J§fiB§B SilL ^^^^^^^^^^ B 3(06 SHE •■ '"• § 9S ' HE ■ ■ mmM ■bhHHHH SI ni HW •w ^\ NT r+4 .y A 6 ... °** T ^ ?S .<*■ THE PEARL SPEAKER. COMPILED BY J. W. ORAHAM, AUTHOR OF Jessie Primary Series in Arithmetic," " Number Cards for First Grade," " Number Lessons for Second Grade," "Number Lessons for Third Grade." }L< isho v' Printed for the Author. Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. Barbee & Smith, Agents, Nashville, Tenn. 1890. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, By J. W. Graham, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ~ PREFACE. " It needs to be emphasized that a capacity of the very highest excel- lence is often developed in those who, at the beginning of their training, are the most unpromising; and in a land like ours, where so many avenues of influence are open to those who can speak well in public, no institution is doing its duty by the young men committed to its charge that does not furnish such a coarse of training as to allow them to dis- cover—nay, force them to discover— their aptitude for oratory." " The highest of all arts is the art that captivates the affections, charms the understanding, and assuages or persuades the will of a popular as- sembly." These are the sentiments of two of the most enlightened of men, uttered two thousand years apart. If they are true — and no one will doubt it — it is certain that much of the usefulness of the teacher, and some of his most acute pleasures, must spring from training his pupils in oratory. In the schools of to-day are the orators of to-morrow ; and not only its orators, but its citi- zens of power and influence. Our social life is honeycombed with thousands of fraternal and industrial organizations. These, we believe, constitute one of the supreme bulwarks of our republic, because they inculcate virtue, charity, thrift, and nobleness of life, and because in their more than three millions of members they contain the flower of American manhood. Our youth will soon fill the ranks of these associations, and we regard it as a lofty part of the teacher's mission to so train them in the power of utterance that they may be able to vindi- cate the right before their fellows with ability and self-confi- dence. To aid in this training this book is submitted after many years of close observation of the tastes and preferences of school-boys. (3) 4 PREFACE. It is confidently believed that all the selections are so marked with the real spirit of declamation that no one possessing this book will ever have any difficulty in "finding a speech." To teachers reading this book two suggestions are offered with the utmost confidence. Let every historical and biographical reference be developed by the pupil to his fullest ability. Let every piece, after its delivery by the pupil, be written two or three times from memory, and the writing compared with the original. This practice will secure results in English expression of the most pronounced and most satisfactory character. To declaimers in all classes of schools this book is submitted, in the hope that it will prove to be " the very thing they have needed for a long time." August 1, 1890. CONTENTS. PAGE From Defense of Armageddon.— Fountain E. Pitts 9 The Same Continued 11 Griffin against Cheatham for Libel 12 Under Which Flag? — John W. Daniel, on Robert E. Lee 14 A People Is Its Own Judge.— John W. Daniel , 16 The March to Appomattox.— John W. Daniel 18 Jacob Henry in the North Carolina Legislature 20 The Impressment of American Seamen'.— Richard Rush 22 The Meanest Entitled to the Protection of Our Laws.— Richard Rush.. 24 Mississippi Contested Election. — S. S. Prentiss 26 Continuation of the Same 28 The Impressment of American Seamen. — No. 2. — Richard Rush 31 Gen. Washington to His Troops before the Battle of Long Island 34 Character of Lafayette. — S. S. Prentiss 35 Eulogy on Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss 37 The Confederate Dead.— Gen. Wm. B. Bate 39 The Same Continued 41 Continuation of the Same .' 44 The "290" (Alabama).— Gen. Wm. B. Bate 46 Washington.— George William Curtiss 48 The Lessons of the Life of Lee.— John W. Daniel 51 The Lessons of the Life of Lee (Continued) 53 Requiescat. — John W. Daniel 55 True Heroism.— John W. Daniel 56 The Arch Fiend.— Dr. Talmage 58 The New South.— No. 2.— Henry W. Grady 60 Thoughts on the Battle-field of Fort Donelson.— John F. House 62 Henry W. Grady.— John Temple Graves 64 Robert E. Lee.— John B. Gordon 66 Memorial Day. — The Nashville American 68 The Sword of Lee.— Father Ryan 69 Robert E. Lee.— J. Barron Hope 71 In Memory of the Confederate Dead.— Wm. C. P. Breckenridge 75 Intolerance.— William J. Armstrong 77 Roger Williams.— William J. Armstrong 80 Mother. — Anonymous 83 Fall of Warsaw.— Thomas Campbell 85 Henry W. Grady.— Dr. J. W. Lee 86 Andrew Jackson.— Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald 89 Duluth.— Proctor Knott 92 Same Continued.— No. 2 91 The Idea of Deity 96 The New Political Era.— Henry George 97 (5) 6 CONTENTS. PAGE The Xew South.— Henry W. Grady.— Xo. 1 99 A Disclaimer of Injustice to the Negro.— Henry YV. Grady 101 Dr. Deems at Hopkinsville Monument 103 Southern Love for the Negro.— Henry W. Grady 106 What Is Minority? 108 The Confederate Dead.— Col. John F. House 110 The Same Concluded Ill Adams and Jefferson.— Wirt 114 Dying Speech of Marino Faliero. {Adapted.) 117 Tribute to Jefferson Davis.— John W. Daniels 119 The Employment of Indians against Americans.— Lord Chatham 122 Lord Chatham on His Motion to Amend the Address to the Throne 123 An Optimist Traveling in the South. — Howard Henderson 126 Adams and Jefferson. — Webster 127 The Veto Power.— Henry Clay 129 Jefferson Davis. — John Randolph Tucker.. 131 Continuation of the Same 134 Defense of One on Trial for Murder.— John J. Crittenden 135 Bum. {Adapted.) 138 Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua.— E. Kellogg 140 Spartacus to the Roman Envoys.— E. Kellogg 142 Rienzi to the Romans.— Mary Russell Mitford 145 The Soldier's Dream.— Thomas Campbell 146 Resistance to British Aggression.— Patrick Henry 147 Continuation of the Same 150 North American Indians.— Sprague 151 Supposed Speech of John Adams.— Webster 153 Conclusion of the Preceding 155 Imperishability of Great Examples.— Everett 156 The Baron's Last Banquet. — Albert G. Greene 157 Destruction of Sennacherib. — Lord Byron 1C0 South Carolina and Massachusetts, 1830.— Webster 161 American Literature.— Grimke , 163 Death of Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss 165 The Lone Star of Texas.— Webb 1G6 The South During the Revolution.— Hayne, 1833 168 Part of Emmet's Defense 159 Part of Emmet's Defense. (Xo. 2.) 172 Emmet's Defense. (Part 3.) 174 Cataline's Defiance.— Croly 177 William Tell and Switzerland.— Knowles 178 William Tell among the Mountains.— Knowles 179 A Psalm of Life.— Longfellow 180 Gen. Rain's Reply 181 The Problem of the Hour.— Henry W. Grady 184 Rolla's Speech. — Sheridan 186 Centennial Address.— Judge Story 187 "If lie Live till Sundown To-morrow, He Will Get Well.— Henry W. Grady 188 Young Men and Temperance.— Cuyler 191 The Corrupters of Youth Abandon Their Victims.— Beecher 193 CONTENTS. 7 PAGE A Midnight Murder. — Anonymous 194 Washington and Clay. — Charlton 194 Speech on the Trial of a Murderer. — Daniel Webster 196 Soliloquy of Henry IV. — Shakespeare 199 The Closing Year. — Prentice 200 The Dying Alchemist.— Willis 203 Alcohol 206 American Progress. — Hilliard 206 Honor to Our Workmen. — H. Clay Preuss 208 Death of Hamilton.— Dr. Mason y 209 An Eloquent Peroration.— Revercly Johnson 211 Virginia— D. W. Voorhees 212 Bonaparte.— E. A. Nisbet 213 Bonaparte. — Charles Phillips. (Written after his second abdication.) 214 Expunging Eesolutions in the United States Senate. — H. Clay 217 The Union. — Matthew Ranson 218 Effects of Intemperance.— Henry W. Miller 219 Ignorance in Our Country a Crime.— H. Mann 221 The South.— Henry W. Grady at Boston 223 James Otis in 1765. — Lydia Maria Child 225 The Natural and Moral Worlds.— Grimke 227 The Future of the South.— W. P. C. Breckenridge at Hopkinsville, Ky. 230 Speech of Walpole in Reproof of Mr. Pitt 231 Pitt's Reply to Robert Walpole 233 Eulogy on Lafayette.— Charles Sprague 234 Napoleon and His Acquisitions.— Thomas Corwin 237 The Resurrection of Italy.— Thomas Francis Meagher 239 There Are No Dead.— Bulwer 240 Traces of the Ocean.— Hugh Miller 241 The Last Man.— Campbell 242 Hohenlinden.— Campbell 245 The Pauper's Drive. — Thomas Noel 246 The Ocean.— Byron 247 Erin.— Thomas N. Burke 248 Destiny of America. — Story 251 A Withering Invective.— S. S. Prentiss 252 Tribute to Washington. — Harrison 254 Criminality of Dueling.— Nott 255 The Patriot's Elysium.— Montgomery 258 The Smack in School.— Anonymous 259 Occasional Epilogue. — Anonymous 260 Press On.— Benjamin 260 Defense of a Client.— S. S. Prentiss 261 The Best of Liquor 263 Intemperance 264 Address to the Army of Italy 266 Never Give Up 267 Warning to the Young 268 Fate of the Indians 269 Regulus to the Carthaginians. — E. Kellogg 270 The Famine in Ireland.— S. S. Prentiss 273 8 CONTENTS. PAGE Nature.— Dow, Jr 274 Be Faithful to Your Country. — Everett 276 Character of Pitt— Robertson 277 To the Eagle 279 Character of Blennerhassett. — Wirt 280 Character of William Penn.— Duponeeau 283 Burial of Sir John Moore. — Wolfe 284 A Farewell to Scotland.— Pringle 285 America.— Phillips 286 Flogging in the Navy. — Commodore Stockton 287 Salathiel to Titus.— Croly 1 289 Washington.— Phillips 291 America 292 The Adventurers in the Mayflower.— Everett 294 Character of Napoleon.— Phillips 295 Necessity of Pure National Morality.— Beecher 296 Corruption, the Cause of the Fall of States.— Croly 298 Against the Infidelity of Thomas Paine.— Phillips 299 Extract from a Speech of Edmund Burke 302 The American Patriot's Song.— Anonymous 303 Darkness. — Byron 304 Pulaski's Banner. — Anonymous 306 Byron— Pollok 307 Only a Private.— F. W. Dawson 309 Sheridan at the Trial of Warren Hastings 310 Conclusion of Preceding 311 Extract from Eulogy on James B. Beck.— J. J. Ingalls... 312 Irish Aliens.— R. L. Shiel 314 Archer Anderson at the Dedication of the Monument to Lee 316 B. H. Hill at Atlanta in 1876 317 B. F. Ward at Winona, Miss 319 THE PEARL SPEAKER From Defense of Armageddon. — Fountain E. Pitts.* We are the grandest people on the face of the earth. The great heart of oar magnanimous country beats responsive to the sighs and sorrows of all na- tions. Our peaceful land is the hospitable home of the oppressed of every country. Our laws are the transcript of eternal justice. Though we have neither titled dukes nor hereditary lords, yet the emoluments of profit and honor are offered to the deserving of all classes, and our loftiest promotions are accessible to the humblest poor. Though de- nounced abroad by an aristocracy that dooms its own pauper millions to proscription, beggary, and starva- tion, yet our institutions are the pulsations of health compared with the plague-spots of Europe. Already have hundreds of thousands of our Afri- can population become the Christianized children of God — a greater number of Christian converts than are to be found in the missions of all the denomina- tions on the earth. Our ministers of mercy have gone to every heathen shore, and preached glad ti- dings to every island that dots the bosom of the ocean. Beams of light radiating from this central home of * Delivered by Invitation before Congress, February 22, 1857. (9) 10 THE PEARL SPEAKER. civil and religious liberty already break upon the dis- tant millions that weep in the shadow of death. When the noble Greek is crushed by the hoof of Turkish despotism, the halls of our Senate are elo- quent with a sympathy that responds in the bosom of a whole people. When the cry of starvation was heard from ill - fated Ireland, American transports were freighted with the munificent offerings of a generous people. Moved by a magnanimity which knows no parallel, our swift ships are sent to recover England's lost navigators in the regions of eternal snow. We have the one living and true God, one religion, one Constitution, one republic, one nationality: a true religion and a true civil government, that are the Israel that was to come, the "nation born at once," born on the 4th of July, 1776. ^-— - What nation presents such a spectacle at this very moment as the United States? Our literary institu- tions are scattered all over the land, so that the humblest poor may be enriched with the treasures of science, while millions of sheets in the republic of letters pour floods of light on the human mind. Here the press is free, that mighty enginery of thought, guarding the majesty of law and the inviolable sanc- tity of the Constitution. Here the pulpit, unawed by the terrors of the throne, in tones of power and tongues of flame, " proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord." Here the word of God is an unchained book, and, like the sun in mid-heaven, rifts the clouds that mantle the world, shedding a strong and steady light upon the shadowy mansions of the dead, inspir- ing the living with the ecstatic hope that our loved and lost shall awake from their beds in the last, glori- ous morning. