle had in fact been adopted. The people of England are not to be kept in the dark touching the proceedings of their own representatives. An impeachment for an error in judgment is not consistent with the theory or the practice of the English government. I say, with- out reserve, that an impeachment for an error in judgment is con- trary to the whole spirit of English criminal justice, which, though not binding on the House of Commons, ought to be a guide to its proceedings. I say that the extraordinary jurisdiction of impeach- ment ought never to be assumed to expose error or to scourge misfortune, but to hold up a terrible example to corruption and willful abuse of authority by extra legal pains. If public men are always punished with due severity when the source of their mis- conduct appears to have been selfishly corrupt and criminal, the public can never suffer when their errors are treated with gentle- ness. From such protection to the magistrate, no man can think lightly of the charge of magistracy itself, when he sees, by the language of the saving judgment, that the only title to it is an honest and zealous intention. If the people of England were to call upon every man in this impeaching House of Commons who had given his voice on public questions, or acted in authority, civil or military, to answer for the issues of our councils and our wars, and if honest single intentions for the public service were refused as answers to impeachments, we should have many relations to mourn for, and THOMAS ERSKINE 75 many friends to deplore. For my own part, gentlemen, I feel, I hope, for my country as much as any man that inhabits it ; but I would rather see it fall, and be buried in its ruins, than lend my voice to wound any minister or other responsible person, however unfortunate, who had fairly followed the lights of his understanding and the dictates of his conscience for their preservation. Gentlemen, this is no theory of mine ; it is the language of Eng- lish law, and the protection which it affords to every man in office, from the highest to the lowest trust of government. In no one instance that can be named, foreign or domestic, did the Court of King's Bench ever interpose its extraordinary jurisdiction, by infor- mation, against any magistrate for the widest departure from the rule of his duty, without the plainest and clearest proof of corruption. God forbid that a magistrate should suffer from any error in judg- ment, if his purpose was honestly to discharge his trust. We can- not stop the ordinary course of justice; but wherever the court has a discretion, such a magistrate is entitled to its protection, I appeal to the noble judge, and to every man who hears me, for the truth and universality of this position. III. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS Erskine shows that there was no desire on the part of the author to vil- ify Commons. The singleness of his intention was the defense of Hastings. In only two or three selected parts was unfavorable mention made of Com- mons. Erskine shows the fallacy of holding up these detached sentences as libelous, but concealing the tenor and intent of the book. Under such restraint authors of independence would not venture to write " without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. " The unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of civilization, still occa- sionally start up in all the vigor and intelligence of insulted nature. To be governed at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron ; and our empire in the East would, long since, have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and military prowess had not united their 'j6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE efforts to support an authority — which Heaven never gave — by means which it never can sanction. Gentlemen, I have not been considering this subject through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself among reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the in- dignant character of a prince surrounded by his subjects, address- ing the governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. "Who is it, " said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached upon by the rest- less foot of English adventure — " who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains and to empty itself into the ocean t Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in summer .? Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure ? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us ; and by this title we will defend it," said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground and raising the war sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe ; and, depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection. What will they do for you when surrounded by two hundred thou- sand men with artillery, cavalry, and elephants, calling upon you for their dominions which you have robbed them of ? If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist on maintaining despotic rule over distant and hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and extended than herself, and gives commission to her viceroys to govern them with no other instructions than to preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues, with what color of consistency or reason can she place herself in the moral chair and affect to be shocked at the execution of her own orders ? If you are firmly persuaded of the singleness and purity THOMAS ERSKINE -j-j of the author's intentions, you are not bound to subject him to infamy, because, in the zealous career of a just and animated compo- sition, he happens to have tripped with his pen into an intemperate expression in one or two instances of a long work. If this severe duty were binding on your consciences, the liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man could venture to write on any subject, however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of gov- ernment, by the help of which the great commonwealths of man- kind have founded their establishments ; much less any of those useful applications of them to critical conjunctures, by which, from time to time, our own Constitution, by the exertion of patriot citi- zens, has been brought back to its standard. Under such terrors all the great lights of science and civilization must be extinguished ; for men cannot communicate their free thoughts to one another with a lash held over their heads. Liberty herself, the last and best gift of God to his creatures, must be taken just as she is ; you might pare her down into bashful regularity, and shape her into a perfect model of severe, scrupulous law, but she would then be Liberty no longer ; and you must be content to die under the lash of this inexorable justice which you have exchanged for the banners of freedom. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), the great Irish orator, was a native of Dublin. His father, Thomas Sheri- dan, was the author of the first pronouncing dictionary of the EngHsh language ; he was also a celebrated actor of his day, the foremost teacher of elocution, and the author of a much-used book on the principles of that art. Young Sheridan was given good opportunities for an education. He was sent to Harrow for his col- legiate training, an insti- tution under the direction of the celebrated Dr. Parr. He gave little evidence of aptitude for learning. On the contrary, he was indo- lent and careless in his work. But his early association with his father about the stage had interested him greatly in dramatic composition. He therefore began his theatrical writing early. His produc- tions were dramatic and humorous in character. This exercise laid the foundation of and stimulated his talent for dramatic writing, which culminated in a fev^i years in four great dramas, which have given him an exalted place among literary men. 78 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 79 An early marriage, which necessitated his providing a home, induced him to seek a Hvehhood in authorship, in which he had already gained distinction in school. His knowledge of stagecraft, his ability to discover the distinguishing points of characters and set them forth fittingly in their -relation to each other, made him the greatest playwright of his day ; for in the next few years he produced successively '' The Rivals," "The School for Scandal," "The Critic," and "The Duenna," all celebrated for their excellence, the first two ranking among the highest and best of English comedies. But Sheridan was not content to rest on his laurels won in literature'. He chose another field, the field of oratory. His training had already aided him greatly toward this end. He had been thoroughly drilled in speaking and acting by his father, had cultivated enunciation and declamation, had taken part in theatricals, had listened to Garrick and others of the best actors of the time, and had followed their vocal methods ; he had acquired the art of directness in speaking, which the actor learns so well in addressing others face to face ; he had cultivated the art of written expression, had developed his already wonderful imagination, in his plays and other writings, until he had acquired fascinating methods of speaking and had begun to use his conspicuous natural gifts in public addresses. Through the influence of friends he was nominated for a seat in Commons and was successful in the election. It was not long after he entered Parliament before opportunity offered itself for a speech. Knowing of his literary fame, the members listened with entire respect but not with admiration. Indeed his speech was a distinct disappointment to his friends. One of them declared to him afterwards: " I don't think this is your line. You had better have stuck to your former pursuits." But Sheridan uttered his famous reply, " It is in me and it shall come out of me." 8o BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE His sense of shame at his partial failure stimulated him to renewed effort, and he set to work with great diligence to in- form himself on the subjects he proposed to discuss in public, and to write upon them for forceful and effective expression. Having great ingenuity, ready wit, perfect self-possession, and "a boldness amounting almost to effrontery," he made himself at last a most dexterous and effective debater ; in- somuch that Parliament was astonished and swayed by his masterful eloquence. Most of the time during his public career Sheridan was arrayed with Fox and Burke against Pitt the Younger. Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons at the age of twenty-three, and prime minister a year later. In one of his speeches he taunted Sheridan and undertook to crush him by reference to his career as an actor and dramatist. "No man," said Pitt, "admires more than I do the abilities of that right honorable gentleman, the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his dramatic turns and his epigrammatic point. If they were reserved for the proper stage, they would no doubt receive the plaudits of the audience, and it would be the fortune of the right honorable gentleman to exult in the ap- plause of his own theater." When Sheridan had opportu- nity to reply he did so with admirable adroitness as follows : " On the particular sort of personality which the right honor- able gentleman has thought proper to make use of, I need not comment. The propriety, the taste, and the gentlemanly point of it must be obvious to the House. But let me assure the right honorable gentleman that I do now, and will at any time he chooses, to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most perfect good humor. Nay, I will say more. Flattered and encouraged by the right honorable gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if I ever engage again in the composition RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 8l he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption and attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, that of the Angry Boy in the 'Alchemist.'" The effect was such that ''Pitt came near having the title of Angry Boy fastened upon him for the rest of his life." The skirmishes of wit between these men were a thing of common occurrence, and in most of them Sheridan came off best. At one time when Pitt was speaking and Sheridan was interrupt- ing him with questions, some pertinent and some perhaps impertinent, the annoyed minister turned upon him and de- clared before the House that "the right honorable gentle- man's opposition is an eternal drag chain." To which Sheridan retorted like a flash that " the drag chain is never applied except when the machine is running downhill." Sheridan's fame as an orator rests chiefly on his speeches in the trial of Warren Hastings. Burke had made a thorough investigation of the atrocities committed by the English in India, and had summoned the strength of the Whigs for the impeachment of Hastings. To Sheridan was assigned the part relating to the cruelties inflicted upon the Begums, or Princesses of Oude. Aided by the facts furnished him by his colleagues, Sheridan brought forward the charge in Commons in 1787. This speech, though not preserved, owing to the very imperfect method of reporting, is said by the most dis- tinguished men of the time to be an astonishing burst of elo- quence. Fox said: "All I have ever heard or read, when compared with it, dwindles into nothing and vanishes like vapor before the sun." Burke called it " the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there is any record or tradition." Even Pitt, his worst foe, con- cluded his encomium thus: "It surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate or control the human 82 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE mind." Twenty years afterwards Wyndham said, " The speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, the greatest that had been delivered within the memory of man." The speech was five hours in length. At the close of the first hour a friend of Hastings exclaimed, " All this is declamatory assertion without proof." At the end of the second hour he said, "This is a most wonderful oration." At the end of the third hour, "Mr. Hastings has acted un- justifiably." At the end of the fourth, "Hastings is an atro- cious criminal." At the close, "Of all monsters of iniquity the most enormous is Hastings." At the conclusion of this speech the assembly broke forth in great applause and came forward to extend congratulations. Goodrich remarks, "A motion was made to adjourn, that the House might have time to recover their calmness and collect their reason." Two years later Sheridan made a second speech on the same subject, this time before the House of Lords. The reputation he had gained from the previous speech caused the expectation of the people to be worked up to the highest pitch. The speech occupied four days, and during that time the hall was densely packed with eager listeners. As much as fifty pounds was paid in a few instances for seats. The subject was the same as in the former speech — the Begums or the Princesses of Oude — and Sheridan was called upon to reproduce much the same argument he had presented before to the House of Commons. It was not so eloquent as the first speech, and the effect upon the audience was not so great, yet it was a remarkable speech and has been well pre- served ; in fact it is the only speech of Sheridan's of any considerable length that has been well reproduced. Burke spoke of it as a " display of powers . . . that reflects the highest honor upon himself, luster upon letters, renown upon Parliament, glory upon the country." During a career of RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 83 thirty years Sheridan took part in almost all important de- bates, but he never again attempted '' that lofty strain of elo- quence which gained him such rapturous applause on this occasion." Students of oratory will find much to interest them in a consideration of Sheridan's method of speaking. In the first place he was physically well equipped for his work. He had a striking, manly figure, an expressive face, large, black, piercing eyes, a deep, clear, mellow voice, not loud but pene- trating and well suited to invective. His action was graceful, dignified, and full of force. A student of theatricals in his youth, he had gained a mastery of vocal expression and ges- ture that added greatly to the grace and beauty of his oratory. Self-possessed, suave of temper, dauntless of spirit, undis- turbed in the presence of antagonists, he never faltered but kept right on in his course with admirable and impressive strength. While inflicting the most cutting chastisement on an opponent he never lost his temper but maintained an ex- asperating coolness and good humor. This made him all the more popular and effective with his audience, and more formidable as an opponent than many Commoners of far greater information and reasoning powers. He had an un- flinching memory for facts and incidents, and poured forth his thought with unfailing fluency and breathless rapidity. There was great variety in Sheridan's style. Rhetorical passages were interspersed with dry facts. Argument and per- suasion were intermingled with story and humor ; pathos and sublimity with wit and raillery. His strokes of pathos and sallies of wit kept the audience continually on the alert. The most businesslike of his speeches were enlivened with wit and fun, and when it struck it was always effective. He gave free vent to beautiful imagery and lofty fancy. There was no weariness on the part of the audience. On the contrary, there 84 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE was intense interest to the end. When he was announced to speak, expectation was great. A murmur of eagerness swept over the audience, every utterance was watched with deep interest, and his first pleasantries would set the people in a roar. His diction was choice. This is attributable largely to his careful preparation of the best or at least the most strik- ing parts of his orations. His unfailing memory enabled him to recall without effort what he had written, and use it at will. A notebook found after his death revealed the fact that a great many of his famous jests, his epigrams, his thmsts of wit, his volleys of satire, were carefully worked out beforehand in his study. " To this collection," says one biog- rapher, ''we may trace a large part of those playful allusions, keen retorts, sly insinuations, and brilliant sallies which flash out in his speeches." These passages were often prepared months before he had opportunity to use them. Pitt once taunted him with having " hoarded repartees and matured jests." Indeed it was hard for Sheridan to keep from making too great a difference between his studied passages and the extemporized parts of his discourse. This careful and thor- ough preparation of his addresses is a source of power worthy to be imitated. Like Demosthenes, he looked upon this as a compliment to his audience. And he could toil terribly when necessary. Herein lay his ability to discover the weak- nesses in the arguments of the opposition, and his power to expose them. His preparation, aided by his natural gifts of fluency, wit, invention, and a sense of the value of words in their relation, made his speeches fresh, entertaining, and instructive. One of his sources of greatest power was his knowledge of human character. The orator cannot reach men without an intimate knowledge of the human heart and the action of mind upon mind. This Sheridan possessed in a marked RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 85 degree, due no doubt not only to his intimate mingling with men but to his critical study of character as a dramatist. When Sheridan entered Parliament it was predicted that his career would be a failure, like that of many other literary men who had preceded him. But he proved to be more than an actor and a dramatist. He became an orator and a states- man whose services were constantly in demand, and had he not been so long in the party of the opposition he might have been in high public office much of the time. His de- termination to succeed in whatever he undertook is the secret of his success in literature and statecraft. Not strong enough or perhaps not well adapted for leadership, still he was wise and courageous enough to ally himself with men of such moral force as Chatham and Burke. There was a sort of fascination about him that enabled him to win his way with the leaders. His quickness and penetration, his versatile talents, his skill as an orator, coupled with the guidance of such farseeing statesmen, made him a very useful public serv^ant. As an orator Sheridan was oriental rather than classic. Sears, in his " History of Oratory," makes this estimate of him : " With a Celtic intellect that was always in extremes, joingd to a native sense of humor, he could not be reckoned of the Demosthenian type. Impetuous and heedless, he plunged into the very errors he was quick to detect and expose. But for conjuring up a storm of eloquence that should bear his hearers away from their sober sense, stirring their emotions and moving their will, his magnetic and impulsive oratory was surpassed by none and equaled by few." Lord Byron in speaking of his talents said : " Whatever he has chosen to do has been the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy, the best drama, the best farce, and delivered the very best oration ever heard in the country." 86 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE The last few years of Sheridan's life were most miserable. He was reckless in his habits and had always lived beyond his means. His improvidence knew no bounds. When the Drury Lane Theater, of which he was a part owner, burned down it left him almost penniless. Already grossly intemper- ate, he gradually grew worse, until only the strongest intoxi- cants would satisfy him. Disease set in and gloom settled upon him. Harassed by debts and writs of ejectment and the fear of imprisonment for debt, his life was miserable and desolate in the extreme. He became bankrupt in character as well as in health; his influence in Parliament was at an end ; the public deserted him in his poverty and debauchery. At last he died at the age of sixty-four, "a melancholy ex- ample of brilliant talents sacrificed to a love of display and convivial indulgence." But he was given a place in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. His body was borne to its last resting place by royal dukes and noble lords. Great was the throng that flocked to his funeral and great were the evidences of their affection. TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS Delivered before the House of Lords, sitting as a high court of Parlia- ment, June, 1788. The Begums were the mother and widow of the Nalfob of the kingdom of Oude, on the upper Ganges. The Nabob's son, who reigned in his stead, was a weak king and allowed himself to be imposed upon by the East India Company. They required him to maintain a company of English troops, ostensibly for his protection. But the officers levied tribute on the natives and accumulated large fortunes, so that the kingdom was reduced from prosperity to ruin. Hastings was declared responsible for it. I. HASTINGS'S MALADMINISTRATION My lords, I shall not waste your lordships' time nor my own by any preliminary observations on the importance of the subject before you, or on the propriety of our bringing it in this solemn manner to a final decision. Confiding in the dignity, the liberality, RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 8/ and intelligence of the tribunal before which I now have the honor to appear in my delegated capacity of a manager, I do not, indeed, conceive it necessary to engage your lordships' attention for a single moment with any introductory animadversions. But there is one point which here presents itself that it becomes me not to overlook. Insinuations have been thrown out that my honorable colleagues and myself are actuated by motives of malignity against the unfor- tunate prisoner at the bar. An imputation of so serious a nature cannot be permitted to pass altogether without comment. I can, my lords, most confidently aver that a prosecution more disinterested in all its motives and ends, more free from personal malice or personal interest, more perfectly public, and more purely animated by the simple and unmixed spirit of justice, never was brought in any country, at any time, by any body of men, against any individual. What possible resentment can we entertain against the unfortunate prisoner? What possible interest can we have in his conviction ? What possible object of a personal nature can we accomplish by his ruin ? For myself, my lords, I make this solemn asseveration, that I discharge my breast of all malice, hatred, and ill will against the prisoner, if at any time indignation at his crimes has planted in it these passions ; and I believe, my lords, that I may with equal truth answer for every one of my colleagues. We are, my lords, anxious, in stating the crimes with which he is charged, to keep out of recollection the person of the unfortu- nate prisoner. In prosecuting him to conviction, we are impelled only by a sincere abhorrence of his guilt and a sanguine hope of remedying future delinquency. We can have no private incentive to the part we have taken. We are actuated singly by the zeal we feel for the public welfare, and by an honest solicitude for the honor of our country and the happiness of those who are under its dominion and protection. This prosecution, my lords, was not, as is alleged, '' begot in prejudice and nursed in error." It originated in the clearest con- viction of wrongs which the natives of Hindustan have endured by the maladministration of those in whose hands this country had 88 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE placed extensive powers ; which ought to have been exercised for the benefit of the governed, but which was used by the prisoner for the shameful purpose of oppression. I repeat with emphasis, my lords, that nothing personal or malicious has induced us to institute this prosecution. It is absurd to suppose it. We come to your lordships' bar as the representatives of the Commons of England ; and, as acting in this public capacity, it might as truly be said that the Commons, in whose name the impeachment is brought before your lordships, were actuated by enmity to the prisoner, as that we, their deputed organs, have any private spleen to gratify in discharging the duty imposed upon us by our principals. But though, my lords, I designate the prisoner as a proper subject of exemplary punishment, let it not be presumed that I wish to turn the sword of justice against him merely because some example is required. Such a wish is as remote from my heart as it is from equity and law. Were I not persuaded that it is impossible I should fail to render the evidence of his crimes as conclusive as the effects of his conduct are confessedly afflicting, I should blush at having selected him as an object of retributive justice. If I invoke this heavy penalty on Mr. Hastings, it is because I honestly believe him to be a flagitious delinquent, and by far the most so of all those who have contributed to ruin the natives of India and dis- grace the inhabitants of Britain. But while I call for justice upon the prisoner, I sincerely desire to render him justice. It would indeed distress me, could I imagine that the weight and conse- quence of the House of Commons, who are a party in this prose- cution, could operate in the slightest degree to his prejudice ; but I entertain no such solicitude or apprehension. It is the glory of the Constitution under which we live, that no man can be punished without guilt, and this guilt must be publicly demonstrated by a series of clear, legal, manifest evidence, so that nothing dark, noth- ing oblique, nothing authoritative, nothing insidious, shall work to the detriment of the subject. It is not the peering suspicion of apprehended guilt. It is not any popular abhorrence of its wide- spread consequences. It is not the secret consciousness in the RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 89 bosom of the judge which can excite the vengeance of the law and authorize its infliction ! No ! In this good land, as high as it is happy, because as just as it is free, all is definite, equitable, and exact. The laws must be satisfied before they are incurred ; and ere a hair of the head can be plucked to the ground, legal guilt must be established by legal proof. II. THE BEGUM CHARGE Hastings knew that the young Nabob of Oude would be eager to purchase his deliverance from the British troops which were maintained at his expense. He offered Hastings ;!^ioo,ooo, but a much larger sum was needed, so the dissolute king engaged to strip the Begum princesses of their treasures and their lands, in short," to rob his mother and his grand- mother not only of all their property but of their yearly income left by his father," delivering to Hastings the proceeds. The commotions, my lords, which prevail in Oude have been attributed to the Begums. But these disorders, I confidently aver, were, on the contrary, the work of the English. They were' produced by their rapacity and violence. To drain the province of its money, every -species of cruelty, of extortion, of rapine, of stealth was employed by the emissaries of Mr. Hastings. The Nabob perceived the growing discontent among the people, and, alarmed at the consequences, endeavored, by the strongest representations, to rid his devoted country of the oppressions of its invaders, and particularly from the vulture grasp of Colonel Hannay ; swearing by Mohammed that if " this tyrant were not removed he would quit the province," as a residence in it was no longer to be endured. Thus this mild people suffered for a while in barren anguish and ineffectual bewailings. At length, however, in their meek bosoms, where injury never before begot resentment, nor despair aroused to courage, increased oppression had its effect. They determined on resistance. They collected round their im- placable foe [Colonel Hannay], and had nearly sacrificed him. So deeply were they impressed with the sense of their wrongs that they would not even accept of life from their oppressors. They 90 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE threw themselves upon the swords of the soldiery and sought death as the only termination of their sorrows and persecutions. Of a people thus injured and thus feeling, it is an audacious fallacy to attribute their conduct to any external impulse. My lords, the true cause of it is to be traced to the first-born principles of man. It grows with his growth ; it strengthens with his strength. It teaches him to understand; it enables him to feel. For where there is human fate can there be a penury of human feeling? Where there is injury will there not be resentment ? Is not despair to be followed by courage ? The God of battles pervades and pene- trates the inmost spirit of man, and, rousing him to shake off the burden that is grievous, and the yoke that is galling, reveals the law written on his heart, and the duties and privileges of his nature. If, my lords, a stranger had at this time entered the province of Oude, ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowlah, that prince who, with a savage heart, had still great lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity in war, had, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his country the wealth which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific soil — if, observing the wide and general devastation of fields unclothed and brown ; of vegetation burned up and extinguished ; of villages depopulated and in ruin ; of temples unroofed and perishing ; of reservoirs broken down and dry, this stranger should ask : " What has thus laid waste this beautiful and opulent land ; what monstrous mad- ness has ravaged with widespread war ; what desolating foreign foe ; what civil" discords ; wha't disputed succession ; what religious zeal; what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and, with malice and mortal enmity to man, withered by the grasp of death every growth of nature and humanity, all means of delight, and each original, simple principle of bare existence ? " the answer would have been not one of these causes ! No wars have ravaged these lands and depopulated these villages ! No desolating foreign foe ! No domestic broils ! No disputed succession ! No religious, superserviceable zeal ! No poisonous monster ! No affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources of RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 91 resuscitation ! No ! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity ! We sink under the pressure of their support ! We writhe under their perfidious gripe ! What, then, my lords, shall we bear to be told that, under such circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people, thus spurred on to clamor and resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence of the Begums ? Or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no grievance and had suffered no torture ? What motive, then, could have such influence in their bosom ? What motive ! That which nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom of man; and which, though it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is still congenial with, and makes a part of, his being. That feeling which tells him that man was never made to be the property of man ; but that, when in the pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. That principle which tells him that resistance to power usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to himself and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes to his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which he gave him in his creation. That principle which neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle, nor the enervation of refinement extinguish ! That principle which makes it base for a man to suffer when he ought to act; which, tending to preserve to the species the original designations of Providence, spurns at the arrogant dis- tinctions of man and indicates the independent quality of his race. There is nothing, my lords, to be found in the history of human turpitude ; nothing in the nervous delineations and pene- trating brevity of Tacitus ; nothing in the luminous and luxuriant pages of Gibbon, or of any other historian, dead or living, who, searching into measures and characters with the rigor of truth, presents to our abhorrence depravity in its blackest shapes, which can equal, in the grossness of the guilt, or in the hardness of heart with which it was conducted, or in low and groveling motives, the acts and character of the prisoner. It was he who, in the base 92 • BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE desire of stripping two helpless women, could stir the son to. rise up in vengeance against them ; who, when that son had certain touches of nature in his breast, certain feelings of an awakened conscience, could accuse him of entertaining peevish objections to the plunder and sacrifice of his mother ; who, having finally divested him of all thought, all reflection, all memory, all conscience, all tenderness and duty as a son, all dignity as a monarch; having destroyed his character and depopulated his country, at length brought him to violate the dearest ties of nature, in countenancing the destruction of his parents. This crime, I say, has no parallel or prototype in the Old World or the New, from the day of original sin to the present hour. III. CRUELTIES INFLICTED The agents of Hastings seized the treasures of the palace, punished severely the Begums' ministers, and treated the princesses with great sever- ity, leaving them " nothing for their support or comfort, not even their common household utensils." Hastings is held responsible for the acts of his agents. The expressions contained in the letter of Mr. Middleton, of tender solicitude for his son, have been also mentioned, as a proof of the amiableness of his affections. I confess that they do not tend to raise his character in my estimation. Is it not rather an aggra- vation of his guilt,- that he, who thus felt the anxieties of a parent, and who, consequently, must be sensible of the reciprocal feelings of a child, could be brought to tear asunder, and violate in others, all those dear and sacred bonds ? Does it not enhance the turpitude of the transaction, that it was not the result of idiotic ignorance or brutal indiff"erence } I aver that his guilt is increased and magnified by these considerations. His criminality would have been less had he been insensible .to tenderness — less, if he had not been so thor- oughly acquainted with the true quality of parental love and filial duty. It is, my lords, surely superfluous to dwell on the sacredness of the ties which those aliens to feeling, those apostates to humanity. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 93 thus divided. In such an assembly as the one before which I speak, there is not an eye but must look reproof to this conduct, not a heart but must anticipate its condemnation. Filial piety ! It is the primal bond of society. It is that instinctive principle which, panting for its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense and sensibility of man. It now quivers on every lip. It now beams from every eye. It is that gratitude which, softening under the sense of recol- lected good, is eager to own the vast, countless debt it never, alas ! can pay, for so many long years of unceasing solicitudes, honorable self-denials, life-preserving cares. It is that part of our practice where duty drops its awe, where reverence refines into love. It asks no aid of memory. It needs not the deductions of reason. Preexisting, paramount over all, whether moral law or human rule, few arguments can increase and none can diminish it. It is the sacrament of our nature, not only the duty, but the indulgence of man. It is his first great privilege. It is among his last most en- dearing delights. It causes the bosom to glow with reverberated love. It requites the visitations of nature and returns the blessings that have been received. It fires emotion into vital principle. It changes what was instinct into a master passion ; sways all the sweetest energies of man ; hangs over vicissitudes that must pass away ; and aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude • and age. T\\& j'aghires being seized, my lords, the Begums were left with- out the smallest share of that pecuniary compensation promised by Mr. Middleton, as an equivalent for the resumption. And as tyranny and injustice, when they take the field, are always attended by their camp followers, paltry pilfering and petty insult, so in this instance, the goods taken from the princesses were sold at a mock sale at an inferior value. Even gold and jewels, to use the language of the Begums, instantly lost their value when it was known that they came from them. Their ministers were impris- oned, to extort the deficiency which this fraud occasioned ; and every mean art was employed to justify a continuance of cruelty toward them. 94 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE If I could not prove, my lords, that those acts of Mr. Middleton were in reality the acts of Mr. Hastings, I should not trouble your Lordships by combating them ; but as this part of this criminality can be incontestably ascertained, I appeal to the assembled legisla- tors of this realm to say whether these acts were justifiable on the score of policy. I appeal to all the august presidents in the courts of British justice, and to all the learned ornaments of the profession, to decide whether these acts were reconcilable to justice. I appeal to the reverend assemblage of prelates feeling for the general inter- ests of humanity and for the honor of the religion to which they belong, to determine whether these acts of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton were such as a Christian ought to perform, or a man to avow. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cru- elties ! To English arms, to English officers, around whose banners humanity has ever entwined her most glorious wreath, how will this sound ? It was in this fort, where the British flag was flying, that these helpless prisoners were doomed to deeper dungeons, heavier chains, and severer punishments. Where that flag was displayed which was wont to cheer the depressed, and to dilate the subdued heart of misery, these venerable but unfortunate men were fated to encounter every aggravation of horror and distress. It might, my lords, have been hoped, for the honor of the human heart, that the Begums were themselves exempted from a share in these sufferings, and that they had been wounded only through the sides of their ministers. The reverse of this, however, is the fact. Their palace was surrounded by a guard. The women, who were not involved in the Begums' supposed crimes, who had raised no subrebellion of their own, and who lived in a distinct dwelling, were causelessly implicated, nevertheless, in the same punishment. Their residence surrounded with guards, they were driven to de- spair by famine, and when they poured forth in sad procession, were beaten with bludgeons and forced back by the soldiery to the scene of madness which they had quitted. These are acts which, when told, need no comment. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 95 After this, my lords, can it be said that the prisoner was igno- rant of the acts, or not culpable for their consequences ? It is true, he did not direct the guards, the famine, and the bludgeons ; he did not weigh the fetters, nor number the lashes to be inflicted on his victims ; but yet he is just as guilty as if he had borne an active and personal share in each transaction. It is as if he had commanded that the heart should be torn from the bosom, and enjoined that no blood should follow. He is in the same degree accountable to the law, to his country, to his conscience, and to his God ! You, my lords, who hear me, I conjure, by those rights which it is your best privilege to preserve ; by that fame which it is your best pleasure to inherit ; by all those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature, our controlling rank in the creation. This is the call on all to administer to truth and equity, as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, with the most exalted bliss possible or con- ceivable for our nature ; the self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world ! My lords, I have done. DANIEL O'CONNELL Daniel O'Connell (1775 -1847), the great Irish agitator, received his early education at a country school of Ireland, under the tutorship of a Catholic priest. He afterwards at- tended St.-Omer's College, which was established by the Eng- lish Jesuits in France. His standing as a student was high. Whatever he set about to do was done with ceaseless diligence. On completing his gen- eral training he began the study of law and became expert, especially in crim- inal and constitutional law. Tireless as a worker, he acquired complete familiarity with the tech- nique of his profession. So centered was his thought on the law and the cases which came up, that his knowledge of literature in general was somewhat meager. His high rank as a forensic orator is due to his great relish for the legal profession, his knowledge of men, his penetration of their motives, his ceaseless practice in speak- ing, and his great care in the preparation of his cases. As an advocate he used the utmost vigilance and caution. No flaw or loophole in an opponent's case escaped his eagle eye. 96 1 ^^^ ^^^m A (" ^wmh iHroSSi \ ^s^ \ ^^^^llfiiiMH -^ /<^^ ^ ^—J L_f ^1 DANIEL O'CONNELL 97 Unrivaled for tact, shrewdness, and presence of mind ; keen, ingenious, and thorough in the details of business, he must be accorded first laurels as an advocate, for his sway over a jury was complete. His absolute control of men, and the dead-sureness with which he undertook a case, has caused him to be criticized for employing the methods of a bully or a browbeater. It is said of him that his actions in the court room were sometimes those of the actor. If things did not go to suit him, he would catch up his brief bag and dash it down on the table, or would leave the court room in apparent rage, stopping the proceedings until a messenger from the judge would call him back to take up his case again. But whether or not this dramatic manner affected the court or the jury in his favor, certain it is that he seldom or never lost a case. Personally O'Connell was highly endowed with the qual- ities of an orator. In stature he was a giant — tall, muscular, broad-chested, and with large square shoulders. Wendell Phillips speaks of him as having a " magnificent presence, impressive bearing, massive like that of Jupiter." He was homely of face, but his countenance was kindly and sym- pathetic. In action he was not particularly graceful, and his walk was careless and shuffling. In temper he was genial and good-natured. One of his biographers speaks of him thus : " Warm and generous in feeling, cordial and frank in manners, loving a good joke, having an exhaustless supply of wit and humor, in every way so fascinating in manner, no man was ever better fitted to win and hold the hearts of his countrymen." Another prime physical qualification was his wondrous voice. It was powerful, flexible, and expressive. Disraeli pro- nounced it "the finest voice ever heard in Parliament — deep, sonorous, distinct, and flexible. In its transitions from the highest to the lowest notes it was wondrously effective. All 98 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE who heard him were enchanted by its swelHng and sinking waves of sound, its quiet and soft cadences, alternated with bass notes of grandeur." In the history of oratory, so far as we have been able to learn, no public speaker was ever known to encompass within the sound of his voice so large a number of people. It is said that at the great field meeting at Tara, during the agitation for Catholic emancipation, one hundred fifty thousand people were able to hear and understand him. It cannot be denied that he was one of the most successful orators in the history of Great Britain. Though not a classic orator to be ranked with Burke and Chatham, yet he ruled the passions of the Irish people absolutely with his simple, rugged elo- quence. The effect was genuine and immediate. He could melt with pathos and convulse with wit ; dazzle with flights of imagination and captivate with logic. Audiences gazed with fascinated admiration as he spoke. While he made the most careful preparation of the ideas to be used in his speeches, his words were largely extemporized. Men could feel him hewing out his rhetoric as he rushed along. He was impulsive in speech, dramatic in action, and drove home his thought with vigorous gesture. It seemed to be no effort for him to speak. Wendell Phillips, after hearing him several times, says: ''We used to say of Webster, this is a great effort ; of Everett, this is a beautiful effort ; but you never used the word ' effort ' in speaking of O' Conn ell. It provoked you that he would not make an effort." Phillips says that John Randolph, "who hated an Irishman almost as he hated a Yankee, hearing O'Connell, exclaimed, 'This is the man, these are the lips, the most eloquent that speak English in my day.' " His style is to be commended for its short and concise sentences, his impressive periods, his vigorous Anglo-Saxon, DANIEL O'CONNELL 99 his terse reasoning, and his wealth of wit and humor. It is to be condemned for occasional coarseness, venom, and ex- aggeration. The bitterness of his taunts and sarcasm neu- tralized his influence in Parliament and reacted upon him unfavorably. Rough language and uncouth epithets may appeal to the masses and sometimes gain their point, but the tendency is to " make the judicious grieve." With his mas- sive strength, even though now and then coarse-grained, he " could pound an antagonist with denunciation, riddle him with invective, or roast him alive before a slow fire of sar- casm." When Disraeli turned Tory he was said by O'Con- nell to be " one who, if his genealogy had been traced, would be found to be the lineal descendant and true heir- at-law of the impenitent thief who atoned for his crimes upon the cross." He once spoke of Peel as one whose smile was " like the silver plate on a coffin." These were bitter, venomous remarks, and made enemies rather than friends for O'Connell's cause. With a mind strong and fiery rather than polished, O'Con- nell was yet versatile in oratory. He was equally at home in the forum, on the stump, and in the House of Commons. When he first entered Parliament he was called the " mob orator," but he was able to adapt himself to his surroundings and soon commanded the respectful attention of that assem- bly. Then, too, he was sincere. He could be trusted because of his unsullied private character. His speech was listened to by the Irish people with reverent interest, and he held complete sway over them because of the character of the man behind the speech — one, as Wendell Phillips puts it, "who could be neither bought, bullied, nor cheated." His patience, his disinterestedness, and his fidelity to principle were prime elements in his remarkable career. It was his character and leadership which enabled him to revolutionize lOO BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE conditions in Ireland. " He championed the cause of human- ity," says Mathews, "without regard to cHme, color, or condition ; and wherever the moan of the oppressed was heard, there, too, was heard the trumpet voice of O'Connell, rousing the sympathy of mankind, rebuking the tyrant, and cheering the victim." As a political agitator he was daring and successful be- cause of his devotion to his cause, his race, his church, and his country. Sure of his point, confident in his power, all his arguments bore directly upon the issue. He demanded the removal of penalties against the Catholics. To this end he organized the Catholic Association. He carried the agitation to such an extent that his ideas were embodied in a measure which was introduced and carried in the House of Commons. But, as is the case with many other reforms, it was defeated in the House of Lords. Civil war seemed imminent. Though Catholics were not then admitted to Parliament, O'Connell was elected and reelected, and kept knocking at the doors. Finally, in 1829, the disabilities were removed and the Irish members were permitted to take their seats with other representatives of the people. His influence in Commons was so great, and he was so powerful a debater, that he almost succeeded in securing autonomy for Ireland. He it was who first proposed and almost carried a measure for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. This meant the with- drawal of government support from the established Church of England in Irish domain, so that the Catholic and other churches might stand on their own merits — stand or fall as in- stitutions supported by voluntary contributions. But this meas- ure was not carried through until a quarter of a century after O'Connell's death, under the administration of Gladstone. His advocacy of Irish independence, or what later became known as Home Rule, caused his arrest and imprisonment. DANIEL O'CONl'JELi. lOT He was released after a few months, but the confinement had undermined his health and he was never afterwards able to assume the leadership of his people. It is enough for us to know that by his masterly eloquence and leadership he raised a mass of dispirited, broken-hearted people to the plane of a nation. He lifted unhappy Ireland to an exalted place in British affairs. His leadership was marvelous. Under no other leader have the Irish people been so orderly. His motto was, " He who commits a crime helps the enemy." It was his patient, law-abiding effort which brought about Catholic emancipation. His love of humanity was not con- fined to his own people. It is interesting to note that in our own struggle to free the negro, O'Connell's voice was raised to enlist his countrymen in America on the side of the downtrodden slave. He exclaimed in one of his speeches : "I send my voice across the Atlantic, careering like the thunderstorm against the breeze, to tell the slave- holder of the Carolinas that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman that the dawn of his redemption is already at hand." REPEAL OF THE UNION This speech was deHvered at MuUaghmast, Ireland, in September, 1843. Agitation had been going on in Ireland since 1829, steadily increasing in insistency and intensity until 1843, when a series of great outdoor mass meetings was begun at Trim. The multitudes assembled at two of the meet- ings, the one at the Hill of Tara, the other at MuUaghmast, were variously estimated at from 300,000 to 1,000,000. The Irish were a unit for a domes- tic parliament, and O'Connell controlled their action with a master hand. I. REPEAL INEVITABLE I accept with the greatest alacrity the high honor you have done me in calling me to the chair of this majestic meeting. I feel more honored than I ever did in my life, with one single exception, and that related to, if possible, an equally majestic meeting at Tara. 1^2** •'*'feklTis'H'*A5fi:r- AMERICAN ELOQUENCE But I must say that if a comparison were instituted between them, it would take a more discriminating eye than mine to discover any difference between them. There are the same incalculable num- bers ; there is the same firmness ; there is the same determination ; there is the same exhibition of love for old Ireland ; there is the same resolution not to violate the peace ; not to be guilty of the slightest outrage ; not to give the enemy power by committing a crime, but peacefully and manfully to stand together in the open day, to protest before man and in the presence of God against the iniquity of continuing the Union. At Tara I protested against the Union — I repeat the protest at Mullaghmast. I declare solemnly my thorough conviction as a con- stitutional lawyer, that the Union is totally void in point of principle and of constitutional force. I tell you that no portion of the em- pire has the power to traffic on the rights and liberties of the Irish people. The Irish people nominated them to make laws, and not legislatures. They were appointed to act under the Constitution, and not annihilate it. Their delegation from the people was con- fined within the limits of the Constitution, and the moment the Irish Parliament went beyond those limits and destroyed the Con- stitution, that moment it annihilated its own power, but could not annihilate the immortal spirit of liberty which belongs, as a rightful inheritance, to the people of Ireland. Take it, then, from me that the Union is void. I admit there is the force of a law, because it has been supported by the policeman's truncheon, by the soldier's bayonet, and by the horseman's sword ; because it is supported by the courts of law and those who have power to adjudicate in them ; but I say solemnly, it is not supported by constitutional right. The union, therefore, in my thorough conviction, is totally void, and I avail myself of this opportunity to announce to several hundred thousand of my fel- low subjects that the Union is an unconstitutional law and that it is not fated to last long. Its hour is approaching. America offered us her sympathy and support. We refused the support, but we accepted the sympathy ; and while we accepted the sympathy of the DANIEL O'CONNELL 103 Americans, we stood upon the firm ground of the right of every human being to liberty ; and I, in the name of the Irish nation, de- clare that no support obtained from America should be purchased by the price of abandoning principle for one moment, and that principle is that every human being is entitled to freedom. My friends, I want nothing for the Irish but their country, and I think the Irish are competent to obtain their own country for themselves. I like to have the sympathy of every good man every- where, but I want not armed support or physical strength from any country. The Republican party in France offered me assist- ance. I thanked them for their sympathy, but I distinctly refused to accept any support from them. I want support from neither France nor America, and if that usurper, Louis Philippe, who^ trampled on the liberties of his own gallant nation, thought fit to assail me in his newspaper, I returned the taunt with double vigor, and I denounce him to Europe and the world as a treacherous tyrant, who has violated the compact with his own country, and therefore is not fit to assist the liberties of any other country. I want not the support of France ; I want not the support of America ; I have physical support enough about me to achieve any change ; but you know well that it is not my plan. I will not risk the safety of one of you. I could not afford the loss of one of you. I will protect you all, and it is better for you all to be merry and alive, to enjoy the repeal of the Union ; but there is not a man of you that would not, if we were attacked unjustly and illegally, be ready to stand in the open field by my side. Let every man that concurs in that sentiment lift up his hand.^ The assertion of that sentiment is our sure protection ; for no person will attack us, and we will attack nobody. Indeed, it would be the height of absurdity for us to think of making any attack ; for there is not one man in his senses, in Europe or America, that does not admit that the repeal of the Union is now inevitable. The English papers taunted us, and their writers laughed us to scorn ; but now they admit that it is impossible to resist the application for 1 It is said that in that vast multitude all hands were lifted up. I04 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE repeal. More power to you. But that even shows we have power enough to know how to use it. Why, it is only this week that one of the leading London newspapers, called the Morning Herald^ which had a reporter at the Lismore meeting, published an account of that great ^and mighty meeting, and in that account the writer expressly says that it will be impossible to refuse so peaceable, so ■determined, so unanimous a people as the people of Ireland the restoration of their domestic legislature. II. IRELAND FOR THE IRISH O'Connell denounces in severest terms the "paltry administration" that governed the country. " I do not suppose so worthless an administration ever before got together." He speaks of Peel as having " five hundred colors on his bad standard and not one of them permanent. To-day it is orange, to-morrow it will be green, and the day after neither the one nor the other." Of Wellington he says, '" he was surprised at Waterloo, and if he got victoriously out of that battle, it is owing to the valor of the British troops." Then in the following words he meets the charge of disloyalty to Eng- land, and demands justice and right. The ministry put a speech abusing the Irish into the Queen's mouth. They accused us of disaffection, but there is no disaffec- tion in Ireland. We were loyal to the sovereigns of Great Britain, even when they were our enemies; we were loyal to George III, even when he betrayed us ; we were loyal to George IV when he blubbered and cried when we forced him to emancipate us ; we were loyal to old Billy, though his minister put into his mouth a base, bloody, and intolerant speech against Ireland ; and we are loyal to the Queen, no matter what our enemies may say to the contrary. -It is not the Queen's speech, and I pronounce it to be a lie. There is no dissatisfaction in Ireland, but there is this — a full determination to obtain justice and liberty. I am much obliged to the ministry for that speech, for it gives me, among other things, an opportunity of addressing such meetings as this. I had held the monster meetings. I had fully demonstrated the opinion of DANIEL O'CONNELL I05 Ireland. I was convinced that their unanimous determination to obtain liberty was sufficiently signified by the many meetings already held; but when the minister's speech came out, it was necessary to do something more. Accordingly I called a monster meeting at Loughrea. I called another meeting in Cliffden. I had another monster meeting in Lismore, and here now we are assembled on the Rath of Mullaghmast. my friends, I will keep you clear of all treachery. There shall be no bargain, no compromise with England. We shall take nothing but repeal, and a Parliament in College Green. You will never, by my advice, confide in any false hopes they hold out to you ; never confide in anything coming from them, or cease from your struggle, no matter what promise may be held to you, until your hear me say I am satisfied ; and I will tell you where I will say that — near the statue of King William, in College Green. No ; we came here to express our determination to die to a man, if necessary, in the cause of Old Ireland. We came to take advice of each other, and, above all, I believe you came here to take my advice. I can tell you, I have the game in my hand, I have the triumph secure, I have the repeal certain, if you but obey my advice. 1 will go slow — you must allow me to do so — but you will go sure. No man shall find himself imprisoned or persecuted who follows my advice. I have led you thus far in safety ; I have swelled the multitude of repealers until they are identified with the entire population, or nearly the entire population, of the land, for seven eighths of the Irish people are now enrolling themselves as repealers. I do not want more power; I have power enough ; and all I ask of you is to allow me to use it. I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly and with a certainty of success. Justice Vill be administered free of all expense to the people. The people ^hall have chosen magistrates of their own in the room of the magistrates who have been removed. The people shall submit their differences to them, and shall have strict justice Io6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE administered to them that shall not cost them a single farthing. I shall go on with that plan until we have all the disputes sjettled and decided by justices appointed by the people themselves; /\ I wish to live long enough to have perfect justice administered to Ireland, and liberty proclaimed throughout the land/It will take me some time to prepare my plan for the formation of the new Irish House of Commons — that plan which we will yet submit to her Majesty for her approval when she gets rid of her present paltry administration and has one that I can support. But I must finish that job before I go forth, and one of my reasons for calling you together is to state my intentions to you. Wales is up at present, almost in a state of insurrection. The people there have found that the landlords' power is too great, and has been used tyrannically, and I believe you agree with them toler- ably well in that. They insist on the sacredness of the right of the tenants to security of possession, and with the equity of tenure which I would establish we will do the landlords full justice, but we will do the people justice also. We will recollect that the land is the landlord's, and let him have the benefit of it, but we will also recollect that the labor belongs to the tenant, and the tenant must have the value of his labor, not transitory and by the day, but per- manently and by the year.-^— >-. I believe no one in January last would believe that we could have such a meeting within the year as the Tara demonstration. You may be sure of this — and I say it in the presence of Him who will judge me — that I never will willfully deceive you. I have but one wish under heaven, and that is for the liberty and pros- perity of Ireland. I am for leaving England to the English, Scot- land to the Scotch ; but we must have Ireland for the Irish. I will not be content until I see not a single man in any office, from the lowest constable to the lord chancellor, but Irishmen. This is our land and we must have it. We will be obedient to the Queen, joined to England by the golden link of the Crown, but we must have our own Parliament, our own bench, our own magistrates. We shall get judicial independence for Ireland. It is for this DANIEL O'CONNELL lO/ purpose we are assembled here to-day, as every countenance I see around me testifies. If there is any one here who is for the Union, let him say so. Is there anybody here for the repeal ? [cries of "All, All!"] III. FREEDOM FOR IRELAND O'Connell declares the Union iniquitous and tyrannous, but enjoins a peaceable conquest that their enemies may not have cause for violence toward them. My friends, the Union was begot in iniquity — it was perpetuated in fraud and cruelty. It was no compact, no bargain, but it was an act of the most decided tyranny and corruption that was ever yet perpetrated. Trial by jury was suspended, the right of personal protection was at an end, courts-martial sat throughout the land, and the county of Kildare, among others, flowed with blood. We shall stand peaceably side by side in the face of every enemy. Oh, how delighted was I in the scenes which I witnessed as I came along here to-day ! How my heart throbbed, how my spirit was elevated, how my bosom swelled with delight at the multitude which I beheld, and which I shall behold, of the stalwart and strong men of Kildare ! I was delighted at the activity and force that I saw around me, and my old heart grew warm again in admiring the beauty of the dark-eyed maidens and matrons of Kildare. And re- member that you are the sons, the fathers, the brothers, and the husbands of such women. Yes, I am in a county remarkable in the history of Ireland for its bravery and its misfortune, for its cre- dulity in the faith of others, for its people judged of the Saxon by the honesty and honor of their own natures. I am in a county cel- ebrated for the sacredness of shrines and fanes. I am in a county where the lamp of Kildare's holy shrine burned with its sacred fire through ages of darkness and storm — that fire which for six centu- ries burned before the high altar without being extinguished, being fed continuously, without the slightest interruption, and it seemed to me to have been not an inapt representation of the continuous fidelity and religious love of country of the men of Kildare. I08 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Yes, you have those high qualities — religious fidelity, continuous love of country. Even your enemies admit that the world has never produced any people that exceed the Irish in activity and strength. The Scottish philosopher has declared, and the French philosopher has confirmed it, that number one in the human race is, blessed be Heaven, the Irishman. In moral virtue, in religion, in perserver- ance, and in glorious temperance you excel. Yes, among the nations of the earth, Ireland stands number one in the physical strength of her sons and in the beauty and purity of her daughters. Ireland, land of my forefathers, how my mind expands and my spirit walks abroad in something of majesty, when I contemplate the high qualities, inestimable virtues, and true purity and piety and religious fidelity of the inhabitants of your green fields and productive mountains. Oh, what a scene surrounds us ! It is not only the countless thousands of brave and active and peaceable and religious men that are here assembled, but Nature herself has written her character with the finest beauty in the verdant plains that surround us. Let any man run around the horizon with his eye, and tell me if created nature ever produced anything so green and lovely, so un- dulating, so teeming with production. The richest harvests that any land can produce are those reaped in Ireland ; and then here are the sweetest meadows, the greenest fields, the loftiest mountains, the purest streams, the noblest rivers, the most capacious harbors, and her water power is equal to turn the machinery of the whole world. O my friends, it is a country worth fighting for, it is a country worth dying for ; but, above all, it is a country worth being tranquil, determined, submissive, and docile for, disciplined as you are in obedience to those who are breaking the way and trampling down the barriers between you and your constitutional liberty. I will see every man of you having a vote, and every man protected by the ballot from the agent or landlord. I will see labor protected, and every title to possession recognized, when you are industrious and honest. I will see prosperity again throughout your land. The busy hum of the shuttle and the tinkling of the smithy shall be DANIEL O'CONNELL 109 heard again. I will see prosperity in all its gradations spreading through a happy, contented, religious land. I will hear the hymn of a happy people go forth at sunrise to God in praise of His mercies, and I will see the evening sun set down among the up- lifted hands of a religious and free population. Every blessing that man can bestow and religion can confer upon the faithful heart shall spread throughout the land. Stand by me, join with me, I will say be obedient to me, and Ireland shall be free. DEMANDING JUSTICE Taken from a speech delivered February 4, 1836, in the House of Commons. It appears to me impossible to suppose that the House will con- sider me presumptuous in wishing to be heard for a short time on this question, especially after the distinct manner in which I have been alluded to in the course of the debate. If I had no other excuse, that would be sufficient ; but I do not want it ; I have another and a better. The question is one in the highest degree interesting to the people of Ireland. It is, whether we mean to do justice to that country, whether we mean to continue the injustice which has been already done to it, or to hold out the hope that it will be treated in the same manner as England and Scotland. That is the question. We know what '' lip service" is ; we do not want that. There are some men who will even declare that they are willing to refuse justice to Ireland ; while there are others who, though they are ashamed to say so, are ready to consummate the iniquity, and they do so. England never did do justice to Ireland — she never did. What we have got of it we have extorted from men opposed to us on principle — against which principle they have made us such con- cessions as we have obtained from them. The right honorable baronet opposite [Sir Robert Peel] says he does not distinctly understand what is meant by a principle. I believe him. He no BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE advocated religious exclusion on religious motives ; he yielded that point at length, when we were strong enough to make it prudent for him to do so. Here am I calling for justice to Ireland ; but there is a coalition to-night — not a base unprincipled one — God forbid ! — it is an extremely natural one ; I mean that between the right honorable baronet and the noble lord the member for North Lancashire (Lord Stanley). It is a natural coalition — and it is impromptu ; for the noble lord informs us he had not even a notion of taking the part he has, until the moment at which he seated himself. 