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 11 The Same Continued. The stupendous conflict of Armageddon — the final battle of prophecy — will take place in the valley of the Mississippi. The hosts of civil and religious lib- erty will be massed against the multitudinous cohorts of monarchy. The United States of America, young and vigorous, arising in the northern temperate zone, extends its borders from sea to sea, and from the lakes on the north to Heaven only knows how far south. She is the enlightened and uncompromising repre- sentative of popular freedom. And there is Kussia, in gigantic proportions, arising also in the northern temperate zone, with her million of warriors, now oc- cupying one-seventh of the earth, stretching from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean, from the Baltic on the west till her Cossacks hear the drum-beats in Far- ther India. She is the representative of absolutism. These ascending powers, like two towering clouds culminating in the heavens, surcharged with elec- tric ruin, will shock the world with their collision, and bathe the earth in blood. The myriad empires of the globe will be allied with Eussia, except the beautiful France. The genius of France — the child of prophecy — rejoicing in the downfall of monarchy, shall be with us in the end as she was in the begin- ning. But England, true to her proud aristocracy, will die for the divine right of kings. Her policy will not be influenced by language, religion, or blood, but in the final onset she will join the crusade against America. How vast and wide and dreadful will be the car- nage of the battle of Armageddon, when seven months will be occupied in burying the dead, and the wrecks of the struggle will furnish fuel for seven years. 12 THE PEARL SPEAKER. So will close the conflict of the world. Pseans of gladness will ring through the earth, while emanci- pated millions will swell the general joy. "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! " Henceforth, "nations shall learn war no more." Confederated republics, under the counsel and exam- ple of the United States, will arise in the former "habitations of the dragons," and the "deserts" of cruelty shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Like an elder brother, our republic will kindly instruct them in the principles of popular freedom, and the gospel of the Son of God will have universal welcome among the nations of the earth. The cloudless splendor from "a new heaven" will beam upon the inhabitants of "a new earth" in that happy thousand years. Then the apocalyptic angel, having the ever- lasting gospel to preach to every nation and people and tongue, will sweep the breadth of heaven, and as his silvery pinions of light shave the level horizon every island and continent shall bow obsequious to his message. Griffin against Cheatham for Libel. I am one of those who believe that the heart of the willful and deliberate libel er is blacker than that of the highway robber, or than he who perpetrates the crime of midnight arson. The man who plunders on the highway may have the semblance of apology for the outrage he commits: an affectionate wife may be {fin- ing away for lack of subsistence, a circle of helpless chil- dren may raise their tiny hands in vain supplicating THE PEARL SPEAKER. 13 for food, the high mandate of imperative necessity- may for a time crowd truth and honor and pride and discretion out of his soul. The mild features of the husband and father intermingle with those of the robber, and soften the roughness of the shade. But the robber of character plunders that which does not enrich him, though it makes his neighbor poor indeed. The man who fires his neighbor's dwelling in the darkness of midnight does him an injuiy that can be repaired, for industry can rear another habitation. The storm may descend and wreck the roof that covers his head, and leave the wind to whistle around his uncovered family; but courage lifts up his heart and hopes, and a light breaks in upon him from the future. But what con- solation can cheer the heart of him whose character has been torn from him ? What though he be innocent ? A consciousness that he is in the center of a wilder- ness settles cold and chill around his heart, for whither shall he go? Shall he dedicate himself to the service of his country? Will his country receive him, and employ in her councils and in her armies the man at whom is pointed the "slow, unmoving finger of scorn? " Shall he betake himself to the fire- side? The story of his disgrace will enter his own door before him. And can he bear, think you, can he bear the sym- pathizing agonies of a distressed wife? Can he en- dure the forbidding presence of scrutinizing, sneer- ing domestics? Will his children receive instruction from a disgraced father? Gentlemen, I am telling the plain story of my client's wrongs. By the ruth- less hand of malice his character has been wantonly massacred, and he now appears before a jury of his 14 THE PEARL SPEAKER. country for redress. Will you, can you deny liim this redress? Is there any thing in character that men should place a value on it? Ah, my friends! I will not insult your intelligence with an argument. There are certain things to argue which is the rankest treason against God and nature. The Author of our being did not intend to leave this point afloat at the mercy of opinion, but with his own hand he planted in the soul of man an instinctive love of character. This lofty and superb sentiment has no affinity to pride. It is the ennobling quality of the soul; and if we have hitherto been elevated above the ranks of surrounding creation, human nature owes its elevation to the love of character. It is the love of character for which the poet has sung, the philosopher toiled, the hero bled. It was the love of character which wrought miracles in ancient Greece, and it was the love of character on which the eagle of Rome rose to empire. To-day it is that love of character, animating the bosoms of her sons, on which America must depend in the sublime crises of her existence. Will a jury weaken this, our country's hope? Will they by their verdict pro- nounce to the youth of our country that character is scarce worth the possessing? Philosophy may smile over the destruction of property, religion may extend a heavenly look of forgiveness to the murder- er, but it is not, it cannot be in the heart of man to bear the lacerations of slander. Under Which Flag?— John W. Daniel, on Rob- ert E. Lee. What was the situation in 1861 of Robert E. Lee? THE PEARL SPEAKER. 15 On the border line of two hostile empires, girding their loins for as stern a fight as ever tested warrior's steel, he beholds each beckoning to him to lead its peo- ple to battle. On the one hand Virginia summons him to share her lot in the perilous adventure. The young Confederacy is without an army, without a navy, and without a currency. There are few teem- ing workshops and arsenals. There is little but a meager and widely scattered populace, for the most part men of the field, the prairie, the forest, and the mountain, ready to stand the hazard of an audacious endeavor, to meet aggression with whatever weapons freemen can lay their hands on, and to carry high the banners of the free, whatever may betide. And should he fail! Ah, what then should he fail! His beloved State would be trampled in the mire of the ways; the Confederacy would be blotted from the family of nations; home and country would survive only in memory and in name; his people would be captives, their very slaves their masters; and he, if he thought of himself at all, might have seen in the dim perspective of gloom the shadow of the dungeon or the scaffold. On the other hand stands the foremost and most powerful republic of the earth, rich in all that handi- work can fashion or that gold can secure. It has a dense population and a regular army, while a myriad of volunteers rush to do its bidding. Its navy rides the Western seas in undisputed sway. Its treasury teems with the sinews of war, and its arsenals overflow with weapons. Its capital lies in sight of his chamber window, and its guns bear on the portals of his home. A messenger from the President of this stalwart re- public tenders him the supreme command of its 16 THE PEARL SPEAKER. forces. If he accept it, and if he shall succeed, the conqueror's crown awaits him, and, win or lose, he will remain the foremost man of a mighty nation, with all the honor that riches and office and power and public applause can supply. Since the Son of man stood upon the mount and saw all the kingdoms of the earth stretched before him, and turned away from them to the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and to the cross of Cal- vary beyond, no follower of the meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone a more trying ordeal, or met it with a higher spirit of heroic sacrifice. Draw his sword against Virginia! Perish the thought! Over all the voices that called him he heard the still small voice that ever whispers to the soul of the spot that gave it birth, and over every am- bitious dream rose the face of the angel that guards the door of home. Thus came Kobert E. Lee to the State of his birth and to the people of his blood in their hour of need. Thus, with as chaste a heart as ever plighted faith until death, he came to do, to suffer, to die for us who are gathered to-day in awful reverence and in sorrow unspeakable to weep our blessings on his tomb. A People Is Its Own Judge. — John W. Daniel. I pause not here to defend the course of General Lee, as that defense may be drawn from the Consti- tution of a republic which was born in the sublime protest of a people against bayonet rule, and founded on the bed-rock principle of free government, that all free governments " must derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." I pause not to THE PEARL SPEAKER. 17 trace the history or define the theory of constitutional construction, which maintained the right of seces- sion from the union as an element of sovereign state- hood — a theory that has found ablest and noblest ad- vocacy in every section of the country. The tribunal is not yet formed that would hearken to such a de- fense, nor is this the time or place to utter it. And to my mind there is for Lee and his compatriots a loftier and truer vindication than any that may be deduced from codes, constitutions, and conventional articles of government. A great revolution need never apologize or explain itself. There it is! The august and thrilling rise of a whole population. None but great aspirations underlie great actions, and none but great causes can ever produce great events. A transient gust of passion may turn a crowd into a mob, a temporary impulse may swell a mob into local insurrection; but when a whole people stand to their guns before their hearth-stones, and as one man resist what they deem aggression; when for long years they endure poverty and starvation, and dare danger and death to maintain principles they deem sacred; when they shake a continent with their heroic endeavors, and fill the world with the glory of their achieve- ments — history can make for them no higher vindica- tion than to point to their deeds and cry: "Behold! " A people must be its own judge! Under God there can be no higher judge or court to fear. In the su- preme moments of national life, as in the lives of in- dividuals, the actor must resolve and act within him- self alone. The Southern States acted for themselves, the Northern States acted for themselves, and Vir- ginia for herself; and when the lines of battle formed Kobert Lee took his place in the line beside 2 18 THE PEARL SPEAKER. his people, his kindred, his children, his home. Let his defense rest on this fact alone. Nature speaks it, and nothing can strengthen it, as nothing can weaken it. The historian may compile, the casuist may dis- sect, the statesman may expatiate, the advocate may plead, the jurist may expound ; but, after all, there can be no stronger tie than that which binds the faithful heart to kindred and home. And on that tie, stretching from the cradle to the grave, spanning the heavens, and riveted through eternity to the throne of God on high, and underneath in the souls and hearts of men good and true — on that tie rests, stainless and immortal, the fame of Robert Lee. The March to Appomattox. — John W. Daniel. Yain was the mighty struggle led by the peerless Lee. Genius planned, valor executed, patriotism stripped itself of every treasure, and heroism fought and bled and died, and all in vain! When the drear winter of '64 came there came with it the sad premoni- tions of the end. " The very seed-corn of the Con- federacy had been ground up," as was said by Presi- dent Davis. The peopl e sat at naked tables and slept in sheetless beds, for their apparel had been used to bind up wounds. The weeds grew in fenceless fields, and the plow-horse was pulling the cannon. The church-yard and the mansion fences had been stripped of their leaden ornaments that the rifle and the musket might not lack for bullets. The church-bells, now melted into cannon, pealed forth the dire notes of war. The land was drained of its substance, and the Army of Northern Virginia was nearly exhausted for want of food and raiment. All THE PEARL SPEAKER. 19 through the bleak winter days and nights, its deci- mated and shivering ranks still faced the dense bat- talions of Grant in misery and want not less than that which stained the snows of Valley Forge; and the army seemed to live only on its innate and indomita- ble will. Like a rock of old ocean, it had received, and broken, and hurled back into the deep, in bloody foam, those swiftly succeeding waves of four years of incessant battle.. But now the very rock itself was wearing away, and still the waves came on. Yes, a new enemy was approaching the Army of Northern Virginia, and this time in the rear. The homes of the Southern soldiers in Lee's army were now in ashes. Wives, mothers, and sisters were wanderers under a winter sky, flying from the in- vaders who smote and spared not in their relentless march. Is it a wonder that hearts that never quailed before bayonet or blade beat now with tremulous and irrepressible emotion? Is it a wonder that in the watches of the night the sentinel in the trenches, tortured to excruciation with the thought that those dearest of earth to him were without an arm to save, felt his soul sink in anguish and his hope perish ? So it was that, with hunger and nakedness as its com- panions, and foes in front and foes in rear, the Army of Northern Virginia seemed bound to the rock of fate. But yet these scarred and sinewy veterans of fifty fields, their glories still about them, their man- hood triumphant still, make one more charge upon the serried hosts of the foe; the blue line breaks be- fore them, and they sweep the field toward Lynch- burg, victors still. But ah! too late! too late. Behind the flying sa- bers and rifles of Sheridan rise the bayonets and 20 THE PEARL SPEAKER. frown the batteries of the Army of the James. Too late! The die is cast. The doom is sealed. There is no escape. The eagle is quarried in his eyrie; the wounded lion is hunted to his lair. And so the guns of the last charge died away on the morning air; an echo, like the sob of a mighty sea, rolled up the valley of the James, and all was still. The last fight of the Army of Northern Vir- ginia had been fought. The smoke had vanished. The startled birds renewed their songs over the stricken fields, the battle smell was drowned in the fragrance of the flowering spring, and the ragged sol- dier of the South, God bless him ! stood there facing the dread reality, more terrible than death, stood there to grapple with and face down despair, for he had done his all, and all was lost save imperishable honor. Jacob Heney in the North Carolina Legisla- ture. The proud champions of liberty knew that the purest homage man could render to the Almighty was in the sacrifice of his passions, and in the per- formance of his duties; that the Ruler of the uni- verse would receive with equal benignity the various offerings of man's adoration if they proceeded from a humble spirit and a sincere mind; that intolerance in matters of faith had been from the earliest ages of the world the severest torments by which mankind could be afflicted, and that governments were only concerned about the actions of men, and not about their consciences. Who among us feels himself so exalted above his fellows as to have a right to die- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 21 tate to tliem his mode of belief? Shall this free country set an example of persecution which even the returning reason of enslaved Europe would not sub- mit to? Will you bind the conscience in chains, and fasten conviction upon the mind in spite of the con- clusions of reason, and of those ties and habitudes which are blended with every pulsation of the heart? Are you prepared to plunge from the sublime heights of moral legislation into the dark and gloomy caverns of superstitious ignorance? Will you drive from your shores and from the shelter of your constitutions all who do not lay their oblations upon the same altar, observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same dogmas? If so, which among the varied sects into which we are divided shall be the favored one? I should insult the understanding of this House to sup- pose it possible that they would ever assent to such absurdities; for every human being knows that per- secution in all its shapes and modifications is contrary to the genius of our government and the spirit of our laws, and that it can never produce any other effect than to make men hypocrites or martyrs. Nothing is more easily demonstrated than that the conduct alone is the subject of human laws, and that man ought to suffer civil disqualification for what he does, and not for what he thinks. The mind can re- ceive laws only from Him of whose divine essence it is a part. He alone can punish our disobedience, for who else can know our movements or estimate their merits? The religion which I profess inculcates every duty which man owes to his fellow-men; it en- joins upon its votaries the practice of every virtue and the detestation of every vice; it teaches them to hope for the favor of Heaven exactly in proportion as 22 THE PEARL SPEAKER. their lives are directed by just, honorable, or benefi- cent maxims. This then, gentlemen, is my creed; it was impressed upon my infant mind, it has been the director of my youth, the monitor of my manhood, and will, I trust, be the consolation of my old age. At any rate, I am sure you cannot see any thing in this religion to deprive me of my seat in this House. So far as relates to my life and conduct, the exami- nation of these I submit with cheerfulness to your candid and liberal construction. I have never considered it my duty to pry into the belief of other members of this House; if their actions are upright and their conduct just, the rest is for their own consideration and not for mine. I do not seek to make converts to my faith, whatever it may be esteemed in the eyes of my officious friends, nor do I exclude any man from my friendship or es- teem because he and I differ in that respect. The same charity, therefore, it is not unreasonable to ex- pect, will be extended to myself, because in all things that relate to the State and to the duties of civil life I am bound by the same obligations with my fellow- citizens; nor does any man subscribe more sincerely than myself to the maxim: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." The Impressment of American Seamen.— Richard Rush, The seizure of the persons of American citizens under the name and pretexts of impressment by naval officers of Great Britain, is an outrage of that kind which makes it difficult to speak of it in terms of appropriate description. It is certain that the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 23 most careful researches into history will find no ex- ample of the systematic perpetration of an offense of a similar nature, and perpetrated too under a claim of right. To take a just and no other than a serious il- lustration, the only parallel to it is to be found in the African slave-trade; and if an eminent statesman of England once spoke of the latter as the greatest practical evil that had ever afflicted mankind, we may be allowed to denominate the former as the greatest practical offense that has ever been offered to a civil- ized independent State. But the British say: " We want not your men; we want only our own." Prove that they are yours, and we will surrender them. Basest of outrages! most in- solent of indignities! that a free-born American must be made to prove his nativity to those who have pre- viously violated his liberty, else he is to be held for- ever as a slave. That before a British tribunal a free-born American must be made to seal up the vouchers of his lineage, to exhibit the records of his baptism and birth, to establish the identity that binds him to his parents, to his blood, to his native land; that all this must be done as the condition of his es- cape from the galling thralldom of a British ship! Can we bear it? can we think of it with any other than indignant feelings at our tarnished name and nation? And suppose through this degrading process his deliverance to be effected, where is he to seek re- dress from the immediate wrong? To whom shall our imprisoned citizen, when the privilege of shak- ing off his fetters has been accorded to him, turn for his redress? Where shall he look to re-imburse the stripes, the wounds, the worn spirit, the long inward agony? No, the public code of nations recognizes 24 THE PEARL SPEAKER. not the penalty, for to the modern rapaciousness of Britain it was reserved to add to the dark catalogue of human sufferings this most flagitious crime. But why be told that even on such proofs as these our citizens will be released ? Go to the Department of State, within sight of where we are assembled, and see the piles of certificates and documents and records and seals, and see how they rest, and forever will rest upon the shelves. And this Great Britain cannot but know. She does know it, and, with delib- erate mockery, in which bloated power can scoff at submission and humble suffering, has she continued to increase and protract our humiliation. The Meanest Entitled to the Protection of Our Laws. — Richard Bush. I am a Roman citizen! I am a Roman citizen! was .an exclamation that insured safety, commanded re- spect, or inspired terror in all parts of the world. And although the mild temper of our government ex- acts not all these attributes, we may be suffered to deplore, with hearts of agony and shame, that while the inhabitants of every other part of the globe enjoy an immunity from the seizure of their persons, except under the fate of war, to be an American citizen has, for five and twenty years, been the signal for insult and the passport to captivity. Let it not be said that the men they take are sometimes not such as to attract the concern of the government. If they were all so, it lessens in nowise the enormity of the out- rage. It adds indeed a fresh indignity to mention it. The sublime equality of justice recognizes no such distinction, and a government founded on the great THE PEARL SPEAKER. 25 basis of equal right would forget one of its funda- mental duties if in the exercise of its protecting pow- er it admits to a foreign nation the least distinction between what it owes to the lowest and meanest, and the highest and most exalted of its citizens. Sometimes it is said that but few of our citizens are seized. Progressive and foul aggravation! to ad- mit the crime to our faces and seek to screen its atrocity under its limited extent. Whence but from a source hardened with long rapine could such a pal- liation flow? It is false. The melancholy memorials of that same department attest that there are thou- sands of our countrymen at this moment in the slavery of their ships. And if there were but one hundred, if there were but fifty, if there were but one, how dare they insult a sovereign nation with such an an- swer? Shall I state to you a fact that shows all the excess of shame that should flush our faces at sub- mission to outrage so foul? Now mark you this: Two of the nephews of your immortal Washington were seized, dragged on board a British ship, and were there imprisoned for a year before they were re- stored to their liberty. How can you, Americans, sit down under such indignities? Tell me to which of their princes, their nobles, their regents will you al- low, in the just pride of men and freemen, that those who stand in bloodship to the illustrious founder of your liberties are second in all their claims to safety and protection? But we must leave this odious and hateful subject. It swells indeed with ever fruitful expansion to the indignant view, and while it animates it is loathsome. This crime of impressment may be justly considered as transcending the amount of all the other wrongs 26 THE PEARL SPEAKER. we have received. Notwithstanding the millions that have been wrested from ns by the cupidity of Britain, of France, of Spain, of Denmark, the sum of all must be estimated below this enormity. Ships and merchandise belong to individuals, and may be valued, may be endured as subjects of negotiation; but men are the property of the nation. In every American's face a part of our country's constitution is written. It is the living emblem of its character, its independence, and its rights — its quick and cher- ished insignium, toward which the nation should ever demand the most scrupulous inviolable immuni- ty. Man was created in the image of his God. When he is made a slave where shall there be re-im- bursement? No, fellow-citizens, under the assistance and protection of the Most High the evil must be stopped. The blessings of peace itself become a curse while such a stain is permitted to rest upon our annals. Mississippi Contested Election.— S. S. Prentiss. Have the gentlemen considered well the attitude in which they place themselves by this course? Was not their better angel nodding — nay, was he not asleep at his post when they resolved upon it? Was there nothing in the manner or circumstances under which that decision was obtained, which should make them feel a particular delicacy in using it for the pur- pose of smothering this investigation? Whither has tied that lofty magnanimity which at the last session induced the gentlemen to institute proceedings against themselves, for the purpose of ascertaining the rights of their constituents; that delicate sensibility that could not brook a shadow of doubt as to the legiti- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 27 macy of their representative character; that fostering protection of the elective franchise; that deep vener- ation for the voice of the people; that ready obedi- ence to their will? Do the gentlemen really wish to represent the peo- ple of Mississippi, whether they will or not? Do they actually intend to set up a majority of seventeen votes here against a majority of seven thousand at home? Did they obtain this decision for the purpose of extending the powers delegated to them by the people? Whom do they consider their constituents, the people of Mississippi, or the members of this House, that they should base their rights here upon the action and will of the latter instead of the for- mer? Does not their valor outrun their discretion in this matter? A bold man was he, that ancient one, who stole the fire of heaven and hid it in a hollow reed; but not less bold is he who would steal the elective franchise from the people of a whole State, and conceal it in a hollow decision of this house. Let them remember the fate of Prometheus, " the vult- ure and the rock." I cast down my glove, and chal- lenge them to do battle upon the merits of this cause. What! are they afraid to break a lance or shiver a spear in fair lists upon the open plain, that thus si- lent and sullen they retire behind the wall, and hide in an entrenchment, constructed for the very purpose of protecting themselves against their constituents? Perhaps they are content with the laurels won on a former occasion, when in right knightly style they held a passage at arms and challenged all comers. They pranced in gallant guise around the lists, and their trumpet of defiance rang forth loud and clear. But well they knew, the while, that two thousand long 28 THE PEARL SPEAKER. miles, with many a lofty mountain and many a broad and rushing river, intervened between themselves and those whom they thus summoned to the contest. That summons is at length answered by the people of Mississippi, on whose behalf and as a humble champion of whose rights I now appear. Fast and far I have ridden to meet the gentlemen's high defi- ance. Ivanhoe has returned from the Holy Land, and the disinherited knight dares the proud templar to the combat. For the last time, in the name of Mississippi, the lady-love whose gage we both profess to wear, I call these gentlemen to meet this controversy upon a fair and open field. If they decline this challenge, I will attack the for- tress in which they have taken refuge. I will either storm it or starve it into surrender. But let these gentlemen remember that they have rendered them- selves liable to the operation of that rule of war which denies quarter to those who attempt to defend an un- tenable position. Continuation of the Same. Sir, if you persist in denying to Mississippi that right to which she is entitled in common with every other State, you inflict upon her a wound which no medicine can heal. If you are determined to impose upon her a representation not of her choice, and against her will, go on, and complete the work of deg- radation; send her a proconsul for a governor, and make task-masters to rule over her. Let her no long- er sit with you, a young and fair member of this proud sisterhood; but strip her of the robes of her equality, and make of her a handmaid and a servant. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 29 Sir, you may think it an easy and trifling jnatter to deprive Mississippi of her elective franchise; for she is young, and may not, perchance, have the power to resist; but I am much mistaken in the character of her chivalrous citizens if you do not find that she not only understands her rights, but has both the will and power to vindicate them. You may yet find to your sorrow that you have grasped a scorpion when you thought you were only crushing a worm. This House would as soon put its head into a lion's mouth as take with the older and more powerful States the course which is threatened. And how happens it that Representatives who have always been the readiest in the assertion of their own rights should now be most zealous in trampling upon the rights of Missis- sippi? What has she done that she should be select- ed as a victim ? No State is or has ever been more ardently attached to the Union ; and if she is placed beyond its pale, it will be your fault, and not her own. Sir, if you consummate this usurpation, you degrade the State of Mississippi; and if she submits, never again can she wear the lofty look of conscious inde- pendence. Burning shame will set its seal upon her brow; and when her proud sons travel in other lands they will quail at the history of her dishonor as it falls from the sneering lips of the stranger. Sir, place her not in that terrible and trying position in which her love for this glorious Union will be found at war with her own honor and the paramount obli- gation which binds her to transmit to the next gener- ation, untarnished and undiminished, her portion of that rich legacy of the Revolution, which was bought with blood, and which should never be parted with for a price less than what it cost. Is there a State in 30 THE PEARL SPEAKER. this Union that would part with it, that would submit to have her Representatives chosen by this House and forced upon her against her will? Come! what says the Bay State — time-honored Massachusetts? From the cradle in which young liberty was rocked, even from old Faneuil Hall, comes forth her ready answer, and before it dies away again it is repeated from Bunker Hill: " It was for this very right of represen- tation our fathers fought the battles of the Revolu- tion, and ere we will surrender this dear-bought right those battles shall again become dread realities." Would Kentucky submit? Ask her, Mr. Speaker, and her mammoth cavern will find a voice to thunder in your ear her stern response: "No; sooner than submit to such an outrage, our soil shall be rebap- tized with a new claim to the proud but melancholy title of the dark and bloody ground" And what says Virginia with her high device, her sic semper tyrannis, the loftiest motto that ever blazed upon a warrior's shield or a nation's arms? What says the mother of States and State's rights doctrines, she who has placed instruction over representation? what says she to the proposition that this House can make Representatives, and force them upon a State in violation of its choice and will? And where is South Carolina, the Harry Percy of the Union? On which side of this great controversy does she couch her lance and draw her blade? I trust upon the side of her sister State; upon the side too of the Constitutions of all the States; and let her lend the strength of her good right arm when she strikes in so righteous a quarrel. Upon all the States I would solemnly call, for that justice for an- other which they would expect for themselves. Let this cup pass from Mississippi. Compel her not to THE PEARL SPEAKER. 31 drink its bitter ingredients, lest some day even-hand- ed justice should "commend the poisoned chalice " to your own lips. Rescind that resolution that presses like a foul incubus upon the Constitution. You sit here, twenty-five sovereign States, in judgment upon the most sacred right of a sovereign State, that which is to a State what chastity is to a woman or honor to a man. Should you decide against her, you tear from her brow the richest jewel that sparkles there, and forever bow her head in shame and dishonor. But if your determination is taken, if the bJow must fall, if the violated Constitution must bleed, I have but one request on her behalf to make. When you de- cide that she cannot choose her own representation at that self-same moment blot from the star-spangled banner of this Union the bright star that glistens to the name of Mississippi; but leave the stripe behind, fit emblem of her degradation. The Impressment of American Seamen. — No. 2.— Richard Rush. Animated by all the motives which demand and justify this contest, let us advance to it with resolute and high-beating hearts, supported by the devotion to our beloved country which wishes for her tri- umphs cannot fail to kindle. Dear to us is this be- loved country for all the true blessings that flourish within her bosom; the country of our fathers, the country of our children, the scene of our dearest affections, whose rights and liberties have been conse- crated by the blood whose current runs fresh in our own veins. Who shall touch such a country, and not fire the patriotism and unsheathe the sword of every 32 THE PEARL SPEAKER. loyal man. No, Americans, while you reserve your independent privilege of rendering your suffrages as you please, let our proud foe be undeceived. Let her, let the whole world learn now and forever that the voice of our nation, whenever legitimately expressed, is holy, is imperious; that it is a summons of duty to every citizen; that when we strike at a foreign foe the sacred bond of country becomes the pledge of concentrated effort; that in such a cause and at such a crisis we feel but one heart and strike with our whole strength. We are the only nation in the world where the people and the government stand in all things identified; where every blow at the general safety becomes the personal safety of each individ- ual. Happy people! happy government! will you give up? will you not defend such blessings? We are the only republic since the days of the ancients that has taken up arms against a foreign foe in defense of its rights and its liberties. Animated and warmed by the fire of ancient freedom, may we not expect to see the valor of Thermopylae and Marathon again dis- played? The Congress of eighteen hundred and twelve, here within these august walls, have proclaimed to the world that other feelings than those of servility, avarice, or fear pervade the American bosom; that in the hope and purity of youth we are not debased by the passions of a corrupt old age; that, while we are peaceful, we know the value of national rights and national justice, and with the spirit due to the last- ing prosperity of our republic, design to repel au- thenticated outrages. That we will and dare act as becomes a free, an enlightened, and a brave people. Illustrious Congress! worthy to have your names re- corded with the illustrious fathers of our revolution. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 33 For what grievances were those that led to make this great nation, that have not been equaled, that have not been surpassed by those which move you to your deed, and what noble hazards did they encounter which you ought not to brave? If we are not fully prepared for war, let the sublime spectacle be soon exhibited, that a free and valiant nation, in a just cause, is always a powerful nation. The Congress of '76 declared independence, and hurled defiance at the same insatiate foe six and thirty years ago with an army of seventeen thousand sol- diers j-ust landed on our shores. And shall we now hesitate, shall we bow our necks in submission, and shall we make an ignominious surrender of our birth- right under the plea that we are not prepared to defend it? No, Americans; yours has been a pacific republic, but you will, as before, soon command battalions and discipline and courage. If a general of old could stamp on the earth and raise up armies, shall a whole nation of freemen not know where to find them ? Could the departed heroes of the Revolution rise from their sleep and behold us hanging contentedly over hoards of money, or casting up British invoices, while so long a list of wrongs call for retribution, what would they say? Would they not hasten back to their tombs, now more welcome than ever, since they would hide from their view the base conduct of those sons for whom they so gallantly fought and so gallantly died? Sacred in our celebration be this day to the end of time. Revered be the memories of the statesmen and the orators whose wisdom led to independence, and of the gallant soldiers who sealed it with their blood! May the fires of their genius and courage animate and sustain us in our conduct and bring it to a like 3 34 THE PEARL SPEAKER. glorious result! May there be a willing, a joyous im- molation of all selfish passions on the altar of our country! May victory soon flash across our skies and peace come to dwell with us forever! May we have in our pacific glories a roused intellect and a spirit of improvement in whatever may gild the American name! May common perils and common triumphs bind us all more closely together! May the era fur- nish names to our annals, On whom a later time, a kindling eye shall turn! Revered be the dust of those who fall, and sweet be their memories! Their country vindicated, their duty done, then an honorable renown, the regrets of a na- tion, the eulogies of friendship, the slow and moving dirges of the camp, and the tears of beauty — all, all shall sanctify their doom! Honored be those who outlive the strife of arms; our rights established, justice secured, a haughty foe taught to respect the freemen she had abused and plundered, to survive to such recollections, to such a consciousness — is there, can there be a nobler reward? Gen. Washington to His Troops before the Bat- tle op Long Island. The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have "any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness, from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on THE PEARL SPEAKER. 35 the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die. Our own, our country's honor calls on us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous in the eyes of the whole world. Then let us rely on the goodness of our cause and on the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate us and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our country- men are now upon us, and we shall have their bless- ings and their praise if happily we are the instru- ments of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encour- age each other, and show the whole world that a free- man contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. Upon our courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country; our wives, children, and parents expect safety from us only, and they have every reason to believe Heaven will crown with success so just a cause. Character of Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss. In the bosom of Lafayette there had been cher- ished from his infancy a passion more potent than all others, and that passion was the love of liberty. A spark from the very altar of freedom had fallen upon his heart, and he watched and cherished it with more than vestal vigilance. This passionate love of liberty, this fire that was thenceforth to burn un- quenched and undimmed, impelled him to break 30 THE PEARL SPEAKER. asunder the ties of pleasure and affection. He had heard that a gallant people had raised the standard against oppression, and he hastened to join them. It was to him the crusade of liberty, and like a Knight of the Holy Cross he enlisted in the ranks of those who had sworn to rescue its altars from the grasp of the tyrant. From the moment of joining our ranks he became the pride and the boast of the whole army. He won the affections of the iron-souled warriors of New England, and was received with open arms by the warm-hearted and chivalrous sons of the South. Throughout the Revolution he followed its fortunes with unchanged fidelity and undeviating devotion; and when he returned to his native land the voices of millions joined to invoke the blessings of heaven upon his head. Throughout the troublous times of the French Revolution, when the people became drunk and fren- zied with draughts of liberty, he ever remained at his post by the Constitution and laws. When the whole foundations of society had been broken up, and the wild current of licentiousness and crime had swept him an exile to a foreign land, and even when he lay in the dungeon of Olmutz, the flame of liberty burned as brightly in his breast as ever it did when fanned by the free breezes of the mountains. When after five long years he returned to France the Revolution had subsided, and the star of the child of destiny was now lord of the ascendant. But there could be no sympathy between the selfish and ambitious Napoleon and Lafayette, the patriot and philanthropist. They could no more mingle than the pure light of heaven and the unholy fires of perdition. THE PEARL SPEAKER. • 37 And here let us pause to compare these two won- derful men, belonging to the same age and to the same nation — Napoleon and Lafayette. Napoleon, the child of destiny, the thunderbolt of war, the dis- penser of thrones and kingdoms, he who scaled the Alps, and reclined beneath the Pyramids, whose word was fate, and whose wish was law; Lafayette, the volunteer of freedom, the advocate of human rights, the defender of civil liberty, the patriot, the philan- thropist, the beloved of the good and the free. Na- poleon, the vanquished warrior, ignobly flying from the field of Waterloo, the wild beast of Europe hunted down by the banded and affrighted nations, and caged far away upon an ocean-girdled rock; Lafayette, a watch-word by which men are excited to deeds of worth and noble daring, whose home has become the Mecca of freedom toward which the pil- grims of liberty turn their eyes from every quarter of the globe. Napoleon was the red and fiery comet, shooting wildly through the realms of space, and scattering terror and pestilence among the nations; Lafayette was the pure and brilliant planet beneath whose grateful beams the mariner directs his bark and the shepherd tends his Hocks. Napoleon died, and a few old warriors, the scattered relics of Maren- go and Austerlitz, bewailed their chief; Lafayette is dead, and the tears of the civilized w T orld attest how deep is the mourning for his loss. Eulogy on Lafayette. — S. S. Prentiss. In 1824, on Sunday, a single ship furled her snowy sails in the harbor of New York. Scarcely had her prow touched the shore when a murmur was heard 38 THE PEARL SPEAKER. among the multitude, which gradually deepened into a mighty shout; and that shout was a shout of joy. Again and again were the heavens rent with the inspiring sound. Nor did it cease; for the loud strain was carried from city to city, and from State to State, till not a tongue was silent throughout the wide republic, from the lisping infant to the tremulous old man. All were united in one wild 'shout of gratulation. The voices of more than ten mill- ions of people gushed up toward the sky, and broke the stillness of its silent depths. But one note and but one tone went to form this acclamation. Up in those pure regions clearly and sweetly did it sound: "Honor to Lafayette!" "Welcome to the nation's guest! " It was Lafayette, the war-worn veteran, whose arrival upon our shores had caused this wide- spread, this universal joy. He came among us to be- hold the independence and the freedom which his young arm had so well assisted in achieving; and never before did eye behold or heart of man conceive such homage paid to virtue. His whole stay among us was a continued tri- umph. Every day's march was an ovation. The United States became for months one great festive hall. People forgot the usual occupations of life, and crowded to behold the benefactor of mankind. The iron-hearted, gray-haired veterans of the Ee volu- tion thronged around him to touch his hand, to be- hold his face, and to call down Heaven's benison upon their old companion in arms. Lisping infancy and garrulous age, beauty, talents, wealth, and power— all for awhile forsook their usual pursuits, and united to pay a willing tribute of gratitude and welcome to the nation's guest. The name of Lafayette was THE PEARL SPEAKER. 39 upon every lip, and wherever was his name, there too was an invocation of blessings on his head. What were the triumphs of the classic ages compared with this unbought love and homage of a mighty people? Take them in Rome's best days — when the invincible generals of the eternal city returned from their foreign conquests, with captive kings bound to their chariot-wheels and spoils of nations in their train, followed by their stern and bearded warriors, and surrounded by the interminable multitudes of the seven-hilled city, shouting a fierce welcome home — what was such a triumph to the universal joy at the approach of Lafayette? Not a single city, but a whole nation rising as one man and greeting him with an affectionate embrace! One single day of such spontaneous homage were worth whole years of courtly adulation; one hour might well reward a man for a whole life of danger and toil. Then, too, the joy with which he must have viewed the prosper- ity of the people for whom he had so heroically strug- gled! To behold the nation which he had left a child now grown up in the full proportions of lusty manhood! To see the tender sapling which he had left with hardly shade enough to cover its own roots, now grown into the sturdy oak beneath whose grateful shade the oppressed of all nations find shel- ter andTprotection ! The Confedekate Dead .*— Gen. Wm. B. Bate. Under the broad canopy of heaven, by the side of your great river, in the silent and solemn presence of your warrior dead, in response to the call of your no- ble women, have I come to pay a humble bat heart- * Delivered at Memphis. 40 THE PEARL SPEAKER. felt tribute to the heroic virtues of those whose sacred dust is entombed beneath these green sods. Depart- ed spirits of the "Lost Cause," a comrade in pil- grim's garb, with uplifted palm, offers to you the silent prayers of the thousands of hearts surrounding him. Let us to-day close up the squares of affection around the graves of our heroes as we drop the pas- sion flower upon their patriot tombs and brighten it with tears of gratitude ; let us brush from our sandals the white dust of travel gathered along the highways of every-day life, for we are about the sacred altar where sleep our loved and lost; and as we approach its railing let us bow with reverence over the chancel wherein are garnered many of the precious jewels that adorned our " Lost Cause." We are here to-day, with the cypress and the laurel, where the silent dust in- vokes the voice of love and prayer. Where sweetest flower sheds perfume, And quiet breeze gives softest sigh, Where love and gratitude commune, Invoking blessings from on high. This day of the annual offering of Tennessee; this throng of her gallant sons who, inspired by patriotic zeal and love for our fallen heroes, have made their pilgrimage to this cherished Mecca; these fair daugh- ters of her household who have come hither with their sw 7 eet offerings and arranged them in tasteful beauty above the little mounds which greenly swell above our buried chivalry — all tell us that though her sovereignty may be ephemeral, her glory is immortal, and that she can still point with pride and affection to the deeds of her dead heroes, and through them claim prestige on the scroll of valor. There is a tenderer touch of sympathy, a sweeter fragrance, and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 41 a brighter hue of beauty thrown around the memory of our dear departed by these simple offerings than wealth or power ever gave to the loved and lost. There is more of hope of the " life eternal " in spread- ing upon the unostentatious graves of our soldiers these simple offerings of nature — these fresh-blown flowers, laid bare for their emblems to be read from mansions in the skies — than is found in the cen- ser-bowl of the king or around the gilded altars of the proud and great. There is more of tender his- tory entwined in these flower- wreaths and made to glow by their unblushing beauty upon her truthful pages than was ever wrought by the chisel of Prax- iteles. O it is the heart-throbs which build the strongest and most touching monument, and write the truest and sweetest history of our patriot dead! The one stands in its granite strength and classic symmetry, suggestive of culture and challenging admiration; the other is the simple tribute of the heart, furnished by the hand of nature from her own genial bosom, and strewn over the consecrated spot by the minister- ing angels of beauty and love. The marble, with its resistive power, may stand in the sunshine and in the storm; but it is cold and passionless, it utters no prayers of devotion, it sheds no tears of sorrow, it sings no songs of love. The Same Continued. When the meed of victory is granted to the con- queror who, by superior numbers, greater resources, the intervention of foreign courage, and the black cohorts of the line, has overcome the weaker in the contest, does it settle the question of right or wrong? 42 THE PEARL SPEAKER. After a deadly conflict extending through, four years, when soldier stood eye to eye and hilt to hilt — a con- flict in which every step was a battle-field, and every battle-field a grave-yard; where on one point the stars and stripes waved in triumph, at another the stars and bars with their cross of St. Andrew an- swered the shout of victory; when the battle-ax of the Crusader was met by the magic blade of the Saracen; and when the feebler party, worn and weary, stood in the dark shadow of his native hills by the tide that ran blushing with the best blood of the ill- starred South — what must be our admiration for the gallant Confederate hero? And when the last arrow from his quiver was spent, the last shot from his locker gone, grasping with one mangled hand his broken blade, as he held up with the other his bat- tered shield, with Manassas and Chancellorsville and Shiloh and Chickamauga imprinted on it, are we to be told that, notwithstanding such courage and devo- tion, simply for the want of success, he is a traitor and his cause was treason? Away with such philos- ophy! Yalor is a virtue which has been awarded a meed of praise in all ages, and the death of these gal- lant spirits effaceth all demerits, and is the highest encomium upon their soldier qualities. But they have fallen, and as Confederate soldiers now find re- pose in these sacred precincts. If by some mystic means the spirit land could commune with the natural world, and let the spirit- ual eye of the dead Confederate soldier look down upon this scene, and see that the same soft hands that tied the ribbon and pinned the rosette in days of hope and enthusiasm are here to-day to place the wreath of honor around the little white board at the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 43 head of his grave, and plant the flower-cross above the heart so still and cold, it would inspire a shout of triumph and a song of praise in an angel choir known to blessed immortality. How grateful to the soul to know that the same eye which gave him the glance of love in parting, wheth- er of the Scandinavian blue, drooping in its modest tenderness with fear for his fate, or flashing as the dark orb of the Frank when it burns with indignation at his wrongs, is here to-day to reunite with him in his spirit and weep over his sacred dust! Can the devoted sister believe that the brother for whom she stitched the jacket of gray now fills an unworthy grave? Can the faithful brother who was nursed on the same maternal lap, sported on the same green, swam together in the same stream, be per- suaded that the cause in which that brother fell was wrong? Can the father forget his admonition to his son when he sent him forth in all his pride and strength to battle for his people ? Can the old moth- er — God bless the sweetest name lisped by Saxon tongue! — can she abate her pride in the history of her noble boy, who trod with glorious manhood the perilous path and dared to do his duty even at the cannon's mouth — will this dear old mother admit the philosophy of the victor, and consent that her boy fills a traitor's grave? Ah no! she loves him too well to believe that. His picture on the wall of the old home- stead — all in that suit of gray as proudly he stepped into the line of his duty— is her household penates. The vacant place at the table and the chair that sits by it are objects of affection and care. And now in the face of such patriotism to inspire, such heroism to praise, such love to sanctify, is there 44 THE PEARL SPEAKER. one to call that soldier a traitor who sleeps beneath yon flower-cross? Continuation of the Same. Besides the gallant spirits that sleep in these silent dells we have other gems in the urn of history of which we have a right to be proud. If Scotland's piaided soldier finds music in his bagpipe, if the son of Tell winds his mellow horn in patriotic pride, if the Frenchman goes wild over his Marseillais, if " Hail Columbia " excites American patriotism, may we not glory in the soft and melancholy cadence of " Mary- land, My Maryland," and worship the genius that inspired the "Land of Dixie?" May we not look back, too, with purest emotions, and remember with sweetest and saddest affections the cross of St. An- drew, with its stars and bars, as it waved in triumph over a hundred battle-fields, and was baptized in the best blood of the land ere it became the " Conquered Banner?" My comrades, we owe it to the heroic dead who fell under that banner and in that cause to show to the world our appreciation of their valor and patriot- ism by these votive offerings from the hand of our fair women, great in their weakness, noble in their charity, beautiful in their patience, and whose devo- tion at the cross and sepulcher was but an earnest of their high and holy mission. Then let them Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed, A crown for the brow of the early dead, For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst, For this in the woods was the violet nursed ; Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, They are love's last gift; bring ye flowers, pale flowers! It now becomes you, my comrades, to maintain as THE PEARL SPEAKER. 45 citizens the same high character you won as soldiers. Then be equal to the emergency, for, to a great ex- tent, the weight of the present and the hope of the future of this country are upon you and our younger brethren who were unable to take part in the fight. Though prostrate in fortune, be not discouraged; but rise like the antique wrestler, the greater for your fall. Remember that Tennessee remains and is still in the bloom of her youth and beauty. What though her household gods have been broken by the mailed hand of war, does not the ivy still cling to her shat- tered columns and the laurel entwine with the cypress along the bowers of her Appian ways? Do not the white rose and the red rose now spring together upon the late battle-plains where met York and Lancaster? Let us not encourage discord and strife, nor use- lessly grieve over the past when we have done but our duty. Let us not be appalled and paralyzed by misfortune, for it is the test of true manhood, the crucible that tries the metal. Does not the frozen, cheerless winter make the spring more balmy and the summer more fruitful? Then let us rather look to the overhanging cloud and see if it hath not a silver lining, the while re- membering that the Chaldean shepherd did not cast his wistful gaze in vain through weeks and years to the quiet skies in the East, and that the Star of Bethlehem did rise and man was redeemed. To me, Tennessee, amid all her misfortunes, has a charm that knows no broken spell, a glory yet un- dimmed. A child of her bosom, I love her smiling plains exuberant with their summer burdens, and her smiling mountains grim in their grandeur and rich in their emboweled treasures. I love her 46 THE PEARL SPEAKFR. vast forests beautiful in their leafy bowers and viny archways. I love her fountains as they leap and laugh among the cleft rocks of her beetling crags and gurgle in her valleys and on to an ocean of unrest. After giving tears for the past let us turn and give smiles for the future, and through our smiles and tears we will look upon the rainbow of promise as it lights up the cloud that bears the thunder away in its bosom. The "290" (Alabama).— Gen. Wm. B. Bate. Sleep, my comrades, partners of our toil and suf- fering, under these Paphian skies, in the lap of this beautiful landscape, where the "witch-elms" darken the green turf with their evening shadows. Sleep where love and beauty meet to plant the cross and scatter forget-me-nots. Sleep, just outside the city's busy hum, where the church-bells at the decline of day send their softened tones of Ave Maria. Sleep, here on the banks of the monarch stream along whose restless wave flowed the tide of Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh, and Chicka- mauga. If these are some of our jewels which glisten by the side of those of our sister States in the history of war, have we not also gems that rest in the dark caves of the ocean? Although ours was eminently a land strife, yet we were not without a spirit moving upon the face of the great deep. "While the Merri- mac as a sentinel swung with her destructive prow and iron sides around the mouth of the James, guard- ing our citadel, the Sumter tripped her anchor, and leaving the orange and the myrtle, amid the prayers of our people, gave herself upon the Gulf Stream to THE PEARL SPEAKER. 47 the "God of storms, the lightning, and the gale," She did signal service to our cause, until the edict of fate was pronounced against her in the waters of the Mediterranean, where she went into stranger hands, and now off the coast of Britain she "lies darkling amid the Pearl Islands." Her devoted commander, Admiral Semmes, with her gallant tars, stepped upon the decks of the "290," and baptized her under the balmy breezes of the Azores as "Alabama." With his foot upon her decks she glided o'er the main with the swoop of a devouring sea-gull. For more than two years she "walked the waters like a thing of life." Her path upon the trackless deep, like that of the comet in his course, glistened in glo- ry. The steam cloud from her stacks cast its flitting shadows over every sea, and the white wings of this bird of the ocean, with the cross of St. Andrew in its beak, were kissed by every breeze. As she cut her way through a wilderness of waters, she sent her signals booming across the bows of every adversary who dared "enter the lists;" now leaping like a salmon from the topmost wave, she dashed the foaming spray from her firm-set sides, until, glisten- ing in the sunshine, it softened into the beauties of the rainbow. Again, ever and anon, she plunged like the sword-fish into the bowels of her enemy, crimsoned the waters of the deep, and lined her curling wake with trophies of victory richer than " spoils of Tra- falgar." Consternation brooded over the deep, and the highways of commerce were well-nigh abandoned; and at last, when with weary wing she sought a brief repose in a harbor of France, the "Kearsage," with her metaled sides and superior armament, gave a signal for battle. True to the instincts of chivalry, 48 THE PEARL SPEAKER. she responded as a knight of old, and fonght her last battle in sight of the white cliffs of Albion and the lilies of France. All scarred and crippled by the con- flict, her decks slippery with the blood of her gallant tars, she sunk in crimsoned waters, amid the smoke of battle, with the gurgling cry of some strong swim- mer in his agony." The roar of artillery was her only dirge, and the white caps of the fretful British Channel her eternal winding-sheet. Rest, weary pilgrim, from thy labors of glory, Eest where the coral around thee doth glisten, Rest with thy decks all shattered and gory, Thy masts and thy spars in splinters all riven. The bodies of these, as well as thousands more who fell upon the land, have not been, and cannot be gathered into our cemeteries by kindred or charity. We will let them sleep, too sacred to be removed, far away on their fields of glory. Washington.*— Geokge William Curtiss. This is a day of proud and tender memories. With malice toward none, with charity for all, it commemorates the triumph of American patriotism, and the assured integrity of the American Union. What day in the year could be more fitting than the day consecrated by such memories, on which to lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall re- call alike the beginning of the Union and the glory of its greatest citizen? Never before could this duty be performed with greater joy and gratitude, because now the national Union, the great result of the Kev- *Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Washington Arch. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 49 olution and of the devotion of Washington, has been tried by fire, and the dross burned away. Whether the flowers fall to-day upon the graves of the blue or the gray, they fall on the dust of Americans. As nothing but American valor could have hoped suc- cessfully to assail the Union, so nothing but Amer- ican valor could have successfully maintained it. Whatever colors we may have worn in the past, to-day the sun shines on a nation which is all true blue. We always gladly concede that Washington was good, but we are not always sure that he was great. But a man's greatness is measured by his service to mankind. If without ambition and without a crime, righteously to lead a people to independence through a righteous war, then without precedent, and amid vast and incalculable hostile forces to organize their government and establish in every department the fundamental principles of the policy which has re- sulted in marvelous national power and prosperity, and untold service to liberty throughout the world; and to do all this without suspicion or reproach, with perfect dignity and sublime repose, if this be greatness, do you find it more in Alexander or Pericles, Csesar or Alfred, in Charlemagne or Napo- leon, or in George Washington? As this majestic arch will stand here through the long succession of years in the all-revealing light of day, visible at every point, and at every point exquisitely rounded and complete, so in the searching light of history stands Washington, strong, simple, symmetrical, su- preme, beloved by a filial nation, revered by a grate- ful world. To the memory of such a character and of such events we dedicate this monument. But, fellow-citi- 4 50 THE PEARL SPEAKER. zens, to what does this monument dedicate us? Arching this thronged highway of the city, bending in silent benediction over the ceaseless flood of mul- titudinous life which pours beneath, what will it say to the endless procession of Washington's fellow- countrymen? What is the voice which by erecting this monument we make our own ? In his eulogy on Washington Governeur Morris said that, as the Con- stitutional Convention was about to organize, when success seemed hopeless, and despair suggested fatal compromise, Washington said: "If to please the people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work. Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair — the event is in the hands of God." There spoke the good genius of America. If any words were to be inscribed upon this arch, these words of Washington- would be apples of gold in pictures of silver. What he said to the convention he says to us. It is the voice of the heroic spirit which in council and in the field has made and alone will preserve our America. It is the voice that will speak from this memorial arch to all coming genera- tions of Americans. Whatever may betide, whatever war, foreign or domestic, may threaten, whatever specious sophistry may assail the political conscience of the country, or bribery of place, or money corrupt its political action, above the roar of the mob, above the insidious clamor of the demagogue, the voice of Washington will still be the voice of American patri- otism and manly honor: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair— the event is in the hand of God." THE PEARL SPEAKER. 51 The Lessons of the Life of Lee. — John W. Daniel. Will any man dare to say lie lived in vain, this brave and gentle Lee? I would blush to ask the 'question, save to give the ready answer. A leader of armies, he closed his career in complete disaster. But the military scientist studies his campaigns, and finds in them designs as bold and brilliant and ac- tions^ as intense and energetic as ever illustrated the art of war. The gallant captain beholds in his bear- ing a courage as rare as ever forced a desperate field. The private soldier looked up at an image as benig- nant and commanding as ever thrilled the heart with highest impulse of devotion. The men who wrested victory from his little band stood wonder-stricken and abashed, when they saw how few were those who dared oppose them, and generous admiration burst into spontaneous tribute to the splendid leader who bore defeat with the quiet resignation of a hero. The men who fought under him never revered him or loved him more than on the day he sheathed his sword. Had he but said the word, they would have died for honor. It was be- cause he said the word that they resolved to live for duty. And in this vast throng to-day, and here and there the wide world over, is many a one who wore the gray who rejoices that he was able to do a man's part for his suffering country; that he had the glory of being a Confederate; and who feels a just, proud, and glowing consciousness in his bosom when he says unto himself: "I was a follower of Robert E. Lee." Was this because he wielded patronage and power? No; he could not have appointed a friend to the small- 52 THE PEARL SPEAKER. est office. And while lie could bestow no emolument upon any of his followers, an intimation of his wish amongst his own people carried an influence which the autocrat never possessed, and his approval of conduct or character was deemed an honor, and was an honor, which outvied the stars and crosses and titles of kings. Did he gain wealth ? No ; it thrust itself upon him, but he refused its companionship because his people could not have its company. "What he had he gave to a weak cause, and home itself he offered upon the altar of his country. But he has left a great, imperishable legacy to us and our heirs forever. The heart of man is his per- petual kingdom. There he reigns transcendent, and we exclaim: " O king, live forever! " Did he possess rank? No; he was not even a citi- zen. The country- which gave the right of suffrage to the alien ere he could read or understand its laws denied to him the privilege of a ballot. He had asked amnesty, and had been refused. He had not been tried, but he had been convicted. He forgave, but he was unforgiven. He died a paroled prisoner of war, in the calm of peace, five years after war had ended; died the foremost and noblest man in a re- public which proclaims itself the "land of the free and the home of the brave," himself and his com- mander in chief constituting the most conspicuous of its political slaves. But as the oak stripped of its foliage by the winter blast, then, and then only, stands forth in solemn and mighty majesty against the wintery sky, so Kobert Lee, stripped of every rank that man could give him, towered above the earth and those around him in the pure sublimity THE PEARL SPEAKER. 53 and strength of that character which we can only fit- ly contemplate when we lift our eyes from earth and see it dimmed against the heavens. Did he save his country from conquest? No; he saw his every foreboding of evil verified. He came to share the miseries of his people. He shared them, drinking every drop of sorrow's cup. His cause was lost, and the land for which he fought lives not among the nations. But the voice of history echoes the poet's song: Ah realm of tombs ! but let it bear This blazon to the last of times : No nation rose so white and fair, Or fell so pure from crimes. The Lessons of the Life of Lee (Continued). There is a rare exotic that blooms once in a centu- ry, and then it fills the sight with beauty and the air with fragrance. In each of the two centuries of Vir- ginia's statehood there has sprung from the loins of her heroic race a son whose name and deeds shall bloom throughout the ages. Each fought for liber- ty and independence, each against a people of his own race, each against the forms of established pow- er. George Washington won against a kingdom whose seat was three thousand miles away, whose soldiers had to sail in ships across the deep, and he found in the boundless areas of his own land its strongest fortifications. August beyond the reach of detraction is the glory of his name. Robert E. Lee made fiercer and bloodier fight against greater odds and at greater sacrifice, and lost — against the greatest nation of modern history, 54 THE PEARL SPEAKER. armed with steam and electricity and all the appli- ances of modern science; a nation which mustered its forces at the very thresholdiof his door. But his life teaches the grand lesson how manhood can rise transcendent over adversity, and is in itself alone under God pre-eminent; the grander lesson be- cause, as sorrow and misfortune are the common lot, he who bears them best is made of sterner stuff, and is the noblest and greatest exemplar. He lived to see deeply laid the foundation and firmly built the pedestal of his great glory, and to catch the murmur of those voices which would rear high his image and bear his name and fame to re- mote ages and distant nations. The brave and true of every land paid him tribute. The first soldiers of foreign climes saluted him with eulogy, the scholar decorated his page with dedication to his name, the artist enshrined his form and features in noblest work of brush and chisel, the poet hymned the heroic pathos of his life in tender and lofty strain. Enmity grew into friendship before his noble bear- ing, and humanity itself attended him with all human sympathy. And now he has vanished from us forever. And is this all that is left of him — this handful of dust beneath the marble stone? No! the ages answer as they rise from the gulfs of time, where lay the wrecks of kingdoms and estates holding up their hands as their only trophies the names of those who have wrought for man in the love and fear of God, and in love un fearing for their fellow-men. The present, bending over his tomb, answers no! The future answers no! as the breath of the morning fans its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in sweet in- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 55 spiration from the lovely life of Lee. No! methinks the very heavens echo, as melt into their depths the words of reverent love that voice the hearts of men to the tingling stars. Bequiescat.— John W. Daniel. Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our memories, to purify our hopes, to make strong all good intent by communion with the spirit of one who being dead, yet speaketh. Come, child, in thy spotless innocence; come, woman, in thy purity; come, youth, in thy prime; come, manhood, in thy strength; come, age, in thy ripe wisdom; come, citi- zen, come, soldier, let us strew the roses and lilies of June around his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life nature's beneficence, and the grave has con- secrated that life and given it to us all; let us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his strength; and with the laurel, the emblem of his glory; and let these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake the echoes of the mountains, that nature herself may join in the solemn requiem. Come, for here he rests, and On this green bank by this fair stream We set to-day a native stone, That memory may his deeds redeem When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Come, for here the genius of loftiest poesy in the artist's dream and through the sculptor's touch, has restored his form and features. A valentine has lifted the marble veil and disclosed him to us as we would like to look upon him, lying, the flower of knighthood, in "joyous gard." His sword beside him is sheathed forever. But honor's seal is on his 56 THE PEARL SPEAKER. brow, and valor's star is on his breast, and the "peace that passeth all understanding " descendeth upon him. Here, not in the hour of his greatest triumph of earth, as when mid the battle roar, shouting bat- talions followed his trenchant sword, and bleeding veterans forgot their wounds to leap between him and his enemies — but here is victory, supreme over earth itself, and over death, its conqueror, he rests, his war- fare done. And as we seem to gaze once more on him we loved and hailed as chief, in his sweet, dreamless sleep the tranquil face is clothed with heaven's light, and the mute lips seem eloquent with the message that in life he spoke: " There is a true glory and a true honor: the glory of duty done, the honor of the integrity of principles." True Heroism. — John W. Daniel. As little things make up the sum of life, so they reveal the inward nature of men and furnish keys to history. It is in the office, in the field, by the fireside, that men show what stuff they are made of, not less than in those eventful actions which write themselves in lightnings across the skies and mark the rise and fall of nations. Nay, more— the highest attributes of human nature are not disclosed in ac- tion, but in self-restraint and in passionless repose. It is harder to lie down and take the fire of bat- teries without returning it than to rise and charge to the cannon's mouth. It is harder to give the soft answer that turneth away wrath than to retort a word with a blow. De Long in the frozen Arctic wastes, dying alone inch by inch of cold and starva- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 