1 know his candor ; he told us it was a sudden inspiration which induced him to take part against Ireland. I believe it with the most potent faith, because I know that he requires no preparation for voting against the interests of the Irish people. I regret much that I have been thrown upon arguing this par- ticular question, because I should have liked to have dwelt upon a speech which has been so graciously delivered from the throne to-day. It has been observed that the object of a King's speech is to say a little in as many words as possible, but this speech contains more things than words — it contains those great principles which, adopted in practice, will be most salutary, not only to the British Empire, but to the world. Years are coming over me, but my heart is as young and as ready as ever in the service of my country, of which I glory in being the pensionary and the hired advocate. I stand in a situation in which no man ever stood yet — the faithful friend of my country, its servant, its slave, if you will ; I speak its sentiments by turns to you and to itself. I require no ^20,000,000 on behalf of Ireland ; I ask you only for justice ; will you, can you, I will not say dare you, refuse, because that will make you turn the other way. I implore you, as English gentlemen, to take this matter into consideration now, because you never had such an opportunity of conciliating. Experience makes fools wise ; you are not fools, but you have yet to be convinced. I cannot forget the year 1825. We begged then as we would for a beggar's boon ; we asked for O'CONNELL . Ill emancipation by all that is sacred amongst us. I have no other reason for adhering to the ministry than because they, the chosen representatives of the people of England, are anxiously determined to give the same measure of reform to Ireland as that which Eng- land has received. I have not fatigued myself, but the House, in coming forward upon this occasion. I may be laughed and sneered at by those who talk of my power ; but what has created it but the injustice that has been done in Ireland ? That is the end and the means of the magic, if you please, the groundwork of my influ- ence in Ireland. If you refuse justice to that country, it is a melancholy consideration to me to think that you are adding sub- stantially to that power and influence, while you are wounding my country to its very heart's core ; weakening that throne, the mon- arch who sits upon which, you say you respect ; severing that Union which, you say, is bound together by the tightest links ; and with- holding that justice from Ireland which she will not cease to seek till it is obtained. Every man must admit that the course I am taking is the legitimate and proper course. I defy any man to say it is not. Condemn me elsewhere as much as you please, but this you must admit. You may taunt the ministry with having coalesced me, you may raise the vulgar cry of " Irishman and Papist" against me, you may send out men called ministers of God to slander and calumniate me ; they may assume whatever garb they please, but the question comes into this narrow compass. I demand, I re- spectfully insist on equal justice for Ireland, on the same principle by which it has been administered to Scotland and England. I will not take less. Refuse me that if you can. HENRY BROUGHAM Henry Brougham (i 779-1 868) received the rudiments of his education in the high school of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was distinguished for precocity and for his intuitive per- ception of whatever subjects he undertook. While fond of pleasure and disposed to study by starts, he was a good stu- dent and managed to do more outside reading than any of his fellows. At the age of sixteen he entered the University of Edinburgh, and in a short time had gained high distinc- tion in the sciences, and espe- cially in mathematics. He showed remarkable talent for research, and at the age of seventeen produced an essay which was thought worthy of a place in the Edinhirgh Philosophical Transactions. His talent for mathematical research soon won him election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. On completing his college course he entered upon the study of law, and in due time began the practice of his pro- fession. It is sufficient to say that both in his native city and in London, whither he moved after a few years, he gained the highest distinction as an advocate. HENRY BROUGHAM II3 Students of public speaking will be interested to learn of the kind of training Brougham received in the art in which he so excelled. When less than fifteen years of age he organ- ized a debating society of boys, who afterwards, most of them, gained distinction themselves as speakers. On entering the university he became a member of the Speculative Society, which gave its members opportunity for the public discussion of leading topics of the day. Here, in this theater of debate, he showed the leadership which afterwards served him so well as presiding officer of the House of Lords. This brilliant enthusiast set himself the task of becoming an orator of dis- tinction in the public life of England. Not even Demosthenes more deliberately resolved to acquire a genius for oratory. He committed orations of the great orators, not so much that he might imitate them as that he might assimilate their ideas and methods. He translated classic orations for the purpose of acquiring an extensive vocabulary and expressive diction, but more profitably he began that serious authorship which brought him into immediate prominence. His "Colonial Policy of European Powers" contained an immense amount of information and was distinguished by a "daring spirit of philosophical inquiry." After removing to London he pub- lished the " State of the Nation," which created such favorable comment as to open the way for his election to Parliament. He was also one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review, and for more than twenty years was an editor and contributor. Here he began to bring forth those keen editorials on meas- ures of reform, which sounded like speeches from the tribune. He spent much time in exposing the "perversions of public charities, exposing the cruelties of the criminal code, or in rousing public attention to evils resulting from irregularities in the administration of municipal law." Perusal of his speeches and editorials shows him to have been able to point 114 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE out defects in administration and suggest reforms. His wide range of thought and his facihty of pen gave him that foun- dation of ideas, that fluency of expression, and that sponta- neousness so essential to the successful orator. Physically Brougham was well fitted for the work of the public speaker. He had a powerful constitution, which "stood the wear and tear of ceaseless activity for more than eighty years." He had a massive forehead, high cheeks, a large mouth, a firm-set jaw, and eyes that gleamed from under his beetling brows. As he advanced in years the lines in his face grew hard and deep, which gave him at times a stern and lowering expression. His voice was harsh and unmusical, even hoarse in excitement, but it was remarkably well modu- lated. Every look, word, and act indicated exuberance of strength and restless energy, and heightened the effect of his manner, which was rushing and resistless. His vehemence and invective often caused him to outrun the compass of his natural voice and break into screams. "For fierce, vengeful, and irresistible assault," says a biographer, "Brougham stands the foremost man in all this world." His object was not so much to please as to hit hard. His tendency to monotony of declamation caused his enemies to call him "The Harangue." His tendency toward the theatrical in oratory is also to be condemned. At the close of the following passionate appeal he suited his action literally to the word and exhibited the bad taste of falling on his knees in the House of Lords : " I solemnly adjure you, I warn you, I implore you, yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate you, reject not this bill." And yet his advice to young speakers was to cultivate the conver- sational basis. "If you would learn to speak well," he says, "learn to talk well." Brougham's style was modeled after that of Demosthenes, though he never attained the clearness and simplicity of the HENRY BROUGHAM I15 great Athenian. He says that before writing one of his famous perorations he read and repeated Demosthenes' ora- tions for three or four weeks. While his style was affected favorably by translation and classic imitation, he indulged too much in dictionary words, involved sentences, and parentheses. He had little taste for simple Saxon English. He believed that perfection in style consisted in introducing prepared passages now and then. To this end his finest passages were written and rewritten. He says himself : "I composed the peroration of my speech for the queen, in the House of Lords, twenty times over at least." Lord Granville says of him : "When he seemed to pause in search of thoughts or words, we knew that he had a sentence ready, cut and dried." While felicitous in description, he lacked in imagination. Though rough in style, given to repetition and exaggeration, and at times lame in his reasoning, yet he was powerful and effective because of his terrific earnestness. He swept his audience by his array of facts, his abundant wit, and the force of his personality. It was essentially a spoken style, to be heard rather than read ; for by tone and inflection, by light and shade of expression, he was able to impress himself with great force and effect. One writer says of him that he "accumulates image upon image, metaphor upon metaphor, argument upon argument, till the hearer, perplexed by the multiplicity of ideas, almost loses the thread of the reasoning in the labyrinth of his periods." Goodrich, in his "British Eloquence," discusses this point as follows : "His style has a hearty freshness about it, which springs from the robust constitution of his mind and the energy of his feelings. He sometimes disgusts by his use of Latinized English, and seems never to have studied our language in the true sources of its strength — Shakespeare, Milton, and the English Bible. His greatest fault lies in the structure of his sentences. He Il6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE rarely puts forward a simple, distinct proposition. New ideas cluster around the original framework of his thoughts, and instead of throwing them into separate sentences he blends them all in one — enlarging, modifying, interlacing them together till the whole becomes perplexed and cumbersome, in the attempt to crowd an entire system of thought into a single statement. Notwithstanding these faults, however, we dwell upon his speeches with breathless interest. They are a continual strain of impassioned argument, intermingled with fearful sarcasm, withering invective, lofty declamation, and the earnest majesty of a mind which has lost every other thought in the magnitude of its theme." Few statesmen have had such diversity of gifts and such versatility of achievement. In this he much resembles our own Franklin. Both were men of letters, both were men of science, both were publicists and orators. Brougham was a great and growing force in the first half of the nineteenth century, in all that makes for good citizenship. ''He forced the fighting," says a historian, "for the abolition of degrading punishments in the army and navy ; he compelled public attention to English slaveholding and English complicity in the slave trade, until the demand for action could not be evaded ; he dared the displeasure of the Court and won the lasting enmity of the King by taking the part of the unfortu- nate Queen Caroline ; and at the same time he was experi- menting in optics, studying mathematics, and writing scientific papers for the English Royal Society or the French Academy of Sciences." His debates with Canning were the greatest parliamentary contests of that period. One author calls these men the "Coeur de Lion and the Saladin of the Senate, the one armed with a battle-ax, the other with a scimitar ; the one athletic and powerful, the other nimble, adroit, and a consummate master of fence." HENRY BROUGHAM 11/ Brougham's versatility is further shown in the great variety of subjects on which he spoke. In one session of Pariiament alone he made two hundred and thirty speeches. He sur- passed his contemporaries not in profoundness of learning or force of logic, but in general knowledge, in fluency, in readi- ness of attack and retort, and in his gift of wit and ridicule. It is the test of a great mind to be able to make vigorous replies to powerful attacks. Such assaults stimulated him to his best work. He was the greatest political reformer of the day and proved to be in the right, for most of his reforms were finally adopted by the British people. He has been sneered at as a lawyer, but hardly a decision of his in chancery was ever reversed. This is evidence that his place as a leading member of the "most zealous and exacting of professions was fairly won." And his prolific work as an author, espe- cially his critical and discriminative treatment of the "States- men of the time of George IV," gives him a well-deserved place among men of letters. Perhaps the most masterly of Brougham's speeches was his defense of Queen Caroline, in the House of Lords. Mathews, in his "Oratory and Orators," speaks of this as "a masterpiece of dialectical and rhetorical skill. The rank and sex of his client, the malignant and brutal tyranny of her husband, George IV, the intense interest felt by the nation in the result, the exalted character of the tribunal, the great array of hostile talent, learning, and eloquence — all conspired to call forth all the advocate's powers." Il8 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE PARLIAMENTARY REFORM This speech was delivered in the House of Lords, October 7, 1831. The bill up for discussion proposed a reapportionment of members for the House of Commons. The population of England had greatly increased. Many large cities, like Liverpool and Manchester, were without representa- tives, and some places which had one or two representatives had sunk into insignificance as far as population was concerned. These places came into the hands of the nobility of wealth, and seats were bought and sold openly. Brougham spoke for three hours on the bill "with a keenness of rebuke, a force of argument, and a boldness of declamation which secured him a respectful hearing, and extorted the confession from his adversary. Lord Lyndhurst, that a more powerful speech of the kind had never been deliv- ered in the House of Lords." I. PROPERTY QUALIFICATION I have listened, my lords, with most profound attention, to the debate on this question, which has lasted during the past five days. My noble friend proceeded altogether on a false assumption ; it was on a fiction of his own brain, on a device of his own imagi- nation, that he spoke throughout. He first assumed that the bill meant change and revolution, and on change and revolution he predicted voluminously and successfully. Practically viewed, re- garded as an argument on the question before us, it is to be wholly left out of view ; it was quite beside the matter. If this bill be change and be revolution, there is no resisting the conclusions of my noble friend. But on that point I am at issue with him ; and he begins by taking the thing in dispute for granted. I deny that this bill is change, in the bad sense of the word ; nor does it lead to, nor has it any connection with, revolution except so far as it has a direct tendency to prevent revolution. The noble earl complained that the Reform Bill shut the doors of Parliament against the eldest sons of peers, and thus deprived our successors of the best kind of political education. My lords, I freely admit the justice of his panegyric upon this constitutional training, by far the most useful which a statesman can receive; but I deny that the measure proposed will affect it, will obstruct HENRY BROUGHAM II9 the passage to the House of Commons ; it will rather clear and widen it to all who, like your Lordships' sons, ought to come. My noble friend who so admirably answered the noble earl in a speech distinguished by the most attractive eloquence, which went home to every heart, has already destroyed this topic by referring to the most notorious facts, by simply enumerating the open counties represented by peers' eldest sons. I have the happiness of know- ing a young nobleman, whom to know is highly to esteem. He sat for a nomination borough ; formed his own opinion ; decided for the bill ; differed with his family ; they excluded him from Par- liament, closing against him at least that avenue to a statesman's best education, and an heir apparent's most valued preparation for discharging the duties of the peerage. How did this worthy noble seek to reopen the door thus closed, and resume his political schooling ? He threw himself upon a large community, canvassed a populous city, and started as a candidate for the suffrages of thousands, on the only ground which was open to such solicitation — he avowed himself a friend of the bill. The borough that rejected him was Tiverton, and the place to which the ejected member resorted for the means of completing his political education in one house, that he might one day be the ornament of the other, was the great town of Liverpool. But the next argument of the noble earl brings me at once to a direct issue with him upon the great principle of the measure. The grand charge iterated by him, and reechoed by his friends, is that population, not property, is assumed by the bill as the basis of representation. Now this is a mere fallacy, and a gross fallacy. I will not call it a willful misstatement; but I will demonstrate that two perfectly different things are, in different parts of this short proposition, carefully confounded, and described under the same equivocal name. If by basis of representation is meant the ground upon which it was deemed right, by the framers of the bill, that some places should send members to Parliament and others not, then I admit that there is some foundation for the assertions ; but then it only applies to the new towns, and also it has no bearing I20 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE whatever upon the question. For the objection to taking mere population as a criterion in giving the elective franchise is, that such a criterion gives you electors without a qualification, and is, in fact, universal suffrage. And herein, my lords, consists the grievous unfairness of the statement I am sifting; it purposely mixes together different matters, and clothes them with an am- biguous covering, in order, by means of the confusion and the dis- guise, to insinuate that universal suffrage is at the root of the bill. Let us strip off this false garb. Is there in the bill anything resem- bling universal suffrage ? Is it not framed upon the very opposite principles ? I utterly deny that population is the test, and property disre- garded, in arranging the borough representation. The franchise is conferred upon householders only. Is not this a restriction ? Even if the right of voting has been given to all householders, still the suffrage would not have been universal ; it would have depended on property, not on members ; and it would have been a gross misrepresentation to call population the basis of the bill. My lords, I have admitted that there is some truth in the asser- tion of population being made the criterion of title in towns to send representatives, though it has no application to the present contro- versy. Some criterion we were forced to take ; for nobody holds that each place should choose members severally. A line must be drawn somewhere, and how could we find a better guide than population ? That is the general test of wealth, extent, importance ; and therefore substantially, though not in name, it is really the test of property. The whole foundation of the measure, therefore, and on which all its parts rest, is property alone and not at all population. My lords, I have been speaking of the manner in which owners of boroughs traffic, and exercise the right of sending members to Parliament. I have dwelt on no extreme cases ; I have adverted to what passes every day before my eyes. See now the fruits of the system, also, by every day's experience. The Crown is stripped of its just weight in the government of the country by the masters of HENRY BROUGHAM 121 rotten boroughs ; they may combine ; they do combine, and their union enables them to dictate their own terms. The people are stripped of their most precious rights by the masters of rotten bor- oughs, for they have usurped the elective franchise, and thus gained an influence in Parliament which enables them to prevent its res- toration. Their nominees must vote according to the interest not of the nation at large, whom they affect to represent, but of a few individuals, whom alone they represent in reality. But so perverted have men's minds become, by the gross abuse to which they have been long habituated, that the grand topic has been that our reform will open the right of voting to vast numbers and interfere with the monopoly of the few ; while we evade, as it is pleasantly called, the property of the peers and other borough holders. Why, say they, it absolutely amounts to representation ! And wherefore should it not, I say ? and what else ought it to be } Are we not upon the question of representation, and none other? Are we not dealing with the subject of a representative body for the people .? The ques- tion is how we may best make the people's House of Parliament represent the people ; and in answer to the plan proposed, we hear nothing but the exclamations, " Why, this scheme of yours is a rank representation ! It is downright election ! It is nothing more or less than giving the people a voice in the choice of their own representatives ! It is absolutely the most strange, unheard of, unimagined, and most abominable, intolerable, incredibly inconsist- ent and utterly pernicious novelty, that the members chosen should have electors, and f/iat the constituents should have somethifig to do with returning the members / " • 122 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE II. FULL AND FREE REPRESENTATION Brougham declares that the bill is not an innovation but a return to former principles ; that the purpose of government is to conform things to the progress of the times ; that the success of the measure lies in the char- acter and power of the middle class of Englishmen ; and that it will pre- vent the buying of seats in Parliament. Public sentiment calls for reform in the franchise. This sentiment must be met with conciliation, not con- tempt, and great benefits will accrue from its adoption. If ever I felt confident in any prediction, it is in this, that the restoration of Parliament to its legitimate office of representing truly the public opinion will overthrow the tyranny of which noble lords are so ready to complain, who, by keeping out the lawful sovereign, in truth support the usurper. Let but the country have a full and free representation, and to that will men look for the expression of public opinion, and the press will no more be able to dictate, as now, when none else can speak the sense of the people. Wifl its influence wholly cease ? God forbid ! Its just influence will continue, but confined within safe and proper bounds. It will continue, long may it continue to watch the conduct of public men, to watch the proceedings even of a reformed legis- lature, to watch the people themselves — a safe, an innoxious, a useful instrument, to enlighten and improve mankind! But its overgrown power, its assumption to speak in the name of the nation, its pretension to dictate and to command, will cease with the abuse upon which alone it is founded, and will be swept away, together with the other creatures of the same abuse, which now " fright our isle from its propriety." Will men never learn wisdom, even from their own experience ? Will they never believe till it be too late, that the surest way to prevent immoderate desires being formed, aye, and unjust demands enforced, is to grant in due season the moderate requests of jus- tice? You stand, my lords, on the brink of a great event; you are in the crisis of a whole nation's hopes and fears. An awful importance hangs over your decision. Pause, ere you plunge ! There may not be any retreat ! It behooves you to shape your HENRY BROUGHAM 1 23 conduct by the mighty occasion. They tell you not to be afraid of personal consequences in discharging your duty. I too would ask you to banish all fears ; but, above all, that most mischievous, most despicable fear, the fear of being thought afraid. We stand in a truly critical position. If we reject the bill, through fear of being thought to be intimidated, we may lead the life of retirement and quiet, but the hearts of the millions of our fellow citizens are gone forever ; thfeir affections are estranged ; we and our order and its privileges are the objects of the people's hatred, as the only obstacles which stand between them and the gratification of their most passionate desire. The whole body of the aristocracy must expect to share this fate and be exposed to feelings such as these. For I hear it constantly said that the bill is rejected by all the aristocracy. Favor, and a good number of supporters, our adversaries allow it has among the people ; the ministers, too, are for it ; but the aristocracy, say they, is strenu- ously opposed to it. I broadly deny this silly, thoughtless asser- tion. What, my lords ! the aristocracy set themselves in a mass against the people — they who sprang from the people, are sup- ported by the people, are the natural chiefs of the people ! They set themselves against the people, for whom peers are ennobled, bishops consecrated, kings anointed — the people to serve whom Parliament itself has an existence, and the monarchy and all its institutions are constituted, and without whom none of them could exist for an hour ! The assertion of unreflecting men is too monstrous to be endured. As a member of this House I deny it with indignation. I repel it with scorn, as a calumny upon us all. And yet there are those who even within these walls speak of the bill augmenting so much the strength of the democracy as to endanger the other orders of the state ; and so they charge its authors with promoting anarchy and rapine. Why, my lords, have its authors nothing to fear from democratic spoliation ? The fact is, that there are members of the present cabinet who possess, one or two of them alone, far more property than any two admin- istrations within my recollection; and all of them have ample 124 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE wealth. I need hardly say I include not myself, who have little or none. But even of myself I will say, that whatever I have depends upon the stability of existing institutions, and it is as dear to me as the princely possessions of any among us. My lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot look with- out dismay at the rejection of the measure. But grievous as may be the consequences of a temporary defeat, temporary it can only be, for its ultimate, and even speedy success, is certain. Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be per- suaded that even if the present ministers were driven from the helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which sur- round you without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circumstances far less auspicious. Under them, you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which the one we now proffer you is moderate indeed. What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well, that, as sure as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace ; nor can you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went be- fore you, if you persevere in your utterly abominable husbandry, of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion. But among the awful considerations that now bow down my mind, there is one that stands preeminent above the rest. You are the highest judicature in the realm ; you sit here as judges, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal. It is a judge's first duty never to pronounce sentence in the most trifling case without hearing. Will you make this an exception } Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty cause upon which a nation's hopes and fears hang? You are. Then beware your decision ! Rouse not, I beseech you, a peace-loving, but a resolute people ; alienate not from your body the affections of a whole empire. As your friend, as the friend of my order, as HENRY BROUGHAM I25 a friend of my country, as the faithful servant of my Sovereign, I counsel you to assist with your uttermost efforts in preserving the peace and upholding and perpetuating the Constitution. There- fore I pray and exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear ; by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you, I wsLvn you, I implore you — yea, on my bended knees, I sup- plicate you — reject not this bill ! JOHN BRIGHT John Bright (i8i 1-1889) came of sturdy Quaker ancestry. His education in the schools was neither thorough nor com- prehensive. He knew Httle of the classics. His school life at Ackworth and^ Newton acad- emies ended when he was fifteen years of age. But though he was actively en- gaged with his father in the cotton mills of Rochdale, he spent his evenings in dili- gent study for many years. History, biography, and Eng- lish literature, especially po- etry, were his favorite studies. He knew Shakespeare, Mil- ton, and the Bible almost by heart. This accounts in great measure for the purity and the simplicity of his diction. Untiring industry in private study, quick intelligence, and a great faculty of observation made him one of the best in- formed men of England. John Bright is an example of what can be accomplished in public speaking by the most persistent and determined practice of the art. His first public speech, at the age of nineteen, on the subject of temperance, was not a success. He was nervous and excited, and though intensely interested in 126 JOHN BRIGHT \2J his subject, he knew not what to say. He worried through it and sat down in confusion. He then and there determined that he would master himself and learn how to express his thoughts with more force and effect. To this end he organized a literary and philosophical society in Rochdale, and in the discussions that came up, having carefully prepared himself, he learned by degrees to say with some credit to himself what was in his mind. At the age of twenty-one he made another speech before a Bible society, which quite carried away his audience. He had carefully written his speech, elaborated it, and committed it to memory. But the effort did not please him. When con- gratulated by a clergyman who was present to address the same meeting, he said that such efforts ''cost him too dearly," and asked the clergyman how it was that he spoke so easily. He was advised ''not to burden the memory too much, but, having carefully prepared and committed portions where spe- cial effort was desired, merely to put down other things in the desired order, leaving the wording of them to the moment." That was Bright's first lesson in public speaking. After a few years of writing and committing he adopted essentially the plan of his friend and followed it through life. On being asked in regard to his method of preparation he said : "Not for more than thirty years have I been in the habit of writing out my speeches. The labor of writing is bad enough, and the labor of committing to memory would be intolerable ; and speeches read to a meeting are not likely to be received with much favor. It is enough to think over what is to be said, and to form an outline in a few brief notes. But first of all a real knowledge of the subject is required ; with that, practice should make speaking easy." At another time he said : "If you mean to speak, first know what you are going to say ; the next point is to speak very deliberately ; every word, in fact 128 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE every syllable, should be expressed. If you do this, and if you have matter worth listening to, you will be listened to, and you will acquire a confidence and ease you will not acquire in any other way." It was his effort to be logical and full of ideas, and his habit of shaping his points by conversation with friends on the ideas he held, that made his speeches both acceptable and practical in governmental affairs and made him one of the most useful of legislators. It should be noted that while the body of his argument was freely extemporized, his perorations were very carefully prepared, sometimes written and rewritten before they were satisfactory to him. Bright's style of oratory was characterized by energy and elegance. He believed in using the English of, the common people. His use of the Anglo-Saxon, the language of the plain folks, has caused him to be called "the master of monosyllables," His diction is clear, forcible, even bold and picturesque. His taste in the choice of words is infallible. Few public men possessed a style of address more to be desired by the student of oratory. Gladstone called him "one of the chief guardians of the purity of the English tongue." There was no superfluous ornament. He never gushed. His exposition was clear and persuasive, his illustrations homely, and his argument direct and convincing. Charles Kendall Adams speaks of him as the "most eloquent of the English Liberals." And Lord Salisbury once said : "He was the greatest master of English oratory that this generation — I may say several generations back — has produced. I have met men who have heard Pitt and Fox, and in whose judg- ment their eloquence, at the best, was inferior to the finest efforts of John Bright." His method of delivery was direct and earnest. Passages of poetry or other literature which he introduced in his speeches were quoted with exquisite expression. His rich and powerful JOHN BRIGHT 129 voice, his graceful and appropriate action, his dignified and commanding manner, added a charm to his every utterance. He spoke rarely, but was listened to with profound interest. Opponents never questioned his integrity. His well-known honesty of purpose, his candor and sincerity, his fondness for doing good, helped him to accomplish much for the people and made his appeals all-persuasive in Commons. The honest tenets of his faith stamped alike his lifd and his oratory. ''Be just and fear not " was a maxim that made " Honest John Bright," as he was called, never flinch in his support of what he believed to be a righteous cause. His advocacy of the repeal of the obnoxious Corn Laws brought him into prominence and gave him a seat in Commons. For years he anci Cobden had been the leaders of the agitation, and when the sentiment had reached its height and he was on the eve of a trium- phant election to Parliament, he made this eloquent peroration : "There have been convulsions of a most dire character, which have overturned old established monarchies and have hurled thrones and scepters to the dust. There have been revolutions which have brought down most powerful aristocracies, and swept them from the face of the earth forever. But never was there a revolution yet which destroyed the people. And whatever may come as a consequence of the state of things in this country, of this we may rest assured, that the common people, that the great bulk of our countrymen, will remain and survive the shock, though it may be that the crown and the aristocracy and the church may be leveled with the dust, and rise no more. We have a right to clamor ; and so long as I have breath, so long as I have physical power, so long as I have intellect, and so long as I have memory and voice to express opinion, so long will I clamor against the oppression which I see to exist, and in favor of the rights of the great body of the people." I30 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Another evidence of his independence of thought and his courage is shown in his opposition to the war against Russia in Crimea, when he stood almost alone against the war party in Commons and uttered a solemn warning which all Eng- lishmen now feel should have been heeded : *' Even if I were alone, if my voice were the solitary one raised amid the din of arms and the clamors of a venal press, I should have the priceless consolation that I have never uttered one word that could promote the squandering of my country's treasure or the spilling of one single drop of my country's blood." Equally courageous and quite alone was Bright in his oppo- sition to the measure looking to the recognition of the South- ern Confederacy : ''No war in two hundred years has been just and necessary but the war to sustain the Union." '' I am one in this audience and one in the citizenship of this country, but if all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak for that policy which gives hope to the bondmen of the South, and which tends to generous thoughts, and generous words, and generous deeds between the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their origin are alike entitled to the English name." John Bright had an attractive personality and possessed in a high degree the physical qualifications of the orator. He was of medium height, rather stout, with a healthy, ruddy complexion, a full open face, and a mouth and chin expressive of great firmness. He had a broad head, a moderately high forehead, brown hair, and deep blue eyes that were penetrating and kindly and full of moral earnestness. His fine presence, his genial but determined manner, his sympathy with humanity, and his responsiveness to noble and generous impulses gave him, in a marked degree, what may be called the oratorical temperament. Furthermore, he was thoroughly independent in his acts. No one ever accused him of partisanship. The JOHN BRIGHT I3I most renowned of Quakers, yet he was morally the most pugnacious of statesmen, determined to the point of stub- bornness. Retorts and ridicule could not move him. He raised the tone of politics because the politicians were too eager for his good opinion to risk his determined opposition. The soundness of his views, the depth of his conviction, the honesty of his purposes, animated as they were by a grand will, furnished the spirit of his eloquence. A prophetic statesman, everything he advocated was carried through or is about to be. "By intuition he saw the thing which ought to be, and in the face of current opinion he set about the work of having it done, and no statesman has made fewer mistakes or won more distinguished or beneficent success." What shall be said of his character and influence ? Trained in the simple ways and godliness of the Quakers, unostenta- tious in manner, with the golden rule as his law, no one, not even Mr. Gladstone, exercised a greater and steadier influ- ence in popular opinion. Free from the taint of selfishness or deceit, fond of being helpful, he devoted his life to the im- provement of the laboring classes and to the advancement of the poor and the oppressed. Gladstone thus eloquently speaks of his most distinguished colleague : ''The character of the man lies deeper than his intellect, deeper than his eloquence, deeper than anything that can be described or placed upon the surface ; and the supreme eulogy I apprehend to be his due is this : that he lifted political life to a higher elevation and a loftier standard, and that he has thereby bequeathed to his country the character of a statesman who can be made the subject not only of admiration, and not only of gratitude, but even what I do not exaggerate in calling, as it has been well called already by one of his admirers, the object of a rever- ential contemplation." 132 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE FREE TRADE This speech was delivered in Covent Garden Theater, London, Decem- ber 19, 1845. There was in progress a great agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. The Anti-Corn-Law League had held many mass meetings in London and throughout England in the chief commercial centers. Bright was the most prominent advocate of free trade. It was at one of the great London meetings, just after the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, that the following speech was delivered. I. THE ODIOUS CORN LAWS Within the last fifty years trade has done much for the people of England. Our population has greatly increased ; our villages have become towns, and our small towns large cities. The con- temned class of manufacturers and traders assumed another and a very different position, and the great proprietors of the soil now find that there are other men and interests to be consulted in this kingdom besides those of whom they have taken such great care through the legislation which they have controlled. In the varying fortunes of this contest we have already seen one feeble and attenuated administration overthrown, and now see another, which every man thought powerful and robust, prostrate in the dust. It is worth while that the people, and that statesmen, should regard this result, and learn from it a lesson. What was it that brought the Whig government down in 1841, and what was it that has brought down Sir Robert Peel now ? Have not we good grounds for asserting that the Com Law makes it impossible for any party longer to govern England during its continuance ? No statesman dare now take ofhce upon the understanding that he is to main- tain the system which the Protectionists have asserted to be a fundamental principle in the Constitution of the kingdom. We have heard that the Whig government left the country in great distress, and its financial affairs in much embarrassment. But no one has ever pointed out the particular acts of that government which made the revenue deficient. It was not the taking off of taxes injudiciously — it was not a more than ordinarily extravagant JOHN BRIGHT 133 expenditure of the public funds which produced that effect ; but it was the collapse of the national industry — it was the failure of the sources whence flow the prosperity of our trade, a calamity which arose from deficient harvests, those deficient harvests being destruc- tive to our trade and industry ; because the Corn Law denied to us the power of repairing the mischief by means of foreign supplies. Great landed proprietors may fancy that trade is of small importance ; but of this we are at present assured, that no government can main- tain its popularity or keep up its power so long as we have defi- cient harvests and restrictions on the importation of foreign food. Under such a state of things, how is social order to be pre- served ? When prices are high the revenue invariably declines, and higher taxes must be imposed ; general discontent prevails, because there is general suffering; and the government, whatever be its party name, or however numerous may be its supporters in either House of Parliament, must, under these circumstances, first be- come unpopular and then finally become extinct. We are now brought to this conclusion, that the continuous government of this country by any administration is totally incompatible with the maintenance of the Com Laws. Sir Robert Peel, by his sudden retirement from office, has given his testimony to the fact. But there are men who deny it ; they say that they are glad the " organized hypocrisy " is at an end ; that they are delighted that " the reign of humbug is over " ; that they are astounded at the perfidy and treachery of the men whom they lifted into office. It is neither perfidy nor treachery of which they have to complain. Sir Robert Peel cannot, any more than other men, do impossibili- ties ; and it is an impossibility to govern this country with the Corn Law in existence. This contest has now been waged for seven years ; it was a serious one when commenced, but it is a far more serious one now. Since the time when we first came to London to ask the at- tention of Parliament to the question of the Corn Law, two million human beings have been added to the population of the United Kingdom. The table is here as before; the food is spread in 134 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE about the same quantity as before ; but two millions of fresh guests have arrived, and that circumstance makes the question a more serious one, both for the government and for us. These two millions are so many arguments for the Anti-Corn-Law League ; so many emphatic condemnations of the policy of this iniquitous law. I see them now in my mind's eye ranged before me, old men and young children, all looking to the government for bread ; some endeavoring to resist the stroke of famine, clamorous and turbu- lent, but still arguing with us ; some dying mute and uncomplaining.- Multitudes have died of hunger in the United Kingdom since we first asked the government to repeal the Corn Law, and although the great and powerful may not regard those who suffer mutely and die in silence, yet the recording angel will note down their patient endurance and the heavy guilt of those by whom they have been sacrificed. We have had a succession of skirmishes ; we now approach the final conflict. It may be worth while to inquire who and what are the combatants in this great battle . Looking in the columns of the newspapers, and attending, as I have attended, hundreds of meetings held to support the principles of free trade, we must conclude, that on the face of it the struggle is that of the many against the few. It is a struggle between the numbers, wealth, comforts of the middle and industrious classes, and the wealth, the union, and sordidness of a large section of the aristocracy of this empire ; and we have to decide in this great struggle whether, in this land in which we live, we will longer bear the wicked legis- lation to which we have been subjected, or whether we will make one effort to right the vessel, to keep her in her true course, and if possible to bring her safely to a secure haven. Our object can only be that we should have good and impartial government for everybody. As the whole people, we can by no possibility have the smallest interest in any partial or unjust legislation ; we do not wish to sacrifice any right of the richest or most powerful class, but we are resolved that that class shall not sacrifice the rights of a whole people. JOHN BRIGHT 135 We have had landlord rule longer, far longer than the life of the oldest man in this vast assembly, and I would ask you to look at the results of that rule, and then decide whether it be not necessary to interpose some check to the extravagance of such legislation. Abroad, the history of our country is the history of war and rapine; at home, of debt, taxes, and rapine too. In all the greatest contests in which we have been engaged we have found that the ruling class have taken all the honors, while the •people have taken all the scars. No sooner was the country freed from the horrible contest which was so long carried on with the powers of Europe, than this law, by their partial legislation, was enacted — far more hostile to British interests than any combination of foreign powers has ever proved ; they pray daily that in their legislation they may discard all private ends and partial affections, and after prayers they sit down to make a law for the purpose of extorting from all the consumers of food a higher price than it is worth, that the extra price may find its way into the pockets of the proprietors of land, these proprietors being the very men by whom this infamous law is sustained. n. PROTECTION A SOURCE OF PAUPERISM Mr. Bright accuses the hereditary classes of great inequaUty of legisla- tion. They " deal leniently with high gaming," and enact laws for the preservation of wild animals for their own sport in shooting. They pull down small houses on their estates that the number of population may be thinned. These poor people are driven to the cities for subsistence or to America for refuge. It is class legislation and favoritism not to be toler- ated by a free people. You have seen in the papers, within the last fortnight, that the foul and frightful crime of incendiarism has again appeared. It always shows itself when we have had for some short time a high price of bread. The Com Law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plow as it is of him who minds the loom, with this difference, that the man who follows the plow is, of the two, nearest the earth, and it takes less power to press him into it. 136 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Now what is the condition of this agricultural laborer, for whom they tell us protection is necessary ? He lives in a parish whose owner, it may be, has deeply mortgaged it. The estate is let to farmers without capital whose land grows almost as much rushes as wheat. The bad cultivation of the land provides scarcely any employment for the laborers, who become more and more numer- ous in the parish ; the competition which there is amongst these laborers for the litde employment to be had, bringing down the wages to the very lowest point at which their lives can be kept in them. They are heart-broken, spirit-broken, despairing men. They have been accustomed to this from their youth, and they see noth- ing in the future which affords a single ray of hope. If there be one view of this question which stimulates me to harder work in this case than another, it is the fearful sufferings which I know to exist amongst the rural laborers in almost every part of this kingdom. How can they be men under the circum- stances in which they live ? During the period of their growing up to manhood, they are employed at odd jobs about the farm or the farmyard, for wages which are merely those of little children in Lancashire. Every man who marries is considered an enemy to the parish ; every child who is born into the world, instead of being a subject of rejoicing to its parents and the community, is considered as an intruder come to compete for the little work and the small quantity of food which is left to the population. And then comes toil, year after year, long years of labor, with little remuneration. But the crowning offense of the system of legislation under which we have been living is, that a law has been enacted in which it is altogether unavoidable that these industrious and de- serving men should be brought down to so helpless and despairing a condition. By withdrawing the stimulus of competition, the law prevents the good cultivation of the land of our country, and there- fore diminishes the supply of food which we might derive from it. It prevents, at the same time, the importation of foreign food from abroad, and it also prevents the growth of supplies abroad, so that when we are forced to go there for them they are not to be found. JOHN BRIGHT 1 37 The law is, in fact, a law of the most ingeniously malignant charac- ter. It is fenced about in every possible way. The most demoniacal ingenuity could not have invented a scheme more calculated to bring millions of the working classes of this country to a state of pauperism, suffering, discontent, and insubordination than the Corn Law which we are now opposing. This law is the parent of many of those grievous fluctuations in trade under which so much suffering is created in this commercial kingdom. There is a period coming — it may be as bad or worse than the last — when many a man, now feeling himself independent and comfortable in his circumstances, will find himself swept away by a torrent and his goodly ship made a complete wreck. Capital avails almost nothing; fluctuations in trade we have, such as no prudence can guard against. We are in despair one year, and in a state of great excitement in the next. At one time ruin stares us in the face, at another we fancy that we are getting rich in a moment. Not only is trade sacrificed, but the moral character of the country is injured by the violent fluctuations created by this law. And now have we a scarcity coming or not? They say that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and that a famine foretold never comes. And so this famine could not have come if the moment we saw it to be coming we had had power to relieve our- selves by supplies of food from abroad. The reason why a famine foretold never comes, is because when it is foreseen and foretold, men prepare for it, and thus it never comes. But here, though it has been both foreseen and foretold, there is a law passed by a paternal legislature, remaining on the statute book, which says to twenty-seven millions of people, " Scramble for what there is, and if the poorest and the weakest starve, foreign supplies shall not come in for fear some injury should be done to the mortgaged landowners." Two centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the people. That assumption was 138 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE resisted. This fair island became a battlefield, the kingdom was con- vulsed, and an ancient throne overturned. And if our forefathers two hundred years ago resisted that attempt, if they refused to be bondmen of a king, shall we be the bom thralls of an aristoc- racy like ours ? Shall we who struck the lion down, shall we pay the wolf homage ? or shall we not, by a manly and united expression of public opinion, at once and forever put an end to this giant wrong ? Our case is at least as good as theirs. We stand on higher vantage ground ; we have large numbers at our back ; we have more of wealth, intelligence, union, and knowledge of the political rights and the true interests of the country ; and, what is more than all this, we have a weapon, a power, and machinery, which is a thousand times better than that of force, were it employed ' — I re- fer to the registration, for that is the great constitutional weapon which we intend to wield, and by means of which we are sure to conquer, our laurels being gained, not in bloody fields, but upon the hustings and in the registration courts. Now I hope that if this law be repealed within the next six months, and if it should then be necessary that this League should disperse, I trust that the people of England will tear in mind how great a panic has been created among the monopolist rulers by this small weapon, which we have discovered hid in the Reform Act and in the Constitution of the country. I would implore the middle and working classes to regard it as the portal of their deliverance, as the strong and irre- sistible weapon before which the domination of this hereditary peerage must at length be laid in the dust. JOHN BRIGHT 139 DEFENSE OF CANADA This speech was delivered in the House of Commons, March 13, 1865. Mr. Bright, the stanch friend* of America and the eloquent advocate of peace, can see no reason why the government of the United States should desire to molest Canada unless forced to do so by the hostile attitude of England. He believes that these two peoples of common language and origin should " march abreast " and ever be the " guardians of freedom and justice." I hope the debate on the defense of Canada will be useful, though I am obliged to say that I think it is one of some delicacy. Its importance is great, because it refers to the possibility of a war with the United States, and its delicacy arises from this, that it is difficult to discuss the question without saying things which tend rather in the direction of war than of peace. The difficulty now before us is that there is an extensive colony or dependency of this country adjacent to the United States, and if there be a war party in the United States, that circumstance affords it a very strong temptation to enter without much hesitation into a war with England, because it feels that through Canada it can inflict a great humiliation on this country. It is perfectly well known to all intelligent men, and especially to all statesmen and public men of the United States, that there is no power whatever in this United Kingdom to defend successfully the territory of Canada against the United States. We ought to know that in order to put ourselves right upon the question, and that we may not be called upon to talk folly and to act folly. I beg leave to tell the House that there are millions of men who, by their industry, not only have created but sustained the fabric of our national power, who have had no kind of sympathy with the men whom I am condemning. They are more generous and wise. They have shown that magnanimity and love of free- dom are not extinct among us. If the bond of union and friend- ship between England and the United States remain unbroken, we have not to thank the wealthy and the cultivated, but the laborious millions, whom statesmen and historians too frequently I40 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE make little account of. They know something of the United States that the honorable gentlemen opposite and some on this side of the House do not know — that every man of them would be wel- come on the American continent if they chose to go there, that every right and privilege which the greatest and highest in that country enjoy would be theirs, and that every man would have given to him by the United States a free gift of one hundred and sixty acres of the most fertile land in the world. Honorable gen- tlemen may laugh, but that is a good deal to a man who has no land, and I can assure them that this Homestead Act has a great effect on the population of the north of England. I can tell them, too, that the laboring population of these counties, the artisans and the mechanics, will give you no encouragement to any policy that is intended to estrange the people of the United States from the people of the United Kingdom. But, sir, we have other securities for peace not less than these, and I find them in the character of the government and people of the American Union. The right honorable gentleman referred to what might reasonably be supposed to happen in case the rebellion was suppressed. He did not think when a nation was exhausted that it would rush rashly into a new struggle. The loss of life has been great, the loss of treasure enormous. Happily for them, it was not to keep a Bourbon on the throne of France, or to keep the Turks in Europe. It was for an object which every man can com- prehend who examines it by the light of his own intelligence and his own conscience ; and if men have given their lives and possessions for the attainment of the great end of maintaining the integrity and unity of a great country, the history of the future must be written in a different spirit from the history of the past, if she expresses any condemnation of that temper. But Mr. Lincoln is President of the United States now for the second term ; he was elected exclusively at first by what was termed the Republican party, and he has been elected now by what may be called the great Union party of the nation. But Mr. Lincoln's party has always been for peace. That party in the North has never carried "on any war of JOHN BRIGHT 141 aggression, and has never desired one. Now, speaking only of the North, of the free states, let the House remember that landed property, and indeed property of all kinds, is more universally diffused there than in any other nation, and that instruction and school education are also more widely diffused. Well, I say they have never hitherto carried on a war for aggression or for venge- ance, and I believe they will not begin one now. Canada is, indeed, a tempting bait. The noble lord agrees that it is a very tempting bait, not for purposes of annexation, but of humiliating this coun- try. It is admitted that once at war with the United States for any cause, Canada cannot be defended by any power on land or at sea which this country could raise or spare for that purpose. My honorable friend referred to a point which, I suppose, has really been the cause of this debate, and that was the temper of the United States in making some demands upon our gov- ernment. Well, 1 asked a question the other evening, whether we had not claims upon them. If any man has a right to go to law with another, he is obliged to go into court and the case must be heard before the proper tribunal. And why should it not be so between two great nations and two free governments ? If one has claims against the other, nothing can be more fair than that those claims should be courteously and honestly considered. It is quite absurd to suppose that the English government and the government at Washington could have a question about half a million of money which they could not setde. I think the noble lord considers it a question of honor. But all questions of prop- erty are questions of law, and you go to a lawyer to settle them. I rest in the most perfect security that as the war in America draws to a close, if happily we shall become more generous to them, they will become less irritated against us ; and when pas- sions have cooled down, I don't see why Lord Russell and Mr. Seward should not be able to setde these matters between the two nations. I have only one more observation to make. I apprehend that the root of all the unfortunate circumstances that have arisen 142 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE is a feeling of jealousy which we have cherished with regard to the American Union. It was very much shown at the beginning of this war, when an honofable member whom I will not name, for he would not like it now, spoke of " the bursting of the bubble republic." Well, I recollect that Lord John Russell turned round and rebuked him in language worthy of his name, character, and position. I beg to tell that gentleman and any one else who talks about bubble republics that I have a great suspicion that a great many bubbles will burst before that bubble bursts. Why should we fear a great nation on the American continent? Some fear that a great nation would be arrogant and aggressive. But that does not at all follow. It does not depend altogether upon the size of a nation, but upon its qualities, and upon the intelligence, instruction, and morals of its people. You fancy that the supremacy of the sea will pass away from you. Well, if the supremacy of the sea excites the arrogance of this country, the sooner it becomes obsolete the better. I don't believe it to be for the advantage of this country or of any other that any one nation should pride itself upon what it terms the supremacy of the sea, and I hope the time is come when we shall find that law and justice shall guide the councils and direct the policy of the Christian nations of the world. WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE William Ewart Gladstone (i 809-1 898) was a man of broad and liberal training. He attended a private school until he was twelve years old, when he was sent to Eton. After finishing his course there he spent two years with a private tutor and entered Oxford, where he re- mained four years. He not only completed his studies with credit, but secured the highest hon- ors in two departments of study, classics and mathe- matics, a thing almost un- precedented in the history of Oxford. An indefatigable stu- dent, he not only pursued his regular college work but devoted his leisure hours to literature, history, and finance. Even while at Eton he began to contribute to magazines. He early made it a duty to cultivate his varied intellectual powers, especially his power of expression with the pen. He became a sound classical scholar, an accurate thinker, a thorough student of ecclesi- astic history and of the faith and doctrines of Christianity, so that later in his career he contributed many learned articles on religious faith and tenets. 143 144 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE During his early years in Parliament he took up the study of law and kept his course for several terms at Lincoln's Inn. But he was never admitted to the bar, as he was too much engrossed with affairs of state to give time to the practice of law. The training which bore particularly on his oratory was his work in the Oxford Union, a debating society composed of students interested in discussing public questions. These opportunities were attractive to him, and his remarkable talents as a debater soon made him a conspicuous member of that organization. It was his persistency in informing him- self on public questions and upholding his views in the Union with spirit and logical skill that developed him so rationally and so rapidly for his duties in Parliament ; so that when he entered the House he soon made a name for himself for his thoughtfulness, his energy, and his skill in presenting his arguments. He was also much profited by his early association with George Canning, the great parliamentarian and orator, who was a close friend of his father, and other men of literary fame whose skill in oratory and debate and whose many hints on the subject affected most favorably the mobile nature of young Gladstone. He himself explains what he believes to be the best preparatory training for one who would succeed in oratory, and which he carried out to the letter, in the following terse language : " The first requisite is a wide and thorough general education. Second, the habit of constant and search- ing reflection on the subject of any proposed discourse. Such reflection will naturally clothe itself, and of the phrases it supplies many will spontaneously rise to the lips. It is on these that I should advise the young principally to rely." In personal appearance Gladstone was very attractive. He was over six feet in height, with a commanding, erect figm-e, a large, well-poised head, and ample chest. His eyes were WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 145 gray and his brows dark and prominent, and his inteUigent, expressive countenance, though sometimes severe, generally wore a pleasing expression. No one who ever saw him can forget his erect form with its quick, strong step. He was temperate in habits and kept himself in physical condition by regular, active exercise in the open air. A brisk walk of ten or twenty miles was a small matter to him, and the decaying trees on his estate at Hawarden yielded to the swing of his ax as he felled them and turned them into firewood. His power as an orator was a great delight to his waiting audiences. His command of language was remarkable. Copi- ousness and readiness of speech, versatility and grace of diction, were never wanting. Dr. James M. Buckley calls him *' the most wonderful extemporizer of the modern English- speaking world." He would hold an audience for hours while he extemporized on finance or diplomatic relations. Few may be said to be his peers in power of statement and exposition. Though sometimes wordy in expression, with a tendency to use long words where short Anglo-Saxon ones would better hit the mark, yet he weighted his every utterance with thought and feeling. Some of his sentences are nearly a page in length. With their parentheses and saving clauses it is hard sometimes to keep in mind the subject of the sentence. His fondness for Latin and Greek derivatives, his long words and almost interminable sentences, seem to us to-day to be his chief faults of style. On this account hfs speeches, to read them, do not compare in effectiveness and incisiveness with those of John Bright, his great contemporary and friend. But Gladstone's great charm was in his immediate personal influence upon his audience. Not only was he fluent and versatile, but he was very earnest in the delivery of his thought, with that warmth of disposition, that blood-earnestness, that sensitive sympathy between the speaker and his audience so 146 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE necessary to the best eloquence. When he first began speak- ing he stood for a while with his hands behind him, but as he warmed to his theme he released them and used them, in varied and energetic action, to enforce his thought. His whole body spoke, and he was magnetic even in repose. His voice was a baritone, now low and soft, now full and clear, now strong and powerful. Its varied melody and direct- ness of inflection were a constant pleasure to the ear. When he was thoroughly aroused his slow and carefully accentuated tones marked the heat of his passion and his self-restraint ; '' a man all but mastered by his excitement, but who at the very point of being mastered masters himself, apparently cool while he is at a white heat, so as to make the audience glow with fire." Yet under intense excitement his voice remained firm and strong and apparently insensible to fatigue during his speeches, even in his old age. The intense interest shown by his audiences is evidence of the great weight of his personality and his persuasiveness. On the occasion of his first budget speech after his election to the premiership, it is said that ''expectation stood on tiptoe, the House was crowded in every part, and it remained crowded and tireless, while for the space of five hours Mr. Gladstone poured forth a flood of oratory which made arithmetic aston- ishingly easy and gave an unaccustomed grace to statistics. Merely as an oratorical display the speech was a rare treat to the crowded assembly that heard it, and to the innumerable company which some hours later read it. But the form was rendered doubly enchanting by the substance. It was clear that Mr. Gladstone could not only adorn the exposition of finance with the -gifts of oratory, but he could control the developments of finance with a master hand." What is said of this speech may be said of other great speeches. Whenever it was expected he would speak on an WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE I47 important question, the Commons was crowded to its fullest capacity and great numbers would be immediately outside, anxious to be informed of the course of events. His speeches, like Webster's, are permanent literature — the best part of his authorship. He appealed to the higher and better part of men's nature. Because of his disposition to be candid and fair he was highly respected by all parties. He inspired men, and because of his open-mindedness and freedom from ignoble motives he was listened to with the profoundest respect and attention. On this account he could sway a hostile audience as could few men of the last century. Redmond called him the " greatest of English orators and the last." He must be set down as one of the ablest debaters and most commanding personalities that ever spoke in Parliament. On every measure of importance his voice was awaited by the people. ''What will Gladstone say .'' " was the word. One of his most powerful and impressive addresses was on the Reform Bill of 1866, which he closes with the following significant prophecy in regard to the extension of the suffrage : '' You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or disturb — those great social forces are against you. They are marshaled on our side, and the banner which we now carry in this fight, though perhaps at some moment it may drop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again will float in the eye of heaven and will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of the three kingdoms, per- haps not to an easy but to a certain and not far-distant victory." If one were asked, on hearing of the death of Gladstone, who in all this world exercised the greatest influence during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the answer would be with hardly a dissenting voice, William E. Gladstone. 148 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE John Bright, the only Enghshman of the same period who may be ranked with him in eloquence and influence, exclaims of Gladstone, '' Who is there in the House of Commons who equals him in knowledge of all political questions ? Who equals him in earnestness ? Who equals him in eloquence ? Who equals him in courage and fidelity to his convictions?" Another speaks of him as a "unique figure in the world's history and progress ; a man of unsullied reputation, of lofty impulses, a master of eloquence, an earnest defender of Chris- tianity, one of the great leaders of the nineteenth century." None who knew him ever judged him to be an ordinary man. He was the trusted representative of the English people for four decades, a man of lofty ideals, integrity of purpose and moral force, and withal a deeply religious man ; a prime minister under whose influence more laws took shape than under the administration of any other minister. With cease- less activity and undaunted courage he entered the public service and devoted himself entirely and unselfishly to the welfare of the people of the British Empire. But his efforts toward the uplifting of humanity were not confined to the British people. His hatred of cruelty and oppression made him enter the lists against the foes of the common people of Italy, and even after he had retired from active public service, his appeal in behalf of the people of Armenia and his philippic against the "Unspeakable Turk" stirred the hearts of England and the world, and, perhaps more than any other one influence, caused the Sultan to relax his cruelties in Armenia. Gladstone's chief speeches as they are preserved to us are as follows : "The Error of English Colonial Aggrandizement " (1865), "Disestablishment of the Irish Church" (1869), " Domestic and Foreign Affairs " {1879), " Home Rule and Autonomy" (1886), " The Armenian Massacres" (1896). WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 149 DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS This speech was delivered at West Calder, November 27, 1879. It was the third made by Mr. Gladstone during his famous Midlothian canvass, extending from November 24 to December 9. He attacked the policy of Lord Beaconsfield with so much vigor that it was a prime factor in return- ing the Liberal party to power the next year. I. AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS Yesterday I ventured to state a number of matters connected with the state of legislation, in which it appears to me to be of vital importance, both to the agricultural interest and to the entire com- munity, that the occupiers and cultivators of the land of this coun- try should be relieved from restraints under the operation of which they now suffer considerably. Beyond those two great heads, gen- tlemen, what you have to look to, I believe, is your own energy, your own energy of thought and action, and your care not to under- take to pay rents greater than, in reasonable calculation, you think you can afford. There are some gentlemen, and there are persons for whom I for one have very great respect, who think that the difficulties of our agriculture may be got over by a fundamental change in the landholding system of this country. I do not mean, now pray ob- serve, a change as to the law of entail and setdement, but I mean those who think that if you can cut up the land, or a large part of it, into a multitude of small properties, that of itself will solve the difficulty and start everybody on a career of prosperity. Now, gentlemen, to a proposal of that kind, I, for one, am not going to object upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with the privileges of landed proprietors. In my opinion, if it is known to be for the welfare of the community at large, the legislature is perfectly en tided to buy out the landed proprietors. It is not in- tended probably to confiscate the property of a landed proprietor more than the property of any other man ; but the state is per- fecdy entitled, if it please, to buy out the landed proprietors as it may think fit, for the purpose of dividing the property into small I50 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE lots. I do not wish to recommend it, because I will show you the doubts that, to my mind, hang about that proposal; but I admit that on principle no objection can be taken. Those persons who possess large portions of the spaces of the earth are not altogether in the same position as the possessors of mere personality ; that personality does not impose the same limitations upon the action and industry of man, and upon the well-being of the community, as does the possession of land, and, therefore, I freely own that compulsory expropriation is a thing which for an adequate public object is in itself admissible and so far sound in principle. Now, gentlemen, this idea about small proprietors, however, is one which very large bodies and parties in this country treat with the utmost contempt. But it is fair that justice should be done to what is called the peasant proprietary. Peasant proprietary is an excellent thing, if it can be had, in many points of view. It inter- ests an enormous number of the people in the soil of the country, and in the stability of its institutions and its laws* But now look at the effect that it has upon the progressive value of the land. What will you think when I tell you that the agricultural value of France — the taxable income derived from the land, and therefore the income of the proprietors of that land — has advanced during our lifetime far more rapidly than that of England .'' While the agricultural income of France increased forty per cent in thirteen years, the agricultural income of England increased twenty per cent in thirty-four years. The increase in France was three per cent per annum ; the increase in England was about one half or three fifths per cent per annum. Now, gentlemen, I wish this justice to be done to a system where peasant proprietary prevails. It is of great importance. And will you allow me, you who are Scotch agriculturists, to assure you that I speak to you not only with the respect which is due from a candidate to a constituency, but with the deference which is due from a man knowing very little of agri- cultural matters to those who know a great deal ? And there is one point at which the considerations that I have been opening up, and this rapid increase of the value of the soil in France, bear upon WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 151 our discussions. Let me try to explain it. I believe myself that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the distribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those economic laws will allow it to remain cut up into a multitude of small properties like the small properties of France. As to small holdings, I am one of those who attach the utmost value to them. What do the peasant properties mean ? They mean what, in France, is called the small cultivation, cultivation of superior arti- cles, pursued upon a small scale, cultivation of flowers, cultiva- tion of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every kind, and all that which rises above the ordinary character of farming prod- uce, and rather approaches the produce of the gardener. But I now come to the region of what I have presumed to call quack remedies. There is a quack remedy which is called reci- procity. Let me test, gentlemen, the efficacy of this quack remedy for your agricultural pressure, and general distress. Pray watch its operation ; pray note what is said by the advocates of reci- procity. They always say. We are the soundest and best free traders. We recommend reciprocity because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade. At present America imposes enormous duties upon our cotton goods and upon our iron goods. Put reciprocity into play, and America will become a free-trading country. Very well, gentlemen, how would that operate upon you agriculturists in particular ? Why, it would operate thus : If your condition is to be regretted in certain particulars, and capable of amendment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condi- tion of the American agriculturist. It has been very well said, and very truly said, — though it is a smart antithesis, — the American agriculturist has got to buy everything that he wants at prices which are fixed in Washington by the legislation of America, but he has got to sell everything that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool — fixed by the free competition of the world. How would you like that, gentlemen, — to have protective prices to pay for everything that you use, and at the same time to have to sell what you produce in the free and open market of the world ? 152 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE II. FOREIGN POLICY Mr. Gladstone discusses what he calls the " exploded doctrine of pro- tection." He declares that the Conservative party used it as a campaign cry, and when they got into office they threw it to the winds. He then goes on to enunciate his principles of foreign policy. Gentlemen, I will tell you what I think to be the right principles of foreign policy. The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby produc- ing two of the great elements of national power — namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which are moral elements, and to reserve the strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occa- sions abroad. Here is my principle of foreign policy — good govern- ment at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this : that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world — and especially, were it but for shame, when we recollect the sacred name we bear as Christians,' especially to the Christian nations of the world — the blessings of peace. That is my second principle. My third principle is this : even, gentlemen, when you do a good thing, you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the beneficial effect ; and if we were to make ourselves the apostles of peace in the sense of conveying to the minds of other nations that we thought ourselves more entitled to an opinion on that subject than they are, or to deny their rights — well, very likely we should destroy the whole value of our doctrines. In my opinion the third sound principle is this: to strive to cultivate and maintain, aye, to the very uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe ; to keep the powers of Europe in union together. And why ? Be- cause by keeping all in union together you neutralize, and fetter, and bind up the selfish aims of each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They are selfish aims, as, unfortunately, we in late years have too sadly shown that we, too, have had selfish aims ; but their common action is fatal to selfish aims. Common WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 1 53 action means common objetts ; and the only objects for which you can unite together the powers of Europe are objects connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen, is my third prin- ciple of foreign policy. My fourth principle is, that you should avoid needless and en- tari^ling engagements. You may boast about them, you may brag about them, you may say you are procuring consideration for the country. You may say that an Englishman can now hold up his head among the nations. You may say that he is now not in the hands of a Liberal ministry, who thought of nothing but pounds, shillings, and pence. But what does all this come to, gentlemen ? It comes to this : that you are increasing your engagements with- out increasing your strength ; and if you increase engagements with- out increasing strength, you diminish strength, you abolish strength ; you really reduce the empire and do not increase it. You render it less capable of performing its duties ; you render it an inherit- ance less precious to hand on to future generations. My fifth principle is this, gentlemen : to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another. Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more than another. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal and you have no right to set up a sys- tem under which one of them is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a Pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a mis- judging friend of your country, and in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it. I have now given you, gentlemen, five principles of foreign policy. Let me give you a sixth, and then I have done. 154 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE And that sixth is, that in my opinibn foreign policy is subject to all the limitations that I have described ; the foreign policy of England should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, thaf in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order ; the firmest foundations for the development of individual charac- ter, and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large. In the foreign policy of this country the name of Canning ever will be honored. The name of Russell ever will be honored. The name of Palmerston ever will be honored by those who recollect the erection of the kingdom of Belgium, and the union of the dis- joined provinces of Italy. It is that sympathy, not a sympathy with disorder, but, on the contrary, founded upon the deepest and most profound love of order — it is that sympathy which in my opinion ought to be the very atmosphere in which a foreign secretary of England ought to live and to move. III. NATIONAL EQUALITY Gladstone charges her Majesty's ministry with having estranged the feelings of Russia and at the same time with having aggrandized her power. He then proceeds to discuss his own policy and that of the Liberals toward foreign nations. Gentlemen, the prime minister, speaking out, has made what I think one of the most unhappy and ominous allusions ever made by a minister of this country. He quoted certain words, easily rendered as "empire and liberty" — words of a Roman statesman, words descriptive of the state of Rome — and he quoted them as words which were capable of legitimate application to the position and circumstances of England. I join the issue with the prime minister upon that subject, and I affirm that nothing can be more fundamentally unsound, more practically ruinous, than the establish- ment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy. What, WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 1 55 gentlemen, was Rome ? Rome was indeed an imperial state, — a state having a mission to subdue the worid, whose very basis it was to deny the equal rights, to prescribe the independent existence of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word "empire" was qualified with the word "liberty." But what did the two words, "liberty" and "empire" mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply this: "liberty for ourselves, empire over the rest of mankind." I do not think, gentlemen, that this ministry, or any other ministry, is going to place us in the position of Rome, What I object to is the revival of the idea. I care not how feebly, I care not even how — from a philosophic or historical point of view — how ridiculous the attempt at this revival may be. I say it indicates an intention — I say it indicates a frame of mind, and the frame of mind, unfortunately, I find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you some illustrations — the policy of denying to others the rights that we claim ourselves. No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work to do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of nations, equal, independent, each of them built up under that legiti- mate defense which public law affords to every nation, living within its own borders and seeking to perform its own affairs ; but if one thing more than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been the appearance upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in the times of ^the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal dominion. It was this aggressive dis- position on the part of Louis XIV, king of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen, freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its center, seemed to aim at a universal monarchy. It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the charge launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon ; 156 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE that under his dominion France was not content even with her extended limits, but Germany, and Italy and Spain, apparently without any limit to this pestilent and pernicious process, were to be brought under the dominion or influence of France, and national equality was to be trampled under foot and national rights denied. For that reason, England in the struggle almost exhausted herself, greatly impoverished her people, brought upon herself, and Scot- land too, the consequences of a debt that nearly crushed their energies, and poured forth their best blood without limit, in order to resist and put down these intolerable pretensions. Gentlemen, it is but in a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison lies — that the poison and the mischief lie — in the principle and not the scale. It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been compromised by the action of the ministry, and which I call upon you, and upon any who choose to hear my views, to vindicate when the day of our election comes ; I mean the sound and the sacred principle that Christendom is formed of a band of nations who are united to one another in the bonds of right ; that they are without distinction of great and small ; there is an absolute equality between them — the same sacredness defends the narrow limits of Belgium as attaches to the extended frontiers of Russia, or Germany, or France. I hold that he who by act or word brings that principle into peril .or dis- paragement, however honest his intentions may be, places himself in the position of one inflicting — I will not say intending to inflict — I ascribe nothing of the sort — but inflicting injury upon his country, and endangering the peace and all the most fundamental interests of Christian society. WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 1 57 HOME RULE FOR IRELAND The following is an extract from a speech delivered in the House of Commons, May 10, 1886. There had recently been a Parliamentary election on the issue Qf autonomy for Ireland, and the Liberal party had been re- turned to power with Gladstone at its head. In answer to accusations that he had formerly opposed this measure he declared that he had never in his life thought Home Rule "incompatible with imperial unity." Two conditions have always been absolute and indispensable with me in regard to Home Rule. In the first place, it was abso- lutely necessary that it should be shown, by marks at once une- quivocal and perfectly constitutional, to be the desire of the great mass of the population of Ireland ; and I do not hesitate to say that that condition has never been absolutely and unequivocally fulfilled, in a manner to make its fulfillment undeniable, until the occasion of the recent election. The second question is this : Is Home Rule a thing compatible or incompatible with the unity of the empire } Again and again, as may be in the recollection of Irish members, I have challenged, in this House and elsewhere, explanations upon the subject, in order that we might have clear knowledge of what it was they so veiled under the phrase, not exceptionable in itself, but still open to a multitude of interpretations. Well, that question was settled in my mind on the first night of the present session, when the honorable gentleman, the leader of what is termed the Nationalist party from Ireland, declared unequivocally that what he sought under the name of Home Rule was autonomy for Ireland. "Autonomy" is a name well known to European law and practice as importing, under a historical signification sufficiently definite for every practical pur- pose, the management and control of the affairs of the territory to which the word is applied, and as being perfectly compatible with the full maintenance of imperial unity. If any part of what I have said is open to challenge, it can be challenged by those who read my speeches, and I believe that what I have said now is the exact, literal, and absolute truth as to the state of the case. 158 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE What was the cry of those who resisted the concession of auton- omy to Canada ? It was the cry which has slept for a long time, and which has acquired vigor from sleeping, the cry of the unity of the empire. Well, sir, in my opinion the relation with Canada was one of very great danger to the unity of the empire at one time, but it was the remedy for the mischief and not the mischief itself which was regarded as dangerous to the unity of the empire. Here I contend that the cases are precisely parallel, and that there is danger to the unity of the empire in your relations with Ireland ; but, unfortunately, while you are perfectly right in raising the cry, you are applying the cry and the denunciation to the remedy, whereas you ought to apply it to the mischief. In those days what happened ? In those days, habitually in this House, the mass of the people of Canada were denounced as rebels. Some of them were Protestants and of English and Scotch birth. The majority of them were Roman Catholic and of French extraction. The French rebelled. Was that because they were of French extraction and because they were Roman Catholics ? No, sir ; for the English of Upper Canada did exactly the same thing. Well, these subjects of her Majesty rebelled, — were driven to re- bellion and were put down. We were perfectly victorious over them, and what then happened ? Direcdy the military victory was assured — as Mr. Burke told the men of -the day of the American War — the moment the military victory was assured, the political difficulty began. Did .they feel it ? They felt it ; they gave way to it. The victors were the vanquished, for if we were victors in the field we were vanquished in the arena of reason. We acknowledged that we were vanquished, and within two years gave complete autonomy to Canada. And now gentlemen have forgotten this great lesson of history. By saying that the case of Canada has no relation to the case of Ireland, I refer to that little sentence written by Sir Charles Duffy, who himself exhibits in his own person as vividly as anybody the transition from a discontented to a loyal subject. ''Canada did not get Home Rule because she was loyal and friendly, but she has become loyal and friendly because she got Home Rule." WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE I 59 Now I come to another topic, and I wish to remind you as well as I can of the definition of the precise issue which is at the present moment placed before us. In the introduction of this bill I ven- tured to say that its object was to establish, by the authority of Parliament, a legislative body to sit in Dublin for the conduct of both legislation and administration under the conditions which may be prescribed by the act defining Irish as distinctive from imperial affairs. I laid down five, and five only, essential conditions which we deemed it to be necessary to observe. The first was the mainte- nance of the unity of the empire ; the second was political equality ; the third was the equitable distribution of imperial burdens ; the fourth was the protection of minorities ; and the fifth was that the measure which we proposed to Parliament should present the es- sential character and characteristics of a settlement of the question. A question so defined for the establishment of a legislative body to have effective control of legislation and administration in Ireland for Irish affairs, and subject to those conditions about which, after all, there does not appear in principle to be much difference of opinion arnong us, — that is the question on which the House is called to give a vote, as solemn and as important as almost, per- haps, any in the long and illustrious records of its history. PATRICK HENRY Patrick Henry (i 736-1 799), the "Forest-Born Demos- thenes " of our early history, had his Uterary training in a private school in Virginia, under the personal direction of his father and his uncle, both of whom were well versed in the classics. He was trained in the English branches, and had a pretty thorough course in Latin for that time. He could read Cicero and Virgil from the Latin, and was very fond of a translation of *the writings of Livy, whose republican spirit greatly appealed to him. He was fond of history, especially that of Greece and Rome, and having a very tenacious memory, it was easy for him to remem- ber the incidents and details. But more attractive to him than literary pursuits were the haunts of nature. As a boy he would be away from home days at a time, hunting and fishing. He loved to be in the woods, on the mountains, along the streams of his native country. At such times he was deep in thought. What little he read was food for long-continued and deep reflection. In very truth, Henry was a self-made man. 160 PATRICK HENRY l6l Then, too, in his early manhood he became a great student of human nature. While clerking in a country store he had opportunity to meet and converse with those who came to trade, or to loiter about the place. It was here that he acquainted himself with the varied phases of the human in- tellect ; here he learned how to touch the springs of passion. He would tell these people stories, always to delighted lis- teners ; would get them into heated debates with one another ; would note the effect of his own humor, pathos, and argument upon them. It was a school of discussion, a practical school of public speaking, like that in which, a century later, that other '' forest-born " apostle of freedom, Abraham Lincoln, obtained his severest and best training. So deeply conversant with human nature did he become, and so fascinated with the study of men, that he once said to a friend who called his attention to certain new books, '' Read men ; they are the only volumes we can peruse to advantage." This knowledge of human nature and his ability to learn from those about him formed a great source of power in him as an orator. It was practical technique in oratory. It was conversational public speaking, the best basis of training. Patrick Henry inherited oratorical talent. His uncle on his mother's side was William Winston, one of the most brilliant and effective political speakers of the day ; and we are told that his mother was " eminently endowed with amiability, intelligence, and the fascinations of a graceful ^ .elocution." "^ Having failed as farmer and merchant, Henry, at the age of twenty-four, took to the study of law, and after a course of but six weeks was admitted to the bar. Here he found ample opportunity for development as a speaker. It was three years later that a suit known as " the Parson's Cause," in which the clergy were arrayed against the people, came up for trial. l62 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE At that time the clergy of the church of England were paid by the state, and the people were taxed for their sup- port. There was an act by which the stipend could be paid in tobacco, then a staple product of Virginia, at so much a hundred pounds. In the face of the shortage of crops in which the price of tobacco increased to three times the original value, another act was passed by which the farmers were allowed to pay their strpend either in tobacco or in money at the old rate. As this had not been sanctioned by the king, the clergy sued to have their pay in tobacco. As this would treble the salaries of the clergy, the people felt the injustice of the suit and opposed it. Henry was chosen counsel for the people. When the case came up for trial the excitement was great ; the court room was crowded to suffocation, and an immense throng crowded around the windows and doors. Henry's father was the pre- siding judge, and there were many of the clergy on the benches before him. The scene is- thus graphically described by Wil- liam Wirt : " Now came the first trial of Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commence- ment ; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other ; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others, of a very dif- ferent character. For now were developed for the first time those wonderful faculties which he possessed ; and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural trans- formation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in him. . . . The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it never before exhibited. PATRICK HENRY 163 There was a lightning in his eyes which seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and command- ing ; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which no one can give an adequate descrip- tion. . . . The mockery of the clergy was turned into alarm, their triumph into confusion and despair; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming invective they fled in precip- itation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the position he was filling, tears of ecstasy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them. . . . The people who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion, from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and in spite of his own exertions and the continued cry of ' order ' from the sheriffs and the court, bore him out of the courthouse, and raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard in triumph." The verdict for one penny damages was for the clergy, but the fact that they were denied a new trial made it a . triumph for the people, and Patrick Henry became their idol. His success in this case gave Henry a great reputation in Virginia and forced him into leadership, and at the same time it was a telling blow against the union of church and state in America. From this time on, his political advancement was rapid. No office in the gift of the people of his state was too good for him. He became a member of the House of Bur- gesses, was elected governor of Virginia, member of the federal Congress, and delegate to the constitutional con- ventions, both state and national. In all of these positions he made great use of his marvelous gift of eloquence. It was l64 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE in the Virginia convention, on March 20, 1775, that he de- livered his " Call to Arms," parts of which are so well known to every American schoolboy. The measures he advocated sent a shock of consternation through the conservative as- sembly and caused them to oppose the resolutions offered with all their power. Great was their astonishment when Henry exclaimed, " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Crom- well, and George III" — "Treason ! " called out the speaker. "Treason ! treason ! " echoed the members — " may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." Of this scene Thomas Jefferson afterwards said: "The debate was most bloody ... I well remember the cry of ' treason ' by the speaker, echoed from every part of the house against Mr. Henry. I well remember his pause, and the admirable address with which he recovered himself and baffled the charge thus vociferated." When Henry closed with the memorable words, " I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! " the effect was overwhelming. All objections were swept away and the measure was adopted. This has justly been called one of the six great triumphs in the history of American eloquence. ^ The chief characteristics of Henry's style are ruggedness and force. His fluency was unequaled, his vocabulary exten- sive. He never wearied with repetitions or by too minute analysis, but by a few master strokes won his audience to his way of thinking. He spoke logically and consistently, with little preparation, a great and almost incredible gift, found but once in scores of years. He seldom wrote. There is little of his eloquence that is authenticated, and only a few imper- fect fragments of -speeches to judge from. In diction he was simple and natural, choosing rather to use plain words than fine ones ; delicate and felicitous in his touches, apt in his images and illustrations, intent more on the strength, even PATRICK HENRY 165 the abruptness, of his blows than upon their elegance. He was essentially an extemporaneous orator, guided by a thought- ful outline of his speech. Thomas Jefferson speaks of him as possessing ''poetical fancy, sublime imagination, and over- whelming diction." And Wirt admired his "power of throw- ing his reasoning into short and clear aphorisms, which supplied in a great degree the place of method and logic ; that imagination so copious, poetic, and sublime ; the irresisti- ble power with which he caused every passion to rise at his bidding; and all the rugged might and majesty of his elo- quence.'^^ In personal appearance he was manly and impressive. He was nearly six feet in height, thin, raw-boned, and somewhat stooped. Brilliant blue eyes looked out from his shaggy eyebrows. In complexion he was dark and sallow. He was rather indolent in his general mien, and wore a grave and somber look which was heightened by a habitual contraction of the brows. His voice, though not remarkable for sweetness and melody, was wonderful in its effect. It was voluminous, wide of compass, and there was remarkable ease and variety in its inflections. Adaptable to emotion, his voice ranged from soft pathos to overwhelming rage. There was no continuous vociferation to weary the ear, but a restful variety and a clear enunciation that were soothing to the nerves. His biographers tell us that his voice never seemed fatigued. He was deliber- ate, and never so lost control of himself as to be hurried or precipitate. To this end he used pause with fine effect, not with any studied purpose but as a means of calling attention to important points. ^ His delivery ranged from the conversational to the grand and lofty. Though often awkward in his movements, he was usually dignified and temperate in action. It was the binding spell of his bright eye that so held the attention of his juries. l66 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Wirt says in regard to his gestures : "Whenever he moved his arm or his hand or even his finger, or changed the position of his body, it was always to some purpose ; nothing was inefficient, everything told ; every gesture, every attitude, every look was emphatic ; all was animation, energy, and dig- nity. The great advantage consisted in this : that various, bold, and original as was his action, it never appeared to be studied, affected, or theatrical, or ' to overstep ' in the smallest degree 'the modesty of nature' ; for he never made a gesture or assumed an attitude which did not seem imperiously de- manded by the occasion. 'V/ What shall be said of the effect of Henry's eloquence ? We have already said much on this point and have left much more to be inferred. John Randolph spoke of this orator of nature as "Shakespeare and Garrick combined." To gain his ends, he played on every passion of the human heart, on every motive, on every theme of persuasion. Such was his knowledge of men and of the human heart that he could reach the cultured and the ignorant with equal facility. "His appeals to the heart," says Magoon, "were not less forcible than were the bolts of his invective or the deductions of his argument." One of his contemporaries said of him that "in jury trials, where his wonderful powers of oratory could be brought to bear upon the motives and emotions of men, he far exceeded all his contemporaries. Over his juries he exer- cised a magnetic fascination which took their reason captive and decided the result without reference to the merits of the case." Henry was a man of high Christian character and unsullied reputation. These form the basis of statesmanship and true eloquence. His moral instincts were acute, his sentiments exalted. He believed that moral courage should constitute the true basis of oratorical success as well as of personal honor. PATRICK HENRY 167 Magoon, in his "Orators of the Revolution," says: "To think vigorously, and fearlessly to say what you think, is the only way to be effective in the use of speech. The faculty of profound and penetrating thought was a distinguishing feature in Henry's mental character, and the boldness with which he expressed his opinions at the hazard of personal convenience was equally remarkable." Henry was steadfast in purpose and thoroughly self-pos- sessed, yet sanguine and impetuous. Virginia ardor and Scotch common sense combined in happy proportion in his character. He was moody at times and fond of extremes — profound solitude or boisterous glee, deep, silent thought or great hilarity. His pleasantry, fine flow of spirits, and natural greatness of soul were sources of wide influence and personal attachment. Henry was the first great orator produced in America by the revolutionary spirit; one of the few in history "so quick in apprehension and so prompt in expression as really to be capable at all times of speaking extemporaneously and at the same time with the greatest possible effectiveness." He was not a product of solitary study and practice in the principles of oratory. He was rather a dreamer of oratorical form and expression, and was looked upon as the "orator of nature," who possessed a kind of supernatural inspiration. *'0n that account," says Wirt, " he was much more revered by the people than if he had been formed by the severest discipline of the schools ; for they considered him as bringing his creden- tials directly from heaven, and owing no part of his greatness to human institutions." Such was his effectiveness that the best-trained lawyers found it difficult to cope with him in debate or outdo him in reflections on law and equity. He exercised great influence in the affairs and destinies of the states. In the House of Burgesses he persuaded Virginia to l68 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE join the opposition to the mother country, and helped to form the colonial and afterwards the federal Union, though opposed to some features of the Constitution. His chief glory is his part in the Revolution. He gave the first great impulse to freedom, and lived to see his principles adopted. An English writer institutes this comparison of his oratory with that of Chatham : *' There was a startling discrepancy between their births, tastes, habits, and pursuits. . . . But they met in all the grand elemental points, in fire, force, energy and intrepidity, the sagacity that works by intuition, the faculty of taking in the entire subject at a glance or lighting up a whole question by a metaphor, the fondness for Saxon words, short, uninverted Saxon sentences, downright assertions, and hazardous apostrophes, — above all, in the singular tact and felicity with which their dramatic touches were brought in." THE CALL TO ARMS Taken from the speech delivered March 20, 1775, in the Virginia Convention, held in the " Old Church " at Richmond. Henry, the embodi- ment of the spirit of the Revolution, spoke as one inspired, and swept all opposition aside. Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty ? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their tempor&l salvation ? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth ; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know PATRICK HENRY 1 69 what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious srnife with which our petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir ; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation .? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love ? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purposes be not to force us to submission ? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us. They can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them ? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject ? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication ? What terms shall we find that have not been already exhausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could have been done to avert the storm that is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remon- strated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyran- nical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted, our remonstrances have pro- duced additional violence and insult, our supplications have been I/O BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve in- violate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending ; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us. They tell us, sir, that we are weak ; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger ? Will it be the next week, or the next year ? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house ? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot ? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, rand who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable, and let it come ! I repeat, sir, let it come ! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace ! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears PATRICK HENRY I /I the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al- mighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION This speech was delivered June 5, 1788, in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, called to consider the adoption of the federal Constitution. James Madison favored its adoption. Patrick Henry led the forces of the opposition. The discussion by these and other men lasted for three weeks, when a vote was taken which resulted in the adoption of the Constitution by a small majority. The following is the main speech of Patrick Henry. I. LIBERTY OR EMPIRE Mr. Chairman, I wish I were possessed of talents or possessed of anything that might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollec- tion, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licen- tiousness of the people or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism. Most of the human race are now in this deplorable condition ; and those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and splendor have! also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings they lost their freedom. My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength — an army, and the militia of the states. This is an idea extremely ridiculous ; gentlemen cannot 1/2 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE be earnest. This acquisition will trample on our fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against this fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe. Have we the means of resisting dis- ciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress ? The honorable gentleman said that great danger would ensue if the convention rose without adopting this system. I ask, Where is that danger ? I see none. Other gentle- men have told us, within these walls, that the union is gone or that the union will be gone. Is not this trifling with the judgment of their fellow citizens } Till they tell us the grounds of their fears I will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry where those dangers were. They could make no answer ; I believe I never shall have that answer. Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us there is no real danger from Europe ; that country is engaged in more arduous business. From that quarter there is no cause for fear. You may sleep in safety forever for them. Where is the danger } If, sir, there is any, I recur to the Amer- ican/spirit to defend us — that spirit which has enabled us to sur- mount the greatest difficulties. To that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destruc- tive to liberty. Let not genUemen be told that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe.? We are told there are dangers, but those dangers are ideal ; they cannot be demonstrated. To encourage us to adopt it they tell us there is a plain, easy way of getting amendments. When I come to con- template this part, I suppose that I am mad, or that my country- men are so. The way to amendment is, in my conception, shut. Let us consider this plain, easy way. It appears that three fourths of the states must ultimately agree to any amendments that may be necessary. Let us consider the consequence of this. However uncharitable it may appear, yet I must tell my opinion — that the most unworthy characters may get into power and prevent the introduction of amendments. Let us suppose — for the case is supposable, possible, and probable — that PATRICK HENRY 1 73 you happened to deal those powers to unworthy hands ; will they relinquish powers already in their possession, or agree to amendments ? Two thirds of the Congress, or of the state legis- latures, are necessary even to propose amendments. If one third of these be unworthy men, they may prevent the application for amendments ; but what is destructive and mischievous is, that three fourths of the state legislatures or of the state conventions must concur in the amendments when proposed ! In such numer- ous bodies there must necessarily be some designing, bad men. To suppose that so large a number as three fourths of the states will concur, is to suppose that they will possess genius, intelligence, and integrity, approaching the miraculous. It would indeed be miraculous that they should concur in the same amendments, or even in such as would bear some likeness to one another ; for four of the smallest states, that do not collectively contain one tenth part of the population of the United States, may obstruct the most salutary and necessary amendments. Nay, in these four states six tenths of the people may reject these amendments ; and sup- pose that amendments shall be opposed to amendments^ which is highly probable, is it possible that three fourths can ever agree to the same amendments ? A bare majority in these four small states may hinder the adoption of amendments ; so that we may fairly and justly conclude that one twentieth part of the American people may prevent the removal of the most grievous inconven- ience and oppression, by refusing to accede to amendments. A trifling minority may reject the most salutary amendments. Is this an easy mode of securing the public liberty } It is, sir, a most fearful situation when the most contemptible minority can prevent the alteration of the most oppressive government ; for it may, in many respects, prove to be such. Is this the spirit of republicanism J 174 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE II. THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY Henry fears that a minority will " prevent the good of the majority," and that a standing army will execute the " commands of tyranny," and create an empire instead of a democracy. What, sir, is the genius of democracy ? Let me read that clause of the Bill of Rights of Virginia which relates to this : " That go.v- ernment is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, pro- tection, and security of the people, nation, or the community. Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladminis- tration ; and that whenever any government shall be found inade- quate, or contrary to those purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it in such manner as shall be judged most con- ducive to the public weal." This, sir, is the language of democracy — that a majority of the community have a right to alter government when found to be op- pressive. But how different is the genius of your new Constitution from this ! How different from the sentiments of freemen, that a contemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority! If, then, gentlemen standing on this ground are come to that point, that they are willing to bind themselves and their posterity to be oppressed, I am amazed and inexpressibly astonished. If this be the opinion of the majority I must submit ; but to me, sir, it ap- pears perilous and destructive. I cannot help thinking so. If, sir, amendments are left to the twentieth or tenth part of the people of America, your liberty is gone forever. We have heard that there is a great deal of bribery practiced in the House of Commons in England, and that many of the members raise themselves to preferments by selling the rights of the whole of the people. But, sir, the tenth part of that body cannot continue oppressions on the rest of the people. English liberty is, in this case, on a firmer foundation than American liberty. It will be PATRICK HENRY 1 75 easily contrived to procure the opposition of one tenth of the people to any alteration, however judicious. The honorable gentleman who presides told us that, to prevent abuses in our government, we will assemble in convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. Oh, sir, we should have fine times indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people ! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone ; and you have no longer an aristo- cratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all ? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors cannot assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America. A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny ; and how are you to punish them ? Will you order them to be punished ? Who shall obey these orders ? Will your mace bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment ? In what situation aje we to be ? The clause before you gives a power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited ; exclusive power of legislation in all cases whatsoever for ten miles square, and over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, etc. What resistance could be made ? The attempt would be madness. You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies ; their garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Con- gress, also, in another part of this plan. They will therefore act as they think proper ; all power will be in their possession. You cannot force them to receive their punishment. Of what service would militia be to you, when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state ? As arms are to be provided by Con- gress they may or may not furnish them. If they neglect or refuse to arm or discipline our militia, they will be useless. The states can do neither, this power being exclusively given to Congress. The 176 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous ; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory. Our situation will be deplorable indeed ; nor can we ever expect to get this government amended, since I have already shown that a very small minority may prevent it, and that small minority in- terested in the continuance of the oppression* Will the oppressor let go the oppressed ? Was there ever an instance ? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single example where rulers overcharged with power willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and re- quested most earnestly ? The application for amendments will therefore be f ruidess. Sometimes the oppressed have got loose by one of those bloody struggles that desolate a country ; but a will- ing relinquishment of power is one of those things which human nature never was, nor ever will be, capable of. " When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different. Liberty was then, sir, the primary object. We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty ; our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of everything. That country is become a great, mighty, splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and founda- tion. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors ; by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolida- tion, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together. Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republican- ism. There will be no checks, no real balances in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-danc- ing, chain-ratding, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances ? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners ; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness or secure liberty.^ I PATRICK HENRY 1 7/ trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects. 'Consider our situation, sir. Go to the poor man and ask him what he does. He will inform you that he enjoys the fruits of his labor, under his own fig tree, with his wife and children around him, in peace and security. Go to every other member of society ; you will find the same tranquil ease and content ; you will find no alarms or disturbances. Why, then, tell us of danger, to terrify us into an adoption of this new form of government ? And yet who knows the dangers that this new system may produce ? They are put out of the sight of the common people, who cannot foresee latent consequences. I dread the operation of it on the middle and lower classes of people ; it is for them I fear the adoption of this system. III. THE PRESIDENT A KING Henry sees great jeopardy in the Constitution, because the President, as commander in chief of the army, may easily become king and " render himself absolute." I fear I tire the patience of the committee ; but I beg to be in- dulged with a few more observations. When I thus profess my- self an advocate for the liberty of the people, I shall be told I am a designing man, that I am to be a demagogue. But, sir, conscious rectitude outweighs those things with me. I see great jeopardy in this new government. I see none from our present one. I hope some gentleman or other will bring forth in full array those dangers, if there be any, that we may see and touch them. This Constitution is said to have beautiful features ; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me to be hor- ribly frightful. Among other deformities it has an awful squinting ; it squints toward monarchy ; and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American ? Your President may easily become king. Your Senate is so im- perfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority, and a very small minority may 178 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE continue forever unchangeably this government, although horri- bly defective. Where are your checks in this government ? Your strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies. It is on a sup- position that your American governors shall be honest that all the good qualities of this government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men ; and, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad ? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty ! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt. If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy it is for him to render himself absolute ! The army is in his hands, and if he be a man of address it will be attached to him, and it will be the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design. And, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens ? I would rather — infinitely — and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion — have a king, lords, and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his peo- ple, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them ; but the President, in the field at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the gall- ing yoke. I cannot with patience think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen : he will come at the head of his array, to carry everything before him ; or he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne ? Will not the immense differ- ence between being master of everything, and being ignominiously PATRICK HENRY 1 79 tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push ? But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him ? Can he not at the head of his army beat down every opposition ? Away with your President ! We shall have a king ! The army will salute him monarch ! Your militia will leave you and assist in making him king, and fight against you ! Arid what have you to oppose this force ? What will become of you and your rights ? Will not absolute despotism ensue ? What can be more defective than the clause concerning the elections ? The control given to Congress over the time, place, and manner of holding elections will totally destroy the end of suf- frage. The elections may be held at one place, and the most in- convenient in the state ; or they may be at remote distances from those who have a right of suffrage. Hence nine out of ten must either not vote at all or vote for strangers ; for the most influential characters will be applied to, to know who are the most proper to be chosen. I repeat, that the control of Congress over the manner of electing well warrants this idea. The natural consequence will be that this democratic branch will possess none of the public confidence ; the people will be prejudiced against representatives chosen in such an injudicious manner. The proceedings in the northern conclave will be hidden from the yeomanry of this coun- try. We are told that the yeas and nays shall be taken, and entered on the journals. This, sir, will avail nothing. It may be locked up in their chests, and concealed forever from the people ; for they are not to publish what parts they think require secrecy. They may think, and will think, the whole requires it. Another beautiful feature of this Constitution is the publication from time to time of the receipts and expenditures of the public money. This expression, from time to time, is very indefinite and indeterminate ; it may extend to a century. Grant that any of them are wicked ; they may squander the public money so as to ruin you, and yet this expression will give you no redress. I say they may ruin you ; for where is the responsibility ? The yeas and nays will show you nothing, unless they be fools as well as knaves ; for, after l8o BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE having wickedly trampled on the rights of the people, they would act like fools indeed, were they to publish and divulge their iniquity when they have it equally in their power to suppress and conceal it. Where is the responsibility — that leading principle in the British government ? In that government a punishment certain and inevi- table is provided ; but in this there is no real, actual punishment for the grossest maladministration. They may go without punish- ment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell me they will be punished. I ask, By what law ? They must make the law, for there is no existing law to do it. What ! will they make a law to punish themselves ? This, sir, is my great objection to the Constitution, that there is no true responsibility, and that the preservation of our liberty depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves. ALEXANDER HAMILTON Alexander Hamilton (i 757-1804), the great advocate, Federalist, and statesman, was of Scotch-Huguenot parentage and was a native of the island of Nevis, of the West Indies. His early schooling, which was to play so great a part in the life of one of the great leaders of the Revolution, was begun at Santa Cruz, where he learned to write and speak the French language fluently. Later he came under the tute- lage of Dr. Knox, a Presbyte- rian clerg\'man, under whose skillful training he advanced rapidly in his studies. During his employment in a count- inghouse he pursued his stud- ies still further in preparation for college. It was finally de- cided that he should come to America to complete his education. Not yet sufficiently advanced to enter college, he was placed in a preparatory school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. From this time on, until he finished his college course, he had the best educa- tional advantages offered to young men of that day. When prepared for college he applied for admission to Princeton, but on learning that he could not progress faster than his class he withdrew his application and entered King's College, 181 l82 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE now Columbia University, where he was assured he could advance as rapidly as the preparation of his lessons would warrant. With the aid of private tutors he pushed through college rapidly. It was here that his genius and energy showed to best advantage ; here that he found the environ- ment best suited to his taste. Early in his college course he began the writing of articles on the state of affairs between England and the colonies. At first he was inclined to take the part of England, but gradually he changed to the side of the colonists, and became one of the most active of the patriots. These articles, "which were published without his name, were so fulhof point that they were attributed to mature statesmen. In them he proclaimed great principles and set forth wise policies. When their authorship became known it gave him wide and immediate reputation. It was this propen- sity for writing, this great desire to express his thought, that developed in him clear and forceful expression, so much needed, and later so well exemplified, in his legislative speeches. It is this early systematic development of his powers of rhetorical expression that made him, according to one of his biographers, " the most sagacious and laborious of our Revolutionary orators." But his power of vigorous expression was not confined to pamphlets. He became a member of a debating society at King's College and took active part in all its exercises. Even while yet a college student he began to take part in public discussions. His first political speech before a popular assem- bly was at a meeting in the fields in the suburbs of New York. He was then but seventeen years of age. Dissatisfied with the course of "the discussion, and imbued with the feeling that he could supply what was wanting, he expressed a desire to speak, and his fellows pushed him forward to the platform. The people were amazed at the audacity of this stripling. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 1 83 Embarrassed and hesitating for a moment, he soon found words to express his thought, and in a httle while he forgot himself in the heat of his words. " He had the eloquence of sound reason, backed by a strong and passionate nature. As he poured out with all his young fervor thoughts long pent up in his breast, we can well believe that the crowd were deeply stirred by the oratory of one who spoke so well, although he was a stranger and a mere boy." This was an oratorical debut quite equal to that of Pitt the Younger, or, seventy years later, of Castelar, the great tribune of Spain. The multitude were astonished at the maturity of his mind and language. His mental powers were fresh and fertile. He not only wrote well but spoke well, intellectual accomplishments of the highest order, and in him these two excellences were combined in a striking manner. His powers of oratory were further developed in the many speeches he made at public meetings just preceding the out- break of the Revolution, and during the formative period of the Constitution, in which he was constantly writing and speaking. Many were the conventions and legislative assem- blies in which he took an active and important part. Then his study of the law, his admission to the bar, his practice of the profession, his many forensic efforts, and his intense and incessant application made him not only expert as a public speaker but a leader in his profession. Personally Hamilton was unusually attractive. Though small of stature and thin, he was erect and dignified in bearing, handsome, and impressive. He had a florid complexion, dark deep-set eyes, a firm, strong jaw, and a well-shaped head. His countenance wore a severe and thoughtful look in repose, but was lighted up and very expressive when he began to speak. He was self-restrained and brave, a man of strong will, great courage, and self-confidence. Open-hearted and 1 84 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE generous of nature, full of high spirits and geniality, he was very attractive and much beloved in private life. These quali- ties, coupled with his versatile and original mind, his keen and powerful intellect, his sagacity and foresight, commended themselves to Washington, and at twenty years of age Ham- ilton became a great favorite with the commanding general and was made his secretary and chief adviser. Senator Lodge, in speaking of Hamilton's personality, says: " The man was impressive. Inches of stature and of girth were lacking, but he was none the less full of dignity. In this, of course, his looks helped him. . . . The characteristics of the spare, clean-cut features are penetration and force. There was a piercing look about the face, even in repose, and when Hamilton was moved a fire came into his eyes which we are told had a marvelous effect. But it was the soul which shone through his eyes, and animated his mobile countenance, that made him so effective in speech." ^ His style of oratory was perfected by much writing in his youth. While some of his earlier speeches were written in full, he did not charge his mind with the exact words he had prepared. True, his memory was so alert that, once having written the words, he could recall them without apparent effort. He wrote so much about the subjects he discussed that his most expressive phrases formed the basis of his extem- pore discourse, so that his thought seemed but to overflow like the gushing of a great fountain. His mind was logical. His knowledge naturally fell into good form. Wonderful clearness, directness, and force characterized his utterance. Argument was congenial to him. Few possessed such capacity for discussion. He dealt little in figures of speech. There were no such excursions of fancy in his speeches as are found in Burke's. He was master of a plain, forcible, argu- mentative style. His essays in The Federalist, according to ALEXANDER HAMILTON 185 Senator Lodge, "exhibit a wide range of information; their reasoning is strong, their style is simple, forcible, and clear; they were admirably adapted to their purpose, and above all they have endured, for they were fresh and original con- tributions to human knowledge and to the best thought of the time." ^ From what we have said it is not to be inferred that Ham- ilton was devoid of feeling. On the contrary, he was full of feeling. The intense earnestness with which he set forth his arguments does not appear in the written speech. The per- sonality of the man, as seen and felt in the delivery of his words, forms the basis of his remarkable success. ^The distinguishing quality of his delivery was directness ; directness in the fascination of his eye ; directness in the. com- municative inflections of his voice ; directness which seeks out and maintains contact with his audience. His voice was full and melodious, his manner courteous, his gesture graceful and appropriate, and his bearing dignified and commanding. There was a persuasive enthusiasm that pervaded his speeches, a power and pathos that moved men to vote for his measures. Delegates to conventions, elected to vote against him, were won in open debate. One of the great triumphs in the "history* of American eloquence was Hamilton's victory in the New York convention at Poughkeepsie over the opponents of the Constitution. When this new Constitution, formulated in the national convention at Philadelphia, was submitted to the sev- eral commonwealths for ratification, there was a strong organ- ization in several of the states against its adoption. New York was the pivotal state. The opposition there, under the leader- ship of Governor Clinton and Melancthon Smith, was stronger than in any other state. When the forces opposed each other in the state convention, it was found that forty-six of the members were opposed to the adoption of the Constitution l86 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE and only nineteen in favor of it. Hamilton, in writing to a friend, declared that "two thirds of the convention and four sevenths of the people are against us." At the head of this seemingly hopeless minority Hamilton began his most notable constructive work. He wrote for The Federalist, he talked with individual members of the opposition, he took every opportunity to make clear to less studious minds the benefits to be derived from the adoption of the Constitution and the cementing of the Union. He refrained from reaching an early vote and took little part in the discussion of small details. According to Senator Lodge, " he wisely decided to concentrate all his force in debate in one speech. For this purpose he selected the general theme of a new government. Completely master of his subject, filled with a deep conviction of the solemnity of the occasion, he delivered a speech occupy- ing five or six hours, embodying all the accumulated reflections of years. . . . If we try Hamilton's speeches by the severest tests, by the conversion he wrought, by the sustained power, the readiness, fertility, and resource he displayed, and, above all, the results, this series of speeches in the New York con- vention deserves to rank with the highest triumphs of modern parliamentary oratory. . . . The opponents of the Constitution assailed him for using such consummate art in oratory that he blinded, hoodwinked, and misled his hearers, preventing their voting in accordance with their real convictions, so bewitched were they by the magic of his words. No greater compliment could have been paid to him ; and when his bitterest enemies ranked his eloquence so highly, posterity may fitly adjudge its place to be among the first." It is a lamentable fact that the duties of Secretary of the Treasury under the government prevented Hamilton from ever afterwards having legislative opportunities commensurate with his oratorical talents and attainments. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 1 8/ Hamilton's influence as an advocate was equally supreme. Asa lawyer he deserves to rank with Marshall and Webster. On this point Lodge says : ''His power of statement and clear cogent reasoning were admirably adapted for arguments to the court on points of law and equity, and in this field he shone from the outset." Judge Spencer, before whom both Hamilton and Webster tried cases, says : "In power of reasoning Hamilton was the equal of Webster, and more than this can be said of no man. In creative power Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior. ... He, more than any other man, did the thinking of the time." And Guizot, the great historian, adds this testimony : " There is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, of force, or of duration, which he has not powerfully contributed to introduce into it and caused to predominate." Careful to select law cases the justice of which he believed in, it was almost certain that Hamilton would get the verdict. Men believed that if he took a case, that judge and jury alike would agree with him ; that his force of will and intel- lect would compel decisions in his favor. Young lawyers of the present time might well follow this example. ''As men listened to him, they felt profoundly the mastery of the strong nature, the imperious will, and the passionate energy which gave such force to his pathos, to his invective, and to the even flow of clear telling argument." .^ Hamilton was a man of unblemished character. His motives y were pure and disinterested. Truth and honor were his motto. He entertained only the loftiest sentiments of patriotism. He rose above the influence of party and became the philosopher, the prophet of his day. He kept " steadily in view the pros- perity and honor of the whole country," and constantly held that the highest duty of a public servant is to advance the interests of the race. m l88 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE As Statesman and orator Hamilton's place, is secure. He will be honored in the centuries to come as the greatest political philosopher of his generation, esteemed by his opponents for the clearness and force with which he proposed and upheld the policies of the Constitution ; for his letters and documents are found to contain the leading features of the Constitution long before they were adopted. As a statesman John Marshall ranked Hamilton next to Washington. Henry Cabot Lodge says : " It is given to few men to impress their individuality indelibly upon the history of a great nation. . . . Hamilton's versatility was extraordinary. He was a great orator and lawyer, and he was also the ablest political and constitutional writer of his day, a good soldier, and possessed of a wonderful capacity for organization and practical administration. . . . But wherever he is placed, so long as the people of the United States form one nation, the name of Alexander Ham- ilton will be held in high and lasting honor, and even in the wreck of governments that great intellect would still command the homage of men." " As a public speaker," says Justice Brewer, " Hamilton illustrates the power of intellect, subtle and persistent, flexible in its method, comprehensive in its scope, far-reaching in its grasp of the future. He was not an orator in the same sense Patrick Henry was, but behind every word he has left on record there is the power of a great mind." ALEXANDER HAMILTON 189 COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION This is one of a number of speeches dehvered by Hamilton in the New York State Convention, which was called in 1788 for the purpose of ratifying the federal Constitution. Forty-six of the sixty-five delegates at first opposed ratification. But Hamilton, in a series of speeches, expounded the Constitution with such skill that when the vote was taken there was a majority of three for ratification. Judged by its results, this may be con- sidered one of the greatest triumphs in the history of oratory. L COERCION OF DELINQUENT STATES Mr. Chairman, the honorable member who spoke yesterday went into an explanation of a variety of circumstances to prove the expediency of a change in our national government, and the necessity of a firm Union ; at the same time he described the great advantages which this state, in particular, receives from the Con- federacy, and its peculiar weaknesses when abstracted from the Union. In doing this, he advanced a variety of arguments which deserve serious consideration. Gentlemen have this day come forward to answer him. He has been treated as having wandered in the flowery fields of fancy, and attempts have been made to take off from the minds of the committee that sober impression which might be expected from his arguments. I trust, sir, that observations of this kind are not thrown out to cast a light air on this important subject, or to give any personal bias on the great question before us. I will not agree with gentlemen who trifle with the weaknesses of our country ; and suppose that they are enumerated to answer a party purpose, and to terrify with sup- posed dangers. No ; I believe these weaknesses to be real, and pregnant with destruction. Yet, however weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties. If, therefore, on a full and candid discussion, the proposed system shall appear to have that tendency, let us reject it ! But let us not mistake words for things, nor accept doubtful surmises as the evidence of truth. Let us consider the Constitution calmly and dispassionately, and attend to those things only which merit consideration. 190 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE No arguments drawn from embarrassment or inconvenience ought to prevail upon us to adopt a system of government radi- cally bad ; yet it is proper that these arguments, among others, should be brought into view. In doing this, yesterday, it was nec- essary to reflect upon our situation ; to dwell upon the imbecil- ity of our Union ; and to consider whether we, as a state, could stand alone. Although I am persuaded this convention will be resolved to adopt nothing that is bad, yet I think every prudent man will con- sider the merits of the plan in connection with the circumstances of our country ; and that a rejection of the Constitution may in- volve most fatal consequences. I make these remarks to show that though we ought not to be actuated by unreasonable fear, yet we ought to be prudent. Sir, it appears to me extraordinary that while gentlemen in one breath acknowledge that the old Confe'deration requires many material amendments, they should, in the next, deny that its de- fects have been the cause of our political weakness and the con- sequent calamities of our country. I cannot but infer from this that there is still some lurking favorite imagination that this system, with corrections, might become a safe and permanent one. It is proper that we should examine this matter. We contend that the radical vice in the old Confederation is that the laws of the Union apply only to the states in their corporate capacity. Has not every man who has been in our legislature experienced the truth of this position ? It is inseparable from the disposition of bodies who have a constitutional power of resistance, to examine the merits of a law. This has ever been the case with .the federal requisi- tions. In this examination, not being furnished with those lights which directed the deliberations of the general government, and incapable of embracing the general interests of the Union, the states have almost uniformly weighed the requisitions by their own local interests ; and have only executed them so far as an- swered their particular convenience or advantage. Hence there have ever been thirteen different bodies to judge of the measures ALEXANDER HAMILTON 191 of Congress, and the operations of government have been dis- tracted by their taking different courses. Those which were to be benefited, have complied with the requisitions ; others have totally disregarded them. Have not all of us been witnesses to the un- happy embarrassments which resulted from these proceedings ? Even during the late war, while the pressure of common danger connected strongly the bond of our union, and excited to vigorous exertions, we have felt many distressing effects of the impotent system. How have we seen this state, though most exposed to the calamities of the war, complying, in an unexampled manner, with the federal requisitions, and compelled by the delinquency of others to bear most unusual burdens ! Of this truth we have the most solemn evidence on our records. In 1779 and 1780, when the state, from the ravages of war, and from her great exertions to resist them, became weak, distressed, and forlorn, every man avowed the principle we now contend for ; that our misfortunes, in a great degree, proceeded from the want of vigor in the Con- tinental government. These were our sentiments when we did not speculate, but feel. We saw our weakness, and found ourselves its victims. Let us reflect that this may again, in all probability, be our situation. This is a weak state, and its relative station is dan- gerous. Your capital is accessible by land, and by sea is exposed to every daring invader ; and on the northwest you are open to the inroads of a powerful foreign nation. Indeed this state, from its situation, will, in time of war, probably be the theater of its operations. Gentlemen have said that the noncompliance of the states has been occasioned by their sufferings. This may in part be true. But has this state been delinquent ? Amidst all our distresses we have fully complied. If New York could comply wholly with the requisitions, is it not to be supposed that the other states could in part comply } Certainly every state in the Union might have executed them in some degree. But New Hampshire, who has not suffered at all, is totally delinquent. North Carolina is totally delinquent. Many others have contributed in a very small 192 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE proportion ; and Pennsylvania and New York are the only states which have perfectly discharged their federal duty. From the delinquency, of those states which have suffered little by the war, we naturally conclude that they have made no efforts ; and a knowledge of human nature will teach us that their ease and security have been a principal cause of their want of exertion. While danger is distant its impression is weak, and while it affects only our neighbors we have few motives to provide against it. Sir, if we have national objects to pursue, we must have national revenues. If you make requisitions and they are not complied with, what is to be done ? It has been well observed that to coerce the state is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single state ; this being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large state should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them ; would they not have influence to procure assistance, especially from those states who are in the same situation as themselves ? What a pic- ture does this idea present to our view ! A complying state at war with a noncomplying state ; Congress marching the troops of one state into the bosom of another; this state collecting auxiliaries and forming perhaps a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself ! A government that can exist only by the sword ! Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government. But can we believe that one state will ever suffer itself to be used as an instrument of coercion ? It is a dream. It is impossible. We are brought to this dilemma : either a federal standing army is to enforce the requisitions, or the federal Treasury is left without sup- plies, and the government without support. What is the cure for this great evil ? Nothing, but to enable the national laws to operate on individuals in the same manner as those of the states do. What shall we do ? Shall we take the old Confederation as the basis of a new system ? Can this be the object of gendemen .? ALEXANDER HAMILTON 1 93 Certainly not. Will any man who entertains a wish for the safety of his country trust the sword and the purse with a single As- sembly, organized on principles so defective? Though we might give to such a government certain powers with safety, yet, to give them the full and unlimited powers of taxation and the national forces, would be to establish a despotism, the definition of which is, a government in which all power is concentrated in a single body. To take the old Confederation and fashion it upon these principles would be establishing a power which would destroy the liberties of the people. These considerations show clearly that a government totally different must be instituted. They had weight in the Convention who formed the new system. It was seen that the necessary powers were too great to be trusted to a single body ; they therefore formed two branches, and divided the powers, that each might be a check upon the other. This was the result of their wisdom ; and I presume that every reasonable man will agree to it. The more this subject is explained, the more clear and con- vincing it will appear to every member of this body. The fun- damental principle of the old Confederation is defective. We must totally eradicate and discard this principle before we can expect an efficient government. IL REGULATION OF COMMERCE Hamilton explains why it was necessary to compromise with the South in order to form the Union. The Southern states were fearful that if there were no restraints on navigation the South would be affected unfavorably by the raising of freight rates, for the reason that the Northern states were essentially navigating states while the Southern states were non-navigating. In order that the committee may understand clearly the princi- ples on which the general convention acted, I think it necessary to explain some preliminary circumstances. Sir, the natural situation of this country seems to divide its in- terests into different classes. There are navigating and non-navigat- ing states. The Northern are properly the navigating states ; the Southern appear to possess neither the means nor the spirit of 194 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE navigation. This difference in situation naturally produces a dis- similarity of interests and views respecting foreign commerce. It was the interest of the Northern states that there should be no restraints on their navigation, and that they should have full power, by a majority in Congress, to make commercial regulations in favor of their own, and in restraint of the navigation of foreigners. The Southern states wished to impose a restraint on the Northern by requiring that two thirds in Congress should be requisite to pass an act in regulation of commerce. They were apprehensive that the restraints of a navigation law should discourage foreigners, and, by obliging them to employ the shipping of the Northern states, would probably enhance their freight. This being the case, they insisted strenuously on having this provision ingrafted in the Con- stitution ; and the Northern states were as anxious in opposing it. On the other hand, the small states, seeing themselves embraced by the Confederation upon equal terms, wished to retain the ad- vantages which they already possessed. The large states, on the contrary, thought it improper that Rhode Island and Delaware should enjoy an equal suffrage with themselves. From these sources a delicate and difficult contest arose. It became necessary, therefore, to compromise, or the convention must have dissolved without effecting anything. Would it have been wise and prudent in that body, in this critical situation, to have deserted their coun- try ? No. Every man who hears me — every wise man in the United States would have condemned them. The convention was obliged to appoint a committee for accommodation. In this com- mittee the arrangement was formed as it now stands, and their report was accepted. It was a delicate point, and it was necessary that all parties should be indulged. Gentlemen will see that if there had not been unanimity, nothing could have been done, for the convention had no power to establish, but only to recommend a government. Any other system would have been impracticable. Let a convention be called to-morrow. Let them meet twenty times, — nay, twenty thousand times ; they will have the same difficulties to encounter, the same clashing interests to reconcile. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 195 But, dismissing these reflections, let us consider how far the arrangement is in itself entitled to the approbation of this body. We will examine it upon its own merits. The first thing objected to is that clause which allows a repre- sentation for three fifths of the negroes. Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. Whether this be reasoning or declamation, I will not presume to say. It is the unfortunate situation of the Southern states to have a great part of their population as well as property in blacks. The regulation complained of was one result of the spirit of ac- commodation which governed the convention ; and without this indulgence no union could possibly have been formed. But, sir, con- sidering some peculiar advantages which we derive from them, it is entirely just that they should be gratified. The Southern states possess certain staples — tobacco, rice, indigo, etc. — which must be capital objects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations ; and the advantage which they necessarily procure in these treaties will be felt throughout all the states. But the justice of this plan will appear in another view. The best writers on government have held that representation should be compounded of persons and property. This rule has been adopted, as far as it could be, in the constitution of New York. It will, however, be by no means ad- mitted that the slaves are considered altogether as property. They are men, though degraded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known to the municipal laws of the states which they in- habit, as well as to the laws of nature. But representation and taxation go together, and one uniform rule ought to apply to both. Would it be just to compute these slaves in the assessment of taxes, and discard them from the estimate in the apportionment of representatives ? Would it be just to impose a singular burden without conferring some adequate advantage ? Another circumstance ought to be considered. The rule we have been speaking of is a general rule, and applies to all the states. You have a great number of people in your state which are not represented at all, and have no voice in your government. These 196 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE will be included in the enumeration, not two fifths or three fifths, but the whole. This proves that the advantages of the plan are not confined to the Southern states, but extend to other parts of the Union. I now proceed to consider the objection with regard to the num- ber of representatives as it now stands. I am persuaded that the system, in this respect, is on a better footing than the gentlemen imagine. It has been asserted that it will be in the power of Congress to reduce the number. I acknowledge that there are no direct words of prohibition. But I contend that the true and genuine construc- tion of the clause gives Congress no power whatever to reduce the representation below the number as it now stands. Although they may limit, they can never diminish the number. One representa- tive for every thirty thousand inhabitants is fixed as the standard of increase till, by the natural course of population, it shall become necessary to limit the ratio. Probably, at present, were this stand- ard to be immediately applied, the representation would consider- ably exceed sixty-five. In three years it would exceed a hundred. If I understand the gentlemen, they contend that the number may be enlarged, or may not. I admit that this is in the discretion of Congress, and I submit to the committee whether it be not neces- sary and proper. Still I insist that an immediate limitation is not probable, nor was it in the contemplation of the convention. But, sir, who will presume to say to what precise point the representa- tion ought to be increased ? This is a matter of opinion, and opin- ions are vastly different upon the subject. In Massachusetts the Assembly consists of about three hundred ; in South Carolina, of nearly one hundred ; in New York, there are sixty-five. It is ob- served generally that the number ought to be large. I confess it is difficult for rrie to say what number may be said to be suffi- ciently large. On one hand, it ought to be considered that a small number will act with more facility, system, and decision. On the other, that a large one may enhance the difficulty of corruption. I'he Congress is to consist at first of ninety-one members. This, ALEXANDER HAMILTON 197 to a reasonable man, may appear to be as near the proper medium as any number whatever ; at least, for the present. There is one source of increase, also, which does not depend upon any construc- tions of the Constitution; it is the creation of new states. Ver- mont and Kentucky will probably soon become independent. New members of the Union will also be formed from the unsettled tracts of Western territory. These must be represented, and will all con- tribute to swell the federal legislature. If the whole number in the United States be at present three millions, as is commonly sup- posed, according to the ratio of one for thirty thousand, we shall have, on the first census, a hundred representatives. In ten years thirty more will be added; and in twenty-five years the number will double. Then, sir, we shall have two hundred, if the increase goes on in the same proportion. The convention of Massachusetts, who made the same objection, have fixed upon this number as the point at which they chose to limit the representation. But can we pronounce with certainty that it will not be expedient to go beyond this number ? We cannot. Experience alone may determine. This problem may with more safety be left to the discretion of the legis- lature, as it will be the interest of the larger and increasing states of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania to augment the representation. Only Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland can be interested in limiting it. We may, therefore, safely calculate upon a growing representation, according to the advance of population and the circumstances of the country. The state governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the national gov- ernment, and will forever preclude the possibility of federal en- croachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head is repugnant to every rule of political calculation. Is not this arrangement then, sir, a most wise and prudent one ? Is not the present representation fully adequate to our present exi- gencies, and sufficient to answer all the purposes of the Union? I am persuaded that an examination of the objects of the federal government will afford a conclusive answer. 198 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE THE UNITED STATES SENATE This speech is another of the series deHvered in the New York Con- vention of 1788. Hamilton urges that the Senate be established to repre- sent the states and act as a check upon the passions of a popular assembly and regulate its fluctuations. I. THE SENATE A CHECK UPON THE HOUSE We all, with equal sincerity, profess to be anxious for the estab- lishment of a republican government on a safe and solid basis. It is the object of the wishes of every honest man in the United States, and I presume I shall not be disbelieved when I declare that it is an object, of all others, the nearest and most dear to my own heart. The means of accomplishing this great purpose become the most important study which can interest mankind. It is our duty to examine all those means with peculiar attention, and to choose the best and most effectual. It is our duty to draw from nature, from reason, from examples, the justest principles of policy, and to pursue and apply them in the formation of our government. We should contemplate and compare the systems which, in the examination, come under our view ; distinguish with a careful eye the defects and excellencies of each, and discarding the former, incorporate the latter, as far as circumstances will admit, into our Constitution. If we pursue a different course and neglect this duty, we shall probably disappoint the expectations of our country and of the world. In the commencement of a revolution, which received its birth from the usurpations of tyranny, nothing was more natural than that the public mind should be influenced by an extreme spirit of jealousy. To resist these encroachments, and to nourish this spirit, was the great object of all our public and private institutions. The zeal for liberty became predominant and excessive. In forming our Confederation this passion alone seemed to actuate us, and we appear to have had no other view than to secure ourselves from despotism. The object certainly was a valuable one, and deserved ALEXANDER HAMILTON 199 our utmost attention. But there is another object, equally important, and which our enthusiasm rendered us little capable of regarding. I mean a principle of strength and stability in the organization of our government, and vigor in its operations. This purpose could never be accomplished but by the establishment of some select body, formed peculiarly on this principle. There are few positions^ more demonstrable than that there should be in every republic some permanent body to correct the prejudices, check the intem- perate passions, and regulate the fluctuations of a popular assembly. It is evident that a body instituted for these purposes must be so formed as to exclude as much as possible from its own character those infirmities and that mutability which it is designed to remedy. It is, therefore, necessary that it should be small, that it should hold X its authority during a considerable period, and that it should have such an independence in the exercise of its powers as will divest it, as much as possible, of local prejudices. It should be so formed i as to be the center of political knowledge, to pursue always a steady line of conduct, and to reduce every irregular propensity to system. Without this establishment we may make experiments without end, but shall never have an efficient government. It is an unquestionable truth that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally un- questionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are fre- quently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise. That branch of administration, especially, which involves our political relation with foreign states, a community will ever be incompetent to. These truths are not often held up in public assemblies, but they cannot be unknown to any who hear me. Gentlemen in their reasoning have placed the interests of the several states and those of the United States in contrast. This is not a fair view of the subject. They must necessarily be involved in each other. What we apprehend is that some sinister prejudice or some prevailing passion may assume the form of a genuine 200 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE interest. The influence of these is as powerful as the most perma- nent conviction of the public good, and against this influence we ought to provide. The local interests of a state ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater one. When you assemble from your several counties in the legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accommodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general expediency. But the spirit of a more popular assembly would rarely be actuated by this important principle. It is there- fore absolutely necessary that the Senate should be so formed as to be unbiased by false conceptions of the real interests, or undue attachment to the apparent good, of their several states. Gentlemen indulge too many unreasonable apprehensions of danger to the state governments. They seem to suppose that the mo- ment you put men into the national council they become corrupt and tyrannical, and lose all their affection for their fellow citizens. But can we imagine that the senators will ever be so insensible of their own advantage as to sacrifice the genuine interest of their constit- uents ? The state governments are essentially necessary to the form and spirit of the general system. As long, therefore, as Con- gress has a full conviction of this necessity, it must, even upon principles purely national, have as firm an attachment to the one as to the other. This conviction can never leave its members unless they become madmen. While the Constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the Union; and therefore the idea" of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 20I IL STATE GOVERNMENTS NECESSARY Hamilton upholds the action of the federal Convention in not disturbing the local powers of the several states. He believes that Congress should have only general powers, that domestic and civil affairs should be regulated by the states, and that the Senate should represent the states as units. Mr. Chairman, it has been advanced as a principle that no government but a despotism can exist in a very extensive country. This is a melancholy consideration indeed. If it v^ere founded on truth, we ought to dismiss the idea of a republican government, even for the state of New York. This idea has been taken from a celebrated writer, who, by being misunderstood, has been the occasion of frequent fallacies in our reasoning on political subjects. But the position has been misapprehended, and its application is entirely false and unwarrantable. It relates only to democracies, where the whole body of the people meet to transact business, and where representation is unknown. Such were a number of ancient, and some modern independent cities. Men who read without attention have taken these maxims respecting the extent of country, and, contrary to their proper meaning, have applied them to republics in general. This application is wrong, in respect to all representative governments, but especially in relation to a confederacy of states, in which the supreme legislature has only general powers, and the civil and domestic concerns of the people are regulated by the laws of the several states. This distinction being kept in view, all the difficulty will vanish, and we may easily conceive that the people of a large country may be represented as truly as those of a small one. An assembly constituted for general purposes may be fully competent to every federal regulation, without being too numerous for deliberate conduct. If the state governments were to be abolished, the question would wear a different face ; but this idea is inadmissible. They are absolutely necessary to the system. Their existence must form a leading principle in the most perfect constitution we could form. I insist that it never can be the interest or desire of the national legislature 202 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE to destroy the state governments. It can derive no advantage from such an event, but, on the contrary, would lose an indispensable support, a necessary aid in executing the laws and conveying the influence of government to the doors of the people. The Union is dependent on the will of the state governments for its chief magistrate and for its Senate. The blow aimed at the members must give a fatal wound to the head, and the destruction of the states must be at once political suicide. Can the national govern- ment be guilty of this madness ? What inducements, what temp- tations, can they have? Will they attach new honors to their station ; will they increase the national strength ; will they multiply the national resources ; will they make themselves more respect- able in the view of foreign nations or of their fellow citizens by robbing the states of their constitutional privileges ? But imagine for a moment that a political frenzy should seize the government. Suppose they should make the attempt. Certainly it would be forever impracticable. This has been sufficiently demonstrated by reason and experience. It has been proved that the members of republics have been, and ever will be, stronger than the head. Wherever the popular attachments are, there will rest the political superiority. Sir, can it be supposed that the state governments will become the oppressors of the people ? Will they forget their affections ? Will they combine to destroy the liberties and happi- ness of their fellow citizens, for the sole purpose of involving them- selves in ruin ? God forbid ! The idea is shocking ! It outrages every feeling of humanity and every dictate of common sense ! HENRY CLAY Henry Clay (i 777-1 852), though endowed by nature with gifts superior to those of most great orators, was no exception to the rule that the orator is made. Born in Virginia of humble par- entage, his literary train- ing in the schools was no better than that of other poor boys of his neigh- borhood, but his desire for mental improvement was so great that the time his fellows devoted to play he spent in reading and study, and thus early learned the invaluable les- son of self-dependence and self-reliance in gain- ing knowledge. Though obliged to give up school at the age of fourteen, it was his good fortune, through the influence of friends, to secure the posi- tion of clerk and amanuensis to Chancellor Wythe, one of the ablest jurists of Virginia, himself an orator of no mean ability. This scholarly patron soon discovered that young Clay possessed unusual talents and he resolved to develop and encourage them. Accordingly he gave direction to Clay's studies, pointed out certain lines of thought to be developed, 203 204 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE and, as a wise counselor, stimulated in every way his enthu- siastic protege. The careful recording of the chancellor's able decisions afforded the ardent student, besides a knowledge of law, a mental discipline and valuable rhetorical training. Four years this schooling continued, and Clay advanced with remarkable facility through this his only course of training. Upon the advice of his patron he chose law as his profes- sion and entered the office of Attorney-General Brooke at Richmond, Virginia. It was at this period that he began the discipline that afterwards yielded so richly. Appreciating the fact that to speak well one must have opportunity to speak, he organized a debating society among the leading young men of aristocratic Richmond. Here first he began to dis- play his remarkable gifts of oratory, and soon achieved such leadership as to be called '' the peerless star of the society." Nor did he relinquish his efforts to perfect his powers of debate. After he had been admitted to the bar and had re- moved to Lexington, Kentucky, he there became a member of a debating club, in whose meetings he took the liveliest interest. Like many others who afterwards attained eminence as orators. Clay lacked confidence at first and did not take part in the discussions for several meetings. But one evening when a debate was about to be closed and the vote taken, he was overheard to remark that the subject had not, in his judgment, been fully discussed. Whereupon his friends urged him to speak, and at length they prevailed. Clay arose and in his confusion exclaimed, " Gentlemen of the jury." The assembly was amused and his confusion increased. Again he exclaimed, '' Gentlemen of the jury," still more earnestly. The confusion was greater than ever. Stung by the ridicule of his audience and conscious that after all the address was not inappropriate, he summoned his ener- gies, mastered his fears, and the third time exclaimed with HENRY CLAY 205 dignity and severity, " Gentlemen of the jury," and proceeded with his speech. He gained confidence from the start and warmed with his subject, and before he had finished he had won the respect and admiration of all present, and established his reputation as a man of determination and power. This kind of exercise was continued from week to week 'for a number of years, and, as might have been expected, it gave him eminence as an advocate. It would be interesting to know what estimate he himself places upon oratorical training. He declares that his success is not due to " sudden illumination while speaking," but to the fact that he began at an early age the daily practice of reading aloud, and of speaking upon the contents of some scientific or historical book. " These off-hand efforts," he tells us, " were sometimes made in a cornfield, at others in a forest, and not infrequently in some distant barn with the horse and ox for my auditors. It is to that early practice of the great, art of arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward and shaped and molded my subsequent entire destiny." And again in an address to the students of Ballston Law School, he said, " Think not that any great excellence of advocacy can be at- tained without great labor." After recounting how persist- ently he had practiced in youth and early manhood for strength ^of voice and easy flow of language, he continues : '' Often I ^ade the hills resound in my walks, and many a herd of gentle grazing cows have been the astonished audience of my outpourings. Improve then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass without exercising your powers of speech." In outward appearance Clay was a striking figure, six feet one inch in height, well proportioned, majestic in bearing, with ruddy complexion, abundant light hair, blue eyes, a large \ 206 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE mouth, and full lips ready to speak. He was not handsome, but his face wore a pleasing, winning expression, and intelli- gence beamed from every part of his countenance. But his greatest physical gift was his marvelous voice, by nature capable, but by long and skillful practice come to be voluminous, wide of compass, flexible, rich in quality, and tender — in short, a majestic bass. Some of his contem- poraries declare it to be the finest musical instrument they ever heard. Its inexpressible charm captivated even his enemies, though it did not always convince them. Randolph rose from a sick bed and was carried on his couch into the Senate when Clay was announced to speak, that he '' might hear that voice once more." Henry Clay illustrates the truth that character is essential to the highest eloquence. Emerson once said, " There is no eloquence without a man behind it." Oratory is a moral force. The rhetorician may charm with his eloquence, may entertain the intellect and please the imagination, but it re- quires moral force to reach the will. People must believe in a man before they will follow him. Clay's honesty and up- rightness of purpose were unquestioned. During his whole career no species of corruption stained his name. His kind- ness, his sympathy, his benevolence, and his uniform cour- tesy made him a favorite. Charity was his religion. Ardent, fearless, national in spirit, possessed of a grand will, he infused these qualities into his followers, to whom his word was a command. In style Clay had every weapon of oratory at his disposal — argument, persuasion, wit, repartee, invective, illustration ; he could instruct, convince, arouse, and subdue. With no technical skill in logic and rhetoric, he yet became a great and powerful debater because he was a close observer and grasped intuitively the foundation principles of those sciences. HENRY CLAY 20/ Ready in repartee, it was impossible to outwit him. A dull and verbose member of the House once turned on Clay and said : '' You, sir, speak for the present generation, but I speak for posterity." ''Yes sir," said Clay, "and you seem resolved to speak until the arrival of your audience." Another instance will illustrate his readiness of resource. An old hunter, formerly his warm supporter, opposed Clay's reelection on account of his support of the objectionable com- pensation act. Clay tactfully inquired, " Have you a good rifle, my friend .? " " Yes." '' Did it ever flash ? " " Once only," " What did you do with it — throw it away .? " " No I picked the lock, tried it again, and brought down the game." " Have I ever flashed but upon the Compensation Bill .? " " No." '' Will you throw me away .? " '' No, no," exclaimed the hunter, overcome with feeling ; " I will pick the flint and try you again." And the hunter was ever after his warm supporter. Some have criticised Clay's style because he amplified so much, but like Fox, the great English debater, he believed it best not only to state a case so his audience could under- stand it, but so they could not misunderstand it. To do this amplification is often necessary. Clay appreciated this, for it is said of him that he once repeated an argument four times to a jury, much to the' discomfort of two of his friends .who afterward remonstrated with him. '' But," answered Clay, " did you not see the juryman in blue jeans sitting in the corner } " " No, what of him ? " '' The first time I stated the argument I won eleven jurymen. But one must secure twelve jurymen to win a case. I saw that the obstinate juryman was ignorant and so stated my argument a second time, changing the illustrations. He wavered in his opinions. I stated it a third time. He wavered still more and seemed inclined to my side. I stated the argument a fourth time and won the juror V 2o8 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE and will have the verdict." And so it proved, for in twenty minutes the jury returned with a verdict for his client. While not a profound student, Clay strove most of all for strong common sense and a clear conception of the subject ; on this account and because he spoke extempore, a certain diffusiveness of style could be excused in him. He wrote very little. Set paragraphs were an abomination to him, though it must be allowed that more writing would have been a help rather than an injury to his style, because it lacked solidity. When compared with that of Webster his style is less compact, less classic, and will be less and less sought, while Webster's will grow in popularity. It is said that if one heard these two men on the same side of a subject and the next day read their speeches, _he would think the speech o f Webster had been delivered by Clay, and Clay's by Webster, Clay was warm and popular rather than argumentative. Divested of his personality, his speeches lose their interest. You can no more judge of their effect than you can judge of a song without the air, or of beauty from a skeleton. Carl Schurz says, " There can be no more striking proof of his power than the immediate effect we know his speeches to have produced upon those who heard him, compared with the impression of heavy tameness we receive when merely reading the printed reports." James Parton agrees with this opinion when he declares that Clay's speeches are only " interesting as relics of magnificent and dazzling personality. They add carcely anything to the intellectual property of the nation." the graces of delivery Clay was supreme. No orator that period of giants could equal him in this. Few actors ever attained greater skill -in^y^c al metho d. He could plead in low plaintive notes or thunder in trumpet tones. Every part of his compass was rich and strong. His ordinary con- versation equaled in strength the energetic utterance of most HENRY CLAY 209 people. So varied were his tones, so musical in pitch, that even with commonplace thoughts the instrument itself held attention. There was no rant or vociferation, his voice was unbroken in every pitch, majestic in melody, and his cadences were reached without tune or song. When aroused, words came faster and faster, yet deliberation characterized his most passionate climaxes. In action Clay was all animation. He spoke with his whole body. No gesture was premeditated and most of them were large and sweeping. Every movement of body seemed neces- sary to the general effect. Every change of sentiment showed in the countenance, the smile, the form, the electric beam of the eye. No matter how trivial the cause he was pleading, he maintained a courtliness of manner, a dignity and impres- siveness of bearing. In method of delivery he was less majestic than Webster, more conversational, more varied and direct — a style that could rise or fall and still retain its directness. He never seemed to be trying to speak. He could not help it. It was an overflow. When he was furious you thought he ought to be so. He says that when once in the midst of his speaking, he is unconscious of the external world : " Wholly engrossed by the subject before me, I lose all sense of personal identity, of time, or of surrounding objects." The effect of his eloquence was far-reaching. Enemies who would not be convinced, yielded him admiration and sat riveted in attention until he had finished. All the world knows that by his eloquence and personal character he held the key to the hearts of the American people. His enthusi- asm was contagious, and often in the Senate, when his cause seemed hopeless, he won to his side the cooperation of luke- warm senators. He commanded the admiration of the mul- titude over whose passions he held absolute control. The 2IO . BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE magnetism of his ardent temperament radiated to his farther- most auditor. His eloquence made him the popular hero and idol. " On his way to Washington," says Parton, " the public seized him and bore him along over the land, the committee of one state passing him on to the committee of another, and the hurrahs of one town dying away as those of the next caught his ear." Clay lived in a period prolific of great orators. Compar- ing him with his contemporaries, we shall find that they excelled him in some particulars. He was less logical than Calhoun, less picturesque than Prentiss, not so compact in style or splendid in diction as Webster, not so scholarly as John Quincy Adams, but in native force, in readiness, in versatility, in eloquence, he was not excelled by any of them. " Clay possessed in a far higher degree," says Schurz, " the true oratorical temperament, that force of nervous exaltation which makes the orator feel himself and appear to others a superior being, and almost irresistibly transfers his thoughts, his possessions, and his will into the mind and heart of the listener. Webster could instruct, convince, and elevate, but Clay would overcome his audience." This made him superior to Webster as a leader, for his personal influence over his followers was so great that they involuntarily sought his direc- tion and waited his command. He put the ideas of his generation in a form for general approval, and shaped and passed more laws than any other American. He was not a bookman, but he outshone men of greater learning because he better understood the art of adapting his knowledge. This art of skillful adaptation coupled with his splendid abil- ities and exalted patriotism made him the tribune of the people, whose central aim appears in this declaration : "If any one desires to know the leading and paramount object of my life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key." HENRY CLAY 211 THE GREEK REVOLUTION This speech was delivered in the House of Representatives, January 20, 1824. It was in support of Webster's resolution of sympathy for oppressed Greece. He meets, with admirable taunt and sarcasm, the objection that it would involve this nation in entangling alliances, and pleads with the mem- bers of the House not to withhold this declaration of their sentiments regard- ing " the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece." It has been said that the proposed measure will be a departure from our uniform policy with respect to foreign nations; that it will provoke the wrath of the holy alliance ; and that it will, in effect, be a repetition of their own offense, by an unjustifiable inter- position in the domestic concerns of other powers. If there be any reality in the dangers which are supposed to encompass us, should we not animate the people, and adjure them to believe, as I do, that our resources are ample ; and that we can bring into the field a million of freemen, ready to exhaust their last drop of blood, and to spend the last cent in the defense of the countr)^, its liberty, and its institutions ? Sir, are these, if united, to be conquered by all Europe combined ? All the perils to which we can possibly be exposed, are much less in reality than the imagination is disposed to paint them. And they are best averted by an habitual contemplation of them, by reducing them to their true dimensions. If combined Europe is to precipitate itself upon us, we cannot too soon begin to invigorate our strength, to teach our heads to think, our hearts to conceive, and our arms to execute, the high and noble deeds which belong to the character and glory of our country. The experience of the world instructs us that conquests are already achieved, which are boldly and firmly resolved on ; and that men only become slaves who have ceased to resolve to be free. If we wish to cover ourselves with the best of all armor, let us not discourage our people; let us stimulate their ardor; let us sustain their resolution ; let us proclaim to them that we feel as they feel; and that, with them, we are determined to live or die like freemen. 212 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE No united nation that resolves to be free can be conquered. And has it come to this ? Are we so humbled, so low, so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece ; that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties ? If gentlemen are afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we unite in an humble petition, addressed to their majesties, beseeching them that, of their gracious condescension, they would allow us to express our feelings and our sympathies. How shall it run ? " We, the representatives of the free people of the United States of America, humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, and supplicate that, of your imperial and royal clemency — "I cannot go through the disgusting recital ; my lips have not yet learned to pronounce the sycophantic language of a degraded slave ! Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror," utter our indigna- tion at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high heaven ? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ? If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly whilst all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own im- mediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings ; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indig- nant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie. But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see this measure adopted. It will give to her but little support, and that purely of a moral- kind. It is principally for America, for the credit HENRY CLAY 213 and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that I hope to see it pass. Mr. Chairman, what appearance on the page of history would a record like this exhibit ? '' In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and Savior, 1824, while all European Christendom beheld, with cold and unfeeling indiffer- ence, the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest depository of human hope and human freedom, to send a messenger to Greece to inquire into her state and condition, with a kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies . . . and it was rejected! " Go home, if you can ; go home, if you dare, to your constituents and tell them that you voted it down ; meet, if you can, the appalling counte- nances of those who sent you here and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments ; that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehen- sion, some indefinable danger, drove you from your purpose ; that the specters of scimitars, and crowns, and crescents gleamed before you and alarmed you ; and that you suppressed all the noble feel- ings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity. I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of the committee. But, for myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolution the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation. 214 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE SIXTY YEARS OF SECTIONALISM This speech was dehvered in the United States Senate in support of the Compromise of 1850, on February 6 of that year. I. DISSOLUTION AND WAR INSEPARABLE Mr. Clay calls attention in the beginning to the prosperous career of the nation from its inception. He declares that it has grown to such greatness as to command the respect of the world; that new territorial acquisitions have been made from time to time, which have conduced to the interests of both sections. Then he appeals to the South to know " if it is right to press matters to the disastrous consequences that have been intimated." Mr. President, we are told now, and it is rung throughout this entire country, that the Union is threatened with subversion and destruction. Well, the first question which naturally arises is, supposing the Union to be dissolved, — having all the causes of grievance which are complained of, — How far will a dissolution furnish a remedy for those grievances ? If the Union is to be dis- solved for any existing causes, it will be dissolved because slavery is interdicted or not allowed to be introduced into the ceded terri- tories ; because slavery is threatened to be abolished in the District of Columbia, and because fugitive slaves are not returned, as in my opinion they ought to be, and restored to their masters. These, I believe, will be the causes, if there be any causes, which can lead to the direful event to which I have referred. Well, now, let us suppose that the Union has been dissolved. What remedy does it furnish for the grievances complained of in its united condition .'' Will you be able to push slavery into the ceded territories ? How are you to do it, supposing the North — all the states north of the Potomac, and which are opposed to it — in possession of the navy and army of the United States ? Can you expect, if there is a dissolution of the Union, that you can carry slavery into California and New Mexico ? You cannot dream of such a purpose. If it were abolished in the District of Columbia, and the Union were dissolved, would the dissolution of the Union HENRY CLAY 215 restore slavery in the District of Columbia ? Are you safer in the recovery of your fugitive slaves, in a state of dissolution or of severance of the Union, than you are in the Union itself ? Why, what is the state of the fact in the Union ? You lose some slaves. You recover some others. Let me advert to a fact which I ought to have introduced before, because it is highly creditable to the courts and juries of the free states. In every case, so far as my information extends, where an appeal has been made to the courts of justice for the recovery of fugitives, or for the recovery of penalties inflicted upon persons who have assisted in decoying slaves from their masters and aiding them in escaping from their masters — as far as I am informed, the courts have asserted the rights of the owner, and the juries have promptly returned adequate verdicts in favor of the owner. Well, this is some remedy. What would you have if the Union were dissevered ? Why, sir, then the severed parts would be independent of each other — foreign coun- tries ! Slaves taken from the one into the other would be then like slaves now escaping from the L^nited States into Canada. There would be no right of extradition ; no right to demand your slaves ; no right to appeal to the courts of justice to demand your slaves which escape, or the penalties for decoying them. Where one slave escapes now, by running away from his owner, hundreds and thousands would escape if the Union were severed in parts — I care not where nor how you run the line, if independent sovereign- ties were established. Well, finally, will you, in a state of dissolution of the Union, be safer with your slaves within the bosom of the states than you are now ? Mr. President, that they will escape much more frequently from the border states, no one will doubt. But I must take the occasion to say that, in my opinion, there is no right on the part of one or more of the states to secede from the Union. War and the dissolution of the Union are identical and inseparable. There can be no dissolution of the Union except by consent or by war. No one can expect, in the existing state of things, that that consent would be given, and war is the only 2l6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE alternative by which a dissolution could be accomplished. And, Mr. President, if consent were given — if possibly we were to separate by mutual agreement and by a given line, in less than sixty days after such an agreement had been executed war would break out between the free and slaveholding portions of this Union — between the two independent portions into which it would be erected in virtue of the act of separation. Yes, sir, sixty days — in less than sixty days, I believe, our slaves from Kentucky would be fleeing over in numbers to the other side of the river, would be pursued by their owners, and the excitable and ardent spirits who would engage in the pursuit would be restrained by no sense of the rights which appertain to the independence of the other side of the river, supposing it, then, to be the line of separa- tion. They would pursue their slaves ; they would be repelled, and war would break out. In less than sixty days war would be blazing forth in every part of this now happy and peaceful land. But how are you going to separate them ? In my humble opin- ion, Mr. President, we should begin at least with three confed- eracies — the Confederacy of the North, the Confederacy of the Atlantic Southern States (the slaveholding states), and the Confed- eracy of the Valley of the Mississippi. My life upon it, sir, that vast population that has already concentrated, and will concentrate, upon the headwaters and tributaries of the Mississippi will never consent that the mouth of that river shall be held subject to the power of any foreign state whatever. Such, I believe, would be the consequences of a dissolution of the Union. But other con- federacies would spring up from time to time, and dissatisfaction and discontent be disseminated over the country. There would be the Confederacy of the Lakes — perhaps the Confederacy of New England and .of the Middle States. But, sir, the veil which covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond a possible rupture of this Union is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or hand. HENRY CLAY 21/ 11. MENACE OF SECESSION Mr. Clay holds that states have no right to secede ; that the Union is a solemn compact not to be broken by the caprice of a state or of several states. He then depicts the dire results of the fratricidal conflict which would inevitably follow dissolution. Mr. President, I am directly opposed to any purpose of seces- sion, of separation. I am for staying within the Union, and defy- ing any portion of this Union to expel or drive me out of the Union. I am for staying within the Union, and fighting for my rights — if necessary, with the sword — within the bounds and under the safeguard of the Union. I am for vindicating these rights ; but not by being driven out of the Union rashly and un- ceremoniously by any portion of this confederacy. Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die ; as far as my individual purposes or wishes can go, within it to protect myself and to defy all power upon earth to expel me or drive me from the situation in which I am placed. Will there not be more safety in fighting within the Union than without it ? Suppose your rights to be violated ; suppose wrongs to be done you, aggressions to be penetrated upon you ; cannot you better fight and vindicate them, if you have occasion to resort to that last necessity of the sword, within the Union, and with the sympathies of a large portion of the population of the Union of these states differently constituted from you, than you can fight and vindicate your rights, expelled from the Union and driven from it without ceremony and without authority ? I said that I thought that there was no right on the part of one or more of the states to secede from this Union. I think that the Constitution of the thirteen states was made not merely for the generation which then existed, but for posterity, undefined, un- limited, permanent, and perpetual — for their posterity, and for every subsequent state which might come into the Union, binding themselves by that indissoluble bond. It is to remain for that posterity now and forever. Like another of the great relations 2l8 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of private life, it was a marriage that no human authority can dissolve or divorce the parties from. Mr. President, I have said what I solemnly believe — that the dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable ; . that they are convertible terms. Such a war, too, as that would be, following the dissolution of the Union ! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so furious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating, from the wars of Greece down, including those of the Commonwealth of England and the revolution of France — none, none of them raged with such violence, or was ever con- ducted with such bloodshed and enormities as will that war which shall follow that disastrous event — if that event ever happens — of dissolution. And what would be its termination ? Standing armies and navies, to an extent draining the revenues of each portion of the dissevered empire, would be created ; exterminating wars would follow — not a war of two or three years, but of interminable duration ; an exterminating war would follow until some Philip or Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would rise to cut the Gordian knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the dissevered por- tions of this Union. Can you doubt it ? Look at history — consult the pages of all history, ancient or modern ; look at human nature — look at the character of the contest in which you would be en- gaged in the supposition of a war following the dissolution of the Union, such as I have suggested ; and I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that the final but perhaps distant termination of the whole will be some despot treading down the liberties of the people? — that the final result will be the extinction of this last and glorious light, which is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, to cherish hope and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner or later be advanced throughout the civilized world ? Can you, Mr. President, lightly contemplate the consequences ? Can you yield yourself to a torrent of passion, amidst dangers which I have depicted in colors far short of what HENRY CLAY 219 would be the reality, if the event should ever happen ? I conjure gentlemen, whether from the South or the North, by all they hold dear in this world — by all their love of liberty, by all their venera- ' tion for their ancestors, by all their regard for posterity, by all their gratitude to Him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings, by all the duties which they owe to mankind and all the duties they owe to themselves — by all these considerations I im- plore them to pause, solemnly to pause, at the edge of the precipice before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken in the yawning abyss below, which will inevitably lead to certain and irretrievable destruc- tion. And I implore, as the best blessing which heaven can bestow upon me on earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolu- tion of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle. DANIEL WEBSTER Daniel Webster (i 782-1852) was one of the most scholarly of American statesmen. His scholastic training began at the knee of his gifted mother and in the district school of his native New Hampshire. A private tutor assisted in his preparation for Phillips Exeter Academy. He en- tered Dartmouth College in 1 797, showed brilliant qual- ities as a student, and was graduated in 180 1. One of his teachers said of him that " he had great rapid- ity of acquisition and was the quickest boy in school." He was an incessant reader, and his retentive memory enabled him to commit with litde effort the best por- tions of all the books he read. Soon after his gradu- ation he began the study of law in the office of Christopher Gore, one of the leading practitioners of Boston. He was admitted to the -bar in 1805 and took up the practice of law in his native state. He practiced several years at Ports- mouth, and after having gained considerable reputation he removed to Boston, where he soon rose to distinction at the bar. DANIEL WEBSTER 221 His election to Congress in 1812 was the beginning of his eventful career as a statesman. He served several terms, but not continuously, as representative, first from New Hamp- shire and then from Massachusetts. In 1827 he was chosen senator from Massachusetts and served continuously in that office until 1841, when he became Secretary of State. In 1845 he returned to the Senate and held the office until his death in 1852. Webster was always a student of men and of affairs. Believing, as he says, that "there is no such a thing as extem- poraneous acquisition," he devoted himself diligently not only to the literature of his profession, but to general literature, philosophy, economics, and history, and applied his abundant knowledge to the intricate problems of state. The Bible, Milton, Shakespeare, and Addison were his favorite books. The strength and beauty of his imagery can be traced in great measure to his intimacy with these classics. He says that " the Bible is the book of all others for lawyers as well as divines. I pity the man that cannot find in it a rich supply of thought, and of rules for his conduct. It fits man for life, it prepares him for death." Webster was blessed with an oratorical temperament, and the hills of New Hampshire were a fit environment to cul- tivate that spirit. He was fond of outdoor life and loved the grand and large in nature. His oratorical training began early, for he was fond of reading aloud and declaiming. The teamsters who passed his father's door were accustomed to rest there awhile and listen to the boy as he declaimed or read from the Bible. But strange to say there came a time during his stay at Exeter when he grew very diffident about speaking. He was too timid to appear before the boys on declamation days. He says him- self, " Many a piece did I commit to memory and recite and 222 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE rehearse in my room over and over again ; yet when the day came and my name was called and I saw all eyes turned to my seat I could not raise myself from it." But at Dartmouth he seemed to have got over his timidity and devoted a great deal of time to speaking, and became a leader in the college societies, insomuch that he was called upon by the citizens of the town of Hanover, in which Dartmouth is located, to deliver a speech on the Fourth of July while he was yet but sixteen years of age. He practiced extempore speaking, but more frequently prepared his speeches very carefully by meditation on the subject. His manner in his earlier years was peculiar. He seemed at first sluggish and sleepy, but as he awakened under the glow of his thought and feeling he took possession of his audience and held them to the end of his speech. While he was naturally sluggish, "the time never came," says Senator Lodge, " when, if fairly roused, he failed to sway the hearts and understandings of men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his' slumber." ' As a young man Webster took great pains to perfect his style of oratory. His first public speech being praised for its vigor and eloquence, and censured for its emptiness in parts, he says, " I resolved that whatever should be said of my style from that time forth, there should not be any empti- ness in it. Besides, I remembered that I had to earn my bread by addressing the understandings of common men, by con- vincing juries, and that I must use language intelligible to them. . . . When I was a young man my style was bombastic, and pompous in the extreme, and I determined to correct it if labor could do it." His education in this particular was a constant growth. He was his own severest critic and strove always for strength and simplicity. His speeches on special occasions give evidence of the most painstaking preparation. DANIEL WEBSTER 223 No wonder when we desire to laud the eloquence and solidity of men's oratory we call it Websterian. His gifts in speaking, in his early forensic efforts at Ports- mouth, were greatly stimulated by the opposition of Jeremiah Mason, then the most distinguished trial lawyer in New Eng- land. The two were pitted against each other in most of the great cases at that time. Mason's manner was anything but bombastic. He stood near to his jury and talked in simple, everyday English to them, "using no word that was not level to the comprehension of the least educated man on the panel," and he seldom lost a verdict. Webster soon learned that to compete with such a man he must speak simply and directly, so as to be perfectly intelligible at all times. The supreme effort of Webster in his oratorical study was to gain simplicity and strength. His preference for Saxon words, instead of Latin or Greek derivatives, and the almost utter lack of Latin phrase, makes his style unite the simple with the picturesque and the massive. No strength is wasted in long and involved sentences. It is doubtful whether on this side the seas we have produced any better prose than that of Webster. He is studied by the schools for the weight of his thought and the strength of his imagery. His speeches have become classics in our literature ; they are read and declaimed in the district schools. His maxims became the slogans of the North during the war for the Union. Not so great a genius as Burke, he w^as far more effective as a speaker ; like Burke, he could make excursions of fancy but he never lost sight of the issues — not so great a political philosopher but a better reasoner and a wiser statesman. Webster excelled in all the types of oratory — the forensic, the political, and the occasional. There is no greater forensic address in our annals than Webster's speech in the White Murder Case, no greater political oration than his "Reply to 224 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Hayne "; no finer occasional speech than his "First Bunker Hill Address." There are other speeches of nearly equal strength in each of these classes, all of them characterized by "massive- ness of thought, dignity and grandeur of expression, and range of vision." " Other men," says Senator Lodge, " have been more versatile, possessed of a richer imagination and more gorgeous style, with a more brilliant wit and a keener sarcasm, but there is not one so absolutely free from faults of taste as Webster, or who is so uniformly simple and pure in thought and style, even to the point of severity." His speeches give him rank as one of America's greatest authors. What language more pure, style more harmonious, thought more profound among our authors.? " As a repository of political truth and practical wisdom," says Edward Everett, " I know not where we shall find their equal. The works of Burke naturally suggest themselves as the only writings in our language that can sustain the comparison." And Choate declares that " his multiform eloquence, exactly as his words fell, became at once so much accession to permanent literature, in the strictest sense solid, attractive, and rich"; "whose words," says John D. Long, " come to the tongue like passages from the poets or the Psalms." Contrary to Fox's maxim that a good speech does not read well, Webster's speeches both read well and sound well. Webster's oratory was greatly enhanced by his wonderful physical attributes, for he was perfectly formed by nature for the career of an orator and statesman. His personal presence made a lasting impression on all who saw him. He was five feet ten inches in height, and weighed about two hundred pounds. He had a massive head covered with raven-black hair, a lofty brow, and deep-set black eyes. His complexion was very dark, his nose aquiline, and his mouth large. In one of the studios of Rome his bust was once mistaken for DANIEL WEBSTER 225 that of Jupiter. His dignity and impressiveness caused him often to be called the ''god-like Daniel." His walk, his man- ner, his leonine look, were all in so grand a style that they not only never disappointed the eye, but one instinctively would turn to get a better glimpse of him as he passed along. Henry Hudson says, " He was incomparably the finest-looking, rather say the grandest-looking, man I ever set eyes on." Carlyle called him a ''magnificent specimen, a parliamentary Hercules, whom one would back against the world." His voice was of great compass — large and full, rich and organ-like in its swell. When he rose to speak throngs were ready to listen, and they hung on his every word. Mr.Ticknor, just after Webster's reply to Hayne, wrote to a friend : " Whether his speech was so absolutely unrivaled as I imagined when I was under the influence of his presence, of his tones, of his looks, I cannot be sure till I have read it, for it seems to me incredible. I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst from the gush of blood." Such was the effect on those who heard him in his loftiest moments. His massive intellectual power and his fine feeling, conveyed through so imposing a presence and a voice of such beauty and power, his simplicity in diction and directness in manner, made him the figure whom Americans delight to place highest in the roll of their great orators. Webster never spoke except on great occasions and on great themes. Not so agile and adaptable as Clay, he was less useful in ordinary legislation. But when the occasion was one of national importance, all eyes turned to Webster as their mouthpiece. He was looked to as the defender of the Consti- tution and as the embodiment of national strength. Ready of resource, he was prepared for the gravest emergencies. 226 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE When a reply was to be made to Senator Hayne the North looked to Webster to champion the Union cause. But when certain senators expressed doubt as to his preparedness Webster drew forth from his desk a package of notes, saying " If Hayne had tried, he could not have hit my notes better." The principles embodied in his speech had been wrought out months before, for he was aware of the coming conflict. An example of his habit of previous thought and, in this instance, actual verbal preparation is shown in the paragraph on the greatness of England, in his speech of May 7, 1834, in which he speaks of that nation as '' a power which has dotted the face of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts ; whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, encircles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." The paragraph from which this extract is taken was composed fourteen years before its utterance, while its author stood on the citadel of Quebec and surveyed the vast panorama that lay before him along the picturesque St. Lawrence. Webster w^as an attractive personality in a social way. He was affectionate in disposition, fond of good company, and enjoyed good stories. While not a humorist, he had a keen sense of the ridiculous, though his speeches contain but few indications of it. Though a splendid mimic in his daily inter- course, and a man of great dramatic power, who might have been a successful actor, yet in his speeches there was a weight and a strong sense of personal dignity that dispelled all im- pression of flippancy. But his gift of taunt and sarcasm in public address was a source of great effectiveness in moving assemblies. "His union of greatness with depth of heart made his speaking," says Choate, '' more an exhibition of character than of mere genius." DANIEL WEBSTER 22/ But Webster was not only the greatest orator America has produced ; he was one of the few great orators of the world, and in the history of eloquence deserves to rank with Demos- thenes, Cicero, St. Chrysostom, Bossuet, Chatham, and Burke. For thirty years he stood at the head of the bar of the United States and was accounted the most influential and the most talented member of the Senate. Hamilton and Madison laid the foundation of the Constitution ; Webster was the leading spirit in building the superstructure. So high a place did he take in the discussion of the principles and the meaning of the Constitution, and so much did the advocates of the Union depend upon his interpretation of it, that he will ever be known as the " Great Defender of the Constitution." When he died men wondered how the nation could survive. This implies leadership, uncommon personality, and remark- able gifts of eloquence. " Rejoice," says Justice Story, ''that we have lived in the same age ; that we have listened to his eloquence and been instructed by his wisdom." The great speeches of Webster may be divided into three classes — forensic, political, and occasional. Under the first class, in the order of their delivery, we have the " Dartmouth College Case" (1818), "Gibson vs. Ogden " (1829), the "White Murder Case" (1830), and the "Girard Will Case" (1844). His chief political orations are the " Greek Revo- lution" (1824), the "Reply to Hayne" (1830), the "Consti- tution not a Compact" (1833), " Speech at Niblo's Garden" (1837), and the " Compromises of the Constitution " (1850), In the class of occasional addresses are the following : the " Pl>Tnouth Oration " (1820), " First Bunker Hill Address " (1825), "Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson" (1826), "Progress of the Mechanic Arts" (1828), "Eulogy on Washington" (1832), " Second Bunker Hill Address" (1843), and " Lay- ing the Corner Stone of the Capitol " (185 1). 228 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE REPLY TO IIAYNE This speech was delivered in the United States Senate in reply to Senator Ilayne of South Carolina, January 26, 1830. The subject of the discussion was the Foote Resolution on the disposition of the public lands. I. MATCHES AND OVERMATCHES The senator from South Carolina had digressed very much from the subject under discussion. He had made an intensely partisan speech, in one part of which he questions Webster as to whether he considered him- self a match in debate for the senator from Missouri (Benton). Mr. President, when the mariner has been tossed for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, be- fore we float further on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which wc departed, that we may at least be able to con- jecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution. (The resolution which related to the sale of public lands was here read by the secretary of the Senate.) We have thus heard what the resolution is, which is actually be- fore us for consideration ; and it will readily occur to every one that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present — everything, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics, seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member's attention, save only the resolution before the Senate. He has spoken of everything but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance. The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. 1 must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment DANIEL WEBSTER 229 the honorable member sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling ? Must I not have been absolutely malicious if I could have thrust myself forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself and to allow others also the pleasure of sleeping upon them ? But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake. I did sleep on the gentleman's speech ; and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of yesterday, to which 1 am now replying. But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled out ? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it ; it was the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it ; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable and to bring him to his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, this interrog- atory of the honoi"able member* was only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional disparage- ment to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from 230 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE themselves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superi- ority, which does not allow me to pass it over without notice^Iti was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it were /diflficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body. Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion ; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer ; and I tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever* opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might say of his friend. .Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing more likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from in- tentional irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its DANIEL WEBSTER 23 1 general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation ; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part — to one the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here ; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with . / one of whose temper and character he has yet much to learn. ^^ Sir, I shall not allow myself on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper ; but, if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows to give ; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own ; and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources. II. MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA Webster defends the action of the North in freeing her own slaves and in urging that slavery be not extended into the territories. He calls atten- tion to the fact that the South was hostile to internal improvements. He then discusses the attitude of New England as opposed to the tariff, and makes reference to Senator Hayne's strictures upon New England. Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has taken up a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the subject of the public lands, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have been exhibited in the last thirty years. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the enemy's country. The politics of New Eng- land became his theme ; and it was in this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore discomfiture. Why, sir, 232 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE when he attacks anything which I maintain, and overthrows it ; when he turns the right or left of any position which I take up ; when he drives me from any ground I choose to occupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day. What has he done ? Has he maintained his own charges ? Has he proved what he alleged ? Has he sustained himself in his attack on the government and on the history of the North, in the matter of the public lands ? Has he disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an argument maintained by me ? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of mine ? Oh, no ; but he has " car- ried the war into the enemy's country." Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has he made of it ? Why, sir, he has stretched a dragnet over the whole surface of perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming popular addresses ; over whatever the pulpit, in its moments of alarm, the press in its heat, and parties in their extravagance have severally thrown off in times of general excitement and violence. Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it was, into New England, the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on the defensive. He elects to consider me as having assailed South Carolina, and insists that he comes forth only as her champion and in her defense. Sir, I do not admit that I made any attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing like it. If he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disrespect of the ebullitions of in- dividuals in South Carolina, it is true. But if he means that I as- sailed the character of the state, her honor or patriotism ; that I had reflected on her history or her conduct, he had not the slightest ground for any such assumption. I did not even refer, I think, in my observations, to any collection of individuals. I said nothing of the recent conventions. I spoke in the most guarded and care- ful manner, and only expressed my regret for the publication of opinions which I presumed the honorable member disapproved as much as myself. The eulogium pronounced upon the character of the state of South Carolina by the honorable gentleman for her revolutionary and other merits meets my hearty concurrence. DANIEL WEBSTER 233 I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great names. I claim them for coun- trymen, one and all ; the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions — Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation they served and honored the country, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears, does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his pa- triotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? No, sir, increased gratification and delight, rather. I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall" be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own state or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriot- ism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; or if I see an uncommon endowment of heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved by local preju- dice or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me indulge in re- freshing remembrance of the past ; let me remind you that, in early times, no states cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went through 234 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the Revolution ; hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachu- setts ; she needs none. There she is ; behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past, at le^st, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independ- ence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state from New Eng- land to Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it ; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it ; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its 'existence is made sure ; it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. III. PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION Senator Hayne maintained that "in case of a plain, palpable violation of the Constitution by the general government, a state may interpose, and that this interposition is cohstitutional." Webster meets this argument as follows. There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave and important duty, which I feel to be devolved on me by this occasion. It is to state and to defend what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here DANIEL WEBSTER 235 assembled. I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain that it is a right of the state legislatures to interfere whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws. I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing under the Constitution, not as a right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme necessity, such as would justify violent revolution. I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the states, thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power by the general government, of checking it, and of com- pelling it to conform to their opinion of the extent of its powers. I understand him to maintain that the ultimate power of judging of the constitutional extent of its own authority is not lodged exclu- sively in the general government or any branch of it; but that, on the contrary, the states may lawfully decide for themselves, and each state for itself, whether in a given case the act of the general government transcends its power. I understand him to insist that if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any state government, require it, such state government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional. This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South Carolina doctrine, and the doctrine which he maintains. I propose to consider it and compare it with the Constitution. Allow me to say as a preliminary remark that I call this the South Carolina doctrine only because the gentleman himself has so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say that South Carolina, as a state, has ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she has not and never may. That a great majority of her people are opposed to the tariff laws is doubtless true. That a majority somewhat less than that just mentioned conscientiously believe these laws unconstitutional may probably also be true. But that any majority holds to the right of direct state interference, at state discretion, — the right of nullifying acts of Congress by acts of state legislation, — is more than I know, and what I shall be slow to believe. 236 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE The great question is, Whose prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws ? On that the main debate hinges. The proposition that, in case of a supposed violation of the Constitution by Congress, the states have a consti- tutional right to interfere and annul the law of Congress, is the proposition of the gentleman ; I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no more than to assert the right of revolution for justifiable cause, he would have said only what all agree to. But I cannot conceive that there can be a middle course between sub- mission to the laws, when regularly pronounced constitutional on the one hand, and open resistance, which is revolution or rebellion, on the other. I say the right of a state to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained but on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression ; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy above the Constitution and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to when a revolution is to be justified. But Itlo not admit that under the Constitution, and in conformity with it, there is any mode in which a state government, as a member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the general government, by force of her own laws, under any circumstances whatever. This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government and the source of its power. Whose agent is it ? Is it the creature of the state legislatures, or the creature of the people ? If the govern- ment of the United States be the agent of the state governments, then they may control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it ; if it be the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, restrain it, modify, or reform it. It is observ- able enough that the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the necessity of maintaining not only that this general government is the creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states severally, so that each may assert the power for itself of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. It is the servant of four and twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. DANIEL WEBSTER 237 This absurdity, for it seems no less, arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government and its true character. It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's government ; made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Consti- tution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit the propo- sition or dispute their authority. The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. But the state legislatures, as political bodies, however sover- eign, are yet not sovereign over the people. We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people. I ask the gentleman, therefore, to come forth and declare whether, in his opinion, the New England States would have been justified in interfering to break up the embargo system under the conscientious opinions which they held upon it ? Had they a right to annul that law ? Does he admit, or deny ? If that which is thought palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina justifies that state in arresting the progress of the law, tell me whether that which was thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts would have justified her in doing the same thing ? Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a foot of ground in the Constitution to stand on. No public man of reputation ever advanced it in Massa- chusetts, in the warmest times, or could maintain himself upon it there at any time. Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures altogether. It cannot stand the test of examination. In maintaining these sentiments, sir, I am but asserting the rights of the people. I state what they have declared, and insist on their right to de- clare it. They have chosen to repose this power in the general government, and I think it my duty to support it, like other con- stitutional powers. For myself, sir, I do not admit the jurisdiction of South Carolina, or any other state, to prescribe my constitutional duty ; or to setde, between me and the people, the validity of laws of Congress for which I have voted. I decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the Constitution according to her construction of its clauses. 238 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE I have not stipulated by my oath of office, or otherwise, to come under any responsibility except to the people and those whom they have appointed to pass upon the question whether laws, supported by my votes, conform to the Constitution of the country. And, sir, if. we look to the general nature of the case, could anything have been more preposterous than to make a government for the whole Union, and yet leave its powers subject, not to one interpretation, but to thirteen or twenty-four interpretations ? Instead of one tri- bunal, established by all, responsible to all, with power to decide for all, shall constitutional questions be left to four-and-twenty popular bodies, each -^t liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decisions of others ; and each at liberty, too, to give a new construction on every new election of its own members? Would anything with such a principle in it, or rather with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be called a government? No, sir. It should not be denominated a Constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of topics for everlasting controversy — heads of debate for a disputatious people. It would not be a government. It would not be adequate to any practical good, nor fit for any country to live under. Now I wish to be informed how this state interference is to be put in practice without violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take the existing case of the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it, as we probably shall not, she will then apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legis- lature declaring the several acts of Congress, usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they respect South Carolina or the citizens thereof. So far all is easy enough. But the collector at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws ; he, therefore, must be stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. The state authorities will under- take their rescue ; the marshal with his posse will come to the col- lector's aid, and here the contest begins. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. DANIEL WEBSTER 239 Direct collision, therefore, between force and force is the un- avoidable result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws which the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very first case to which it is applied. Is not this the plain result ? To resist, by force, the execution of a law generally is treason. Can the courts of the United States take notice of the indulgence of a state to commit treason? The common saying that a State cannot commit treason herself is nothing to the purpose. Can she authorize others to do it? Talk about it as we will, these doctrines go the length of revolution. They are incompatible with any peaceable administration of the government. They lead directly to disunion and civil commotion ; and therefore it is that at their commencement, when they are first found to be main- tained by respectable men, and in a tangible form, I enter my public protest against them all. IV. LIBERTY AND UNION Webster holds that the Constitution of the United States is alterable, and that it will remain as it is " no longer than the people who established it shall choose to continue it"; that sovereignty lies with the people and not with the state governments. The people are strongly attached to the Con- stitution. They have preserved it for forty years, and " have seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength." . Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you' and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous deliberation such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it without express- ing once more my deep conviction, that since it respects nothing less than the Union of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. 240 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country and the pres- ervation of our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influence these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our popula- tion spread further and further, they have not outrun its pro- tection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed my- self, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering jiot/how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise.'*^ God grant that, on my vision, never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last DANIEL WEBSTER 241 feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, '' What is all this worth ? " nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart — Liberty and Union, now and forever one and inseparable 1 JOHN C. CALHOUN John C. Calhoun (1782 -1850), one of America's most distinguished statesmen, came of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He was born and brought up in South CaroUna, which hon- ored him many times by electing him a member of one of the houses of Congress. The young lad was early taught to rely on his own resources, and it became necessary for him to provide in great part for his own education. He was fitted for col- lege under private tutors, and entered Yale with so much advanced standing as to enable him to gradu- ate in two years. During one of his recitations with President Dwight the two took up almost the whole hour in an earnest discussion of some political question. The president was so impressed by his strength and precocity that he remarked afterwards to a friend, " That young man has talent enough to become Presi- dent of the United States." Following his graduation from Yale he entered upon a course at the Litchfield Law School, and after completing his course he began the practice of law in his native state. 242 JOHN C CALHOUN 243 But Calhoun was not long to remain in active practice; His skill in law and his interest in legislation were to be em- ployed for his native commonwealth. Within nine years of the time he began the practice of law he had served in the state legislature and been elected to a seat in Congress, and not until his death did he relinquish public service, having served as representative, as senator, as cabinet officer, and as Vice President. Personally he was striking in appearance, tall, erect, slender, with a severe countenance, features harsh and angular, hawk- like eyes, beetling brows, and a full head of bristling, iron- gray hair. His voice was somewhat harsh, his gestures were stiff, and he lacked the ease and charm of manner comm with public men of the South. In character he was irreproachable. No one ever questioned his sincerity. There was no concealment or pretense on his part, but unfailing devotion to his every conviction. His uprightness of character and his constant course in what he believed to be the right gave him great influence in the coun- cils of the nation. His firmness, his determination to carry forward his theories of government, and his ability in hold- ing his followers to his purpose gave him the sobriquet of the " Cast-iron Man." But how did Calhoun gain this quality of persuasiveness and leadership ? The first element was his thoroughness of preparation. He strove to find the truth, the exact truth, and as much of it as possible. His superior knowledge, his pre- paredness, inspired others to confide in him and follow him. His power of analysis was his leading faculty. Intense as a student in college, his powers of concentration were enhanced by his work as a statesman. His habit of reasoning enabled him to reach with alertness and accuracy conclusions which others had to go through a more laborious process to find out. 244 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE He cultivated this prime gift of oratory in the Hterary societies at Yale and the Litchfield Law School. Questions of public interest were debated with great energy and persistency. He thus gained the ability to reason consistently and discuss questions with calmness and judgment. Plain and direct in manner, he sought above all to bcAinderstood and to impress yhis" thoughtr^olloquial in style,*^ cared little for grace and jj polish. Rigidly intellectual, intensely logical, chaste in expres- j sion, there was more of the sap and juiciness of thought / than of the poetry and splendor of eloquence. He gathered statistics to support and work up his theories of government. His preparation of material was complete. Unceasing in mental activity and in his endeavor to be lucid and to gain adherents to his ideas of public policy, he often overreached himself .and became the hairsplitter in argument. The most striking feature of his oratory was his earnestness. It enabled him to sway the feelings of men and control their action. His enunciation was incisive, his delivery rapid, his look piercing, his voice shrill and loud and not well modulated ; his bearing, his looks, and his impetuosity riveted attention and awed into acquiescence. His attack was, fierce, blunt, and terrible, his sentences short and incisive/He seems to have made Demosthenes his model, for his style bears repeated evidence of severe study of the orations of the great Athenian. Von Hoist says of his oratory : '' He did not speak with arro- gance, and still less was there anything personally offensive in what he said, or in the manner in which he said it. . . . He observed the parliamentary proprieties with the rigor and naturalness of the born gentleman, and always attacked the argument of his adversary and not his person." aniel Webster, who had so often clashed with Calhoun in debate and who found it more difficult to cope with him than with any other antagonist, thus spoke in praise of Calhoun's JOHN C. CALHOUN 245 wonderful gifts as an orator : " The eloquence of Calhoun was part of his intellectual character. ... It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise, sometimes impassioned, still always severe. His power consisted in the plainness of his proposi- tions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his manner. . . . He had the basis, the indis- . pensable basis, of all high character, and that was unspotted mtegrity, unimpeached honor and character." Professor Sears says : '' Calhoun is an orator who cannot be overlooked in any account of American oratory. His mind was of the order that belongs preeminently to statecraft. He made great speeches, but they .were great in the closeness of their reasoning and the plainness of their propositions, coupled at times with an impassioned delivery, oftener with a severity and dignity of manner which men respected, but over which they did not go wild with enthusiasm nor drift far from their well-formed judgments." .^ '^ Mathews, in comparing the oratory of Clay and Calhoun, W says: ''Clay's words when assailing an enemy were usually /^ courteous and polished, while Calhoun's were fierce, blunt, \ and rudely terrible. The one hit his man with a keen rapier, like a courtier of the old regime ; the other knocked him down with a sledge hammer, like a Scandinavian giant. Clay allows you to die, like Lord Chester, in a becoming attitude, while Calhoun breaks your bones and leaves you sprawling on the floor. The one stabs you with a smile, the other smashes you with a frown. Clay is even more dangerous than Calhoun, as the graceful leopard is, perhaps, an antagonist more to be feared than the grizzly bear." Some of his great speeches are ," The War with England" (181 1), "The Tariff Bill" (1816), "The Force Bill" (1832), "Incendiary Publications" (1836), "Abolition Petitions" (1837), "The Oregon Question" (1846), "Slavery" (1850). 246 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE COMPROMISE MEASURES This speech was prepared by Calhoun for the session of the Senate of March 4, 1850. But as he was too ill to deliver it, another senator read it, Calhoun himself being present. The senator from South Carolina sat pale and emaciated and listened intently to his own words. The historian, Von Hoist, speaks of this as an " extraordinary scene, which had something of the impressive solemnity of a funeral ceremony " ; and adds that, when the Senate adjourned, Calhoun, " supported on the shoulders of two of his friends, tottered out of the Senate chamber," never to return. Less than a month saw the end of the distinguished senator. I. SLAVERY AND DISUNION Mr. Calhoun urges that the rapid increase of the senators and repre- sentatives from the North, on account of the growing population in that section, gives predominance to the North, disturbs the equilibrium of gov- ernment, and therefore endangers the tranquillity of the Union by center- ing power in a sectional majority. I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divide the country, to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be dis- guised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration : How can the Union be preserved ? To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is in- dispensable to ha ve an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is en- dangered, Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce with any certainty by what measure it can be saved ; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce in the case of some dangerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge of the nature JOHN C. CALHOUN 247 and character of the cause which produced it. The first question, then, presented for consideration in the investigation I propose to make in order to obtain such knowledge is, What is it that has endangered the Union ? To this question there can be but one answer — -that__theim- /^ medjate cause is the almost u niversal .diaconterit which pervades all the state s com p osing_the__ southern sectio n of the LlniQa. This widely "extended discontent is not of recent origin. It commenced with the agitation of the slavery question and has been increasing ever since. The next question, going one step further back, is, What has caused this widely diffused and almost universal discontent } It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogues who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding their personal advancement, or with the disappointed ambi- tion of certain politicians who resorted to it as the means of re- trieving their fortunes. On the contrary, all the great political influences of the section were arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the utmost, to keep the people quiet. The great mass of the people of the South were divided, as in the other section, into Whigs and Democrats. The leaders and the presses of both parties in the South were very solicitous to prevent excitement and to preserve quiet ; because it was seen that the effects of the former would necessarily tend to weaken, if not destroy, the political ties which united them with their respective parties in the other section. Those who know the strength of party ties will readily appre- ciate the immense force which this cause exerted against agitation and in favor of preserving quiet. But, great as it was, it was not sufficient to prevent the widespread discontent which now pervades the section. No, some cause far deeper and more powerful than the one supposed must exist, to account for discontent so wide and deep. The question then recurs. What is the cause of this discontent ? It will be found in the belief of the people of the Southern states, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they cannot remain, as things 248 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE now are, consis tently with honor anH safety, in th e .Union. The next question to be considered is, What has caused this belief? One of the causes is undoubtedly to be traced to the long- continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place. There is another lying back of it — with which this is intimately connected — t hat m ay be regarded asjhe great and primary cause. 'This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sectio ns in tEFgovernment as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other ; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression. The result of the whole is to give ^the Northern s ection a pre- dominance in ev ery department of the government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the federal gov- ernment — a majority of states, and a majority of their popula- tion, estimated in federal numbers. Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire government. This great increase of senators, added to the great increase of members of the House of Representatives and the Electoral Col- lege on the part of the North, which must take place within the next decade, will effectually and irretrievably destroy the equilib- rium which existed when the government commenced. Had this destruction been the operation of time without the interference of government, the South would have had no reason to complain ; but such was not the fact. It was caused by the legislation of this government, which was appointed as the com- mon agent of all and charged with the protection of the interests and security of all. h^^ fiO^ 7OHN C CALHOUN 249 Tl ie legisLatio n by which it has been effected may be classed under three heads : The first is that series of acts by which the South / has been excluded f rom the comm on territory belonging to all the States as members of the feder al Union — which have had the effect of extending vastly the portion allotted to the Northern sec- tion, and restricting within narrow limits the portion left the South. The ne xt consist s in adopting a system of revenue and disburse- ments by which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North. A nd t he last is a system of political measures by which the original character of the govern- ment has been radically changed, it is owing to the action of this government that the equilibrium between the two sections has .^ been destroyed, and the whole powers of the system centered in "^^ a sectional majority. X II. ABOLITION OR SECESSION Mr. Calhoun declares that the North has appropriated about three * \ fourths of the newly acquired territory, and that a far greater portion of the revenue has been disbursed among the states of that section for the benefit of the manufacturing interests. This has attracted immigrants to the Northern states and has led to the rapid increase of their representation in Congress. This has disturbed the equilibrium of the sections. Then the constant agitation of the slavery question has disturbed the relation of the races at the South and endangered the cordiality of the two sections. There is a question of vital importance to the Southern section, in reference to which the views and feelings of the two sections are as opposite and hostile as they can possibly be. I refer to the relation between the two races in the Southern section, which constitutes a vital portion of her social organization. Every portion of the North entertains views and feelings more or less hostile to it. Those most )pposed and hostile regard it as a sin, and consider themselv^ under the most sacred obligation to use every effort to destroy it. Indeed, to the extent that they conceive that they have power, they regard themselves as implicated in the sin, and responsible for 250 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE not suppressing it by the use of all and every means. Those less opposed and hostile regard it as a crime — an offense against humanity, as they call it, and, although not so fanatical, feel themselves bound to use all efforts to effect the same object; while those who are least opposed and hostile regard it as a blot and a stain on the character of what they call the " nation," and feel themselves accordingly bound to give it no countenance or support. On the contrary, the Southern section regards the relation as one which cannot be destroyed without subjecting the two races to the greatest calamity, and the section to poverty, desolation, and wretchedness ; and accordingly they feel bound by every consideration of interest and safety to defend it. Unless something decisive is done, I again ask. What is to stop this agitation before the great and final object at which it aims — the abolition of slavery in the states — is consummated ? Is it, then, not certain that if something is not done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession ? Indeed, as events are now moving, it will not require the South to secede in order to dissolve the Union. Agitation will of itself effect it, of which its past history furnishes abundant proof — as I shall next proceed to show. It is a great mistake to suppose that disunion can be effected by a single blow. The cords which bind these states together in one common Union are far too numerous and powerful for that. Disunion must be the work of time. It is only through a long process, and successively, that the cords can be snapped until the whole fabric falls asunder. Already the agitation of the slavery question has snapped some of the most important, and has greatly eakened all the others. the agitation goes on, the same force, acting with increased intensity, as has been shown, will finally snap every cord, when nothing will be left to hold the states together except force. But surely that can with no propriety of language be called a Union when the only means by which the weaker is held connected with the stronger portion is force. ■ It may, indeed, keep them connected, but the connection will partake much more of the character of JOHN C CALHOUN 25 I subjugation on the part of the weaker to the stronger, than the union of free, independent, and sovereign states in one confedera- tion, as they stood in the early stages of the government, and which only is worthy of the sacred name of Union. HI. PRESERVATION OF THE UNION Mr. Calhoun urges upon the North to concede to the South equal rights in the newly acquired territory, to cease the slavery agitation, or permit the Southern states to leave the Union in peace. Having now, senators, explained what it is that endangers the Union, and traced it to its cause, and explained its nature and character, the question again recurs, How can the Union be saved ? To this I answer, there is but one way by which it can be, and that is by adopting such measures as will satisfy the states belonging to the Southern section that they can remain in the Union consist- ently with their honor and their safety. There is, again, only one way by which this can be effected, and that is by removing the causes by which this belief has been produced. Do this, and dis- content will cease, harmony and kind feelings between the sections be restored, and every apprehension of danger to the Union re- moved. The question then is, How can this be done ? There is but one way by which it can with any certainty; and that is by a full and final settlement, on the principle of justice, of all the questions at issue between the two sections. The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and no concession or surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much that she has little left to surrender. Such a settlement would go to the root of the evil, and remove all cause of discontent, by satisfying the South that she could remain honorably and safely in the Union, and thereby restore the harmony and fraternal feelings between the sections which existed anterior to the Missouri agitation. Nothing else can, with any certainty, finally and forever settle the question at issue, terminate agitation, and save the Union. 252 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE But can this be done ? Yes, easily ; not by the weaker party, for it can of itself do nothing, — not even protect itself, — but by the stronger. The North has only to will it to accomplish it — to do jus- tice by conceding to the South an equalright inthieacquiredterritory, and to 9o hei^duFy by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled, to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provid e for the insertion of a prov ision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South, in substance, the power she possessecTof protecting herself before the equilibrium be- tween the sections was destroyed by the action of this government. There will be no difficulty in devising such a provision — one that will protect the South, and which at the same time will improve and strengthen the government instead of impairing and weakening it. But will the North agree to this ? It is for her to answer the question. But, I will say, she cannot refuse if she has half the love of the Union which she professes to have, or without justly exposing herself to the charge that her love of power and aggran- dizement is far greater than her love of the Union. At all events, the responsibility of saving the Union rests on the North, a nd not on the South. The South cannot save it by any act of hers, and the North mayTave it without any sacrifice whatever, unless to do justice and to perform her duties under the Constitution should be regarded by her as a sacrifice. It is time, senators, that there should be an open and manly avowal on all sides as to what is intended to be done. If the question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be ; and we, as the representatives of the states of this Union regarded as governments, should come to a distinct under- standing as to our respective views, in order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If you who represent the stronger portion cannot agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so' ; and let the states we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so ; and we shall know what to do when you reduce the question to submission JOHN C. CALHOUN 253 or resistance. If you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case California will become the test question. If you admit her under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We should be blind not to perceive in that case that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly. I have now, senators, done my duty in expressing my opinions fully, freely, and candidly on this solemn occasion. In doing so I have been governed by the motives which have governed me in all the stages of the agitation of the slavery question since its com- mencement. I have exerted myself during the whole period to arrest it, with the intention of saving the Union if it could be done ; and if it could not, to save the section where it has pleased Providence to cast my lot, and which I sincerely believe has jus- tice and the Constitution on its side. Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility. X RUFUS CHOATE Rufus Choate (i 799-1 859), the foremost forensic orator of America, was a New Englander by birth and an American in the breadth of his sympathies. Few men of his time were his peers in scholarship and culture. He was prepared for college at Hampton Academy and was gradu- ated from Dartmouth Col- lege in 1 8 19. He began the study of law in the Cambridge Law School, and continued his course at Washington in the office and under the tutor- ship of William Wirt, a man whose reputation at the bar is hardly inferior to that of his great pu- pil, and hardly less than that of Webster, the other member of the great trio of American forensic ora- tors. The examples of Pinckney, Wirt, and Webster, espe- cially the brilliant work of Webster in the Dartmouth College Case, fired Choate with a desire to study law. His years of waiting for clients after he was admitted to the bar were years of acquisition. Law, ethics, philosophy, and history were his favorite studies. He was also fond of 254 RUFUS CHOATE 255 the classics and especially of authors strong in imagination. Love of literature was a passion with him. Every day he would find some time to read from a favorite author. His imagination was so developed and his knowledge of men and affairs so wide that in his speeches one may find pas- sages not unworthy of Edmund Burke. Indeed he was so fond of Burke that no doubt his mind and the character of his imagination were much influenced by Burke's style. We can well believe this when we know that he ranked Burke along with Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton. Choate was a thorough student of expression. For vocal practice he read aloud daily. This gave him a voice of sin- gular strength, clearness, and sweetness. Then he was a tireless translator of the classics, with Tacitus as his favorite author. He did this not only for the ideas and the feeling that came from his reading, but for the strength of his dic- tion and the enlargement of his vocabulary. Then he was a great student of the dictionary and was fond of using large and unusual words. A judge of one of the courts before which Choate often appeared was told that a new dictionary had just been issued with several thousand new words in it. " In heaven's name," exclaimed the judge, " don't let Choate. get hold of it." Always on the lookout for choice phrases, he stored his prodigious memory with the finest passages of literature, which he would interweave into his speeches. For the purpose of cultivating ideas on the subjects he dealt with, he was constantly using his pen, for he had but to write out a proposition and it was by that process fixed in his mind. His writing was also done for the purpose of getting to the bottom of things. His rule, as he himself states it, was, "Always to prepare, investigate, compose a speech, pen in hand." In the court room he always had a pile of manuscript before him but seldom referred to it. Sometimes he wrote all night 256 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE before facing a jury, but had no need to refer to his papers, as the mere writing had stamped the thoughts upon his mind. The written words were so interwoven with the extemporized parts that it was not apparent to the audience, and hardly to himself, where the one ended and the other began. Choate's style of oratory was of a new and unique variety — fervid, imaginative, oriental in its exuberance, yet charged with thought and emotion. His diction was vivid, even gor- geous, with a multiplication of adjectives, abundant analogies, figures and flowers of fancy. Many of his sentences were enormous in length, sometimes covering two i2mo pages, and often so complex and involved that it was difficult for the reporter to straighten them out. Indeed the variety of his style, the singularity of his diction, his Johnsonian ver- boseness, and his rapidity of utterance made it impossible for the reporters to keep up with him. One of them, who had failed utterly in his efforts to follow him, sat back in open- mouthed wonderment and exclaimed, ' ' Who can report chain lightning! " Notwithstanding his verboseness and the largeness of his words, there was a stateliness and dignity of style that was attractive, and a clearness and force of statement that left no doubt as to his meaning. He showed great skill in the ar- rangement of his points and in the cleverness with which he met unexpected turns in the opponent's argument, a fact that accounts in great measure for his remarkable success as a lawyer. His kindness, his fairness, and courtesy of manner overcame prejudice, and his overflow of wit and humor, story and repartee, and his oddities of manner kept his jury wide- awake and susceptible to his pleas. Joseph Choate, ex-ambassador to England, and his kins- man and pupil, thus writes of him : " Many of his character- istic utterances have become proverbial, and the flashing of RUFUS CHOATE 257 his wit, the play of his fancy, and the gorgeous pictures of his imagination are the constant themes of reminiscence wherever American lawyers assemble for social converse. His arguments, so far as they have been preserved, are text- books in the profession. His splendid and blazing intellect, fed and enriched by constant study of the best thoughts of the great minds of the race, his all-persuasive eloquence, his teeming and radiant imagination, his brilliant and sportive fancy, his prodigious and never-failing memory, and his play- ful wit always bursting forth with irresistible impulse, have been the subjects of scores of essays and criticisms, all strug- gling with the vain effort to describe and crystallize the magical charm of his speech and his influence." Not only was his diction unique, but his method of delivery was sid generis. In figure he was tall, erect, and lithe — an impressive personality. His face was broad and deeply fur- rowed ; his eyes were large, dark, and lustrous, startling at times in their glare. His hair was black and luxuriant, and his complexion oriental in hue. Though he delighted to speak as well as audiences delighted to hear, yet he was as restless and nervous before a speech as a race horse about to be set off in a race. His voice was wide of range and very musical, now gentle and low, now intense in a whisper, now like the blast of a trumpet. He usually began speaking in a conversational manner, but as he warmed to his theme his whole manner changed. His voice took a higher range and a greater volume ; he gesticulated with his whole body ; his long arms and bony fingers were in constant and vehement action to enforce his points. Mathews says, '' Probably no orator ever lived who threw himself with more energy and utter abandon into the advocacy of a cause." He watched his jury as a hawk its prey. His eye and the tones of his voice fascinated them. He could read their thoughts and 258 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE know when he had won them, and would not close his argu- ment and appeal until he was morally certain of every jury- man. Once he labored three hours with the stubborn foreman of a jury, though the rest had been won long before. Often when he was through with his plea he was so exhausted that he had to be assisted to his carriage. His arguments before the court were calmer than those before the jury. He well knew that the arts practiced on the average juryman were not suited to the calm judgment of the court. A contemporary says of him, ''His was a new school of rhetoric, oratory, and logic, and of all manner of diverse forces, working steadily, irresistibly in one direction to accomplish the speaker's purpose and object." Regarding the effect of his oratory not only in court but in Congress, the story is related of a Kentucky representative who rose to leave the House as Choate began to speak, but lingered for a while to note the " tone of his voice and the manner of his speech." But he says : " that moment was fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by the music of his voice and was captivated by the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to move until the last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered." If success at the bar is the criterion by which one is to be judged as a forensic orator, Choate must be placed in the highest rank. His record as a winner of verdicts is unsur- passed. His success in clearing criminals made him the subject of taunt by such men as Wendell Phillips, who once said of him, " Thieves inquired into the state of his health before they began to steal." But it cannot be denied that his skill in setting forth the facts in a case and in expound- ing the law, his unique, original, and powerful method of expression, his abundant illustrations and marvelous fancy, place him quite alone in the field of forensic orators. His RUFUS CHOATE 259 rise was rapid, and had not his love of his profession kept him close to his work, he might have held a distinguished place in statesmanship. Devoted to his business, he shunned politics, and though active in public affairs, and repeatedly urged to enter public service, yet he only consented to suc- ceed Webster, his personal friend, in the Senate while the lat- ter was serving his country as Secretary of State, later to resign that Webster might return to the Senate. Speaking of the public services of Choate, one of his biog- raphers writes : ''He had won for himself an enviable repu- tation as a deliberative orator in the golden age of American eloquence. But he had little taste and less fondness for politi- cal life, and no aptitude at all for the drudgery by which party eminence is gained and party favor kept. He cared little for this sort of success. He counted it as a hindrance to the cul- tivation of professional and literary tastes, and could therefore hold fast to those conservative opinions which tend to keep a person in retirement." THE AGE OF THE PILGRIMS This speech was delivered before the New England Association of the City of New York, in December, 1843. I. EARLY HEROISM • Mr. Choate traces the history of the Pilgrim Fathers and shows how the spirit of liberty led them to flee their oppressors and brave the hardships necessary to establish a colony in New England. We meet again, the children of the Pilgrims, to remember our fathers. We meet again, to repeat their names one by one, to re- trace the lines of their character, to recall the lineaments and forms over which the grave has no power, to appreciate their vir- tues, to recount the course of their lives full of heroic deeds, varied by sharpest trials, crowned by transcendent consequences, to assert 26o BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the directness of our descent from such an ancestry of goodness and greatness, to erect, refresh, and touch our spirits by coming for an hour into their more immediate presence, such as they were in the days of their human "agony of glory." The two centuries which interpose to hide them from our eye — centuries so brilliant with progress, so crowded by incidents, so fertile in accumula- tions — dissolve away for the moment as a curtain of clouds, and we are once more by their side. The grand and pathetic series of their story unrolls itself around us, vivid as if with the life of yes- terday. All the stages, all the agents, of the process by which they and the extraordinary class they belonged to, were slowly formed from the general mind and character of England. The successive development and growth of opinions and traits and determinations and fortunes, by which they were advanced from Protestants to Republicans, from Englishmen to Pilgrims, from Pilgrims to the founders of a free Church, and the fathers of a free people in a new world ; the retirement to Holland ; the resolution to seek the sphere of their duties and the asylum of their rights beyond the sea ; the embarkation at Delft Haven — a noble colony of devout Christians, educated and firm men, valiant soldiers, and honorable women ; a colony on the commencement of whose heroic enter- prise the selectest influences of religion seemed to be descending visibly, and beyond whose perilous path are hung the rainbow and the westward star of empire ; the voyage of the Mayfloiver ; the landing ; the slow \yinter's night of disease and famine in which so many — the good, the beautiful, the brave — sunk down and died, giving place at last to the spring dawn of health and plenty ; the meeting with the old red race on the hill beyond the brook ; the treaty of peace unbroken for half a century ; the organization of a republican government in the Mayflower cabin ; the planting of these kindred and coeval and auxiliar institutions, without which such a government can no more live than the uprooted tree can put forth leaf or flower; institutions to diffuse pure religion; good learning ; austere morality ; the practical arts of administration ; labor, patience, obedience ; " plain living and high thinking "; the RUFUS CHOATE 261 securities of conservatism ; the germs of progress ; the laying deep and sure, far down on the rock of ages, of the foundation stones of the imperial structure whose dome now swells toward heaven ; all these high, holy, and beautiful things come thronging fresh on all our memories, beneath the influence of the hour. Such as we heard them from our mothers' lips, such as we read them in the his- tories of kings, of religions, and of liberty, they gather themselves about us ; familiar but of an interest that can never die, heightened inexpressibly by their relations to that eventful future into which they have expanded and through whose lights they show. And yet, with all this procession of events and persons moving before us, and solicited this way and that by the innumerable trains of speculation and of feeling which such a sight inspires, we can think of nothing and of nobody, here and now, but the Pilgrims themselves. I cannot, and do not, wish for a moment to forget that it is their festival we have come to keep. It is their taberna- cles we have come to build. It is not the Reformation, it is not colonization^ it is not ourselves, our present or our future, it is not political economy, or political philosophy, of which to-day you would have me say a word. We have a specific and single duty to perform. We would speak of certain valiant, good, and peculiar men, our fathers. We would wipe the dust from a few old, plain, noble urns. We would shun husky disquisitions, irrelevant novel- ties, and small display ; would recall rather and merely the forms and lineaments of the heroic dead — forms and features which the grave has not changed, over which the grave has no power. I regard it as a great thing for a nation to be able, as it passes through one sign after another of its zodiac pathway, in prosperity, in adversity, and at all times, to be able to look to an authentic race of founders, and a historical principle of institution, in which it may rationally admire the realized idea of true heroism. Whether it looks back in the morning or evening of its day ; whether it looks back as now we do, in the emulous fervor of its youth, or in the full strength of manhood, it is a great and precious thing to be able to ascend to, and to repose its strenuous or its wearied virtue 262 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE upon, a heroic age and a heroic race, which it may not falsely call its own. I mean by a heroic age and race, not exclusively or nec- essarily the earliest national age and race, but one, the course of whose history and the traits of whose character, and the extent and permanence of whose influences, are of a kind and power not merely to be recognized in after time as respectable or useful, but of a kind and a power to kindle and feed the moral imagination, move the capacious heart, and justify the intelligent wonder of the world. An age " doctrinal and exemplary," from whose personages, and from whose actions, the orator may bring away an incident, or a thought, that shall kindle a fire in ten thousand hearts, as on altars to their country's glory ; and to which the discouraged teachers of patriotism and morality to corrupted and expiring states may resort for examples how to live and how to die. II. FOUNDATIONS OF PURITANISM Mr. Choate holds that it was the spirit of the Reformation which im- pelled the Pilgrim Fathers to make untold sacrifices for independence of thinking. " I seem to myself to trace it, as an influence on the English race — a new theology, new politics, another tone of character, the opening of another era of time and of liberty." I confess that I love to trace the pedigree of our transatlantic liberty backwards through Switzerland, to its native land of Greece. I think this the true line of succession, down which it has been transmitted. There was a liberty which the Puritans found, kept, and improved in England. They would have changed it, and were not able. But that was a kind which admitted and demanded an inequality of many, a subordination of ranks, a favored eldest son, the ascending orders of a hierarchy, the vast and constant pressure of a superincumbent crown. It was the liberty of feudal- ism. It was the liberty of a limited monarchy, overhung and shaded by the imposing architecture of great antagonistic elements of the state. Such was not the form of liberty which our fathers brought with them. Allowing, of course, for that anomalous tie which con- nected them with the English crown three thousand miles off, it RUFUS CHOATE 263 was republican freedom, as perfect the moment they stepped on the rock as it is to-day. It had not been all bom in the woods of Germany ; by the Elbe or Eyder ; or the plains of Runnymede. It was the child of other climes and days. It sprang to life in Greece. It gilded next the early and the middle age of Italy. It then reposed in the hallowed breast of the Alps. It descended at length on the iron-bound coast of New England, and set the stars of glory there. At every stage of its course, at every reappearance, it was guarded by some new security ; it was embodied in some new element of order ; it was fertile in some larger good ; it glowed with a more exceeding beauty. Speed its way ; perfect its nature ! Take, Freedom ! take thy radiant round, When dimmed revive, when lost return. Till not a shrine through earth be found, On which thy glories shall not burn. Thus were laid the foundations of the mind and character of Puritanism. Thus, slowly, by the breath of the spirit of the age, by the influence of undefiled religion, by freedom of the soul, by much tribulation, by a wider survey of man, nature, and human life, it was trained to its work of securing and improving the liberty of England, and giving to America a better liberty of her own. Its day over and its duty done, it was resolved into its elements and disappeared among the common forms of humanity, apart from which it had acted and suffered, above which it had to move, out of which by a long process it had been elaborated. Of this stock were the Pilgrim Fathers. They came of heroical companionship. The planting of a colony in a new world, which may grow, and which does grow, to a great nation, where there was none before, is intrinsically, and in the judgment of the world, of the largest order of human achievement. To found a state upon a waste earth is first of heroical labors and heroical glories. To build a pyramid or a harbor, to write an epic poem, to construct a system of the universe, to take a city, are great, or may be, but far less than this. He, then, who sets a colony on foot designs a great work. He designs all the good, and all the glory of which, in the series of 264 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE ages, it may be the means ; and he shall be judged more by the lofty ultimate aim and result than by the actual instant motive. I distinguish this enterprise of our fathers, in the first place, by the character of the immediate motive, and that was, first, a sense of religious duty. They had adopted opinions in religion, which they fully believed they ought to profess, and a mode of public worship and ordinances, which they fully believed they ought to observe. They could not do so in England ; and they went forth across an ocean in winter to find a wilderness where they could. To the extent of this motive, therefore, they went forth to glorify God, - and by obeying his written will, and his will unwritten, but uttered in the voice of conscience concerning the chief end of man. It was, next, a thirst for freedom from unnecessary restraint, which is tyranny, — freedom of the soul, freedom of thought, a larger measure of freedom of life ; a thirst which two centuries had been kindling, a thirst which must be slaked, though but from the mountain torrent, though but from drops falling from the thunder cloud, though but from fountains lone and far, and guarded as the diamond of the desert. These were the motives — the sense of duty and the spirit of liberty. Great sentiments, great in man, in nations, " pregnant with celestial fire ! " Wherewithal could you fashion a people for the contentions and honors and uses of the imperial state so well as by exactly these ? To what, rather than these, would you wish to trace up the first beatings of the nation's heart ? If, from the whole field of occasion and motive, you could have selected the very passion, the very chance, which should begin your history, the very texture and pattern and hue of the glory which should rest on its first days, could you have chosen so well ? The sense of duty, the spirit of liberty, not prompting to vanity or luxury or dishonest fame, to glare or clamor or hollow circumstance of being ; silent, intense, earnest, of force to walk through the furnace of fire, yea, the valley of the shadow of death, to open a path amid the sea, to make the wilderness to bud and blossom as the rose, to turn back half a world in arms, to fill the amplest measure of a nation's praise. RUFUS CHOATE 265 These motives and these hopes — the sacred sentiments of duty, obedience to the will of God, religious trust, and the spirit of lib- erty — have inspired, indeed, all the beautiful and all the grand in the history of man. The rest is commonplace. " The rest is vanity ; the rest is crime." III. STRUGGLES AT PLYMOUTH Mr. Choate declares that the trials in the New World were " the spring of character and motive from which the current of our national fortunes has issued forth." Representative government was organized on board the Mayflo%uer. Here was " the exemplification of elementary democracy." Choate compares the heroism of the Pilgrims to that of Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae, for of the hundred who came on the Mayjioxver one half died within a year and most of these within the first three months. I acknowledge the splendor of that transaction [Thermopylae] in all its aspects. I admit its morality, too, and its useful influence on every Grecian heart, in that her great crisis. And yet do you not think that who so could by adequate description bring before you that first winter of the Pilgrims ; its brief sunshine ; the nights of storms slow waning ; its damp or icy breath felt on the pillow of the dying ; its destitution ; its contrasts with all their former experience of life ; its isolation and utter loneliness ; its deathbeds and burials ; its memories ; its apprehensions ; its hopes ; the con- sultations of the prudent ; the prayers of the pious ; the occasional hymn which may have soothed the spirit of Luther, in which the strong heart threw off its burden and asserted its unvanquished nature ; do you not think that who so could describe them calmly waiting in that defile, lonelier and darker than Thermopylae, for a morning that might never dawn, or might show them when it did, a mightier arm than the Persian, raised as in act to strike, would he not sketch a scene of more difficult and rarer heroism, — a scene, as Wordsworth has said, '' Melancholy, yea dismal, yet consolatory and full of joy," — a scene even better fitted than that to succor, to exalt, to lead the forlorn hopes of all great causes till time shall be no more ? 266 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE I can seem to see, as that hard and dark season was passing away, a diminished procession of these Pilgrims following another, dearly loved and newly dead, to that bank of graves, and pausing sadly there before they shall turn away to see that face no more. In full view from that spot is the Mayflower still riding at her anchor, but to sail in a few days more for England, leaving them alone, the living and the dead, to the weal or woe of their new home. I cannot say what was the entire emotion of that moment and that scene; but the tones of the venerated elder's voice, as they gathered round him, were full of cheerful trust, and they went to hearts as noble as his own. " This spot," he might say, '' this line of shore, yea, this whole land, grows dearer daily, were it only for the precious dust which we have committed to its bosom. I would sleep here and have my own hour come, rather than else- where, with those who shared with us in our exceeding labors, whose burdens are now unloosed forever. I would be near them in the last day, and have a part in their resurrection. And now," he proceeded, " let us go from the side of the grave to work with all our might that which we have to do. It is on my mind that our night of sorrow is well-nigh ended, and that the joy of our morning is at hand. The breath of the pleasant southwest is here, and the singing of birds. The sore sickness is stayed ; somewhat more than half our number still remain ; and among these some of our best and wisest, though others are fallen to sleep. Matter of joy and thanksgiving it is, that among you all, the living and the dead, I know not one, even when disease had touched him, and sharp grief had made his heart as a little child's, who desired, yea, who could have been entreated, to go back to England by yonder ship. Plainly is it God's will that we stand or fall here. All his provi- dences these hundred years declare it as with beams of the sun. Did he not set his bow in the clouds in that bitterest hour of our embarking, and build his glorious ark upon the sea for us to sail through hitherward? Wherefore, let us stand in our lot! If he prosper us, we shall found a church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail ; and a colony, yea, a nation, by which all other RUFUS CHOATE 267 nations shall be healed. Millions shall spring from our loins, and trace back with lineal love their blood to ours. Centuries here- after, in great cities, the capitals of mighty states, from the tribes of a common Israel, shall come together the good, the eminent, the beautiful, to remember our dark day of small things ; yea, gen- erations shall call us blessed ! " Without a sigh, calmly, with triumph, they sent the Mayflower away, and went back, these stern, strong men, all, all, to their im- perial labors. I have said that I deemed it a great thing for a nation, in all the periods of its fortunes, to be able to look back to a race of founders and a principle of institution in which it might seem to see the realized idea of true heroism. That felicity, that pride, that help, is ours. Our past — both its great eras, that of settlement and that of independence — should announce, should compel, should spontaneously evolve as from a germ, a wise, moral, and glorious future. These heroic men and women should not look down on a dwindled posterity. It should seem to be almost of course too easy to be glorious, that they who keep the graves, bear the name, and boast the blood, of men in whom the loftiest sense of duty blended itself with the fiercest spirit of liberty, should add to their freedom, justice ; justice to all men, to all nations ; justice, that venerable virtue, without which freedom, valor, and power are but vulgar things. And yet is the past nothing, even our past, but as you, quickened by its examples, instructed by its experience, warned by its voices, assisted by its accumulated instrumentality, shall reproduce it in the life of to-day. Its once busy existence, various sensations, fiery trials, dear-bought triumphs ; its dynasty of heroes, all its pulses of joy and anguish, and hope and fear, and love and praise, are with the years beyond the flood. " The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures." Yet, gazing on these, long and intently and often, we may pass into the likeness of the departed, may emulate their labors, and partake of their immortality. EDWARD EVERETT Edward Everett (i 794-1 865), the academic orator, was the most scholarly of America's great orators, the product of the best culture of New England. His preparation for col- lege was made in the Boston schools and Phillips Academy at Exeter. He entered Har- vard at the age of thirteen, the youngest of his class, and was graduated in four years with the highest honors. He early became an accomplished reader of the classics, and on his graduation was made tutor of Latin in Harvard College. During his tutorship he be- gan the study of theology, and two years later entered the ministry and accepted a call to a church in Boston. For the next two years large as- semblies gathered to hear the popular and eloquent young clergyman. But the charm of his scholarship rather than his message attracted the people. He did not remain long in the ministry. Harvard College called him to the professorship of Greek literature, and gave him opportunity, before entering upon his duties, to study and travel abroad. Such an offer to a man of his scholarly tastes was most attractive. He accepted the position and 268 EDWARD EVERETT 269 Spent four years and a half in study and travel, two years at Gottingen and short periods at several other European uni- versities, notably Oxford and Cambridge. Much of his time was spent in and about Athens in the study of art, literature, and archeology. He became an accomplished linguist and met many of the most distinguished statesmen, scholars, and authors. During the six years of his active work as pro- fessor of Greek at Harvard he gave many popular lectures on Greek literature and art. These lectures not only showed immense resources of learning and culture, but gave evidence of marked ability as a public speaker, and showed the great ease with which he could command his knowledge of language and idiom. His general education and wide knowledge of affairs did not stop here. He became the editor and founder of the North American Reviciv, and began a profound study of public questions, constitutional law, and diplomacy. The con- stant editorial work of one whose ability as a student writer was traditional at Harvard gave him intimate knowledge of men and legislation, and developed that singular felicity and power of expression which were called into use in his many public addresses. Not only was Everett a general student of art, literature, theology, and diplomacy, but he was a special student of ora- tory. Although his native ability as an orator was not to be compared with that of Webster, Clay, or Phillips, yet he set out with the high resolve to succeed as a public speaker — an occasional orator, in the phrase of to-day. No American of distinction ever worked harder to attain success. Like a fa- mous German who felt himself handicapped in his fight for distinction, Everett " resolved to make as much as possible out of the stuff"; and, like Demosthenes, whose oratory Everett used as his model, he " left nothing to chance which 270 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE work could accomplish," for his orations and polished periods did indeed " smell of the lamp." Physically Everett's presence was satisfying to the eye. He had a fine, well-proportioned, erect figure, a noble face, a large mouth, a firm chin, and large beaming eyes. His voice, naturally sweet and clear, became, by persistent training, full, rich, varied, wide of compass and emotional. Its whisper penetrated, and its full volume was powerful, swelling, and melodious. His gestures and attitudes, though studied and at times mechanical, were graceful and appropriate. It was a custom with him to introduce in his public addresses certain physical objects to enforce his thought. For instance, he would have a flag placed on the lectern, that during certain patriotic passages he might seize it and wave it before the audience. Once in speaking of the flash of thought under the sea he produced a piece of the Atlantic cable. In the course of an agricultural address in New England, when speaking of a product richer than the gold of California, he held up before the audience an ear of yellow corn. These studied effects were so graceful, and to all intents so sponta- neous that public taste was not offended by them, though in the light of the present such effects border on the tricky or the theatrical. The strength of Everett's oratory lies in its symmetry and finish. He resembled the Greeks in the severity of his rhetoric. As literature his orations approached " nearer the Hellenic standard in form and body " than any other collec- tion of American speeches. A collection of his occasional orations are worthy the best of the Greeks. All his orations were written with the most painstaking care. He was so con- scientious in this as to be thought almost finical in taste and refinement. His sentences were polished and rhythmical, his periods were wrought out and burnished. His polished EDWARD EVERETT 2/1 cadences, his balanced sentences, and his well-poised antithe- ses made his style the highest triumph of rhetoric. And yet Everett was no mere rhetorician. His addresses covered a wide range of subjects. There were anniversary addresses, literary addresses, eulogies, political and congress- ional speeches, which show wide knowledge and felicitous treatment. The commonest topics receive illumination from his speeches. "His good sense," says Sears, " kept him from sacrificing anything to mere expression ; his large knowledge delivered him from bondage to the symphonies of speech on every occasion. He knew when magnificent declamation was in place, and also when plain and practical discourse was equally imperative. The sense of fitness never deserted him. ... His great masterpieces of eloquence are of immeasura- ble worth in the history of that art which he so assiduously cultivated. It constitutes a special department of public speech fhd approximates closely to the ideal of oratory as an art." His speeches show what culture and knowledge may become in the hands of an eloquent man, when there is harmony between the speaker, his theme, and his audience. He appeals to the intellect more than to the emotions. The chief criticism made upon his oratory is that he lacked fire, that because he spoke from memory his speeches lacked abandon and spon- taneity, for one who would reach the pinnacle of eloquence. One of his critics says that " he too generally approached the deliberate style of the writer, losing in doing so the rapidity, the warmth, the compelling power of the orator. His sur- passingly great merit is his knowledge of history, his grasp of fact, and his ability to present it in its harmonies." Yet it must be confessed that as reading matter, as literature, most of our great orators suffer in comparison with Everett. "His style," says Harsha, "is elaborated with the greatest care and perfection. His sensibilities are very refined, his imagination 2/2 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE is sparkling. No one can listen to him without being moved, instructed, and delighted." To attain his perfection oi art Everett was untiring in preparation and practice. At thirty years of age he made his first formal address before the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard. His success was instantaneous. The people were more than pleased ; they were amazed at the wisdom and learning displayed by the speaker. He spoke on the ''Progress of Literature in America." Years later one who heard him on that occasion wrote : "The sympathies of his audience went with him in a rushing stream as he painted in glowing hues the political, social, and literary future of our country. They drank with thirsty ears his rapid generalization and his sparkling rhetoric. As with a skillful and flying hand the orator ran over the chords of national pride and patriotic feeling, every bosom throbbed in unison, and when the fervid declamation of the concluding paragraph was terminated by the simple pathos of the address to Lafayette, who was present at the orator's side, his hearers were left in a state of emotion far too deep for tumultuous applause." The success of this speech opened the way to a career as an occasional orator, which had not been followed so exclu- sively by any of his predecessors. It was a splendid and amazing triumph for a man of thirty years, and was the be- ginning of a long series of patriotic addresses made on similar public occasions. It established his reputation as one of the most accomplished orators of the time. The same year he delivered an oration at Plymouth on the " First Settlement of New Englahd," a masterly oration, worthy of the occasion and full of most beautiful sentiments. The oration in commem- oration of "Adams and Jefferson" was delivered in 1826; the one on the " Bunker Hill Monument "in 1833 ; the one on the " Death of Lafayette " in 1834, pronounced in Faneuil EDWARD EVERETT 2/3 Hall ; and a speech on the '' Battle of Lexington " in 1835, delivered on the battlefield on the sixtieth anniversary of that memorable conflict. The best known of all his orations was that on the '' Character of Washington," first delivered in Boston in 1856, but afterwards a hundred and twenty times, in different parts of the country, for the benefit of the Mount Vernon Association. This organization was formed '' to pur- chase Mount Vernon, in order that it might forever belong to the American people as a place of public resort and pil- grimage." His efforts realized for that association $60,000 and thus assured the purchase and maintenance of the home of Washington. The last of his well-known occasional ad- dresses was the oration at the " Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg" in 1863. The many extracts from these addresses which may be found in our schoolbooks, and which will be declaimed along with those of Patrick Henry, Webster, and Phillips, attest to their worth and the deep impression they have made. Sears says of his oratory : ''It was the fortune of many distinguished men of the last generation to receive an impulse in life from the classic purity and grace of such English as Everett knew how to construct out of the wealth of his re- sources. To the most varied culture he added an immense and diversified learning, a retentive memory, so much valued by the Hellenic orators, great facility and felicity of expression, a ready wit, a conciliating humor, a dexterity in turning the sharp corners of discussion, and always a sense of fitness which is both the essence and the safeguard of good style." Everett is a good example of what men of moderate ability may accomplish by the severest discipline. What though he practiced his periods for smoothness and rhythm, what though now and then he was ornamental in style, what though he indulged in word painting to excess, and studied gesture and 274 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE effects of voice even at the age of sixty, what though he lacked emotion and kindhng sensibihties and was mechanical and constrained at times in method, yet by his diligence as a student of oratorical expression he became the most sought of the lyceum orators of the time. One of his critics has declared that Everett's was the " art and mechanism of eloquence, rather than its genius," that his orations were ''stand-up essays," and that his eloquent writing did not succeed in Congress as short, spontaneous and pointed speeches do. It is true that he committed his speeches. 'But this was no drudgery to him, for he could repeat his own written speeches by reading them once or twice over. It is to his credit that he took such pains to bring before waiting audiences such knowledge in so attractive a form. Grant that he was not so great as Clay or Webster in the Senate, or as Phillips or Beecher in the presence of hos- tile audiences. Everett was not an agitator or an aggressive orator, but give him an academic audience, or a popular audience on a patriotic occasion, and he was supremely effec- tive. He blended the essentials of the great orator in a high degree, but it is no disparagement to him to say that there were forensic, political, and congressional orators who were his peers. Not only was he great as an orator, but what other man in American history occupied so many important positions and with such ability .'' Note them in order : instructor of Latin at Harvard, pastor of a church in Boston, professor of Greek at Harvard, editor of North American Review, congressman, three times elected governor of Massachusetts, minister to England, president of Harvard, Secretary of State in the Fillmore administration, senator from Massachusetts, and vice-presidential candidate. EDWARD EVERETT 275 CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON This speech was first delivered on February 22, 1856. It was received with such enthusiasm that calls came from all parts of the nation for a repetition of it. Interest was heightened by the announcement that Mr. Everett would contribute the entire proceeds of a lecture tour to the com- mission which proposed to purchase Mount Vernon as a national posses- sion. The speech was delivered one hundred twenty times, and the sum realized was $60,000. I. CONTRAST WITH NAPOLEON Mr. Everett traces the history of Washington from his early successes in the frontier wars to his successful career as commander in chief of the Revolutionary forces. Then he compares him with " the great captain of the nineteenth century." I am to speak to you this evening, my friends, of the character of Washington, on this, the anniversary of his birthday — a great and glorious theme, but as difficult as it is interesting and im- portant. To do justice to his character we must sketch the background of the picture of which he forms the most prominent personage. He has been often called, and among others by the first living parliamentary orator of England [Lord Brougham], '' the greatest man of our own or of any age " ; and this estimate of his character, long since pronounced" by his grateful countrymen, seems to me more and more confirmed by the general assent of the more reflecting portion of mankind. And if the first part of the eulo- gium is found in truth, the second is not less so. Not like Alfred and Charlemagne, bright lights shining in dark ages, Washington lived in an age which, notwithstanding the illustrious names which adorn other periods of history, in many respects stands first in the annals of our race for great names, great events, great reforms, and the general progress of intelligence. The period which has elapsed from about the commencement of the last century down nearly to our time, and of which Washington is the brightest orna- ment, may be called with propriety the age of wonders, humanly speaking, in the history of mankind. 2/6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Compare Washington with the illustrious captain of the last generation in France, that portentous blazing star which began to flame in the eastern sky as our benignaiif l ufnina ry was sinking in the West, amidst the golden clouds of a nation's blessing. I have no wish to trample on the memory of Napoleon the First, whom I regard by no means as the most ambitious of conquerors, the most arbitrary of despots, or the worst of them. The virtues and the feelings, like the talents, the opportunities, and the fortunes of this extraordinary man, are on too colossal a scale to be meas- ured by ordinary standards of morality. The prevalent opinions in this country of his character and career have come to us through a British medium-, discolored by a national prejudice and the deadly struggle of a generation ; or by natural reaction have been founded on the panegyrics of grateful adherents and admiring subjects, who deem every Frenchman a partner in the glory of their chief. Pos- terity and impartial history will subdue the lights and relieve the shadows of the picture. They will accord to him a high, perhaps the highest, rank among the great masters of war, placing his name on an equality with the three great captains of antiquity, if not above them ; will study his campaigns for lessons of strategy ; will point to his code as a noble monument of legislative wisdom ; will dwell upon the creative vigor with which he brought order out of the chaos of the Revolution, retrieving the dilapidated finances and restoring the prostrate industry of France ; will enumerate the harbors, the canals, the bridges, the public buildings, the Alpine roads, the libraries, the museums, and all the thousand works of in- dustrious peace and productive art ; will not withhold their admira- tion for the giant grasp of his genius and imperial grandeur of his fortunes, nor deny a tribute of human sympathy to his calamitous decline and fall. But the same impartial history will record more than one ineffaceable stain upon his character, and never t o the end of time, never on the page of historian, poet, or philosopher, never j till a taste for true moral greatness is eaten out of the hearts of men by a mean admiration of success and power, never , in the exhor- tations of their prudent magistrate counseling his fellow citizens EDWARD EVERETT 277 for their good, never in the dark ages of national fortune when anxious patriots explore the annals of the past for examples of public virtue, never in the admonition of the parent forming the minds of his "cHUcfren by lessons of fireside wisdom, never, oh, never, will the name of Napoleon, nor of any of the other famous conquerors of ancient and modern days, be placed upon a level with Washington's. But though Washington was thus great in an age of great men and great events, yet was his greatness neither borrowed nor re- flected, but origina l. This is a trait in his character, and in that of some of his most distinguished contemporaries, not perhaps duly appreciated ; that they were to a degree rarely, if ever, equaled, the architects of their own character and of their country's for- tunes. Enriched and instructed as we are by the bright examples, the recorded opinions, and the established institutions of the past, we reflect too little how much guidance we derive from them in the practical duties of public life ; nor do we sufficiently bear in mind how many of these examples, opinions, and institutions came down to us from the age of Washington ; ho^ few go back to an earlier period, or could have been of use in the formation of his mind or the guidance of his conduct. In order fully to estimate what he did for the country, he and his associates, we must con- trast America as it was in 1732, without great events, great insti- tutions, great traditions, and great characters, with America as it stood at his decease — rich in great events, great institutions, great traditions, and great characters, and his the greatest of them all./Y^., j Our voyage is on a well-known sea, the course laid down on faith- ' ' f ul charts, and the shores and the havens pointed out and described''''^ by those who have preceded us ; but Washington and the men of ^^ his age were compelled, against adverse tempests, to sound their "^ way along the unvisited coasts of republican government and constitutional liberty. 278 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE II. HIS SOLITARY EMINENCE Mr. Everett declares that Washington was called upon to take part in measures which were without precedent, and he and his associates were compelled to form their own plan of government. " I doubt if a hundred pages had been written to which Washington and the men of his age could refer for such lessons as to us — drawn from the writings and examples of the Revolutionary age — are as familiar as household words." There was no Washington in the seventeenth century, in the pure mirror of whose character the Washington of the eighteenth ^, cenj^ry could mold and fashion his youthful virtues, or rehearse\i the- great part he was to act in life. y^ There was none in America, there was none in Europe, there was none in the modern world, there was none in the ancient world, I V cast my eyes along the far-stretching galleries of history, still echoing /TO the footsteps of the mighty dead ; I behold with admiration the images and the statues of the great and good men with which theyA j are accorded. I see many who deserved well of their country in civil and in military life, — on the throne, in the council chamber, on the bc^ttle field, — but I Behold in the long line, no other Washington. I return from the search up and down tho- pathways of time, grateful to the Providence which, at the solemn moment, when the destinies of the Continent were suspended in the balance of doubtful future, raised up a chieftain endowed with every quality of mind and heart to guide the fortunes of a nascent state. If, then, we claim for Washington this solitary eminence among the great and good, the question will naturally be asked, in what the peculiar and distinctive excellence of his character consisted ; and to this fair question I own, my friends, I am tasked to find an answer that does full justice to my own conceptions and feelings. It is easy to run over the heads of such a contemplation ; to enumerate the sterling qualities which he possessed, and the defects from which he was free ; but when all is said in this way that can be said, with whatever justice of honest eulogy and whatever sympathy of appreciation, we feel that there is a depth which we hnve not sounded, a latent power we have jiot EDWARD EVERETT 279 measured, a mysterious beauty of character which you can no more describe in word s^than you can paint a blush_ : a moral fascination, so to express it, which all feel but which we cannot analyze nor trace to its elements. All the personal traditions of Washington assure us that there was a serene dignity in his presence, which charmed while it awed the boldest who approached him. You feel as if you are gazing into that patient blue eye, where resignation shades into sadness ; that you are looking upon a man whose word you would respect as an uninspired scripture, whose probity you would trust with uncounted gold, whose counsels you would lay up in your heart as those of a dying father, whose lead you would implicitly follow in the darkest hours of trial, ^ whose good opinion you would not barter for the wealth of the X -Indies ; a man toward whom affection rises into reverence, and >,.^everence melts back into childish, tearful love. s^^fX/f^'y^^"'^ I am disposed to place the distinctive beauty and excellence of Washington's character in that well-balanced aggregate of powers and virtues for which he was distinguished, and which necessarily excludes the possession of one or two highly developed prominent traits. No one, I think, who has carefully reflected on the subject but will come to the conclusion that, instead of being improved, his character would have been impaired by any such dazzling quSTity, especially when we take into account the defects with which such qualities are sure to be accompanied. The ardent and ungoverned temperament, the indomitable will, often another name for arrogant obstinacy and selfishness, the passionate love of distinction and applause, which enter so largely in most cases into what is called a brilliant public character, would have destroyed the beauty and broken down the strength of Washington's. The ancient philosophers placed the true conception of perfect man- hood in the n»6session of those powers and qualities which are required for the honorable and successful discharge of the duties of life, each in the golden mean, equally removed from excess in either direction, and all in due proportion. This type of true greatness I find more fully realized in the character of Washington 28o BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE than in that of any other chieftain or ruler of ancient or modern times. He did not possess a few brilliant qualities in that exag- gerated degree in which they are habitually ascribed to the heroes of poetry and romance, but he united all the qualities required for the honorable and successful conduct of the greatest affairs, each in the happy mean of a full maturity, and all in that true propor- tion in which they balance and sustain each other. III. HIS MORAL GRANDEUR Mr. Everett discusses the special qualities that go to make up Wash- ington's character, among which are prudence, love of justice, common sense, a calm temperament, and modesty. Then he says that all these were " founded on the basis of pure Christian morality." All the great qualities of disposition and action, which so emi- nently fitted him for the service of his fellow men, were founded on the basis of a pure Christian morality, and derived their strength and energy from that vital source. He was great as he was good ; he was great because he was good ; and I believe, as I do in my existence, that it was an important part in the design of Providence in raising him up to be the leader of the Revolutionary struggle, and afterwards the first President of the United States, to rebuke prosperous ambition and successful intrigue ; to set before the people of America, in the morning of their national existence, a living example to prove that armies may be best conducted, and governments most ably and honorably admin- istered, by men of sound moral principle ; to teach to gifted and aspiring individuals, and the parties they lead, that, though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity. Born beneath a humble but virtuous roof, brought up at the knees of a mother not unworthy to be named with the noblest matrons of Rome or Israel, the " good boy," as she delighted to call him, passed uncorrupted through the temptations of the solitary frontier, the camp, and the gay world, and grew up the EDWARD EVERETT 28 1 good man. Engaging in early youth in the service of his country, rising rapidly to the highest trusts, office and influence and praise, passing almost the bounds of human desert, did nothing to break down the austere simplicity of his manners or to shake the solid basis of his virtues. Placed at the head of the suffering and dis- contented armies of his country, urged by the tempter to change his honest and involuntary dictatorship of influence into a usurped dictatorship of power, reluctantly consenting to one reelection to the Presidency and positively rejecting a second, no suspicion ever crossed the mind of an honest man — let the libelers say what they would, for libelers I am sorry to say there were in that day as in this, men who pick their daily dishonorable bread out of the char- acters of men as virtuous as themselves, and they spared not Washington — but the suspicion never entered into the mind of an honest man that his heart was open to the seductions of ambition or interest ; or that he was capable in the slightest degree, by word or deed, of shaping his policy with a view to court popular favor or serve a selfish end ; that a wish or purpose ever entered his mind inconsistent with the spotless purity of his character. f There is a modest, private mansion on the bank of the Potomac,/?