57 tion, yet daily writing lines for the benefit of others, deserves as well — nay, more — the proud title of the " bravest of the brave." Among the quiet, nameless workers of the world — in the stubble-field and by the forge, bending over a sick child's bed or smoothing an outcast's pillow — is many a hero and heroine truer, nobler than those over whose brows hang plumes and laurels. In action there is the stimulus of excited physical faculties and of the moving passions, but in the com- posure of the calm mind that quietly devotes itself to hard life-work, putting aside temptations, contem- plating and rising superior to all surroundings of ad- versity, danger, and death, man is revealed in his highest manifestation. Then, and then alone, he seems to have redeemed his fallen state, and to be recreated in God's image. The crowning expression of all true heroism is unselfishness, is sacrifice. The world is suspicious of vaunted heroes. But when the true hero has come, and we know that he is here, in verity, ah! how the hearts of men leap forth to greet him, how worshipfully we welcome God's no- blest work— the strong, honest, fearless, upright man. In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and to mankind, and whether we behold him declin- ing the command of the Federal army to fight the battles and share the miseries of his own people, proclaiming on the heights in front of Gettysburg that the fault of the disaster was his own, walking under the yoke of conquest without a murmur of complaint — he is ever the same meek, grand, self-sac- rificing spirit. Here in these quiet walks, far removed from war 58 THE PEARL SPEAKER. or battle's sound, as when the storm o'erpassed, the mountain seems a pinnacle of light, the landscape beams with fresher and tenderer beauties, and the purple, golden clouds float above us in the azure depths like the islands of the blessed; so came into view the towering grandeur, the massive splendor, and the loving-kindness of the character of Gen. Lee, and the very sorrows that overhung his life seemed luminous with celestial hues. The Arch Fiend.— Dr. Talmage. Out of the modern still flows a beverage in which a madness and a fury, a fire and a gloom, a suicide and a retribution are mixed and melted. It is a bev- erage that sets its victims to struggling with menag- eries of hissing reptiles and serpents, surrounds them with jungles of howling tigers, and through their bleared and distorted vision they behold perditions of blaspheming demons. Yes, an arch fiend has landed in our world, and has built an invisible caldron of temptation. He has made it stanch and strong, and has filled it for all nations and all ages. He has squeezed into it the juice of the forbidden fruit of paradise. He has put into it a distillation from all the orchards and har- vest-fields of the hemispheres. He has added copper- as and logwood, tobacco and nightshade, sulphuric acid and murder, indigo, potash, poverty, and death. And then, that this mixture of hell may not be too dry, he pours into it the tears of centuries of orphan- age and widowhood and the blood of thousands of as- sassinations. He stirs this frightful caldron with a shovel he has brought from the lower world. And THE PEARL SPEAKER 59 as he stirs, this awful liquefaction begins to heave and sputter and boil and hiss and smoke; and men and women gather around this mammoth caldron with cups and kegs, with bottles and demijohns, and all nations are struggling to get their share. And the arch fiend laughs as he cries: "Ha! ha! what a champion fiend am I! Who does more for coffins and grave-yards, for shipwrecks and prisons, for hospitals and asylums? who does more for popu- lating the lower world? When this caldron is emp- ty I will fill it again, and stir it again, until the smoke of it shall join the smoke that ascendeth from torment forever. "Ha! ha! I drove fifty ships on the banks of Newfoundland. I have slain five times as many Sen- ators as will assemble this winter in the capital of the nation, and five times as many lords as will as- semble in the House of Peers. My festal cup is a bleached human skull, and all the upholstery of my palace is such a rich crimson because it was dipped in human gore. The mosaics of my floors are the bones of children whose lives have been dashed out by drunken parents. My favorite music, sweeter than Te Deum or triumphal march, is the cry of daughters turned on the street at night by drunken fathers. Ah! sweet as the strains of iEolian harp is the seven hundred voiced shriek of a sunken steamer because the captain was not himself when he put the ship on the wrong course. Ha! ha! let me thrust the shovel again into the caldron, and stir it again, and make it smoke again! A champion fiend am I! I have kindled more fires, wrung out more agonies, stretched out more midnight shadows, lifted more Golgothas, rolled more Juggernauts, and damned 60 THE PEARL SPEAKER. more souls than all the brotherhood of diabol- ism." Yes, my friends, the ghastliest evil of America to- day is drunkenness. The immediate cause of it is the rum traffic. What American Christian can stand unmoved at the recital that the drink bill of the American people exceeds its bread and meat con- sumption by one hundred million dollars? What Christian, did I say? Ah! there are hundreds of thousands of them. What though there is a saloon for every church in this broad land. If the fifteen millions of Christians should move in solid phalanx against the monster of curses, alcohol, can any sane man but believe that the rum traffic would disappear from the face of the earth forever? The New South.— No. 2. — Henry W. Grady. The light of a grander day is falling fair on the face of the Sunny South. She is thrilling, sir, with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands full^statured and equal among the peo- ple of the earth, breathing the keen air, and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because, in the inscru- table wisdom of God, her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. I should be unjust to the South if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back, nothing for which she ought to make excuses. In my native town of Athens there is a monument that crowns its eternal hills— a plain white shaft. Deep cut into its shining sides is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man THE PEARL SPEAKER. Gl who died in a brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England from Plymouth down to the present time would I exchange the heritage he left me in his patriot's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children's children, to rever- ence 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 the cause for which he suffered and for which he gave up his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than mine or his, and I am glad the omni- scient God held the battle in his own almighty hand, and that the American nation 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 I 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 stronger and purer and better, silent but stanch witness in its rich desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of Amer- ican arms, speaking an eloquent witness, in its white peace and prosperity, to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people. 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, out in the hearts of the conquered ? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in hearts that 62 THE PEARL SPEAKER. never felt the generous ardor of conflict it may pre- cipitate itself? "Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight from his soldier's heart Grant offered Lee at Appomattox ? "Will she make the vis- ion of a restored and happy people, which gathered about the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with peace, touching his lips with praise, and glorifying his path to the grave — will she make this vision, upon which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat or a delusion? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for com- radeship, must accept with dignity its refusal. If she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sin- cerity this message of good-will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered to this very society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: "Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, all united now and united forever. There have been difficulties, contentions, and contro- versies, but I tell you that in my humble judgment this glorious sisterhood will henceforth all march one way." Thoughts on the Battle-field oe Fort Donel- son. — John F. House. On as lovely an autumn day as ever smiled upon the earth I stood on a commanding height overlook- ing the battle-field of Fort Donelson. From a lofty staff in the center of the grounds the American flag- floated gracefully in the breeze. At the base of the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 63 hill the beautiful Cumberland, like a belt of silver, glided on its peaceful way. No iron-clad monitors now thundered on its bosom, and the surrounding hills, no longer swept by the storm of battle, seemed quietly dreaming in the golden light that bathed their summits. Just in sight were the old Confeder- ate rifle-pits. The winds and storms and rains of in- tervening years had filled them almost even with the surface of the earth. I looked upon the graves that lay around me with no other feeling than reverence and respect. The grave that contains the ashes of one who had faith enough in his cause to die for it, whether his cause and mine were the same or not, could never fail to command from me the homage due to integrity of purpose and lofty courage. As I walked amid these graves I asked myself the ques- tion: "Did these men die in vain? Is the Union they fought to save never to be restored except in theory and in name? Is the sectional strife that preceded and produced the war still to pursue the unhappy country like a sleepless and remorseless Nemesis ? But the place and its associations called up thoughts of other men. They too, with that sublime faith in the justice of their cause which forms the martyr's crown and the hero's passport to immortality, had found a soldier's sepulcher. But no grateful govern- ment had gathered their bones into magnificent cem- eteries, adorned with all that wealth can command or taste suggest to beautify those cities of the dead. Thousands of them sleep far away from the homes of their childhood, in the deep bosom of forests where human footsteps rarely tread. The birds of the wild wood sing their morning and evening hymns above 64 THE PEARL SPEAKER. their unrecorded graves. No monumental marble stands sentinel at the spot where they sleep; no an- cestral oaks shall ever throw their welcome shadows above their heroic dust. By many their names are cast out as evil, and hands are not wanting that would write the word " traitor " as the epitaph upon their tombs. But no amount of detraction can shake my faith in their integrity, and no temptation of power or position ever make me false to their memo- ries. My blood must turn to water, and my heart become as cold as death can make it, before I can consent to assail their motives while they lived or insult the humble graves in which they sleep. I know they were actuated by purposes as pure, by a courage as high as ever followed any banner or illustrated the annals of any land. Henry W. Grady. — John Temple Graves. First of all the instruments which fitted the genius of Henry "W. Grady to expression was his radiant pen. Long after it had blazed his way to eminence and usefulness he waked the power of that surpass- ing oratory which has bettered all the sentiment of his country and enriched the ripe vocabulary of the world. Nothing in the history of human speech will equal the steppings of his eloquence into glory. In a single night he caught the heart of the country into his warm embrace, and leaped from a banquet revelry into national fame. It is at last the crowning evidence of his genius that he held to the end un- broken the high fame so easily won; and, sweeping from triumph to triumph, with not one leaf of his laurels withered by time or staled by circumstance, died the foremost orator of all the world. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 65 It is marvelous, past all telling, how lie caught the heart of the country in the fervid glow of his own. All the forces of our statesmanship have riot pre- vailed for union as the ringing speeches of this bright, magnetic man. His eloquence was the electric cur- rent over which the positive and negative poles of American sentiment were rushing to a warm embrace. It was the transparent medium through which the bleared eyes