^ y,* the abode, of George Washington. It boasts no spacious portal, nor ,-tX*^ gorgeous colonnade, nor massy elevation, nor storjed tower. No arch or column, IrTcourtly English or courtlier Latin, sets forth the deeds and the worth of the Father of his Country ; he needs them not ; the um^itten benedictions of millions cover all the walls. No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam, but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior — the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good ; to that he returned happiest when t his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity ; there he ^2f(^ died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make their pilgrimage to it as to a shrine ; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865) owed as little to books and to teachers as did any American of eminence. In the wilds of Kentucky and Indiana during his youth there were very few schools and they were poor and irregular. Lincoln's whole schooling, we are told, did not amount to as much as one year. At the age of seventeen he was compelled to go four miles to attend district school. Reading, writing, and arith- metic were the only branches taught, and the lad's eager- ness for knowledge soon helped him to proficiency in these subjects. As soon as he had learned to read un- derstandingly, the vast field of knowledge began to open up to him. For a long time the Bible and yEsop's Fa- bles were the only books in his possession. He must have known these by heart, for we well know that he himself spoke in figures and parables. The next books to come into his hands were " Robinson Crusoe," a Life of Washington," Pilgrim's Progress," and a history of the United States. Whenever he found a moment from his 2S2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 283 work he would take up a book and begin to read, and his considerate mother was so deeply interested in his progress that she would not allow him to be disturbed. Long into the night, by the feeble light of the open fire, he would pore over his books. The pursuit of knowledge became a pas- sion with him. His retentive memory, his power of assimi- lation, and his ability to go to the bottom of subjects soon gained him a reputation for knowledge and good sense. Ambassador Choate, in an address in London, says on this subject : " Untiring industry, an insatiable thirst for knowl- edge, and an ever-growing desire to rise above his surroundings were early manifestations of his character. . . . Instead of a university training fortune substituted trials, hardships, and struggles as a preparation for his great work." The studious habits acquired in his early youth remained with him to the day of his death, and never was he better fitted to serve the American people than at the hour of his sacrifice. His interest in the law dates from his possession of a copy of the statutes of Indiana, which he read and reread with in- creasing interest. But it was not until a copy of Blackstone came into his hands that he began his serious study of the law. '' In this he became wholly engrossed, and began for the first time to avoid the society of men, in order that he might have more time for study." Such was Lincoln's general education and the foundation which he laid for his work as a lifelong student. What was the special work which fitted him for so high a rank among great orators, for no one may gain such eminence in literature and oratory without some kind of discipline ? Few men ever trained themselves more thoroughly and more severely in the use of the English language. His eager- ness for expression was hardly excelled by his thirst for knowl- edge. He turned everything to account. He meditated on the 284 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE thoughts he had gained and immediately expressed them in his own simpler language. When asked by Professor Gulliver of Andover, Massachusetts, how he acquired such control of the English language, he replied : " Well, if I have got any power that way, I will tell you how I suppose I came to get it. You see, when I was a boy over in Indiana all the local politicians used to come to our cabin to discuss politics with my father. I used to sit by and listen to them, but my father would not let me ask many questions, and there were a good many things I did not understand. Well, I 'd go up to my room in the attic and sit down or pace back and forth till I made out just what they meant. And then I 'd lie awake for hours just put- ting their ideas into words that the boys around our way could understand." This was the secret of his severe self-discipline in clearness and power of statement, his chief aim in writing and speaking. To avoid verboseness and to be easily under- stood he studied his own utterances to see wherein he failed or succeeded. This gave him a marvelous power over words in extemporization. The London Spectator says that " no criticism of Lincoln can in any sense be adequate that does not deal with his astonishing power over words, and it is not too much to say of him that he is among the greatest masters of prose ever produced by the English race." Lincoln trained himself both in private arguments and in public speeches to express his thoughts so that he might be instantly understood. This gave him power of analysis and the ability to think a subject through to a logical conclusion. When at work in- the fields he delighted in '' speechifying," as he called it, and would often mount a stump and harangue his fellow workmen, who were ever ready to listen to him. Not infrequently a cluster of trees offered him "dignified and appreciative audience." Speaking on this subject, Hamilton Mabie says : " Countless private debates were carried on at ABRAHAM LINCOLN 285 street corners, in hotel rooms, by the country road, in every place where men met even in the most casual way. In these wayside schools Lincoln practiced the art of putting things, until he became a master in debate, both formal and informal. ... In a period which accepted the most extravagant rhetoric as the highest kind of eloquence, he was a man of simple, sincere, and beautiful speech . . . free from exaggeration, from high-sounding and bombastic phrase, from the spread-eagleism which was the passion of the time." When he first went to Springfield he became a member of the Young Men's Lyceum, which often held public debates on political subjects. His style was then flowery and some- what gaudy in ornament, but by practice he grew in simplicity and logical power and gradually acquired a style of singular felicity and persuasiveness. He was at this time a persistent student of great orations, both British and American, and during his term in Congress he was a careful observer of the methods of the men most highly reputed for their eloquence. Joseph Choate, remarking on the purity and perfection of his style of speaking, says : '' The rough backwoodsman who had never seen the inside of a university became in the end, by self-training and the exercise of his own powers of mind, heart, and soul, a master of style ; and some of his utterances will rank with the best, the most perfectly adapted to the occasion which produced them." Not only was he a master of style by consistent and unyielding self-discipline, but he possessed in a marked degree the ability to master his ma- terials and gain a firm grasp of the truth. Possessed of a clear vision, an open logical mind, his statement of a case was better than most men's argument. He had the happy faculty of putting aside all extraneous discussion, platitudes, and generalities. In conducting his cases in the courts he would give away so many points as to alarm his friends. But 286 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE he would say to the court, " We may be wrong in this, but it is not the gist of the matter anyway." This Hberahty and dis- position toward fair play always told with a jury and usually resulted in the verdict which he asked for. Another important element in his style was his use of figures, analogies, and stories. His power of comparison was unique. In the making of points which came home to the general mind through his figures and analogies he was not surpassed by any other of our orators. All opponents dreaded his apt comparisons, his novel way of putting things, his terse- ness and force of expression. And not the least effective of his weapons were his native wit, his quaint humor, and his wonderful gift as a story-teller. " I am not simply a story- teller," he once said, " but story-telling as an emollient saves me much friction and distress." His anecdotes, always perti- nent, were used to enforce his points, to quicken the minds of his audience, and sometimes to divert a curious questioner. Ambassadors and statesmen were often quite shocked to have the President of the United States interrupt them with a story of a man out in old Sangamon County, Illinois. There is no doubt that he derived great power from the aptness of these stories. Some one has said that " his illustrations were ro- mance and pathos, fun and logic, all welded together." His bubbling humor, which played unceasing accompaniment to his logic, smoothed the way to conviction and won for him many a forensic contest. "Yet," says Carl Schurz, "his greatest charm consisted in the power of his individuality. That charm did not, in the ordinary way, appeal to the ear or the eye. ... He commanded none of the outward graces of oratory as they are commonly understood. His charm was of a different kind. It flowed from the rare depth and genu- ineness of his convictions, and his sympathy, the strongest element in his nature." ABRAHAM LINCOLN 287 In personal appearance Lincoln was not comely. He was very tall, thin chested, slightly stooped, gaunt, and awkward in his movements. His eyes were gray and deep-set under heavy eyebrows. His hair was dark and straight ; his face was lank and pale and wore a sad expression, and the lines deepened as he advanced in life. His voice was a high-pitched tenor, almost falsetto in character. Yet it was so penetrating and had such carrying power that he was easily understood where others failed. He says of himself in his own short autobiography: " If any personal description of me is thought desirable it may be said that I am in height six feet four inches, nearly ; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred eighty pounds ; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands remembered." What was there in this singular personality which grew m attractiveness as he began to speak.? William Herndon, his law partner, has this to say on this point : ''At first he was very awkward and it seemed a real labor to adjust himself to his surroundings. He struggled for a time under a feeling of apparent diffidence and sensitiveness. ... As he moved along in his speech he became freer and less uneasy in his movements ; to that extent he was graceful. . . . There was a world of meaning and emphasis in his long bony finger as he dotted the ideas on the minds of his hearers. . . . He never ranted, never walked backward and forward on the platform. ... As he proceeded with his speech his voice lost in a measure its former acute and shrilling pitch, and mellowed into a more harmonious and pleasant sound. His form expanded, and notwithstanding the sunken breast, he rose up a splendid and imposing figure. . . . His gray eyes flashed with the fire of his profound thoughts, and his uneasy movements and diffident manner sunk themselves beneath the wave of righteous indignation that came sweeping over 288 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE him. . . . Every lineament of his face, so ill-formed, grew brilliant and expressive, and you had before you a man of rare power and strong magnetic influence." Horace White declares that "the inspiration that possessed him took possession of his hearers also. His speaking went to the heart because it came from the heart. I have heard celebrated orators who could start thunders of applause without changing any man's opinion. Mr. Lincoln's eloquence was of the higher type which produced conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker himself." Not only was his speaking dignified, clear, and impressive, but it contained another prime element of oratory — directness. He conversed with his audience as he would with a friend close at hand, looking at the people and making his words carry a personal message to each listener. The people liked his frank, open way, and were willing to be led by him because of his honesty and integrity of purpose and his uncommon common sense. His success as a lawyer was due to his ability to convince the court and the jury of the fairness of his cause, and it must be said to his everlasting credit that he refused to take a case the justness of which did not appeal to him. He would not yield to the temptation to misrepresent a case, and if he was unable to bring the parties to a settlement out of court he would drop the case entirely. His reputation for honesty and fairness gave him a prestige with the courts, the influence of which it was difficult for his opponents to over- come. His heroic devotion to principle, his love of justice and fair play, his. sympathy and good humor were qualities that appealed to the hearts of the masses and made his oratory supremely effective. His greatest triumph, that which spread his fame through- out the land, was the series of debates with Senator Douglas, which one historian has called " the most characteristic and ABRAHAM LINCOLN 289 at the same time most creditable incident in our national his- tory." The immediate goal was the senatorship of Illinois. There were seven joint debates in different congressional districts of the state. Though Lincoln received the popular vote by a majority of four thousand at the election, the com- plexion of the legislature was such as to give the senatorship to Douglas by a slight majority. But it was the influence of these remarkable speeches that won Lincoln the Presidency. Unknown outside the state of Illinois at the time he entered the canvass, his clear logic and convincing arguments in this great political debate won him recognition throughout the United States. " His defeat," says Watterson, "counted for more than Douglas's victory, for it made him the logical and successful candidate for President." The reputation that he had gained and the probability that he would have a large following at the national Republican convention led the party leaders in New York to invite him to speak at Cooper Institute. " It was a great audience," says Joseph Choate, " including all the noted men, all the learned and cultured of his party in New York — editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics. They were all curious to hear him. His fame as a powerful speaker had preceded him. ... He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was transformed ; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. . . . With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without parade or pretense, he spoke straight to the point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence or the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been startled at the earnest and sincere purity of his utterances. It was marvelous to see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity." 290 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE So great was his success in the Cooper Institute speech that Lincoln was invited to make several addresses in New England. The professor of English at Yale University, who had heard Lincoln in New York, was so attracted by his style- that he followed him on his New England tour, took copious notes, and then lectured to his classes on the clearness force, and effectiveness of Lincoln's style. Henry Watterson declares that he was not only a master of English prose and the " equal of any man who ever wrote' his mother tongue," but he was also a " prose poet," and cites as a conclusive example the speech at Gettysburg, "as short as it is sublime ; like a chapter of Holy Writ, it can never grow old or stale." But the quality of all qualities which gave Lincoln suprem- acy as an orator was his stanch character and his fixed de- termination to carry out the right as God gave him to see the right. This is clearly shown in his utterance at New Orleans, when he witnessed for the first time the sale of slaves from the auction block. He turned to a friend and said, "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard." And on another occasion he exclaimed, "I'll make the ground of this country too hot for the footstep of a slave." Time vindicated his conclusions, and now we revere him as a statesman. His love of the masses, his tenderness, his sym- pathy with the plain folks, as he was wont to call them, made the people trust him implicitly as one of themselves, and follow his leadership through the vicissitudes of a great civil conflict. His simple character, his integrity, his tenacity of principle, his strong magnetic influence, his balance of head, conscience, and heart, made his oratory a living, moving force, and gave his speeches a permanent place in the literature of the world. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 29 1 POLITICAL ISSUES The selections chosen from Lincoln are taken, one from each of the seven speeches made in his famous joint debates with Stephen A. Douglas in their campaign for the office of United States senator from Illinois. The election resulted in a small popular majority for Lincoln, but Douglas, owing to the peculiar districting of the state, was chosen senator by the legislature. It is generally conceded, however, that the reputation gained by Lincoln in these speeches secured for him the nomination and election to the Presidency. L THE HOUSE DIVIDED This speech was delivered at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, in reply to the opening speech of Douglas. Douglas had charged Lincoln with main- taining revolutionary doctrines in a speech at Springfield, in which he de- clared that " a house divided against itself cannot stand." I have no purpose, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality ; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position, I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, not- withstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declara- tion of Independence — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that the negro is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color", perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. 292 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE The Judge has read from my speech in Springfield in which I say that " a house divided against itself cannot stand." Does the Judge say it can stand ? I would like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. I know that the Judge may readily enough agree with me that the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour is true, but he may allege that I misapply it ; and the Judge has a right to urge that in my application I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that because I think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in the various states in all their institu- tions, he argues erroneously. The great variety of the local institu- tions in the states, springing from differences in the soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are bonds of union. They do not make "' a house divided against itself," but they make a house united. If they produce in one section of the country what is called for by the wants of another section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord but bonds of union. But can this question of slavery be considered as among these varieties in the institutions of the country ? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, this in- stitution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall continue to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another race shall arise with the same moral and intellectual development we have — whether, if that institution is standing in the same irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element of division ? If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this question, the Union is a house divided against itself ; and when the Judge ABRAHAM LINCOLN 293 reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years in some states, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it — restricting it from the new territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think that he and those acting with him have placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or, on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south. Now I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution might be let alone in the states where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white races. n. THE NEBRASKA POLICY This speech was delivered at Freeport, Illinois, August 27, 1858. Judge Douglas declared that it was the right of every state to come into the Union with or without slavery, as the people might see fit. This was in brief the substance of the Nebraska doctrine which Lincoln beHeved would tend to spread and perpetuate slavery. My friends, I come to that portion of the Judge's speech which he has devoted to the various resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in the different counties, in the different congressional districts, and in the Illinois legislature — which he supposes are at 294 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE variance with the positions I have assumed before you to-day. It is true that many of ihese resolutions are at variance with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk reasonably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to them. He may go and examine all the members who voted for me for United States senator in 1855. They were pledged to certain things here at home, and were determined to have pledges from me, and if he will find any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what I say now, I will retire from the race and give him no more trouble. The plain truth is this : At the introduction of the Nebraska policy we believed there was a new era being introduced in th.e history of the republic, which tended to the spread and perpetua- tion of slavery. But in our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one another in everything. The people in the north end of the state were for stronger measures of opposition than we of the central and southern portions of the state, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one feeling and that one sentiment in common. These meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has read from, were local, and did not spread over the whole state. We at last met together in 1856, from all parts of the state, and we agreed upon a common platform. You who held more extreme notions either yielded those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We met you then, and if there was anything yielded, it was for practical pur- poses. We agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire state of Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party, to that platform. And I say here to you, if any one expects of me, in the case of my election, that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform and my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that person will be deceived. I do not ask for the ABRAHAM LINCOLN 295 vote of any one who supposes that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the Judge be satisfied ? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election, that my going to Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of any such thing ? I '11 tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we '11 all pull together. This is what alarms him more than anything else. For my part, I do hope that all of us, enter- taining a common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differences on questions which either belong to the dead past or the "distant future, and all pull together in this struggle. What are your sentiments ? If it be true that on the ground which I occupy — ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Douglas does his — my views, though partly coinciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accordance with your feelings as his are, I do say to you in all candor, go for him and not for me. I hope to deal in all things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the people of the state, in this contest. And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation. III. NATIONALIZING SLAVERY This speech was delivered at Jonesboro, Illinois, September 15, 1858. Judge Douglas makes this statement in his opening speech: "I never have inquired, and never will inquire, whether a new state applying for admission has slavery or not for one of her institutions." This was equiva- lent to saying that as far as he was concerned slavery might extend into the Northern states. Judge Douglas asks, " Why can't this Union endure perma- nently, half slave and half free ? " I have said that I supposed it could not, and I will try to give briefly some of the reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his question is, " Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it ? " That is the exact difficulty between us. I say that Judge Douglas and his friends 296 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE have changed it from the position in which our fathers originally placed it. I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I say when this government was first estab- lished it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a new basis by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it upon. I have no doubt that it would become extinct, for all time to come, if we but readopted the policy of the fathers by restricting it to the limits it has already covered — restricting it from the new territories. I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the subject at this time, but allow me to repeat one thing that I have stated before. Brooks, the man who assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the Senate, and who was complimented with din- ners, and silver pitchers, and gold-headed canes, and a good many other things for that feat, in one of his speeches declared that when this government was originally established nobody expected that the institution of slavery would last until this day. That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an opinion as we can never get from Judge Douglas, or anybody in favor of slavery in the North at all. You can sometimes get it from a Southern man. He said at the same time that the framers of our government did not have the knowledge that experience has taught us — that ex- perience and the invention of the cotton gin have taught us that the perpetuation of slavery is a necessity. He insisted, therefore, upon its being changed from the basis upon which the fathers of the government left it to the basis of its perpetuation and nationalization. I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas and myself — that Judge Douglas is helping that change along. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 297 Any one who will read his speech of the twenty-second of last March will see that he there makes an open confession, showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an altogether different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him when he asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our fathers left it, by showing that he has himself changed the whole policy of the government in that regard. He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different institutions of the states of the Union ; that that variety necessarily proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country, and the difference in the natural features of the states. I agree to all that. Have these very matters ever pro- duced any difficulty amongst us } Not at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact that they have laws in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that springs from the production of. sugar ? or because-'we have a different class relative to the produc- tion of flour in this state ? Llave they produced any differences ? Not at all. They are the very cements of this Union. They don't make the house a house divided against itself. They are the props that hold up the house and sustain the Union. But has it been so with this element of slavery ? Have we not always had quarrels and difficulties over it? And when will we cease to have quarrels over it? Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to observe that we have generally had a com- parative peace upon the slavery question, and that there has been no cause for alarm until it was excited by the effort to spread slav- ery into new territory. Whenever it has been limited to its present bounds, and there has been no effort to spread it, there has been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded from efforts to spread it over more territory. It was thus at the date of the Missouri Compromise. It was so again with the annexation of Texas ; so with the territory acquired by the Mexican war ; and it is so now. Whenever there has been an effort to spread it there has been agitation and resistance. Now I appeal to this audi- ence as rational men, whether we have reason to expect that the 298 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work. Will not the same cause that produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was formed, — that which produced the agitation upon the annexation of Texas, and at other times, — work out the same results always ? Do you think that the nature of man will be changed — that the same causes that produced agitation at one time will not have the same effect at another? This has been the result so far as my observation of the slavery question and my reading in history extend. What right have we then to hope that the trouble will cease, that the agitation will come to an end, until it shall either be placed back where it originally stood, and where the fathers originally placed it, or, on the other hand, until it shall entirely master all opposition ? This is the view I entertain, and this is the reason why I entertained it in my Springfield speech. IV. SOCIAL INEQUALITIES This speech was delivered at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858. Lincoln, in answer to strictures of Judge Douglas in regard to social and political equality of the races, replies as follows : While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality* of the white and black races — that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold oflfice, nor to intermarry with white people ; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference be- tween the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid ABRAHAM LINCOLN 299 the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion that I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My under- standing is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or ^ wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. I will also add that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there were no law to keep them from it ; but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great appre- hension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. I will add one further word, which is this : that I do not understand that there is any place where an alteration of the social and political relations of the negro and the white man can be made except in the state legislature — not in the Congress of the United States ; and as I do not really appre- hend the approach of any such thing myself, and as Judge Douglas seems to be in constant horror that some such danger is rapidly approaching, I propose, as the best means to prevent it, that the Judge be kept at home and placed in the state legislature to fight the measure. I do not propose dwelling longer at this time on the subject. 300 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE V. DISTINCTION OF PARTIES This speech was delivered in Galesburg, IIHnois, October 7, 1858. Lincoln makes clear in this speech the difference between the two great political parties on the paramount issues of the day. The Judge has detained us a while in regard to the distinction between his party and our party. His he assumes to be a national party — ours a sectional one. He does this in asking the question whether this country has any interest in the maintenance of the Republican Party ? He assumes that our party is altogether sec- tional — that the party to which he adheres is national; and the argument is, that no party can be a rightful party — can be based upon rightful principles — unless it can announce its principles everywhere. I presume that Judge Douglas could not go into Russia and announce the doctrine of our national democracy ; he could not denounce the doctrine of kings, and emperors, and mon- archies in Russia ; and it may be true of this country, that in some places we may not be able to proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as the truth of democracy, because there is a section so directly opposed to it that they will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine, that in some places people won't let you proclaim it } Is that the way to test the truth of any doctrine 1 Why, I understood that at one time the people of Chicago would not let Judge Douglas preach a certain favorite doctrine of his. I commend to his consideration the question, whether he takes that as a test of the unsoundness of what he wanted to preach. There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a little while on this occasion. What has always been the evidence brought forward to prove that the Republican Party is a sectional party ? The main one was that in the Southern portion of the Union the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their doc- trines among them. That has been the main evidence brought forward — that they had no supporters, or substantially none, in the slave states. The South have not taken hold of our principles ABRAHAM LINCOLN 301 as we announce thenn ; nor does Judge Douglas now grapple with those principles. We have a Republican state platform, laid down in Springfield in June last, stating our position all the way through the questions before the country. We are now far advanced in this canvass. Judge Douglas and I have made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have now for the fifth time met face to face in debate, and up to this day I have not found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of the Republican platform or laying his fingers upon anything in it that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas .turns away from the platform of principles to the fact that he can find people somewhere who will not allow us to announce those principles. If he had great confidence that our principles were wrong, he would take hold of them and demonstrate them to be wrong. But he does not do so. The only evidence he has of their being wrong is in the fact that there are people who won't allow us to preach them. I ask again is that the way to test the soundness of a doctrine ? I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of nationality he is himself fast becoming sectional. I ask his attention to the fact that his speeches would not go as current now south of the Ohio River as they have foraierly gone there. I ask his attention to the fact that he felicitates himself to-day that all the Democrats of the free states are agreeing with him, while he omits to tell us that the Democrats of any slave state agree with him. If he has not thought of this, I commend to his consideration the evidence of his own declaration, on this day, of his becoming sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be the result of this contest between Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat. The Judge tells us that he is opposed to making any odious dis- tinctions between free and slave states. I am altogether unaware that the Republicans are in favor of making any odious distinctions between the free and slave states. But there still is a difference, 302 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE I think, between Judge Douglas and the Republicans in this. I suppose that the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends, and the Republicans on the contrary, is, that the Judge is not in favor of making any difference between slavery and liberty — that he is in favor of eradicating, of pressing out of view, the questions of preference in his country for free or slave institutions ; and consequently every sentiment he utters discards the idea that there is any wrong in slavery. Everything that emanates from him or his coadjutors in their course of policy carefully excludes the thought that there is anything wrong in slavery. All their argu- ments, if you will consider them, will be seen to exclude the thought that there is anything whatever wrong in slavery. If you will take the Judge's speeches and select the short and pointed sentences expressed by him, — as his declaration that he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or down," — you will see at once that this is perfectly logical, if you do not admit that slavery is wrong. If you do admit that it is wrong. Judge Douglas cannot logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas declares that if any community want slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery ; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong. He insists that, upon the score of equality, the owners of slaves and owners of property — of horses and every other sort of property — should be alike and hold them alike in a new territory. That is perfectly logical, if the two species of property are alike and are equally founded in right. But if you admit that one of them is wrong, you cannot institute any equality between right and wrong. And from -this difference of sentiment, the belief on the part of one that the institution is wrong, and a policy springing from that belief which looks to the arrest of the enlargement of that wrong; and this other sentiment, that it is no wrong, and a policy sprung from that sentiment which will tolerate no idea of preventing that wrong from growing larger, and looks to there never being an end of it through all the existence of things, arises ABRAHAM LINCOLN 303 the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends on the one hand, and the Republicans on the other. Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and for all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it ; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end. When we acquired territory from Mexico in the Mexican War, the House of Representatives, composed of the immediate repre- sentatives of the people, all the time insisted that the territory thus to be acquired should be brought in upon condition that slavery should be forever prohibited therein, upon the terms and in the language that slavery had been prohibited from coming into this country. That was insisted upon constantly, and never failed to call forth an assurance that any territory thus acquired should have that prohibition in it, so far as the House of Representatives was concerned. But at last the President and the Senate acquired the territory without asking the House of Representatives anything about it, and took it without that prohibition. They have the power of acquiring territory without the immediate representatives of the people being called upon to say anything about it, and thus fur- nishing a very apt and powerful means of bringing new territory into the Union, and, when it is once brought in, involving us anew in this slavery agitation. It is therefore, as I think, a very im- portant question for the consideration of the American people, whether the policy of bringing in additional territory, without con- sidering at all how it will operate upon the safety of the Union, in reference to this one great disturbing element in our national politics, shall be adopted as the policy of the country. You will bear in mind that it is to be acquired, according to the Judge's view, as fast as it is needed, and the indefinite part of this propo- sition is that we have only Judge Douglas and his class of men to decide how fast it is needed. We have no clear and certain way 304 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of determining or demonstrating how fast territory is needed by the necessities of the country. Whoever wants to go out filibus- tering, then, thinks that more territory is needed. Whoever wants wider slave fields feels sure that some additional territory is needed as slave territory. Then it is as easy to show the necessity of addi- tional slave territory as it is to assert anything that is incapable of absolute demonstration. Whatever motive a man or a set of men may have for making annexation of property or territory, it is very easy to assert, but much less to disprove, that it is necessary for the wants of the country. And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a very grave question for the people of this Union to consider, whether, in view of the fact that this slavery question has been the only one that has ever endangered our Republican institutions, the only one that has ever threatened or menaced a dissolution of the Union, that has ever disturbed us in such a way as to make us fear for the perpetuity of our liberty, — in view of these facts, I think it is an exceedingly interesting and important question for this people to consider, whether we shall engage in the policy of acquiring additional territory, discarding altogether from our consideration, while obtaining new territory, the question how it may affect us in regard to this the only endangering element to our liberties and national greatness. The Judge's view has been expressed. I, in my answer to his question, have expressed mine. I think it will become an important and practical question. Our views are be- fore the public. I am willing and anxious that they should con- sider them fully — that they should turn it about and consider the importance of the question, and arrive at a just conclusion as to whether it is or it is not wise in the people of this Union, in the acquisition of new territory, to consider whether it will add to the disturbance that is existing among us, whether it will add to the one only danger that has ever threatened the perpetuity of the Union or of our own liberties. I think it is extremely important that they shall decide, and rightly decide, that question before entering upon that policy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 305 VL DISTURBING ELEMENT OF SLAVERY This speech was deHvered at Quincy, Illinois, October 13, 1858. Lincoln states his conviction very forcibly on the moral status of slavery, and meets with stinging logic Douglas's assertion that he " does n't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down." We have in this nation the element of domestic slavery. It is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That controversy necessarily springs from differ- ence of opinion, and if we can learn exactly — can reduce to the lowest elements — what that difference of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the different systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference between the men who think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong. The Republican party think it wrong — we think it is a moral, a social, and a politi- cal wrong. We think it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the states where it exists, but that it is a wrong, in its tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so i'ar as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard to the actual presence of it among us and the difficulties of getting rid of ij in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. I suppose that, in reference both to its actual existence in the nation and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at all to disturb it in the states where it exists, and we profess that we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it. We go farther than that ; we don^ propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. 3o6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE We think the Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the Dis- trict of Columbia. Still we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to — the terms of making the emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional right we restrain ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we violate anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or anything due to the constitutional guaranties thrown around it. I will say now, that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to me — a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore it goes for the policy that does not propose dealing with it as a wrong. That policy is the Democratic policy, and that senti- ment is the Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the mind of any one of this vast audience that this is really the central idea of the Democratic party, in relation to this subject, I ask him to bear with me while I state a few things tending, as I think, to prove that proposition. In the first place, the leading man — I think 1 may do my friend, Judge Douglas, the honor of calling him such — advocating the present Democratic policy never himself says it is wrong. He has the high distinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery is either right or wrong. Almost every- body else says one or the other, but the Judge never does. Perhaps that Democrat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am, will tell me that I am wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own course in regard to this matter a moment and then see if his opinion will not be changed a little. You say it is wrong ; but don't you constantly object to anybody else saying so ? Do you not constantly argue that this is not the right place to oppose it ? You say it must not be opposed in the free states, because slavery is not here ; it must not be opposed in the slave states, because it is there ; it must not be opposed in politics, because that will make ABRAHAM LINCOLN 307 a fuss ; it must not be opposed in the pulpit, because it is not re- ligion. Then where is the place to oppose it ? There is no suitable place to oppose it. There is no plan in the country to oppose this evil overspreading the continent, which you say yourself is coming. When Judge Douglas says he "does n't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down," whether he means that as an individual expres- sion of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue logi- cally if he does n't see anything wrong in it ; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution ; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong. When he says that slave property and horse and hog prop- erty are alike, to be allowed to go into the territories, upon the principle of equality, he is reasoning truly, if there is no difference between them as property ; but if the one is property, held right- fully, and the other is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong ; so that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy it- self, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery. Let us understand this. I am not, just here, trying to prove that we are right and they are wrong. I have been stating where we and they stand, and trying to show what is the real difference between us ; and I now say that whenever we can get the question distinctly stated, — can get all these men who believe that slavery is in some of these respects wrong, to stand and act with us in treating it as a wrong, — then, and not till then, I think we will in some way come to an end of this slavery agitation. 308 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE VII. LIBERTY AND PROSPERITY This selection is from the speech of Lincoln, delivered at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858. Douglas in his opening speech undertakes to place Lincoln in an " extremely abolition attitude." He so garbles Lin- coln's utterances as to present a meaning quite different from that intended. Lincoln meets the argument by quoting important parts omitted by Douglas. Douglas is also greatly exercised over the Springfield speech of Lincoln in which occurs the famous quotation, " a house divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln declares that Douglas wars upon that speech " as Satan wars upon the Bible. His perversions upon it are endless." I have intimated that I thought agitation would not cease until a crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what way I thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it might go one way or the other. We might, by arresting the further spread of slavery, and placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put it where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is that the further spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as my wish. I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of this government placed that institution where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of slavery — the African slave trade — should be cut off at the end of twenty years t Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time slavery should be forever inhibited ? Why stop its spread in one direction, and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction ? This is part of the evidence that the fathers of the government expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the course of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 309 ultimate extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the further spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which the fathers have first done. They found slavery among them, and they left it among them because of the difficulty — the absolute im- possibility — of its immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it remain part slave and part free, as the fathers of the government made it, he asks a question based upon an assumption which is itself a falsehood. I turn and ask him why he was driven to the necessity of introducing a new policy in regard to it ? I ask him why he could not let it remain where our fathers placed it ? I ask of Judge Douglas and his friends why we shall not again place this institution upon the basis on which the fathers left it ? I have not only made the declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict between the states, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful tendency. The quotation that I hap- pened to make that " a house divided against itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to the Judge, was part and parcel of the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic institutions of the different states is necessary and indis- pensable. I do not dispute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that. I shall very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law here, in Illinois, where we have no cranberries, because they have a cran- berry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have oysters, because we want no such laws here. If we here raise a barrel of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That produces commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends. We like one another the more for it. These mutual accommodations are the cements which bind together the different parts of this Union — that instead of being a thing to " divide the house " they tend to sustain it ; they are the props of the house, tending always to hold it up. 3IO BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs from office seeking — from the mere ambition of politicians ? Is that the truth ? How many times have we had danger from this question ? Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the nullification question, they sprang from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and there prob- ably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet division extends not beyond the par- ties themselves. But does not this question make a disturbance outside of political circles ? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them asunder? What divided the great Methodist Church into two parts. North and South ? What has raised this constant disturbance in every Presbyterian General Assembly that meets ? Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power, that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society — in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of Ijfe ? Is this the work of politicians? Is that irresistible power, which for fifty years has shaken the government and agitated the people, to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it ? If you will get everybody else to stop talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our institutions — I say, where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assump- tion that we are to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by it ? Yet this is the policy ABRAHAM LINCOLN 311 here in the North that Douglas is advocating — that we are to care nothing about it ! I ask you if it is not a false philosophy ? Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that everybody does care the most about ? — a thing which all expe- rience has shown we care a very great deal about ? The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the exclusive right which the states have to decide the whole thing for themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different states have that right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he assumes that I am contending against the right of the states to do as they please about it. Our controversy with him is in regard to the new territories. We agree that when the states come in as states they have the right and the power to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free states, or in our federal capacity as members of the federal Union through the general government, to disturb slavery in the states where it exists. We profess constantly that we have no more inclination than belief in the power of the government to disturb it ; yet we are driven constantly to defend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring upon the rights of the states. What I insist upon is, that the new territories shall be kept free from it while in the territorial condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them — that we have no right what- ever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express myself } Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there ? If you go to the territory opposed to slavery, and another man comes upon the same ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out that he has the equal right all his way and you have no part of it your way. If he goes in and makes it a slave territory, and by conse- quence a slave state, is it not time that those who desire to have it a free state were on equal ground ? 312 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE The real issue in this controversy — the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that con- templates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong, is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions — all their arguments circle — from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong. They insist that it should, as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear among us } Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery ? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery — by spreading it out and making it bigger ? You may have a cancer upon your person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death ; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as a wrong. That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and my- self shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the com- mon right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle, in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, " You work and toil and earn bread, and I '11 eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. WENDELL PHILLIPS Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), the orator of emancipation, was the son of the first mayor of Boston, and sprung from a line of Puritan ancestry who for six generations were college graduates. There was no disposition on the part of this well-born youth to slight the exceptional advantages afforded him. With great natural endowments, with the best blood of New England in his veins, it would seem that no young American had brighter prospects socially, politically, and in a profes- sional way. Young Phillips prepared for college in the Boston Latin School, where so many dis- tinguished New Englanders have begun their academic course. We are told that he was first in scholarship as well as a leader in athletics during his preparatory course. At the age of fifteen Phillips entered Harvard, where his scholarship was quite as good as in the Latin School. "Class honors," says one of his fellows, "went to him without dispute and without his seeking." His memory was prodigious, so that in subsequent years the fund of knowledge, of telling 3^3 314 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE facts and anecdotes which he classified and stored away for use, proved what years of judicious culture will do for native force. Not satisfied to pursue a prescribed course alone, he entered upon an extensive course of collateral reading, which included current literature and the political history of the day. After completing his course in the college of arts, Phillips entered the law school from which he was graduated in two years. This was supplemented by a year of travel in Europe, when he entered upon the practice of his profession. None of the great orators had more thorough and more severe training in the art of public speaking than did Phillips. In the Boston Latin School he came under the instruction of a schoolmaster by the name of Withington, of whose instruc- tion in elocution Phillips years afterwards spoke in the highest terms. The boys were required by this teacher to commit and recite stirring passages of poetry and eloquence. Young Phillips excelled all his fellows and was the chief attraction on declamation days. A fellow student at the Latin School writes : " What first led me to observe him and fix him in my memory was his elocution. I came to look forward to decla- mation day with interest on his account." It was a kind of work so absorbing to him that he would not only devote much time to the practice of speaking, but would help his young friends in the lower grades to select and prepare their decla- mations. Besides, no youth had better opportunities to listen to the great orators of the day. Wendell Phillips not only heard such men as Webster, Choate, Harrison Gray Otis, John Quincy Adarns, and many others, but, on account of his father's official position, he frequently came into the society of these eloquent men. Harvard boys remember Phillips as the best speaker in college. Possessed of rare conversational power and that confidence so essential to the speaker, it seemed most natural WENDELL PHILLIPS *r 315 for him to embrace hundreds within the scope of his conver- sation, ''It was a great treat," says a Harvard classmate, " to hear him declaim a college exercise. He was always studying remarkable passages as an exercise in composition, and to secure the most expressive forms of language." His gifts were so marked that, on the occasion of the death of a fellow student, all with one voice sought Phillips to pronounce the eulogy. His gift of speaking, together with his engaging manners, contributed greatly to his popularity. There was no elective office in the gift of the students that was not open to him. But what was Phillips doing during his college course to perfect the art of speaking ? Throughout his residence at Harvard he was a member of a debating society and took active part in its meetings ; but more, he was a most careful student of elocution under Dr. Jonathan Barber, then instruc- tor at Harvard. We quote his own words from a letter to James E. Murdoch: "I had the good fortune to be Barber's pupil in a class which fully appreciated the value of his lessons. . . . Whatever I have acquired in the art of im- proving my voice I owe to his suggestions and lessons. . . . His teaching tended to make good readers and speakers, not readers and speakers founded on Barber. It brought out each pupil's peculiar character of utterance and expression, without attempting or tending to cast him in a mold. After leaving Barber a pupil had no mannerism to rid himself of before he got full possession of his own power." Not content with his college work in public speaking, he continued his study at intervals during his career as an agitator with Professor Parkinson, a well-known trainer of the speaking voice. So much for his education both general and special. What were some of the physical qualifications of this high product of American culture ? In personal appearance his presence 3l6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE filled the eye before he began to speak. His was a form and face never to be forgotten when once seen. One of his biog- raphers speaks of him as a model in form who "closely resem- bled by actual measurement the Greek Apollo. He was neither stout nor thin, but retained from youth to age his suppleness and grace of proportions." In height he was five feet and eleven inches. His head was large and well-propor- tioned, his forehead high, his complexion fair, his eyes blue- gray, deep-set, and penetrative, and his hair of a reddish-golden hue. His profile showed a nose of Roman mold, approaching the aquiline. The mouth was lion-like, the lips well rounded, and the chin, though not large, indicated great vitality and force of will. His face was frank and kindly and wore a grave and quiet expression. His erect, easy, and well-poised body indicated firmness and repose. There was the ease and self- poise of a prince and yet the kindliness of a man of the people. Though his opinions were not always acceptable, grace of manner, beauty of person, and courtesy toward all, made him a universal favorite. It was his own expressed opinion that " in the public speaker physical advantages are half the battle." Phillips's voice was incomparably effective. It was not so wide in range nor so powerful as Webster's or Clay's, but was more perfectly modulated in its middle compass. His high notes were light, but silvery and penetrating. It was a baritone in range, full, resonant, mellow, flutelike, so exquisite as to resemble the notes of a well-tuned violin. Such an instrument freighted with thought brought listeners into the complete domain of his influence. Few men possessed greater personal courage. If he believed it to be his duty to speak on a certain occasion, no matter how great the peril, he did not falter. When rebuked for encountering danger which to his friends seemed wholly WENDELL PHILLIPS 317 unnecessary, he replied : ''I cannot think that I have ever thought what would be the consequences to me personally." In his own city just before the Rebellion his life was many times in peril. It was on the occasion of his speeches in Music Hall, considered by many as his best orations. Dis- senters from his opinions would often become so noisy as to drown his utterances. Indifferent to their threats and male- dictions composed under their fury, he would advance to the front of the platform and address the reporters. '' Howl on ; through these fingers I speak to thirty millions." Then the mob would cease that they themselves might hear. On these occasions nothing aroused him so much as opposition. Even his friends, when they thought he lacked vigor, would hiss to arouse him. Once the crowd became so violent as to threaten his life, and a self-constituted body of young men escorted him home and guarded his house for several days. Facile of tongue, he was able usually to avoid trouble, but even though mobbed and egged he went on speaking words of fire. In style his orations stand the very best examples of forensic oratory. They are clear in thought, keen and ready in wit, and polished to the highest perfection of oratorical composition. ''The chief thing I aim at," says he, "is to master my subject, and then I try earnestly to get the audience to think as I do." To this end he varied his style so as not to tire. Lively description, appropriate anecdote, and fervent appeal were intermingled with irresistible logic, pungent wit, and outbursts of feeling. His stinging epigrams aroused the public conscience into activity. Men were convinced against their determination. His keen analysis and spicy satire set men first to admire, then to yield, then to follow. " He slew his antagonist with a sunbeam." His diction was natural, easy, and instantly understood, with no words that did not weigh for his point. This perfection of style came from 3l8 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE infinite pains, from constant writing and thinking. He studied, toiled, gathered facts, and every oration increased the impression he made. He reHed on the eloquence of concen- trated truth and moral purpose. No description is adequate to set forth the charm of Phillips's speaking. His coming ushered in a new method of oratory, adaptable to a business age, the highest type of speaking yet produced on this continent. With his advent the ponderous style began to give place to idealized conver- sation. He was the first of our great orators to use sustained conversationalism as a basis for speaking. In his advice to young men who trained with him, he urged most strongly that conversation, dignified and elevated somewhat above the ordinary utterance, is the most desirable method ; that they should acquire directness, that characteristic of voice which searches out each auditor — a sort of intimate colloquial tone, indicative of personal interest and sympathy with each listener. To retain this directness he suggests that the speaker search out some pleasing face toward the back of the audience and talk to it. This helps to carry the voice and preserves the idea of personal communication better than to observe the audience as a vague distant mass. He further urges that the speaker cultivate distinctness of utterance, stopping short of primness and over-exactness, which defeat their own purpose. We have said that Phillips's voice was not wide of compass, but what it lacked in range was made up in distinctness and melody. He put great intenseness into a small compass. His method of voice ' production was so easy that there was no feeling on the part of the audience that he would break down. He would freely impress his thought without any vocal display, so that an hour under his matchless tones seemed to the listener but a few moments. In rate his utterance was delib- erate without seeming slow, and was conducive to distinctness WENDELL PHILLIPS 319 by giving full time to his words. Though never hurried, he was energetic and fully alive to his theme. Pause was often employed to make doubly effective his vivid thoughts and startling epigrams. In gesture he was reposeful yet supreme, and preserved at all times '' the same grace and dignity of personal bearing." He did not pace up and down the platform as most orators do, but stood still most of the time. His atti- tudes were statuesque without apparent effort. Self-possessed, self-contained, with magnetic eyes and face illumined from within, he compelled attention at the first sight of him. His gestures were few, but so graceful, so appropriate, so necessary, that men never had their attention drawn to them, and after- wards declared that he used no gestures at all. It was their appropriateness that kept them from being noticed. He was so easy and natural that there was nothing to call attention to himself away from the thought. The surprise on first hearing him was admirably expressed by the late President Merrick of the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity: "I went one evening for the first time to hear Wendell Phillips. At the appointed time a tall handsome gentleman came on the platform and began talking in a quiet conversa- tional way. I thought he was about to introduce Mr. Phillips, but as he proceeded I was so charmed with him I wanted him to keep on. He did keep on for an hour and a half, and that was Wendell Phillips — a gentleman conversing; and that was the new type of oratory, to produce by quiet means the greatest effect." This quiet intenseness cannot be fully appre- ciated by those who never heard him. As an attraction he rivaled the theaters. No one could better control an assem- blage. Foes dared not listen. Mobs could not resist the magic of his voice. When sent to break up his meetings, they returned to say, "Never man spoke as this man." The Richmond W/itg- gave vent to Southern sentiment when it 320 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE called him '" an infernal machine set to music." Beecher says of his speech at Plymouth Church : "I was amazed at the unagitated agitator, so calm, so fearless, so incisive, every word a bullet. I never heard a more effective speech. He seemed inspired, and played with his turbulent audience as Gulliver with the Lilliputians." Phillips's preparation of speeches was thorough, even ardu- ous. He would first go over the material at hand and arrange his notes on both sides of the question. Then he would write his brief to see that no point was omitted, and, in order better to fix it in his own memory, he would reduce it to the short- est possible space. With this in mind he would face his audience without desk or notes and trust to the inspiration of the moment for fitting words. His opening sentences were usually carefully prepared and committed, and some of his closing sentences, not to exceed a hundred words. He care- fully prepared his most striking illustrations, and especially his figures of speech, antitheses, and epigrams. " Get free of notes as soon as possible," he once said to a young speaker. ''A full man is needed, but he must depend, when on his legs, upon himself only." Close self-scrutiny and study of the audi- ence was with him an incessant practice. Yet he approached speaking with reluctance. When once about to face a turbu- lent audience, some one asked him whether he had any fear. " I tremble with fear," he replied, " and if I had my own way I would run away. But it is my duty, my duty, sir." The character of Phillips made his oratory supreme. "There is no true eloquence," says Emerson, "without a man behind it." America never produced a more earnest, more sincere personality. Phillips belongs to the heroic type. His was a knightly life, the incarnation of his cause. Judged by the effect of his eloquence in molding national sentiment and in directing affairs toward wise legislation, no man who WENDELL PHILLIPS 321 has stood outside of legislative halls may be compared with him. American history would be incomplete without his name as participant in our most important events. To Phillips's eloquence as well as to the arms of the federal forces must be attributed the freedom of the slave. He was the unrivaled monarch of the abolition movement. Sentiment was necessary before there could be a conflict. Phillips blazed the way for Lincoln, Grant, and Sumner — for emancipation, for uncon- ditional surrender, for enfranchisement. His contemporaries speak of him in glowing terms. Whittier calls him " the greatest orator and one of the bravest of reformers." Ambassador Bryce, celebrated for his calm judgment, says he was "one of the first orators of the present century, and not more remarkable for the finish than for the transparent simplicity of his style, which attained its highest effects by the most direct and natural methods." Beecher de- clares that Phillips " had the dignity of Pitt, the vigor of P^ox, the wit of Sheridan, the satire of Junius, and a grace and music all his own. His eloquence was penetrating and alarming. It did not flow as a mighty gulf stream. It did not dash upon this continent as the ocean does. It was not a mighty rushing river. His eloquence was a flight of arrows, sentence after sentence polished, and most of them burning. And when they struck they slew, always elegant, always useful." It may be doubted whether in the roll of classic orators he rose quite to the height of Webster. He must be a tall man whose speeches stand with Webster's — a style of prose not yet excelled. Carlos Martyn, in his admirable biography of Phillips, institutes this comparison with others of our great orators : " Calhoun was more logical in his general style. Clay was more thrilling, Prentiss was more picturesque. At the North, Webster had a more sustained splendor of diction and greater majesty. Everett surpassed him in elaboration 322 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE and indulged in more frequent bursts of beauty. Choate was more electric. Corwin better pleased the crowd ^ — was half clown and the other half genius. Sumner was more preten- tiously the scholar, and excelled in copious illustration that exhausted the subject to the bottom. Chapin oftener soared. Beecher abounded more in the bravuras of oratory — was an embodied thunderstorm. Lincoln was superior in the Eastern art of story-telling — the ability to pack the entire meaning of the hour in a pat anecdote. Douglas had more pathos. Cur- tiss might be better depended upon as a speaker for set occa- sions. . . . Nevertheless, in the perfect molding of an orator he surpassed each of these. On the whole he was a more interesting and instructive speaker than any of his contem- poraries in their palmiest days. This is superlative praise ; but the record is true. Let it be written while living witnesses can attest it, and before his eloquence, like the song of Orpheus, fades into a doubtful tradition." James Russell Lowell gives this poetic description of Phillips in the act of speaking : There with one hand behind his back, Stands Phillips, buttoned in a sack, An Attic orator, our Chatham ; Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em Shrivel like leaves ; to him 't is granted Always to say the word that 's wanted, So that he seems but speaking clearer The tip-top thought of every hearer; Each flash his brooding heart lets fall Fires what 's combustible in all. And sends the applauses bursting in Like an exploded magazine. So simply clear, serenely deep. So silent, strong its graceful sweep. None measures its unrippling force Who has not striven to stem its course. WENDELL PHILLIPS 32; THE MURDER OF LOVEJOY On November 7, 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor, was killed by a mob at Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing press. On December 8 a meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, Boston, to denounce the mob. Attorney-General Austin opposed the resolutions offered, declaring that " Lovejoy died as the fool dieth." Wendell Phillips, then but twenty- six years of age, remarked to a friend that such a speech made in that sacred place should be answered then and there. "Answer it yourself," said his friend. " Help me to the platform and I will," was the reply. Phillips, thus urged, made his way forward, sprang to the platform, and spoke as follows : Mr. Chairman, -^^e have met for the freest discussion of these resok}tions,and_the_events -which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker, surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these walls. A com- parison has^ been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard. Fellow citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine ? The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights, met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same, and the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our day. To make out their title to such de- fense the gendeman says that the British Parliament had a right to tax these colonies. It is maiirfest- that without this his parallel falls to the ground, for Lovejoy had stationed himself within con- stitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof in arms, with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it — mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea spillers are fib-marvelously patient. g e n e rotian ^ — the "orderly mob" which assembled in the 324 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist not the laws but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp act laws ! Our fathers resisted not the king's preroga- tive but the king's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. -Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional, beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the contest. To draw the argument of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this : the men of that day went for the right as secured by the laws. (They were the people rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province^ The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gen- tleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the rgci;eant American, the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that- he-sho«id-sink-TrttaTTTSignificance if he dared to gainsay /the principles of these resolutions; Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up. The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent, he "died as the fool dieth." And a reverend clergyman of the city tells us that no citizen has a right to publish opinions disagree- able to the community ! If any mob follows such publication, on " him rests the guilt. He must wait forsooth till the people come up to it and agree with him. This libel on liberty goes on to say that the want of right to speak as we think is an evil inseparable from republican institutions. If this be so, what are they worth ? WENDELL PHILLIPS 325 Welcome the despotism of the Sultan where one knows what he may publish and what he may not, rather than the tyranny of this many-headed monster the mob, where we know not what we may do or say till some fellow citizen has tried it and paid for the lesson with his life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the abuses of the press, not the law but the dread of the mob. By so doing it deprives not only the individual and the minority of their rights, but the majority also, since the expression of their opinion may sometimes provoke disturbance from the minority. A few men may make a mob as well as many. I'he majority then have no right as Christian men to utter their sentiments if by any possi- bility it may lead to a mob. Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits ! Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press ! Why ? Because the defense was unsuccessful } Does success gild crime into patri- otism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion into impru- dence ? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard ? Yet he, judged by that single hour, was unsuccessful ? After a short exile the race he hated sat again upon the throne. Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill battle reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: "The patriots are routed, the redcoats victorious, Warren lies dead upon the field." With what scorn would that Tory have been received who should have charged Warren with imprudence, who should have said that, bred as a physician, he was " out of place" in the battle, and "died as the fool dieth " I How would the intimation have been received that Warren and his associates should have waited a better time ? Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on American ground ! Is the assertion of such freedom before the age ? So much before the age as to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the community ? Who invents this libel on his country ,? It is this very thing that entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked the revolution — taxation without 326 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE representation — is far beneath that for which he died. As much as thought is better than money, so much is the cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this hall when the king did but touch his pocket. Imagine if you can his indignant eloquence had England offered to put a gag upon his lips. JOHN BROWN This is taken from the speech deUvered at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New York, in November, 1859. I know, ladies and gentlemen, that, educated as you have been by the experience of the last ten years, you would think me the silliest as well as the most cowardly man in the world if I should come, with my twenty years behind me, and talk about anything else to-night except that great example which one man has set us on the banks of the Potomac. You expected, of course, that I should tell you my opinion of it. I value this element that Brown has introduced into American politics. The South is a great power. There are no cowards in Virginia. It was not cowardice. Now I try to speak very plainly, but you will misunderstand me. There is no cowardice in Virginia. The people of the South are not cowards. The lunatics in the Gospel were not cowards when they said, "Art thou come to torment us before the time ? " They were brave enough, but they saw afar off. They saw the tremendous power that was entering into that charmed circle ; they knew its inevitable victory. Virginians did not tremble at an old gray-headed man at Harpers Ferry ; they trembled at a John Brown in every man's own conscience. He had been there many years, and, like that terrific scene which Beckford has drawn for us in his Hall of Eblis, where all ran round, each man with an incurable wound in his bosom, and agreed not to speak of it, so the South has been running up and down its political and social life, and every man keeps his right hand pressed on the secret and incurable sore, with an understood agreement, in WENDELL PHILLIPS 327 Church and State, that it never shall be mentioned for fear the great ghastly fabric shall come to pieces at the talismanic word. Brown uttered it, and the whole machinery trembled to its very base. I value that moment. Did you ever see a blacksmith shoe a restless horse } If you have, you have seen him take a small cord and tie the horse's upper lip. If you ask him what he does it for, he will tell you he does it to give the beast something to think of. Now the South has extensive schemes. She grasps with one hand at Mexico, and with the other dictates terms to the Church. She imposes conditions on the United States. She buys up Webster with a litde, and Everett with nothing. John Brown has given her something else to think of. He has turned her attention inwardly. Se has taught her that there has been created a new element in is Northern mind ; that it is not merely the thinker, that it is not merely the editor, that it is not merely the moral reformer, but the idea has pervaded all classes of society. Call them madmen, if you will. It is hard to tell who 's mad. The world says one man is ma,d. John Brown said the same of the governor. You remember the madman in Edinburgh ; a friend asked him what he was there for. " Well," said he, " they said at home that I was mad, and I said I was not, but they had the majority." Just so it is in regard to John Brown. The nation says he is mad. I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober ; I appeal from the American people drunk with cotton and the utterances of the New York Observer to the American people fifty years hence, when the light of civilization has had more time to penetrate; when self-interest has been rebuked by the world rising and giving its verdict on these great questions ; when it is not a small band of abolitionists, but the civilization of the nineteenth century, that undertakes to enter the arena and discuss its last great reform. When that day comes, what shall be thought of these first martyrs who teach us how to live and how to die t Suppose John Brown had not stayed at Harpers P^rry. Sup- pose on that momentous Monday night, when the excited imagi- nations of two thousand Charleston people had enlarged him and 328 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE his little band into four hundred white men and two hundred blacks, he had vanished, and when the gallant troops arrived there, two thousand strong, they had found nobody ! The mountains would have been peopled with enemies ; the Alleghenies would have heaved with insurrection. You never would have convinced Vir- ginia that all Pennsylvania was not armed and on the hills, Virginia has not slept soundly since Nat Turner had an insurrection in 1 83 1, and she bids fair never to have a nap now. For this is not an insurrection ; this is the penetration of a different element. Mark you, it is not the oppressed race rising. Recollect history. There never was a race held in chains that absolutely vindicated its own liberty, but one. There never was a serf nor a slave whose own sword cut off his own chain, but one. Blue-eyed, light-haired Anglo-Saxons, it was not our race. We were serfs for three cen- turies, and we waited till commerce and Christianity and a different law had melted our fetters. We were crowded down into a villen- age which crushed out our manhood so thoroughly that we had n't vigor enough to redeem ourselves. Neither did France, neither did Spain, neither did the northern nor the southern races of Europe have that bright spot on their escutcheon — that they put an end to their slavery. Blue-eyed, haughty, contemptuous Anglo-Saxons, it was the black — the only race in the record of history that ever, after a century of oppression, retained the vigor to write the charter of its emancipation with its own hand in the blood of the dominant race. Despised, calumniated, slandered San Domingo is the only instance in history where a race, with indestructible love of justice, serving a hundred years of oppression, rose up under their own leader and with their own hands abolished slavery on their own soil. Wait, garrulous, vainglorious, boasting Saxon, till we have done as much before we talk of the cowardice of the black race. Here is a man arraigned before a jury, or about to be. The state of Virginia, as she calls herself, is about to try him. The first step in that trial is a jury ; the second is a judge ; and at the head stands the chief executive of the state, who is to put his hand to the death warrant before it can be executed ; and yet WENDELL PHILLIPS 329 that very executive, who is bound by the very responsibility that rests on him to keep his mind impartial as to the guilt of the per- son arraigned, hastens down to Richmond, hurries to the platform, and proclaims to the assembled commonwealth of Virginia : " The man is a murderer and ought to be hanged." Almost every lip in the state might have said it, except that single lip of its governor ; and the moment he had uttered these words, in the theory of the English law, it was not possible to impanel an impartial jury in the commonwealth of Virginia; it was not possible to get the materials and the machinery to try him according to even the ugliest pattern of English jurisprudence. And yet the New York press daily prints the accounts of the trial. Trial ! The Inquisition used to break every other bone in a man's body, and then lay him on a pallet, giving him neither counsel nor opportunity to consult one, and then wring from his tortured mouth something like a confession, and call it a trial. But it was heaven-robed innocence compared with the trial, or what the New York press calls so, that has been going on in starded, frightened Charleston. I speak what I know, and I speak what is but the breath and whisper of the summer breezes compared with the tornado of rebuke that will come back from the press of Great Britain, when they hear that we affect to call that a jury trial, and blacken the names of judge and jury by baptizing these pirate orgies with such honorable appellations. Do you suppose that these things mean nothing? /What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations. The senti- ments we raise to intellect, and from intellect to character, the American people have begun to feel. The mute eloquence of the fugitive slave has gone up and down the highways and byways of the country. This blow, like the first blow at Lexington, heard around the world — this blow at Harpers Ferry reveals men. Watch those about you, and you will see more of the temper and unheeded purpose and real moral posiJ:ion of men than you would imagine. This is the way nations are to be judged. Be not in a 330 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE hurry ; it will come soon enough from this sentiment. We stereo- type feeling into intellect, and then into statutes, and finally into national character. We have got the first stage of growth. Na- ture's live growths crowd out and rive dead matter. Ideas strangle statutes. Pulse beats wear down granite, whether piled in jails or capitols. The people's hearts are the only title deeds, after all. John Brown's movement against slavery is exactly the same. Wait awhile, and you '11 all agree with me. What is fanaticism to-day is the fashionable creed to-morrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after. John Brown has stirred omnipotent pulses. Hope I there is hope everywhere. It is only the universal history : Right forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne ; But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE ^'' This selection is taken from a speech which was first delivered in 1861, and afterwards repeated time and again in lyceum courses throughout the North. ;Tt is one of Phillips's best-known utterances and was enchanting to his audiences. If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts — you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouvertiire, who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated him because he had beaten them in battle. Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty ; this WENDELL PHILLIPS 33 1 man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his army — out of what ? Englishmen, the best blood in Europe ; out of the middle class of Englishmen, the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what ? Englishmen — their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what .'' Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligi- ble even to each other. Yet out of this mixed and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what ? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered ; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet ; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. , Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European ; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture ; let him have the ripest training of university routine ; let him add to it the better education of practical life ; crown his temples with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro, — rare military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons, — anticipat- ing Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams, before any Englishman or American had won the right; and yet this is the record which the history of rival states makes up for this inspired black of San Domingo. Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Haiti, and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the negro's sword. I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. 332 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE I would call him Cromwell, but CromWell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic, for you read history not with your eyes but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when truth gets a hearing, the muse of history will write Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. HENRY WARD BEECHER Henry Ward Beecher (i8 13-1887) was the product of the best culture of New England. His father, Lyman Beecher, was the most celebrated preacher of his generation. Every advantage that the father could offer to fit his son for high po- sition was opened to him. He was placed in the Boston Latin School at twelve ; two years were spent at Mt. Pleasant Academy, Amherst, Massa- chusetts; four years at Am- herst College, and three years at Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, of which his father had been chosen president. " Though dull at first to or- dinary book knowledge," says one of his biographers, '' the clouds and the elms, the birds and the trout streams found Henry a good scholar." His course at Lane Seminary was the most important of his education. It was a time of hard study, intellectual broadening, and great spiritual activity. He was a close student of Milton and Shakespeare, but he declares that he owes " more to the book of Acts and the writings of the Apostle Paul than to all other books put together." But his general education had only begun with these things. 333 334 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE He became a student of affairs, a deep thinker, an editor who had opportunity to express himself on leading public ques- tions, social, educational, and political, as well as on matters of theology, and to mold public opinion in America. Few men who have attained eminence as orators ever sub- mitted to so much hard drill as did Henry Ward Beecher, and few appreciated it more, or spoke about it with so much gratitude. While a small boy he had great difficulty in ar- ticulation on account of enlarged tonsils and a small throat. His aunt declares that when he came to her home on errands she would have to ask him to repeat the message two or three times before it would dawn on her what he wanted. He says of his own training in elocution : "It was my good for- tune to fall into the hands of Professor Lovell of New Haven, and for a period of three years I was drilled incessantly in gesture and voice culture. His manner, however, he ve^y properly did not communicate to me. He simply gave his pupils the knowledge of what they had in themselves. We practiced a great deal on what was called ' Dr. Barber's sys- tem,' which was then in vogue, and particularly in developing the voice in its lower register, and also upon the explosive tones. There was a large grove lying between the seminary and my father's house, and it was the habit of brother Charles and myself, and one or two others, to make the night and even the day hideous with our voices, as we passed backward and forward through the wood, exploding all the vowels, from the bottom to the. top of our voices. I found it to be a very manifest benefit, and one that has remained with me all my life long. The drill that I underwent produced not a rhetori- cal manner, but a flexible instrument that accommodated it- self readily to every kind of thought and every shade of feeling, and obeyed the inward will in the outward realization of the results of rules and regulations." HENRY WARD BEECH ER 335 Beecher not only drilled with Professor Lovell during his preparatory course, but kept up his training during his four years at Amherst College and his three years at the Theo- logical Seminary. One of his classmates declares : ''In logic and class debates no one could approach him. I listened to his flow of eloquence in those days with wonder and admi- ration." By this time he had acquired right habits, had cul- tivated distinctness, had strengthened and enlarged his ^ocal organs, had made his voice flexible and responsive, had ac- quired the charm of conversational directness and the power to so vary his voice as, he himself says, " to bewitch his audi- ences out of their weariness by the charms of a voice not artificial but made by assiduous training to be his second nature. What a speaker most needs is to strengthen his ordinary conversational voice, without giving it a hard, firm quality ; that is, without destroying its flexibility and power of adaptation to every mood." When one arrives at this stage of training, his speaking becomes a growth, a simultaneous vocal and mental development. Beecher's early experience in the ministry, first at Law- renceburg, Indiana, and then at Indianapolis, was a time of rapid growth in power as a public speaker. He was tireless in church work, in preparing hi^sermons, in writing edito- rials, in active work as a citizen in the promotion of good government. His power of concentration of thought is well illustrated in the fact that during his pastorate at Indianapolis he preached a series of forty sermons on one particular line of thought, and then concluded to put the substance of them all into one powerful address. When he preached that ser- mon the effect was so great that ever afterward he was recog- nized as a great orator. He kept up through life this habit of crowding a great deal into his sermons — an example well worth the emulation of all aspiring young preachers. So great 336 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE was Beecher's influence, so increased was his following of young men, that his church at Indianapolis had to be enlarged to accommodate his congregation; and when in 1847 he was called to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he had come to the stature of a well-rounded public man, highly reputed for his eloquence. Let no one think that Beecher's skill in managing men came to him without severe discipline and many heartburns. Like many others he lacked confidence in his early ministry. " For the first three years of my ministry," he says, "I did ^not make a single sinner wink." But he was learning. He studied human nature as few orators ever did. His pastoral work took him into every family in his church. He says that during his first pastorate at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, he did everything " but come to hear himself preach." He swept the church, made the fires, rang the bell, trimmed the lamps. He carried sunshine and good humor with him wherever he went, and it was reflected in his own life as well as in the lives of those with whom he came in contact. When asked why he used wit and humor in his preaching, he said, " Every bell in my belfry shall ring to help influence men." His twelve years of Western experience gave him wide sympathy with and knowledge of the average man — what he was pleased to call the "plain folks." He felt that it was well to keep close to these people and be seasoned with their sympathy. It was his custom to talk with railroad employees on his jour- neys, ride with bus drivers, or sit down with workmen any- where he chanced to find them, because of his love of humanity and for the sake of learning how to reach men. This study of human nature gave him supreme power when he faced men in stormy assemblies. Beecher's physical qualifications conduced greatly to his success. He was blessed with a magnificent physique, due no HENRY WARD BEECHER 337 doubt to life out of doors on the Litchfield hills in his youth. He was about five feet ten inches in height, erect, with broad shoulders, a finely knit, sturdy frame, and a large chest. His hair was light brown and was usually worn long. His com- plexion was florid, his eyes blue, which Dr. Parker declared were as '' full as Shakespeare's, as radiant as Gladstone's, as expressive as Garrick's " ; he had a large mouth and throat and a full musical voice. His was a rollicking nature, a sunny, happy disposition, yet with his playfulness there was an all- absorbing earnestness. Full of vitality, he always drove at full speed as a means of working off his surplus energy. His mental vigor and alertness were due to his great physical vitality, and it was this combination that made Plymouth, next to the Old South Church, Boston, the historic church of America. Beecher was a master of oratorical style. Every element that goes to contribute to success in oratory was possessed by him — simplicity, power of statement, imagination, pathos, wrath, quiet wit and subtle humor, sarcasm, appeal, a poetic nature, and a love of the beautiful. With all these he had a supreme gift of language, emotional intensity, and physical earnestness. His eloquence was sudden and fiery, rather than premeditated and deliberate. His verbal memory was so poor that he rarely attempted quotation. He found it almost im- possible to quote Scripture correctly. The drudgery of com- mitting in his later years "stayed his mental processes," as he put it. This is why, in his published speeches, there are almost no quotations. He had no difficulty in remember- ing and treasuring up ideas, but it was to him a waste of energy to charge his mind with a set form of words to express those ideas, for he was never at a loss for expressive diction, and was very facile and effective in the use of illustrations. His good nature and bubbling humor made it possible for 338 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE him to be severe without giving offense, for he says, " men will let you abuse them if you will only make them laugh." His method of presenting his sermons was a model for students. At first he wrote his sermons and presented them from manuscript. This enabled him to think closely and con- cisely and to develop logical method and accurate diction. As he gained in experience and fluency he gradually relin- quished the complete writing of his sermons and resorted to briefs, and for the last twenty years of his career only bare outlines of his sermons were taken into the pulpit. And al- though his sermons were as carefully planned as when he wrote in full, he was left free to extemporize as his feelings and imagination prompted, and was able much better to adapt himself to the occasion and the mood of his audience. We have already referred to Plymouth as a historic church. Beecher's patriotism made it so. His pulpit was dedicated to freedom. In ante-bellum times, which so tried men's souls, it was the only place in New York where it was safe for Wendell Phillips and other abolitionists to speak. When on one occasion Beecher came into the pulpit, leading a handsome octoroon girl who was about to be carried back into slavery, and stated that she might be free if two thousand dollars were offered for her purchase, silver and gold, bracelets and rings, checks and bank notes rained down upon the platform, until more than enough was contributed for her freedom. And when the Civil War finally broke out Plymouth Church under the leadership of -Beecher raised and equipped a regiment for the Union. Such was the influence upon the nation of his utterances and his life that he has been placed by some among the first statesmen of that time, for he was frequently called in counsel by President Lincoln. Beecher's greatest service to his country was during the Civil War, in the series of speeches he made in England in HENRY WARD BEECHER 339 behalf of the Union. In five speeches — at Manchester, Glas- gow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London — he changed the attitude of the English nation from one of open hostility to the American Union, to one of neutrality and even of favor. It is doubtful if there ever was a greater triumph in the history of eloquence. He braved the Briton in one of his most angry moods. When Beecher went to England there were few men there who had the courage to defend the North. He under- took to change the current of feeling and did it, until the tide flowed the other way. His five speeches were really one speech in five parts, all relating to different phases of the subject and adapted to the character of his audiences. He literally fought his way like a conquering hero from Manches- ter to London. It was a continual battle with his audience, who met him with hootings and catcalls. They came with missiles to-hurl at him, but dropped them to applaud his sen- timents. There was not once that his parries and thrusts were not effective ; and such thrusts and counterth rusts ! There is no sharper combat in the field of debate. Dr. Taylor of Broadway Tabernacle says, " I tell you there has not been such eloquence in the world since Demosthenes." It was a sublime achievement for Beecher to go into England, just after the Trent affair, and face hostile mobs and win them to the side of the North. "To him alone," says one who heard him, " should be attributed the credit of having turned the tide of English opinion and of laying the foundation of that better judgment which prevented the government from officially recognizing the Confederacy." Beecher himself, in speaking of the difficulties he had to overcome, says : '' I had to speak extempore on subjects the most delicate and diffi- cult as between our nations, where even the shading of words was of importance, and yet I had to outscream a mob and drown the roar of a multitude. Ijt was like driving a team 340 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of runaway horses and making love to a .lady at the same time." Justin McCarthy calls Beecher "the most dextrous and powerful platform speaker " he ever heard. The difference in the cordiality with which he was received is shown in the fact that when he first came to London the landlord gave him a room next to the rafters, but when he returned after his triumphal march, landlord and servants in livery met him at the door, and no suite of parlors on the second floor was too good for him. As a preacher he was the most famous and most powerful of this era, "the grandest single force," as President Barrows puts it, " ever given to the American pulpit." He became a great public force, a greater factor in politics than most of our statesmen, a fearless advocate of political, social, and re- ligious reform. Even though his enemies defamed him and tried to ruin his character, insomuch that multitudes believed the slanderous reports, yet long before his death he had con- quered the prejudice against him and regained his hold upon the affections of the masses. Wherever he spoke the crowds were limited only by the space in the halls. Such was the change of sentiment that legislatures and courts did him honor, and there was every token of increasing kindness and affection even to his death. HENRY WARD BEECHER 341 THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA The following selections are taken from the five great speeches for the Union, delivered in 1863 in the chief centers of Great Britain, by Henry- Ward Beecher. They may be said to be five parts of one great speech on the principles involved in the American war. This is looked upon as one of the greatest triumphs in the history of oratory, for it resulted in winning England from an attitude of pronounced hostility to one of open favor. I. PRINCIPLES OF SELF-GOVERNMENT From the speech delivered at Manchester, England, October 9, 1863. The meeting was held in Free Trade Hall and was attended by fully six thousand people. The chairman of the evening presented an address of welcome to Mr. Beecher from the Emancipation Society. An effort was made to break up the meeting, but the lovers of fair play were in the majority and they resolved that the speaker should be heard. Mr. Chairman, the address which you have kindly presented to me contains matters both personal and national. You have bqen pleased to speak of me as one connected with the great cause of civil and religious liberty. I covet no higher honor than to have my name joined to the list of that great company of noble Eng- lishmen from whom we derived our doctrines of liberty. For although there is some opposition to what are here called American ideas, what are these American ideas } They are simply English ideas bearing fruit in America. We bring back American sheaves, but the seed com we got in England ; and if we have reared mightier harvests, every sheaf contains the grain that has made Old England rich for a hundred years. Allusion has been made by one of the gentlemen to words or deeds of mine that might be supposed to be offensive to English- men. I cannot say how that may be. I am sure that I have never, thought, in the midst of this mighty struggle at home, which has taxed every power and energy of our people, whether my words spoken in truth and with fidelity to duty would be liked in this shape or in that shape by one or another person either in England or America. I have had one simple, honest purpose, which I have 342 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE pursued ever since I have been in public life, and that was with all the strength that God has given to me to maintain the cause of the poor and of the weak in my own country. And if, in the height and heat of conflict, some words have been oversharp, and some positions have been taken heedlessly, are you the men to call one to account ? What if some exquisite dancing master, standing on the edge of a battle, where Richard Coeur de Lion swung his ax, criticized him by saying that " his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of polite life." When dandies fight they think how they look, but when men fight they think only of deeds. But I am not here either on trial or on defense. It matters not what I have said on other 'occasions and under different cir- cumstances. Here I am before you, willing to tell you what I think about England or any person in it. I have never ceased to feel that war, or even unkind feelings between two such great nations, would be one of the most unpardonable and atrocious offenses that the world ever beheld, and I have regarded every- thing, therefore, which needlessly led to those feelings out of which war comes, as being in itself wicked. The same blood is in us. We are your children, or the children of your fathers and ancestors. You and we hold the same substantial doctrines. We have the same mission amongst the nations of the earth. Never were mother and daughter set forth to do so queenly a thing in the kingdom of God as England and America. Do you ask why we are so sensitive, and why have we hewn England with our tongue as we have ? I will tell you why. There is no man who can offend you so deeply as the one you love most. Now when we thought England was seeking opportunity to go with the South against us of the North, it hurt us as no other nation's conduct could hurt us on the face of the globe ; and if we spoke some words of intemperate heat, we spoke them in the mortification of disappointed affection. It has been supposed that I have urged or threatened war with England. Never ! This I have said, and this I repeat now, and here — that the cause of constitutional government and of universal liberty as associated HENRY WARD BEECHER 343 with it in our country was so dear, so sacred, that rather than betray it we would give the last child we had, that we would not relinquish this conflict though other states rose and entered into a league with the South, and that, if it were necessary, we would maintain this great doctrine of representative government in America against the armed world — against England and France. All that we say is, let France and England keep hands off; if we cannot manage this rebellion by ourselves, then let it be not managed at all. We do not allow ourselves to doubt the issue of this conflict. It is only a question of time. For such inestimable principles as are at stake, — of self-government, of representative government, of any government at all, of free institutions rejected because they inevitably will bring liberty to slaves unless subverted, of national honor, and fidelity to solemn national trusts, — for all these war is waged, and if by war these shall be secured, not one drop of blood will be wasted, not one life squandered. The suf- fering will have purchased a glorious future of inconceivable peace and happiness. Nor do we deem the result doubtful. The popu- lation is in the North and West. The wealth is there. The popular intelligence of the country is there. There only is there an educated common people. The right doctrines of civil government are with the North. It will not be long before one thing more will be with the North — victory. Men on this side are impatient at the long delay ; but if we can bear it, can't you ? You are quite at ease ; we are not. You are not materially affected in any such degree as many parts of our own land are. But if the day shall come in one year, in two years, or in ten years hence, when the old Star^ and Stripes shall float over every state of America ; if the day shall come when that which was the accursed cause of this dire and atrocious war — slavery — shall be done away ; if the day shall have come when through all the Gulf States there shall be liberty of speech, as there never has been ; when there shall be liberty of the press, as there never has been ; when men shall have common schools to send their children to, which they never have had in the 344 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE South ; if the day shall come when the land shall not be parceled into gigantic plantations in the hands of a few rich oligarchs, but shall be divided to honest farmers, every man owning his little ; in short, if the day shall come when the simple ordinances, the fruition, and privileges of civil liberty shall prevail in every part of the United States, it will be worth all the dreadful blood, and tears, and woe. You are impatient; and yet God dwelleth in eternity, and has an infinite leisure to roll forward the affairs of men, not to suit the hot impatience of those who are but children of a day and cannot wait or linger long, but according to the in- finite circle on which he measures time and events. He expedites or retards, as it pleases him ; and yet if he heard our cries or prayers, not thrice would the months revolve but peace would come. Yet the strong crying and prayers of millions have not brought peace, but only thickening war. We accept the providence ; the duty is plain. So rooted is this English people in the faith of liberty that it were an utterly hopeless task for any minion or sympathizer of the South to sway the popular sympathy of England, if this Eng- lish people believe that this was none other than a conflict between liberty and slavery. It is just that. The conflict may be masked by our institutions. It is none the less a contest for liberty and against slavery, because it is primarily a conflict for the Union. It is by that Union, vivid with liberty, that we have to scourge oppression and establish liberty. Union, in the future, means jus- tice, liberty, popular rights. Only slavery has hitherto prevented Union from bearing such fruit. Before the War of Independence slavery was decaying in the North, from moral and physical causes combined. It ceased in New England with the adoption of our Constitution. At a later period New York passed an Emancipation Act. It has been said that she sold her slaves. No slander was ever greater. The most careful provision was made against sale. No man traveling out of the state of New York after the passing of the Emancipation Act was permitted to have any slave with him, unless he gave HENRY WARD BEECHER 345 bonds for his reappearance with him. As a matter of fact the slaves were emancipated without compensation, to take effect gradu- ally class by class. But after a trial of half a score of years the people found this gradual emancipation was intolerable. It was like gradual amputation. They therefore, by another act of legis- lation, declared immediate emancipation and that took effect ; and so slavery perished in the state of New York. Substantially so it was in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania ; never was there an ex- ample of states that emancipated slaves more purely from moral conviction of the wrong of slavery. I know that it is said that Northern capital and Northern ships were employed in the slave trade. To an extent it was so. But is there any community that lives, in which there are not mis- creants who violate the public conscience ? Then and since, the man who dared to use his capital and his ships in this infamous traffic hid himself, and did by agents what he was ashamed to be known to have done himself. Any man in the North who notoriously had part or lot in a trade so detested, would have been branded with the mark of Cain. II. REGULATED CHRISTIAN LIBERTY Taken from the speech delivered in Glasgow, October 13, 1863. Mr. Beecher makes reference to his first visit to the land of Burns. " I come to Scotland, almost as a pilgrim would to Jerusalem, to see those scenes whose story has stirred my imagination from my earliest youth." Then he calls attention to the difficulties of addressing those whose views differ greatly from his. " I am aware that a personal prejudice has been diligently excited against me." He proceeds as follows : I have been accustomed freely, and at all times, at home to speak what I thought to be sober truth both of blame and of praise of Great Britain, and if you do not want to hear a man express his honest sentiments fearlessly, then I do not want to speak to you. If I never spared my own country, if I never spared the American church, nor the government, nor my own party, nor my personal friends, did you expect I would treat you better than I did those 346 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of my own country ? For I have felt from the first that I hold a higher allegiance than any I owe to man — to God, and to that truth which is God's ordinance in human affairs ; and for the sake of that higher truth I have loved my country, but I have loved truth more than my country. When therefore the cause of truth and justice is put in the scale against my own country, I would disown country for the sake of truth ; and when the cause of truth and justice is put in the scale against Great Britain, I would disown her rather than betray what I understood to be the truth. We are bound to establish liberty, regulated Christian liberty, as the law of the American continent. This is our destiny, this is that toward which the education of the rising generation has been more and more assiduously directed as the peculiar glory of America — to destroy slavery and root it out of our land, and to establish in its place a discreet, intelligent, constitutional, regulated. Christian liberty. We have accepted this destiny and this task ; and if in accomplishing this a part of our own people oppose us we shall go right against our people to that destiny. If France undertakes to interfere, and to say, " You shall not," much as we would regret to be at war with any nation on the globe, or with France in particular, who befriended us in our early struggles and trials, still the cause of liberty is dearer to us than any foreign alliance, and we shall certainly say, '' Stand off, this is our work and must not be hindered." If they bring war to us, they shall have war; for no foreign nation shall meddle with inipunity. with our domestic struggle. If Great Britain herself, tied to us by so many interests, endeared by so many historic associations, to whom we can never pay the debt of love we owe her for those men who wrought out, in fire and blood, those very principles of civil liberty for which we are now contending — yet, if even Britain shall openly or secretly seek the establishment on our national territory of an independent slaveholding empire, we will denounce her word and deed ; and, terrible and cruel as will be the necessity, we will, if we must, op- pose arms to arms. If Great Britain is for slavery, I am against Great Britain. If Great Britain is true to her instincts and the HENRY WARD BEECHER 347 interests of her illustrious history, and to her own documents, laws, and institutions ; if she is yet in favor of liberty, as she has always been here and everywhere in the world, I am for Great Britain, and shall be proud of my blood and boast that I have a share in your ancestral glory. My prayer shall be that Great Britain and America, joined in religion and in liberty, may march shoulder to shoulder in the great enterprise of bearing the blessings of religion and liberty around the globe. The triumph of the North in this conflict will be the triumph of free institutions, even if the Northern people and government could be proved to have been delinquent in every individual and in every public officer. Large as is our country, independent in opinions, and hitherto divided in sentiment about slavery, never was any people so sincere, so religiously earnest, as is now the North. But what if its people were insincere, its President a trickster, bis Emancipation Proclamation a hollow pretense ? What if the North were as cruel to colored people as slavery is ? All that would not change the inevitable fact that the triumph of the North carries with it her free institutions all over the continent. It is a war of principles and of institutions. The victory will be a victory of principles and of institutions. This is avowed by the South as well as by us. If the North prevails, she carries over the continent her pride of honest work, her free public schools, her Homestead Law, which gives to every man who will occupy it a hundred and sixty acres of land; her free press, her love and habit of free speech, her untiring industry, her thrift, frugality, and morality, and above all her democratic ideas of human rights and her old English notions of a commonwealth, and, not least, her free churches with their vast train of charities and beneficences I But I return to the shameless and impudent assertion that the North has her own ways of managing her own affairs. She is guided by the genius of her own institutions, and not by the whims of unsympathizing critics three thousand miles off, ignorant of her ideas, history, institutions, emergencies, and difficulties. But there has never before, since time began, been a spectacle like that in 348 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE America. A million men have been on foot in the army and navy, every man a volunteer, the best blood of the North — her workmen, her farmers and artisans, her educated sons, lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, young men of wealth and refinement, side by side with the modest sons of toil, and every man a volunteer ! They have come, not like the Goths and Huns from a wandering life or inclement skies, to seek fairer skies and richer soil ; but from homes of luxury, from cultivated farms, from busy workshops, from literary labors, from the bar, the pulpit, and the exchange, thronging around the old national flag that had symbolized liberty to mankind, all moved by a profound love of country and firmly, fiercely deter- mined that the motherland shall not be divided. It is this sublime patriotism which, on every side, I hear stigmatized as the mad rush of national ambition. Has then the love of country run so low in Great Britain, that the rising of a nation to defend its territory, its government, its flag, and all the institutions over which that has waved, is a theme for cold aversion in the pulpit and sneers in the pew? Is generosity dead in England, that she will not admire in her children those very qualities which have made the children proud of the memories of their common English ancestors ? One word more. I protest, in the name of all that there is in kindred blood, against Great Britain putting herself in such a po- sition that she cannot be in cordial and ever-during alliance with the free republic in America. I declare to you that it is a mon- strous severance of your only natural alliance, for Great Britain to turn aside from free America and seek close relations with des- potism ! You owe yourselves to us, and we owe ourselves to you. You ought to live at peace with France — you ought to study their reciprocal interest and they yours. But after all, while you should be in Christian peace with France, I tell you it is unnatural for England to be in closer alliance with France than America. On the other hand, it is truly unnatural for America, when she would go into a foreign alliance, to seek . her alliance with Russia. I declare that America should study the prosperity of Russia, as of every nation of the globe; but when she gives her heart and hand in HENRY WARD BEECHER 349 alliance, she owes it to Great Britain. And when Great Britain turns to find one that she can lean on, can go to with all her heart, one of her own, — we are her eldest-born, strongest, — to us she must come. A war between England and America would be like murder in the family — unnatural — monstrous beyond words to depict. Now then, if that be so, it is our duty to avoid all cause and occasion of offense. But remember — remember — we are carrying out our dead. Our sons, our brothers' sons, our sisters' children — they are in this great war of liberty and of principle. We are taxing all our energies. You are at peace ; and if in the flounderings of this gigantic conflict we accidentally tread on your feet, are we or you to have most patience ? Yet it was in the hour of our mortal anguish, when by an unauthorized act one of the captains of our navy seized a British ship for which our govern- ment instantly offered all reparation, that a British army was hurried to Canada. I do not undertake to teach the law that governs the question ; but this I do undertake to say, and I will carry every generous man in this audience with me, when I affirm that if between America, bent double with the anguish of this bloody war, and Great Britain, who sits at peace, there is to be forbearance on either side, it should be on your side. Here then I rest my cause to-night, asking every one of you to unite with me in praying that God, the arbiter of the fates of nations, will so guide the issue that those who struggle for liberty shall be victorious ; and that God, who sways the hearts of nations, may so sway the hearts of Great Britain and America that not to the remotest period of time shall there be dissension, but golden concord between them, for their own sakes and for the good of the whole world. 350 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE III. DIFFICULTIES OF UNION From the speech delivered in Edinburgh, October 14, 1863. Every available foot of space was occupied by the dense throng which crowded into the hall, and hundreds could not gain admission. Beecher declared in opening that he was " not a partisan seeking proselytes " ; that he had no other interests than those of truth and justice ; and that all he desired was to give a " full and frank expression " of his views on affairs as they existed in America. It shall be my business to speak, for the most part, of what I know, and so to speak that you shall be in no doubt whatever of my convictions. America has been going through an extraordinary revolution, unconsciously and interiorly, which began when her present national form was assumed, which is now developing itself, but which existed and was in progress just as much before as now. The earlier problem was how to establish an absolute independence instates from all external control. Next, how, out of independent states to form a nation, yet without destroying local sovereignty. The period of germination and growth of the Union of the separate colonies is threefold. The first colonies that planted the American shores were separate, and jealous of their separateness. Sent from the mother country with a strong hatred of oppression, they went with an intense individualism, and sought to set up, each party, its little colony, where they would be free to follow their convic- tions and the dictates of conscience. And nothing is more charac- teristic of the earlier politics of the colonists than their jealous isolation, for fear that even contact would contaminate. Two or three efforts were made within the first twenty or twenty-five years of their existence to bring them together in union. Dele- gates met and parted, met again and parted. Indian wars drove them together. It became, by external dangers, necessary that there should be a union of those early colonies, but there was a fear that in going into union they would lose something of the sovereignty that belonged to them as colonial states. The first real union that took place was that of 1643, between the HENRY WARD BEECHER 35 1 colonists of what is now New England. It was not till 1777, a year and a half after the Declaration of Independence, and while the colonies were at full war with the mother country, that what is called the Articles of Federation were adopted. But about ten years after these articles were framed they were found to be utterly inadequate for the exigencies of the times ; and in 1787 the present Constitution of the United States was adopted by con- vention, and, at different dates thereafter, ratified by the thirteen states that first constituted the present Union. Now during all this period there is one thing to be remarked, and that is, the jealousy of state independence. The states were feeling their way toward nationality ; and the rule and measure of the wisdom of every step was, how to maintain individuality with nationality. That was their problem. How can there be absolute independence in local government with perfect nation- ality ? Slavery was only incidental during all this long period ; but in reading from contemporaneous documents and debates that took place in conventions both for confederation and for final union, it is remarkable that the difficulties which arose were difficulties of representation, difficulties of taxation, difficulties of tariff and revenue ; and, so far as we can find, neither North nor South anticipated in the future any of those dangers which have overspread the continent from the black cloud of slavery. The dangers they most feared, they have suffered least from ; the dan- gers they have suffered from, they did not at all anticipate, or but little. But the Union was formed. The Constitution, defining the national power conferred by the states on the federal govern- ment, was adopted. Thenceforward, for fifty years and more, the country developed itself in wealth and political power, until, from a condition of feeble states exhausted by war, it rose to the dignity of a first-class nation. We now turn our attention to the gradual and unconscious development within this American nation of two systems of policy, antagonistic and irreconcilable. Let us look at the South first. She was undergoing unconscious transmutation. She did not know 352 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE it. She did not know what ailed her. She felt ill, put her hand on her heart sometimes ; on her head sometimes ; but had no doctor to tell her what it was, until too late ; and when told she would not believe. For it is a fact that when the colonies combined in their final union, slavery was waning not only in the Middle and Northern states but also in the South itself. When therefore they went into this union, slavery was perishing, partly by climate in the North, and still more by the convictions of the people, and by the unproductive character of farm slavery. The first period of the South was the wane and weakness of slavery. The second period is the increase of slavery, and its apologetic defense ; for with the invention of the cotton gin an extraordinary demand for cotton sprang up. Slave labor began to be more and more in demand, and the price of slaves rose. Then came the next period, one of revolution of opinion as to the inferior races of the South, a total and entire change in the doctrines of the South on the question of human rights and human nature. It dates from Mr. Calhoun. From the hour that Mr. Calhoun began to teach, there commenced a silent process of moral deterioration. I call it a retrogression in morals — an apostasy. Men no longer apologized for slavery ; they learned to defend it, to teach that it was the normal condition of an inferior race ; that the seeds and history of it were in the Word of God ; that the only condition in which a republic can be prosperous is where an aristocracy owns the labor of the community. That was the doctrine of the South, and with that doctrine there began to be ambitious designs not only for the maintenance but the propagation of slavery. 'This era of propagation and aggression constitutes the fourth and last period of the revolution of the South. They had passed through a whole cycle of changes. These changes followed certain great laws. No sooner was the new philosophy set on foot than the South recognized its legitimacy and accepted it with all its inferences and inevitable tendencies. They gave up wavering and misgivings, adopted the institution — praised it, loved it, defended it, sought to maintain it, burned to spread it. During the last fifteen years HENRY WARD BEECHER 353 I believe you cannot find a voice, printed or uttered, in the cotton states of the South, which deplored slavery. All believed in and praised it, and found authority for it in God's Word. Politicians admired it, merchants appreciated it, the whole South sang paeans to the new-found truth, that man was born to be owned by man. This change of doctrine made it certain that the South would be annoyed and irritated by a Constitution which, with all its faults, still carried the God-given principle of human rights, which were not to be taken by man except in punishment for crime. That Constitution, and the policy which went with it at first, began to gnaw at, and irritate, and fret the South, after they had adopted slavery as a doctrine. The great cause of the conflict — the center of necessity, round which the cannons roar and the bayonets gleam — is the preservation of slavery. Beyond slavery there is no difference between North and South. Their interests are identical, with the exception of work. The North is for free work — the South is for slave work ; and the whole war in the South, though it is for independence, is, nevertheless, expressly in order to have slavery more firmly established by that independence. On the other hand, the whole policy of the North as well as the whole work of the North, rejoicing at length to be set free from antagonism, bribes, and intimidations, is for liberty — liberty for every man in the world. There never was so united a purpose as there is to-day to crush the rebellion. We have had nearly three years of turmoil and disturbance, which not only has not taken away that deter- mination, but has increased it. The loss of our sons in battle has been grievous, but we accept it as God's will, and we are deter- mined that every martyred son shall have a representative in one hundred liberated slaves. 354 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE IV. FREEDOM AND PROSPERITY A selection from the speech dehvered at Liverpool, October i6, 1863. This was the stormiest of the five meetings. Placards had been dis- tributed inciting the people to give Beecher a hostile reception. The demonstration against him was so loud and prolonged that it was with the utmost difficulty that he was able to proceed. For more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of my country except the extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and Dixon's line in my own country, and all for one reason : my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under the sun — the system of American slavery in a great free republic. I have passed through that early period, when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted to address audi- ences that, for no other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets ; and now since I have been in England, although I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. It is my old acquaintance ; I understand it perfectly and I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. And when I saw so much nei-vous appre- hension if I were permitted to speak, when I found they were afraid to have me speak, when I found that they considered my speaking damaging to their cause, when I found that they appealed from facts and reasonings to mob law, I said : No man need tell me what the heart and secret counsel of these men are. They tremble, and are afraid. Now, personally, it is a, matter of very little consequence to me whether I speak here to-night or not. But one thing is very certain — if you do permit me to speak, you will hear very plain talking. You will not find a man that dared to HENRY WARD BEECHER 355 speak about Great Britain three thousand miles off, and then is afraid to speak to Great Britain when he stands on her shores. And if I do not mistake the tone and the temper of Englishmen, they had rather have a man who opposes them in a manly way than a sneak that agrees with them in an unmanly way. If I can carry you with me by sound convictions, I shall be immensely glad ; but if I cannot carry you with me by facts and sound argu- ments, I do not wish you to go with me at all ; and all that I ask is simply fair play. That nation is the best customer that is freest, because freedom works prosperity, industry, and wealth. Great Britain then, aside from moral considerations, has a direct commercial and pecuniary interest in the liberty, civilization, and wealth of every people and every nation on the globe. You must civilize the world in order to make a better class of purchasers. If you were to press Italy down again under the feet of despotism, Italy, discouraged, could draw but very few supplies from you. But give her liberty, kindle schools throughout her valleys, spur her industry, make treaties with her by which she can exchange her wine, and her oil, and her silk for your manufactured goods ; and for every effort that you make in that direction there will come back profit to you by increased traffic with her. If Hungary asks to be an unshackled nation, if by freedom she will rise in virtue and intelligence, then by freedom she will acquire a more multifarious industry, which she will be willing to exchange for your manufactures. And every free nation, every civilized people, every people that rises from barbarism to industry and intelligence, becomes a better customer. What will be the result if this present struggle shall eventuate in the separa- tion of America, making the South a slave territory exclusively and the North a free territory ; what will be the first result ? You will lay the foundation for carrying the slave population clear through to the Pacific Ocean. That is the first step. There is not a man who has been a leader of the South any time within these twenty years, that has not had this for a plan. It was for this that Texas was invaded, first by colonists, next by marauders, until it was 356 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE wrested from Mexico. It was for this that they engaged in the Mexican War itself, by which the vast territory reaching to the Pacific was added to the Union. Never have they for a moment given up the plan of spreading the American institution, as they call it, straight through toward the West, until the slave, who has washed his feet in the Atlantic, shall be carried to wash them in the Pacific. If you were to limit slavery, and to say it shall go so far and no farther, it would be only a question of time when it should die of its own intrinsic weakness and disease. This was the Northern feeling. The North was true to the doctrine of constitu- tional rights. The North refused, by any federal action within the states, to violate the compacts of the Constitution, and left local compacts unimpaired ; but feeling herself unbound with regard to what we call the territories, — free land which has not yet state rights, — the North said there should be no more territory cursed with slavery. With unerring instinct the South said, " The gov- ernment administered by Northern men on the principle that there shall be no more slave territory, is a government fatal to slavery," and it was on that account that they seceded. The very Constitu- tion which they said they could not live under when they left the Union they took again immediately afterwards, altering it in only one point, and that was, making the fundamental law of the land to be slavery. Let no man undertake to say in the face of intelli- gence — let no man undertake to delude an honest community by saying — that slavery had nothing to do with the secession. Slavery is the framework of the South ; it is the root and the branch of this conflict with the South. Take away slavery from the South, and she would not differ from us in any respect. There is not a single antagonistic interest. There is no difference of race, no difference of language, no difference of law, no difference of constitution ; the only difference between us is, that free labor is in the North and slave labor is in the South. HENRY WARD BEECHER 357 V. A MORAL CONFLICT From the final speech made in London, October 20, 1863. The meeting was held in Exeter Hall under the auspices of the Emancipation Society. The interest in Mr. Beecher and his mission had steadily grown. The hall was densely packed, so that it was almost impossible for the speaker to gain admission. There was little opposition developed. On the contrary, popular sympathy for Mr. Beecher was so marked that his reception was in the nature of a triumph. So far I have spoken to the English from an English point of view. To-night I ask you to look at this struggle from an American point of view, and in its moral aspects ; that is, I wish you to take our standpoint for a little while and to look at our actions and motives, not from what the enemy says, but from what we say. When two men have disagreed, you seldom promote peace between them by attempting to prove that either of them is all right or either of them is all wrong. Now there has been some disagreement of feeling between America and Great Britain. I don't want to argue the question to-night, which is right and which is wrong*; but if some kind neighbor will persuade two people that are at disa- greement to consider each other's position and circumstances, it may not lead either to adopt the other's judgment, but it may lead them to say of each other, " I think he is honest and means well, even if he be mistaken." You may not thus get a setdement of the difficulty, but you will get a setdement of the quarrel. I merely ask you to put yourselves in our track for one hour, and look at the objects as we look at them ; after that, form your judgment as you please. The first and earliest mode in which the conflict took place between North and South was purely moral. It was a conflict simply of opinion and of truths by argument ; and by appeal to the moral sense it was sought to persuade the slaveholder to adopt some plan of emancipation. When this seemed to the Southern sensitiveness unjust and insulting, it led many in the North to silence, especially as the South seemed to apologize for slavery rather than to defend it against argument. It was said: "The evil 338 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE is upon us ; we cannot help it. We are sullied, but it is a misfor- tune rather than a fault. It is not right for the North to meddle with that which is made worse by being meddled with, even by argument or appeal." That was the earlier portion of the conflict. A great many men were deceived by it. As a minister of the gospel preaching to sinful men, I thought it my duty not to give in to this doctrine ; their sins were on them, and I thought it my duty not to soothe them, but rather to expose them. The next stage of the conflict was purely political. The South were attempting to extend their slave system into the territories, and to prevent free states from covering the continent, by bringing into the Union a slave state for every free state. It was also the design and endeavor of the South not simply to hold and employ the enormous power and influence of the central executive, but also to engraft into the whole federal government a slave-state policy. As long as the South allowed it to be a moral and political conflict, we were content to meet the issue as one of policy. But when they threw down the gauntlet of war, and said that by it. slav- ery was to be adjudicated, we could do nothing else than take up the challenge. The police have no right to enter your house as long as you keep within the law, but when you defy the laws and en- danger the peace and safety of the neighborhood they have a right to enter. So in our constitutional government ; it has no power to touch slavery while slavery remains a state institution. But when it lifts itself up out of its state humility and becomes banded to attack the nation, it becomes a national enemy and has no longer exemption. And for the North to have lain down like a spaniel — to have given up the land that every child in America is taught, as every child in Britain is taught, to regard as his sacred right and his trust, to have given up the mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadel without a blow — would have marked the North in all future history as craven and mean. No people with patriotism and honor will give up territory with- out a struggle for it. Would you give it up ? It is said that the states HENRY WARD BEECHER 359 are owners of their territory ! It is theirs to use, not theirs to run away with. We have equal right with them to enter it. Let me inform you that when those states first sat in convention to form a Union, a resolution was introduced by the delegates from South Carolina and Virginia, '' That we now proceed to form a national government." The delegate from Connecticut objected. The New Englanders were state-rights men, and the South, in the first in- stance, seemed altogether for a national government. Connecticut objected, and a debate took place whether it should be a constitu- tion for a mere confederacy of states, or for a nation formed out of those states. At this convention the resolution of the New England delegates that they should form a confederacy instead of a nation was voted down, and never came up again. When, later, the question whether the states were to hold their autocracy came up in South Carolina — it was called the Carolina heresy — that too was put down, and never lifted its head up again until this secession, when it was galvanized to justify that which has no other pretense to justice. I would like to ask those English gentlemen who hold that it is right for a state to secede when it pleases, how they would like it, if the county of Kent should try the experiment. The men who cry out for secession of the Southern states in America would say, " Kent seceding ? Ah, circumstances alter cases 1 " The Missis- sippi, which is our Southern door and hall to come in and to go out, runs right through the territory which they tried to rend from us. The South magnanimously offered to let us use it ; but what would you say if, on going home, you found a squad of gypsies seated in your hall, who refused to be ejected, saying, " But look here, we will let you go in and out on equitable and easy terms " ? One more reason why we will not let this people go is because we do not want to become a military people. A great many say America is becoming too strong; she is dangerous to the peace of the world. But if you permit or favor this division, the South becomes a military nation and the North is compelled to become a military nation. Along a line of fifteen hundred miles she must 360 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE have forts and men to garrison them. Now any nation that has a large standing army is in great danger of losing its liberties. Before this war the legal size of the national army was twenty-five thousand ; that was all. But if the country were divided, then we should have two great military nations taking its place. If America, by this ill-advised disruption, is forced to have a standing army, like a boy with a knife, she will always want to whittle with it. It is the interest, then, of the world that the nation should be united, and that it should be under the control of that part of America that has always been for peace, that it should be wrested from the control and policy of that part of the nation that has always been for more territory, for filibustering, for insulting foreign nations. We believe that the war is a test of our institutions ; that it is a life-and-death struggle between the two principles of liberty and slavery ; that it is the cause of the common people all the world over. We believe that every struggling nationality on the globe will be stronger if we conquer this odious oligarchy of slavery, and that every oppressed people in the world will be weaker if we fail. The sober American regards the war as part of that awful yet glorious struggle which has been going on for hundreds of years in every nation between right and wrong, between liberty and des- potism, between freedom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future condition of our vast continent — its laws, its policy, its fate. And standing in view of these tremendous realities we have conse- crated all that we have — our children, our wealth, our national strength ; we lay them all on the altar and say, ''It is better that they should all perish than that the North should falter and betray this trust of God, this hope of the oppressed, this western civiliza- tion." If we say this of ourselves, shall we say less of the slave- holders ? If we are willing to do these things, shall we say, " Stop the war for their sakes " ? Shall we be tenderer over them than over ourselves? Standing by my cradle, standing by my hearth, standing by the altar of the church, standing by all the places that mark the name and memory of heroic men who poured out their blood and lives for principle, I declare that in ten or twenty years HENRY WARD BEECHER 361 of war we will sacrifice everything we have for principle. If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain, you will not under- stand us ; but if the love of liberty lives as it once lived, and has worthy successors of those renowned men that were our ancestors as much as yours, and whose example and principles we inherit as so much seed com in a new and fertile land, then you will understand our firm, invincible determination — to fight this war through, at all hazards and at every cost. England, because she is a Christian nation, because she has the guardianship of the dearest principles of civil and religious liberty, ought to be friendly with every nation and with every tongue. But when England looks out for an ally she ought to seek for her own blood, her own language, her own children. And I stand here to declare that America is the proper and natural ally of Great Britain. I declare that all sorts of alliances with continental nations as against America are monstrous, and that in the great conflicts of the future, when civilization is to be extended, when commerce is to be free round the globe and to carry with it religion and civili- zation, then two flags should be flying from every man-of-war and every ship, and they should be the flag with the cross of St. George and the flag with the stars of promise and of hope. PHILLIPS BROOKS Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) — a splendid man, six feet four inches tall, broad-shouldered, weight about two hundred pounds, head of classic mold silhouetted against the subdued colors of a church chancel, a face of wondrous beauty and kindness, with thought- ful, deep-set eyes and ex- pressive mouth responsive to the lofty emotions that welled up from a pure heart, an expression that caught the glow of the softened sunlight as it shook down from the dome above, add- ing splendor to a radiant countenance — such was the picture seen by a student who claimed a seat every Sunday afternoon for a year in the east gallery of Trinity Church, Boston. But when this wondrous man opened his lips to speak, the deep tones of his voice filled the vaulted nave and transepts while the currents of his spirit flowed so naturally into the soul of the student that the physical form of Phillips Brooks was obscured in the irresistible eloquence that permeated his audience and inspired them to loftier ideals of life. Such was Phillips Brooks at fifty-six years of age, at the height 362 PHILLIPS BROOKS 363 of his power and influence, as a leader of men and the peerless preacher of his time. But what can be found in the study of this man's life to help the aspiring student of oratory on the highway to success ? In the first place, Phillips Brooks was well-born — the fruit- age of nine generations of Puritan stock that had already produced a Wendell Phillips and the founders of Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover academies, and Andover The- ological Seminary. Throughout his tender formative years and well into mature life he had the guidance of a wise father and the tender solicitude of an unusually inspiring mother. A tutor, Miss Chapin, prepared him for the grammar school, and at eleven years of age he entered the Boston Latin School and prepared for college. Here he acquired a taste for the classics. It is said that he cared but little for boyish sports, but was eager for books and a knowledge of men and things. To this may be traced his maturer love for city life and his fondness for a metropolitan parish. In the fall of 185 1, at the age of sixteen, he entered Harvard College where he won distinction in scholarship and was one of the editors of the Hmvard Monthly. It is interesting to note that he was a product of old Harvard, which laid stress upon the classics and the inspirational side of education. He was a follower of the prescribed curriculum, but claimed his full share of elective privileges so far as they contributed to liter- ary culture. He cared but little for the mechanical arts and sciences, and had an aversion to formal philosophy and metaphysical dogmas, but he reveled in the study of the clas- sical dramatists and the Greek interpretation of life. He was a rapid worker and so found time for outside reading — to forage in libraries and study the lives of great men like Luther, Cromwell, and Mohammed. He was graduated in 1855, not quite twenty years of age, with no plan for the 364 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE future ; he had attained scholarship and a taste for Hterary work, but there was no call to a business or professional life. Then came a transitional year which he gave to the consideration of a calling in life, and as a temporary expedient he taught in the Boston Latin School. He made a failure of teaching, but reached a clear decision to enter the ministry as his life work. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Episcopal Theolog- ical Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia, and was graduated three years later. He was then offered an assistant pastorate in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia by the Reverend Alexander Vinton, D.D., who had watched the progress of the young theologue and was much pleased with his first sermon ; but Phillips Brooks here made a wise choice at a turning point in his career and accepted a call to the Church of the Advent in the same city. The value of this decision can never be fully estimated. At this period of his life, when his habits of public speech were forming, it cannot be stated how far he might have imitated the methods of the chief pastor of Trinity ; but certain it is that he was now thrown upon his own resources and required to work out his own methods. He grew steadily as a preacher, and became so favorably known to the public that calls came to him from the large churches of Cincin- nati, Cleveland, Harrisburg, Providence, Newport, and even San Francisco. In 1 86 1 Dr. Vinton resigned the pastorate of Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, and Mr. Brooks accepted a unanimous call to that church. Here was his great opportunity, and here he rose to great prominence as a molder of public thought and the expounder of the gospel of peace, in the midst of a fratricidal war. The dramatic scenes that surrounded him, no less than the calling of his high mission, spurred him to his best endeavor at all times, and he became a tower of strength in Church and State. PHILLIPS BROOKS 365 At the close of the war he was offered a professorship of ecclesiastical history in the Philadelphia Divinity School, — a call which sorely tempted him, — but the trustees of Trinity and the clergy at large pointed out that his greatest field for usefulness was the pulpit, and he was prevailed upon to remain in his church. -But the question raised revealed the fact that the young preacher felt the need of more time for study and preparation, and his congregation not only relieved him of some of his pastoral work, but gave him his first trip abroad. This opened up a new field of study and furnished food for thought which enlarged his mind and yielded an abundant return to his congregation. In 1869 Dr. Brooks accepted a call to Trinity Church, Boston, to which he gave twenty-two years of his life. From this "throne of power" he preached to the world and was recognized as the most potent theological force of his time. His profound mastery of the great principles of human life, his study of man and nature, his knowledge of current theo- logical aggression that was battling against the rising tides of skepticism, together with his rich experience and com- plete control of his own powers, now swept him into that productive period which has enriched the moral world with volume after volume of his speeches. Four large volumes of his sermons and a volume of essays and addresses were given to the reading world. In 1877 his Yale lectures on preaching appeared, giving the natural functions and method of the sermon, which proved at once a guide and teacher for the ministerial student. In 1879 a volume of lectures on the influence of Jesus on the moral, social, emotional, and intellectual life of man appeared. " Sermons preached in English Churches " were thrown together in one volume, and numerous special sermons, essays, and addresses — the very names of which would fill our allotted space in this 366 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE book — found a reading audience in pamphlet, magazine, and the daily press. In 1 88 1 Dr. Brooks was called a second time to take the chair of Christian ethics in Harvard University and to build a great school of modern theological thought in this influential center of learning, and he was again tempted to doff the sur- plice for the professorial gown, but after deep consideration he decided to remain a preacher of the gospel. He consented, however, to become one of the Harvard preachers, and he delivered many noted sermons before the students on special occasions. He also accepted more calls for occasional sermons outside of Trinity Church. In 1 89 1 Dr. Brooks was made bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Massachusetts. On Sunday, October 1 1, of that year came the wonderful farewell sermon which marked the close of his pastorate at Trinity Church. His sermon on that occasion plainly reveals the fact that, while answering a call of duty, he was not happy in this change to a new field of service ; his words were brave and uplifting, but his heart was heavy, nor did he become fully reconciled to the duties of the episcopacy in the remaining two years of his life. In studying the oratorical powers of Phillips Brooks it may be said that there were three distinct periods in his preaching : first, as a young man in Philadelphia, when he wrote with the utmost care his most beautiful sermons bearing the magic touch of his aesthetic nature, full of the poetry of life and abounding with the divine allegory of human history, and yet at times bearing the dramatic stamp of the tragedy of civil war. The second period came soon after his removal to Bos- ton when the conflict between science and religion was rife, when he helped to stem the current of agnosticism and stood a tower of strength against the forces that were trying to undermine the gospel of faith. The third period dates from PHILLIPS BROOKS 367 his return from a year's leave of absence in 1882 to 1883, which he spent in travel abroad, mainly in India, in which he got a broad knowledge of the religions of the world, a wider view of the totality of man, and. when his preaching dealt more with the simple issues and truths of life. His fundamental beliefs were simple enough. He found humanity in Christianity. " Truth is not an end, but an instrument"; moral health is tributary to life. Religion is nature, and Christ is the perfect interpreter of nature. He says, " R eligion is no thing in the worlcl_but_the highest con- ception of life ; the unnatural thing is irreligion." His view of the futiite was full of hope and joy, and his ethical optimism pervaded all his spiritual idealism. He preached the great, practical realities of Christianity, made no claims to prophecy, but always brought a message. A sermon is only an instru- ment to interpret the Bible. He does not debate his subject or appeal to external authority, but his evidence was inherent and personal, and he often made powerful appeals to the experiences of men. He does not argue, but reasons much, and in a perfectly natural way he proclaims or affirms and his declaration is accepted without question. He reasons from genus to species, from the general to the particular, and makes much use of exposition by analogy. He had a genius for ora- torical personification that *' put soul into the objects of his thought." His power was largely in his naturalness of lan- guage, clearness of statement, and direct address. ^^ Not much may be said of his power of delivery of a ser- mon. Dr. Vinton said his great oratorical power was his voice, but there was often much hesitancy of speech and even stammering. He spoke so rapidly that sometimes it was quite impossible to catch his meaning, especially if the auditor was somewhat distant from him. Archdeacon Farrar asked him to speak slower, though Dean Stanley thought rapidity was 368 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE one of his sources of power. The following quotation from an address before a school of oratory gives his own idea of the sources of expression : " I have no theory or doctrine regarding expression, and yet I must speak of it with the profoundest respect. First in importance comes life, — the very fact of life itself, — activity and the deed done. Then follows the mind's appropriation of the deed done, and after it has passed into thought it comes forth again in the utterances. Expression comes, fulfills the life of man and feels all life perpetually inspiring it. No one has a right to study expression until he is conscious that behind expression lies thought, and behind thought, deed and action. Nobody can truly stand as an utterer before the world unless he is profoundly living and honestly thinking." Perhaps his whole power as a speaker may be summed up in the one word "personality." Any preacher who can present ~such a personality, even though his words come in the halting speech of a Martin Luther or in the rapid, torrentlike rush of words of a Phillips Brooks, may justly be termed a great speaker. As Professor Brastow of Yale University ably puts it : "Any man who would know better what it is to be a help- ful, pastoral preacher, a real preacher, full, simple, earnest, unconventional preacher, of an imaginative, suggestive, and ethical mind, who cares chiefly to make the truth effective, who is bent upon getting it at work in the minds and hearts of men, who would fuse and fire the truth with the energy of a manly human heart and soul, may well give himself with diligence to Phillips Brooks." For a full study of the man we direct the attention of the student to Professor A. V. G. Allen's entrancing volume, " The Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks," and for a study of the method of his message no richer yield may be found than the pages of his own sermons, lectures, and addresses. PHILLIPS BROOKS 369 A SERMON OF GREETING Preached in Trinity Church, Boston, Sunday, September 23, 1883, by Dr. Brooks the day after his arrival from a year abroad. The sermon was based on the text : Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. i Corinthians, 1-6. I. A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK My dear friends, my dear people, I cannot tell you with what happy thankfulness to God for all his mercies I stand again in this familiar place. After a year of various delightful experiences — I hope not without much that in the coming years may be in some way for your benefit as well as mine — I see again these dear and well-known walls ; I look into the welcome of your dear and well-known faces ; I greet you in our Master's name, I greet you in the memory of all the past^ which comes rising up like a great flood about me, the memory of all the years of happy work together, of difficulties met and solved, of the common study of God's word, of the common experience of God's love, of sorrows and of joys, in the midst of which the affection of minister and people for each other has ripened and grown strong. I greet you alsojn the name o f the future, which I hope looks as bright and full of hope to you this morning as it looks to me. To-day let all misgivings rest, and let the golden prospect of years and years of life together, and of ever-richening work for God and fellow man, stretch out before us and lavish its temptation on our eager hearts. Lei_our.whQle_wQi:ship of this morning seem but an utterance of one common thankfulness and common consecration ; and solemnly, gladly, with hand once more joined in hand, let us go forward in the thoughts of God^^ And now, in this first sermon to which I have so long looked forward, what shall I say ? Where shall I try to lead your hearts in this first of the many half hours which we are to spend together as preacher and hearers ? I do not know where I can better turn than to the Epistle for this eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, which 370 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE will always hereafter be remarkable to us as the day which brought us together again after our long separation. The whole passage from which these words are taken rings with St. Paul's delight in his disciples, and thankfulness for all that God has done for them. " I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ ; that in everything ye are en- riched by him, in all utterance and in all knowledge." How like a psalm the great minister sings his exultation over his beloved church ! And then there come these other words, which seem to gather up into the most deliberate and thoughtful statements the real ground and substance of his delightful interest in them : " Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you." Just think what those words mean ! Behind all other joy in his Corin- thians, behind his personal affection for their special lives and characters, behind his satisfaction in their best prosperity, behind his grateful recollection of their kindness to himself, behind his honor for the intelligence and faithfulness and sacrifice with which they had accepted the truth which he had taught them, and had tried to live the Christian life — behind all this there lay one great supreme delight. In them he saw confirmed and illustrated the testimony of his master, Christ. All that he knew his Lord to be became at once more sure and more clear to him as he read the lives of these disciples, as they lay before him flooded with the bright light of their mutual love. The words at once suggest an illustration of their meaning, which is familiar to every devout and thoughtful man who has traveled much back and forth upon the wonderful, beautiful earth where God has set our lives. 1 1 praise the world for many things : kingdom beyond kingdom, city beyond city, race beyond race, there opens everywhere the fascinating mystery of human life. Man, with his endless appeal to man, piercing through foreign dress and language, strange traditions, uncouth social habits, uncongenial forms of government, unapprehended forms of faith, finds out our hearts and claims them, and makes our paths from land to land a constant interest and joy. And the great physical PHILLIPS BROOKS 3/1 earth in which this human life is set is worthy of its jewel. The ocean rolls in its majesty; the great plains open their richness from horizon to horizon ; the snow peaks lift their silver mystery of light against the sky ; the great" woods sing with the songs of streams. How beautiful it is ! And yet, without losing one element of all this beauty, without robbing eye or ear or mind of one of these spontaneous delights, how instantly poorer this earth of ours would be to the devout and thoughtful man if it meant nothing more, if everywhere it did not bring him even additional testimony and revelation/)f that supreme intelligence and lov^ which had first made itself known to him in the experiences of his own soul ! The words of Paul and the illustration of his words, which I have just been giving, may furnish two natural divisions of what I want to say to you to-day. He was talking to Christian disciples, and it was peculiarly and specially over the exhibition of the power of Christ in those who were declaredly his disciples that the apostle was grateful and exultant. But besides this, Paul shows us more than once that he conceived of Christ as a universal power, so present everywhere and always in the world that no part of the world, not even that which was most ignorant or most contemp- tuous about Him, could help feeling His influence and becoming a witness of His power. To Paul, then, any savage barbarism or any heathen civilization, as well as his Christian church in Corinth, would have found its meaning, its explanation, its key and clue, in Christ. He would have stood among the palaces of Rome or among the wigwams of America and learned from them some- thing of his Master. To them as well as to the streets of Corinth, though with different sense and tone, but with no less sincerity and interest, he would have said, '' The testimony of Christ is con- firmed for me in you." The '' testimony of Christ." Must we not ask ourselves first, however, whether we understand exactly the meaning of these words? Do they refer to the doctrine which Christ taught, the truths which He left burning in His Gospels for the world's un- dying light ? No doubt they do. But we should litde understand 372 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE the richness of the Divine Revelation in the Son of Man if we let ourselves think for a moment that any word which He ever spoke or could have spoken, exhausted or could exhaust that revelation of Himself which the loving Father of mankind intended to give the world through Him. Christ spoke the words of God, and that was much. Christ was the word of God, and that was vastly more ; I beg you always to remember that. It is no doctrine — not even the doctrine of the incarnation; it is the incarnate One Himself that is the real light of the world. Let us get hold of that idea, as there does indeed seem reason, thank God, to believe that men are getting hold of it. Let us get hold of this idea, and then we are really ready for the great truth of St. Paul, that the world and the Church get their true clearness and beauty as confirmation of the testimony of Christ. The testimony of Christ is Christ. A hundred golden words of His leap to our memory, but not one of them can unlock all our problems and scatter all our darkness. Not one of them — simply because it is only a word — can marshal and harmonize at once around itself all this discordant world. But He, the incarnate God and the perfect Man, setting in living presence the holiness and love of God and the capacity of man as a true, visible fact here in the world — He, if He be really this, may well become the center of all history and life, and all the world and all the Church may find their highest glory and beauty, their key and clue, in being confirmations of the testimony of Him. II. THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST Let us turn first to the world — the great world as a whole, Christians and non-Christians all together — and see how in the in- carnation of Christ it finds its true interpretation and illumination. It is hard to speak of the world at large and not speak first of all of that which is, I think, upon the whole, the most im- pressive thing to one who travels much from land to land, and takes in on the spot the record of humanity in every age. I mean PHILLIPS BROOKS 373 the fact that, through all lands and in all ages, there have stood forth men who showed the spiritual possibilities of men in some supreme and beautiful exhibition. Where is the country whose history is so dead that it has not some such men to show ? Where is the tyranny of a false creed so mighty that it has been able to hold these star lives in its chains and forbid their soaring up into the dark sky ? In medieval Christianity, in gross, material, com- mercial, modern life, in brutal Hindu superstition, in the conceit of narrow learning, where has there ever been such all-powerful, earthward gravitation that the mountains have not risen through it here and there into the heavens ? The saint, the soul unselfish with perception of the higher purposes of its own life and aspira- tion after God, is everywhere. Can I see this, can I recognize this as one of the great facts of the world, and yet see no con- nection between it and the great apparition once upon the earth of the supremest Son of God, of one who by His very being made it absolutely certain that God, however far away He seemed, was always very near to man ; that man, however gross and bad he seemed, was always capable of receiving and containing God ? The truth we learn from every highest study of humanity is that the highest and divinest men are the most truly men ; not the mean and the base, but the noble and the pure ; they are the men whom we have a right to take as the true revelation of what man, in his essential nature, really is. And that same truth applied to the old question as to what is the relation between the highest human lives and the life of the incarnate Christ, gives us the right to think that they are to be interpreted by Him ; that in them we have simply the sunlight before the sunrise, the mountain tops of humanity, on which has struck first of all that truth which is the essential truth of human nature — the truth that man belongs to God and is divine. By and by comes the incarnation, and that is just the rising of the sun, whose light has been already glorious upon the hills, even while it itself was yet unseen. When from the hilltops downward to the lower regions creeps the sunlight, it finds out ever deeper zones of human nature and enlightens them. 374 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE It brings out the godlike in the nooks and corners of humanity. All this comes afterwards ; but the first testimony of that which Christ afterwards made certain was in the fact which fascinated men while it bewildered them, that everywhere and always there have been men who could not be satisfied except in finding out and claiming God, men whose souls told them they belonged to Him. Oh, my dear friends, it is not for us Christians to ignore the spiritual glories which humanity has reached in regions where our blessed Christ has been least known ; rather to rejoice in and proclaim them, for they are confirmations of the testimony of Him, unquenchable, indubitable witnesses of that without which He could not have been, the oneness, the essential oneness, of man's life with God. And if I talk thus of the spiritual glory of mankind, how shall I speak of its sin and misery ? Oh, my dear friends, one does not need to travel in order to find it out. Our own streets, our own hearts are full of it ; and yet there does come with long- continued travel a reiteration, an accumulation, an overwhelming certainty of the sinfulness of man that is most awfully impressive. The terrible disgrace and wretchedness of human life ! City be- yond city has its tale to tell. You cross new seas and find the darkness waiting for you on the other side. You lift some veil of old-world beauty and there it lurks behind, the hideous specter of the lust, the cruelty, the brutishness, the selfishness, the awful wickedness of man. Sometimes one finds himself simply standing in dismay before it. All faith in man seems for a moment to be perished ; all hope for man withers as if it were the silliest and wildest dream. And what then ? Is there any sort of confirmation of the testimony of Christ here ? Or, is there not } If the splen- did possibilities of man in every exhibition of them showed the chance of a redeeming incarnation, does not the pervading wicked- ness of man, with no less mighty emphasis, declare its need } We are so built, thanks to the grace of Him who built us, that our greatest and deepest needs take voices and prophesy their own supplies. Not merely the partial lightness of the twilight, but the very blackness of the midnight darkness tells beforehand of the PHILLIPS BROOKS 375 coming light. The cry of realized want is always undersounded and made pathetic by an almost unconscious tone of hope. And so, in the very dismay of which I spoke, when it comes over one as he stands in the presence of some record of how bad man has been, or some sight of how bad man is, there opens at the very heart of it all, the brighter for the darkness at whose heart it burns, a strange, divine assurance that this badness is not man, but is an awful slavery which has fallen upon man, and that somewhere, some time, somehow, the true man must come and bring a rescue, and that when He comes He will come with a supreme witness that He, the true man, belongs to God — that it is not merely man, but God, who comes and brings His strength. It is to a blind conviction such as this that the missionary of the incarnation everywhere appeals, and he does not appeal in vain. Whatever men have written, it is not hard for man — conscious, really conscious of sin — to believe in the promise of redemption. His sin, in subtle ways, has told him of the redemption which was coming. When it comes he says : "It must have come. God could not have left me to perish." So it is that the world's sin becomes its " confirmation of the testimony of Christ." The believer in the incarnation goes everywhere, and his belief in the immediate presence of God and the vast capacity of man — and to believe in the incarnation is to believe in both of these — fills everything with light. The glory and the tragedy of human life are both intelligible. The tumult of history becomes some- thing more than the aimless biting and clawing of captive wild beasts caged together in a net. Behind everything is the God whose children we are, and who could not let us live without tell- ing us He was our Father. Over all, making life pathetic and full at once of penitence and hope, the Christ, Whose pale face on the cross sees only this, After the watching of these thousand years. Before all, as the one great promise, the one only hope, the coming of that same Christ in the clouds with power and great glory ; humanity redeemed and fulfilled by the occupation of 3/6 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Divinity, made at last completely Master of a world entirely obedient to its best life. Pitiable enough the man who travels through the world and sees no such vision, hears no such voice of a creation groaning and travailing for the manifestation of the son of God and is not moved continually to lift up his prayer, " Even so, come. Lord Jesus ! " III. CONFIRMATION OF CHRIST'S TESTIMONY It is time to turn from the great world and think of the Christian disciple, to whom St. Paul's words were first of all addressed. His is the life which is trying to be, what, in the great view of it which we have just been taking, the whole world must finally become. And so in him, in the Christian disciple, we ought to see some livelier struggle toward the expression of the incarnation, toward the confirmation of the testimony of Christ. As I say this I cannot but remember how the whole story of Jesus, even in its details, has often seemed to be only the parable of the life of every struggling servant of Jesus who has walked in His steps. The ser- vant, like the Master, has seemed to pass out of the childhood of Bethlehem into the profession of the baptism, the wrestling of the desert, the glory of transfiguration, and the harsh contacts with a misconceiving world, full always of a growing peace of deeper understanding of the Father, until at last, through the agony of some Gethsemane and the complete sacrifice of its appointed Calvary, it has come out fully into the brightness and the peace of the resurrection life. When, a few weeks ago, I sat through a long, bright summer's day and saw the peasants of a village in the Tyrol represent in their devout and simple way the old, ever new story of the sufferings and crucifixion and triumph of the Lord, one of the strongest impressions on my own mind all the time was this : that not alone in old Jerusalem had those scenes taken place ; that it was the story not merely of the Master, but also of every faithful and suffering servant of the Master, which was being played ; that that patient figure, passing on deeper and deeper, as PHILLIPS BROOKS 377 hour followed hour, His passion unveiling with every act some greater greatness of His nature, full of exhaustless pity and un- failing courage, now shaming His contemptuous judge with His calm dignity, now falling under the burden of His cross, now for- getting Himself as He turned to bless His fellow sufferers, and at last standing triumphant, with His foot upon the conquered tomb, was not merely Jesus of Nazareth, but was at the same time every follower of the Nazarene who anywhere had caught His spirit and repeated the essential words of His life. But it is not only when we thus make the story of Christ's life the parable of our own life that we discover the confirmation of His testimony in ourselves. When in all the deeper experiences of our souls we find that there is no solution of our problems and no escape from our distress except in what the incarnation meant and means forever, then it is that our poor pathetic histories get their great dignity as confirmation of all He said and did. When over- come by your own sin, nothing but Christ can make you know that you are so thoroughly God's, and God is so completely yours that no sin can separate you from Him or forbid you the privilege of coming on your knees to Him, to repent and confess, and ask Him to forgive and be forgiven ; when full of self-distress and self- contempt, nothing but the incarnate Christ can keep you from despairing of humanity and show you how grand and pure it is in its essential nature, how capable of being filled with God and shining with His glory ; when thus, in the strength of the incarna- tion, you gather up your helplessness and come full of trust and hope up to the door where He who made you stands tirelessly inviting you to enter in and become what He made you to be, then, then it is that the transcendent wonder of God manifest in Christ has translated itself into our human speech, and men may read in you, the poor saved sinner, what your Saviour is. Is there a glory for a human life like that ? Can you conceive a humble splendor so complete as the great light which clothes the soul that has thus in pure submission made itself transparent, so that through it Christ has shone ? Among the new experiences, the deepest of them 378 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE unknown in their fullness save to you and God, which must have come to you, my friends, in these months of our year of separation — may I not hope, may I not rejoice to know, that to some of you has come this crown of all experiences, this glad and complete submission of your converted life to Christ, in which you have become a new confirmation of the testimony of His grace and power. I thank God with you for this, which is indeed the salvation of your soul. I must not seem to be pouring out on you on this first morning the flood of preaching which has been accumulating through a whole year of silence. But I have wanted to ask you to think with me of how the key of the world's life, and of every Christian's experience, lies deep in that incarnation which it is the privilege of the Christian pulpit to proclaim and preach. If what I have been saying to you is true, then that great manifestation of God must be preaching itself forever. All history, all life, must be struggling to confirm the testimony of Christ. I have known well how faithfully the gospel of the incarnation has been preached to you from this pulpit since I have been away. With ever deeper satisfaction I have known that God was preaching it to each of you in silent sermons, out of all that He has sent or has allowed to come into your lives. You have had troubles and anxieties, sickness, pains ; some of you, sorrows which have torn your hearts and homes asunder, and changed your lives forever. Have they not shown you something .? Has not God, through them, shown you something of how near He is to you and how He loves you, and how capable your human natures are of containing ever more and more of Him? You have had delights, joys ; happiness has burst on some of you with a great gush of sunshine, and opened upon others with that calm and gradual glow which is even richer and more blessed. Have you not learned something in most personal and private consciousness of what the world meant when the tidings ran abroad from Bethlehem : " Behold, your King is come. The tabernacle of God is with His children, men " .? The children have turned another page in the delightful book of opening life. The active PHILLIPS BROOKS 379 men and women have seen what seemed the full-blown flower open some deeper heart of richness. The thinker has learned some new lessons of the infiniteness of truth. The old have found age, grown ever more familiar, declare itself in unexpected ways their friend, and seen its hard face brighten with the mysterious promises of things beyond, which it cannot explain, but whose reality and richness it will not let them doubt. We are all growing older. Oh, how dreary and wretched it would be if those words did not mean that through Christ, in Christ, we are always gaining more knowl- edge of what God is and what we may be ! As I look around upon your faces, I cannot help asking myself in hope whether it must not be that some of you are ready for the gospel now, for whom, in the years heretofore, it has seemed to have no voice. Has not some new need opened your eyes ? Has not some new mercy touched your hearts ? Has not the very steady flow and pressure of life brought you to some new ground, where you are ready to know that life is not life without the faith of Him who is the revelation of God and of ourselves ? I will believe it, and believing it, I will take up again, enthusiastically, the preaching of that Christ who is always preaching Himself in wonderful, and powerful, and tender ways even to hearts that seem to hear Him least. To those who do hear Him and receive Him there comes a peace and strength, a patience to bear, an energy to work, which is to the soul itself a perpetual surprise and joy, a hope unquench- able, a love for and a belief in fellow man that nothing can disturb, and around all, as the great element of all, a certainty of God's encircling love to us which conquers sin and welcomes sorrow, and laughs at death and already lives in immortality. What shall we say of it that is not in the words of Christ's beloved disciple, who knows it all so well : " To as many as receive Him, to them gives He power to become the sons of God." Let us say then to one another, " Sursum corda ! Lift up your hearts ! " Let us answer back to one another, " We do lift them up unto the Lord " ; and so let us go forward together into whatever new life He has set before us. HENRY WOODFIN GRADY To present the best representative of Southern oratory since the ante-bellum days, when Southern supremacy in legislative halls depended so largely upon the power of public speech, we must call the name of Henry Woodfin Grady (1 850-1 889) of Georgia. His was a striking person- ality whose voice, face, and figure seemed aglow with expression, ar^d-Whose spiiiL teemed with optimism, high motives, and love of coun- try. Such a spirit could not dwell among men with- out exerting its uplifting influence, nor depart from our midst without leaving its abiding stamp upon our character and ideals. His success in advocacy of the claims of his section of our common country and the establishment of a better under- standing between the North and South after the estrange- ment of bitter civil war must stand as one of the triumphs of modern oratory. Grady_states that he was a speaker by inheritance, but he was also a diligent student of the methods of the world's greatest orators and debaters ; and his own bent of mind 380 HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 38 1 turned all acquisition of thou^t into the channels of public speech. As a student in college it is said that even his class- room recitations were spoken in good speech form. This habit of mind was manifest even in his editorial work. One has but to read his editorials in the Rome (Georgia) Commercial or in the Atlanta Constitution to note the language of expres- sive speech. The thought of an audience was ever present with him, and even the words that fell from his facile pen suggested to the mind of the reader the image, accents, and cadences of the orator. At the age of eighteen Grady was graduated from the University of Georgia and he subsequently took a postgraduate course at the University of Virginia. Hisjbjpgrapher, Joel Chandler Harris, tells us that he was accounted one of the best debaters in college, was very active in literary-society work and his chief ambition was to represent his college on the commencement occasion as " society orator." His chief object in his postgraduate course was to perfect himself in oratory. His choice of studies, so far as college elective privi- leges would allow, was for those subjects which contribute most largely to preparation for public service. And the immediate necessity for such service was at hand. The South with her problems was his thought, and her welfare his passion. As a boy he had witnessed some of the san- guinary scenes of sectional warfare and suffered the sacrifice of a father upon the altar of his country. As a student of social and economic conditions following the Civil War he sought a solution of the many problems of the South, and his optimism grasped the plan of her betterment. By common consent he became her champion, and all of his recorded speeches, whether delivered on his native soil or in the great cities of the North, carry the refrain of Southern motives, problems, and hopes. 382 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Grady's style of oratory was classical, fluent, and ornate. Cold criticism has charged him with excessive ornateness, but a close study of his speeches hardly sustains the charge. He had the boldness to state solid facts in beautiful, rhetorical language and great fundamental principles in striking simile or metaphor, but his sequence of thought and trend of logic were irresistible. Where other speakers have failed in this method, Grady had the ability to follow it without "vain repe- tition" or tiresome verbosity. He was never eloquent for the sake of eloquence but for the better enforcement of his thought. An analysis of his speeches shows that it was an eloquence of facts that bristled like polished bayonets in the morning sunlight, yet the beauty of the flashing sheen did not escape the delighted eye. Witness the striking array of facts and figures together with the prophetic sweep of broad principles that characterize his speech to the farmers in Elberton, Georgia ; his great prohibition speech in Atlanta ; or his crowning oration at the Merchants' Association in Boston. His style was not more ornate than that of Wendell Phillips, but there was greater wealth of feeling and joy of optimism than fell from the lips of the great orator of emancipation. His patriotic utterances sweep into the majestic currents of Daniel Webster at his best, but his flowers of rhetoric are more varied and beautiful than those of the great interpreter of the Constitution. Like Lincoln, he was a master of humor and anecdote and never failed to catch the crowd and chain their attention. Through all his ornateness there was never a flower but left the impress of its fragrance, or a bloom of promise that did not yield an ample fruitage. It was fortunate that Grady could command by nature and cultivation a delivery that corresponded to his mode of thought and style of language. It is frequent that men have the power to write great discourses but lack the power to deliver them HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 383 effectively. Ingersoll's greatest power lay in his brilliant rhetoric. When Henry Clay spoke in the national Senate the gallerie^were crowded, but many of Webster's great sena- torial utterances were delivered to scanty audiences. Grady had both creative and expressive gifts in proper propor- tion, with that instantaneous coordination of the two that / marks the brilliant extempore speaker. By profession he wasf a journalist, but he was a great speaker because his elocution equaled his pen. While Grady was a master of extempOTe speech, his method of preparation for a great occasion like that which called him to New York in 1886, was to write out in full form and lan- guage the discourse he was to deliver, and without a note or scrap of paper his prodigious memory, together with his won- derful powers of extemporization, would yield the speech in such perfect form and language that the most skilled stenog- rapher might catch it verbatim and the newspaper print it without revision. Many of his speeches were wholly extem- porCj^such as the address before the farmers of Georgia and the speech before the Bay City Club in Boston, and_yet Jhg_ thought and language almost equal his most formal efforts. While Grady won an enviable reputation as a debater and ( orator in his college and home circles, he did not spring into | national fame until he delivered his oration on the New South ( at a banquet of the New England Society in New York City, December 21, 1886. He awoke the next morning to find him- self famous and the press of the country singing his praises. He made addresses on the South and her problems at the Georgia Exposition at Augusta and the Texas State Fair at Dallas in 1887, and in the same year made a great speech in his home city, Atlanta, advocating state prohibition of the liquor traffic. In 1889 he delivered the commencement address before the Washington and Jefferson literary societies of the University 384 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE of Virginia, making a wonderful argument against the central- ization of power in government and finance and pointing out the national perils of such a regime ; and in that year he made a remarkable extempore address to the farmers of his native state against the dangers of concentration of population in our towns and cities. In Boston on December 13 of the same year, he made his greatest oration on "The Race Problem in the South" at a banquet of the Boston Merchants' Association, which will ever stand the equal of Webster's Bunker Hill Mon- ument orations, Phillips's Toussaint L'Ouverture, Beecher's speech at Manchester, England, and Bryan's " Cross of Gold " address at the Chicago national convention. Twenty-four hours later we catch an echo of that great oration in his last public utterance, made before the Bay City Club of Boston, in which he imparts some of the most beautiful lessons of patriotism and national brotherhood drawn from his visit that day to the historic Plymouth Rock. He had contracted a cold that brought on pneumonia which caused his death ten days later — a calamity which brought sorrow to our ( entire nation. While any one of Grady's orations would be suitable for the purposes of this volume, it seems appropriate to give por- tions of the New York speech, which first brought him into national prominence, and his Boston banquet speech, which marks the zenith of his glory as the. incomparable orator of^ our sunny Southland. HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 385 THE NEW SOUTH From an address given at a banquet in New York, December 21, 1886, upon invitation of the New England Society of that city. I. THE RETURNING ARMIES Mr. President and gentlemen, Let me express to you my appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to address you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, for I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voice in this ancient and august presence, it could find courage for no more than the opening sentence, it would be well if in that sentence I had met in a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and had perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my lips and grace in my heart. Let me say that I appreciate the significance of being the first Southerner to speak at this board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses the semblance, of original New England hospitality, and honors the sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my personality is lost and the compliment to my people made plain. My friends. Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has already come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonists, Puritans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slowly perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace, of this republic — Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his honest form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal government, charging it with such tremendous meaning and elevating it above humg;i suffering, that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to 386 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with rever- ent hands to the type of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored, and in our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine. Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war.? — an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory, in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as, ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, en- feebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find — let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice — what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful ? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoul- ders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone ; without money, credit, employment, material, or training ; and, besides all HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 387 this, he is confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence — the establishment of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves. What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart of gold ? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow, horses that had charged federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June ; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. But what is the sum of our work ? We have found out that in the summing up the free negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop and made it free to white and black. We have sown towns and cities in the place of theories, and put business above politics. We have challenged your spinners in Massachusetts and your iron makers in Pennsylvania. We have learned that the four hundred million dollars annually received from our cotton crop will make us rich when the supplies that make it are home raised. We have reduced the commercial rate of interest from 24 to 6 per cent, and are floating 4 per cent bonds. We have learned that one Northern immigrant is worth fifty foreigners, and have smoothed the path to Southward, wiped out the place where Mason and Dixon's line used to be, and hung out the latchstring to you and yours. We have reached the point that marks perfect harmony in every household, when the husband confesses that the pies which his wife cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake ; and we admit that the sun shines as brightly and the moon as softly as it did before the war. We have established thrift in city and country. We have fallen in love with work. We have restored comfort to 388 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE homes from which culture and elegance never departed. We have let economy take root and spread among us as rank as the crab grass which springs from Sherman's cavalry camps, until we are ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee as he manufactures relics of the battlefield in a one-story shanty and squeezes pure olive oil out of his cottonseed, against any down-easter that ever swapped wooden nutmegs for flannel sausage in the valleys of Vermont. Above all, we know that we have achieved in these " piping times of peace " a fuller independence for the South than that which our fathers sought to win in the forum by their eloquence or compel in the field by their swords. It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, however humble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South — misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, and generous alwayi. In the record of her social, industrial, and political lustration we await with confidence the verdict of the world. Have we kept faith with you ? In the fullest sense, yes. II. A UNITED NATION When Lee surrendered, the South became, and has since been, loyal to the Union. We fought hard and in perfect frankness accept as final the arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. The South found her jewel in the toad's head of defeat. The shackles that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the shack- les of the negro slave were broken. Under the old re'gime the negroes were slaves to the South ; the South was a slave to the system. The old plantation, with its simple police regulations and feudal habit, was the only type possible under slavery. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chivalric oligarchy the substance that should have been diffused among the people, as the rich blood, under certain artificial conditions, is gathered at the heart, filling that with affluent rapture, but leaving the body chill and colorless. HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 389 The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, un- conscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents a perfect democracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement ; a social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but stronger at the corej; a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace ; and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this complex age. The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the conscious- ness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breath- ing the keen air and looking out upon the expanded horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because, through the inscrutable wisdom of God, hfer hone* purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in no spirit of timeserving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the states was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hill — a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men — that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England, from Plymouth Rock all the\way, would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was adjudged by a higher 390 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omnis- cient God held the balance of battle in his almighty handj and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil — that the American Union was saved from the wreck of war. This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of soil about the city in which 1 live is sacred as a battle ground of the republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat — sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better, silent but stanch witness in its red desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of American arms, speak- ing an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American states and the imperishable brother- hood of the American people. Now what answer has New England to this message } Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered ? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the generous ardor of conflict, it may per- petuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox ? Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise, and glorifying his path to the grave — will she make this vision, on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and a delusion ? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal ; but if she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this v^y society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest sense, when he said : " Standing hand to hand and HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 391 clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united, all united now and united forever." THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH From an address given at a banquet of the Boston Merchants' Associa- tion in Boston, December 14, 1889. I. RACIAL CONDITIONS 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 predic- ament of the little maid, who, bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, " Now go, my darling daughter, 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 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 392 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE 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 for- tunes of their living sons and perpetuate the inspirations of their handiwork ! Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New York that caught the attention of the North. As I stand here to reiterate, as I have done everywhere, every word I then uttered, — to declare that the sentiments I then avowed were universally approved in the South, — I realize that the confidence begotten by that speech is largely responsible for my presence here to-night. I should dis- honor myself if I betrayed that confidence by uttering one insincere word or by withholding one essential element of the truth. Far to the south, Mr. President, separated from this section by a line, once defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratri- cidal blood, and now, thank God, but a vanishing shadow, lies the fairest and richest domain of this earth. It is the home of a brave and hospitable people. There is centered all that can please or prosper humankind. A perfect climate above a fertile soil yields to the husbandman every product of the temperate zone. There by night the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the sunshine in its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover steals the fragrance of the wind, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains. There are mountains stored with exhaustless treasures; forests, vast and primeval, and rivers that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea. Of the three essential items of all industries — cotton, iron, and wood — that region has easy control ; in cotton, a fixed monopoly; in iron, proven supremacy; in timber, the reserve supply of the republic. From this assured and HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 393 permanent advantage, against which artificial conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of industries. Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar off from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in divine assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest, — not set amid costly farms from which competition has driven the farmer in despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands, rich with agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set a limit, — this system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine the world. That, sir, is the picture and the promise of my home — a land better and fairer than I have told you, and yet but fit setting, in its material excellence, for the loyal and gentle quality of its citi- zenship. Against that, sir, we have New England, recruiting the republic from its sturdy loins, shaking from its overcrowded hives new swarms of workers, and touching this land all over with its energy and its courage. And yet, while in the El Dorado of which I have told you but 15 per cent of its lands are cultivated, its mines scarcely touched, and its population so scant that, were it set equidistant, the sound of the human voice could not be heard" from Virginia to Texas ; while on the threshold of nearly every house in New England stands a son, seeking with troubled eyes some new land to which to carry his modest patrimony, the strange fact remains that in 1880 the South had fewer Northern-born citizens than she had in 1870, fewer in '70 than in '60. Why is this ? Why is it, sir, though the sectional line be now but a mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of the North have crossed it over to the South than when it was crimson with the best blood of the republic, or even when the slaveholder stood guard every inch of the way .-* There can be but one answer. It is the very problem we are now to consider. The key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the fairer half of this republic and free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes are already kindled with its beauty. Better than this, it will open the hearts of brothers for thirty years 394 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE estranged, and clasp in lasting comradeship a million hands now withheld in doubt. Nothing, sir, but this problem, and the suspi- cions it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a perfect union. Nothing else stands between us and such love as bound Georgia and Massachusetts at Valley Forge and Yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices at Manassas and Gettysburg, and illumined with the coming of better work and a nobler destiny than was ever wrought with the sword or sought at the cannon's mouth. If this does not invite your patient hearing to-night, hear one thing more. My people, your brothers in the South, — brothers in blood, in destiny, in all that is best in our past and future, — are so beset with this problem that their very existence depends upon its right solution. Nor are they wholly to blame for its presence. The slave ships of the republic sailed from your ports, the slaves worked in our fields. You will not defend the traffic, nor I the in- stitution. But I do hereby declare that in its wise and humane administration, in lifting the slave to heights of which he had not dreamed in his savage home, and giving him a happiness he has not yet found in freedom, our fathers left their sons a saving and excellent heritage. In the storm of war this institution was lost. I thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever from the American soil. But the freed man remains ; with him a problem without prece- dent or parallel. Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dis- similar races on the same soil, with equal political and civil rights, almost equal in numbers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility, each pledged against fusion, one for a century in servitude to the other and freed at last by a desolating war, the experiment sought by neither but approached by both with doubt — these are the conditions. Under these, adverse at every point, we are required to carry these two races in peace and honor to the end. Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never before in this republic has the white race divided on the rights of an alien race. The red man was cut down as a weed, because he hindered the way of the American citizen. The yellow HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 395 man was shut out of this republic because he is an alien and an inferior. The red man was owner of the land, the yellow man highly civilized and assimilable, but they hindered both sections — and are gone ! But the black man, affecting but one section, is clothed with every privilege of government and pinned to the soil, and my people commanded to make good, at any hazard and at any cost, his full and equal heirship of American privilege and prosperity. It matters not that wherever the whites and blacks have touched, in any era or any clime, there has been irreconcilable violence. It matters not that no two races, however similar, have lived anywhere at any time on the same soil with equal rights in peace. In spite of these things we are commanded to make good this change of American policy which has not perhaps changed American prejudice, to make certain here what has elsewhere been impossible between whites and blacks, and to reverse, under the very worst conditions, the uni- versal verdict of racial history. And driven, sir, to this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks no delay, a rigor that accepts no excuse, and a suspicion that discourages frankness and sincerity, we do not shrink from this trial. It is so interwoven with our industrial fabric that we cannot disentangle it if we would — so bound up in our honorable obligation to the world that we would not if we could. Can we solve it ? The God who gave it into our hands, he alone can know. But this the weakest and wisest of us do know; we cannot solve it with less than your tolerant and patient sympathy, with less than the knowledge that the blood that runs in your veins is our blood, and that when we have done our best, whether the issue be lost or won, we shall feel your strong arms about us and hear the beating of your approving hearts. The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South, the men whose genius made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American history, whose courage and fortitude you tested in five years of the fiercest war, whose energy has made bricks without straw and spread splendor amid the ashes of their war- wasted homes — these men wear this problem in their hearts and 396 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE their brains by day and by night. They realize, as you cannot, what this problem means — what they owe to this kindly and dependent race, the measure of their debt to the world in whose despite they defended and maintained slavery. And though their feet are hindered in its undergrowth and their march encumbered with its burdens, they have lost neither the patience from which comes clearness nor the faith from which comes courage. Nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed to them that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid abysses and its crimson stains, — into which I pray God they may never go, — are they struck with more of apprehension than is needed to complete their consecration I II. THE ISSUE Such is the temper of my people. But what of the problem itself ? Mr. President, we need not go one step further unless you concede right here that the people I speak for are as honest, as sensible, and as just as your people, seeking as earnestly as you would in their place, rightly to solve the problem that touches them at every vital point. If you insist that they are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain. But admit that they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard, guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and irresponsible of either race, compensating error with frankness and retrieving in patience what they lose in passion, and conscious all the time that wrong means ruin — admit this, and we may reach an understanding to-night. I bespeak your patience, while with vigorous plainness of speech, seeking your judgment rather than your applause, I proceed step by step. We give to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth $450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses, and fruit. This enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and discontented labor. It comes from peaceful HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 397 fields, in which laughter and gossip rise above the hum of industry and contentment runs with the singing plow. In Georgia we added last year $250,000 to the school fund, making a total of more than $1,000,000 — and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered ; of the fact that the whites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks for $10,000,000, and yet 49 per cent of the beneficiaries are black children ; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can help, our problem. Charleston, with her taxable values cut half in two since i860, pays more in proportion for public schools than Boston. Although it is easier to give much out of much than little out of little, the South with one seventh of the taxable property of the country, with relatively larger debt, having received only one twelfth as much public land, and having back of its tax books none of the half billion of bonds that enrich the North , and though it pays annually $26,000,000 to your section as pensions; yet gives nearly one sixth of the public-school fund. The South since 1865 has spent $122,000,000 in education, and this year is pledged to $37,000,000 for state and city schools, although the blacks, paying one thirtieth of the taxes, get nearly one half of the fund. What is the testimony of the courts ? In penal legislation we have steadily reduced felonies to misdemeanors, and have led the world in mitigating punishment for crime, that we might save, as far as possible, this dependent race from its own weakness. In our penitentiary record 60 per cent of the prosecutors are negroes, and in every court the negro criminal strikes the colored juror, that white men may judge his case. In the North one negro in every 466 is in jail — in the South only one in 1865. In the North the percentage of negro prisoners is six times as great as native whites — in the South only four times as great. If prejudice wrongs him in Southern courts, the record shows it to be deeper in Northern courts. I assert here, and a bar as intelligent and upright as the bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion, that in the South- ern courts, from highest to lowest, pleading for life, liberty, or 398 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE property, the negro has distinct advantage because he is a negro, apt to be overreached, oppressed — and that this advantage reaches from the juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuring his sentence. Nov^, Mr. President, can it be seriously maintained that we are terrorizing the people from whose willing hands come every year $1,000,000,000 of farm crops ? or have robbed a people who, twenty-five years from unrewarded slavery, have amassed in one state $20,000,000 of property.? or that we intend to oppress the people we are arming every day } or deceive them when we are educating them to the utmost limit of our ability ? or outlaw them when we work side by side with them ? or reenslave them under legal forms when for their benefit we have even imprudently narrowed the limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of law ? My fellow countryman, as you yourself may sometimes have to appeal to the bar of human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people to-night the fair and unanswerable conclusion of these incontestable facts. When will the black cast a free ballot ? When ignorance any- where is not dominated by the will of the intelligent; when the laborer anywhere casts a vote unhindered by his boss ; when the vote of the poor anywhere is not influenced by the power of the rich ; when the strong and the steadfast do not everywhere control the suf- frage of the weak and shiftless — then and not till then will the ballot of the negro be free. The white people of the South are banded, Mr. President, not in prejudice against the blacks, not in sectional estrangement, not in the hope of political dominion, but in a deep and abiding necessity. Here is this vast, ignorant, and purchasable vote — clannish, credulous, impulsive, and passionate — tempting every art of the demagogue but insensible to the appeal of the statesman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an outside force, it cannot be merged and lost in the two great parties through logical currents, for it lacks political conviction and even that information on which conviction must be based. It must remain a faction — strong enough in every community to control on the HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 399 slightest division of the whites. Under that division it becomes the prey of the cunning and unscrupulous of both parties. Its credu- lity is imposed on, its patience inflamed, its cupidity tempted, its impulses misdirected, and even its superstition made to play its part in a campaign in which every interest of society is jeopardized and every approach to the ballot box debauched. It is against such campaigns as this — the folly and the bitterness and the danger of which every Southern community has drunk deeply — that the white people of the South are banded together. Just as you in Massa- chusetts would be banded if three hundred thousand black men — not one in a hundred able to read his ballot — banded in a race instinct, holding against you the memory of a century of slavery, taught by your late conquerors to distrust and oppose you, had already travestied legislation from your statehouse, and in every species of folly or villainy had wasted your substance and exhausted your credit. The negro vote can never control in the South, and it would be well if partisans in the North would understand this. I have seen the white people of a state set about by black hosts until their fate seemed sealed. But, sir, some brave man, banding them together, would rise, as Elisha rose in beleaguered Samaria, and touching their eyes with faith, bid them look abroad to see the very air " filled with the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof." If there is any human force that cannot be withstood, it is the power of the banded intelligence and responsibility of a free community. Against it, numbers and corruption cannot prevail. It cannot be forbidden in the law or divorced in force. It is the inalienable right of every free community, and the just and right- eous safeguard against an ignorant or corrupt suffrage. It is on this, sir, that we rely in the South ; not the cowardly menace of mask or shotgun, but the peaceful majesty of intelligence and responsibility, massed and unified for the protection of its homes and the preservation of its liberty. That, sir, is our reliance and our hope, and against it all the powers of the earth shall not prevail. 400 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE Meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him justice in the fullness the strong should give to the weak, and leading him in the steadfast ways of citizenship that he may no longer be the prey of the unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless. We open to him every pursuit in which he can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and capacity. We seek to hold his confidence and friendship, and to pin him to the soil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire of his own hearthstone that sense of responsi- bility the shiftless can never know. And we gather him into that alliance of intelligence and responsibility that, though it now runs close to racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligent of any race. By this course, confirmed in our judgment and justified in the progress already made, we hope to progress slowly but surely to the end. The love we feel for that race you cannot measure nor compre- hend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy from her home up there looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling into sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home, with its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons flutter- ing down through the golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces and children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands, now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man — as they lay a mother's blessing there, while at her knees, the truest altar I yet have found, I thank God that she is safe in her sanc- tuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin or guard at her chamber door, put a black man's loyalty between her and danger. I catch another vision. The crisis of battle — a soldier struck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffling through the smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of the hurtling death, bending his trusty face to catch the words that HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 401 tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down his life in his master's stead. I see him by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open grave, mute, mo- tionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him when the mound is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave comes a voice saying : " Follow him ! Put your arms about him in his need, even as he put his about me. Be his friend as he was mine." And out into this new world — strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering, both — I follow ! And may God forget my people when they forget these. Whatever the future may hold for them — whether they plod along in the servitude from which they have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon by the Roman soldiers and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ; whether they find homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist who said, ''And suddenly Ethiopia shall hold out her hands unto God " ; whether, forever dislocated and separated, they remain a weak people beset by stronger, and exist as the Turk, who lives in the jealousy rather than in the conscience of Europe ; or whether in this miraculous republic they break through the caste of twenty centuries and, belying universal history, reach the full stature of citizenship and in peace maintain it — we shall give them uttermost justice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into whatever seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this republic, or mitigate our consecration to its service. I stand here, Mr. President, to profess no new loyalty. When General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes and whose 402 BRITISH AND AMERICAN ELOQUENCE arm was clothed with our strength, renewed his allegiance to the government at Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, and he spoke for every honest man from Maryland to Texas. From that day to this, Hamilcar has nowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and vengeance, but everywhere to loyalty and to love. Witness the soldier standing at the base of a Con- federate monument above the graves of his comrades, his empty sleeve tossing in the April wind, adjuring the young men about him to serve as honest and loyal citizens the government against which their fathers fought. This message, delivered from that sacred presence, has gone home to the hearts of my fellows. And, sir, I declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human aspira- tion, that they would die, sir, if need be, to restore this republic their fathers fought to dissolve ! Such, Mr. President, is this problem as we see it ; such is the temper in which we approach it ; such the progress made. What do we ask of you ? P'irst, patience ; out of this alone can come per- fect work. Second, confidence ; in this alone can you judge fairly. Third, sympathy ; in this you can help us best. Fourth, give us your sons as hostages. When you plant your capital in millions, send your sons that they may help know how true are our hearts and may help swell the Anglo-Saxon current until it can carry with- out danger this black infusion. Fifth, loyalty to the republic, for there is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. This hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massa- chusetts — that knows no South, no North, no East, no West, but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every state of our Union. A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impel every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans, and we fight for human liberty. The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil — these are our victories. To HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 403 redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression — this is our mission. And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full and perfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way — aye, even from the hour when, from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day, when the Old World will come to marvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures, let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a republic compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love, loving from the Lakes to the Gulf, the wounds of war healed in every heart — serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path and making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in God's appointed time 1 I 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. ■this book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject tounmediate recau. %: t^ /. \^ ^^^,r. KLC ' U JAN fe'66--PM D, Q m^^'^'^^ jll^^^'Rfi-:^sRQ ti j^\s^ OCTa5^066 52 , RECEIVED e:: nCT2fa'66-12 , pfllM DE CT' m LD 2lA-60Tn-3,'65 (F2336sl0)476B General Library , University of California Berkeley Kb 27474 -^- THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY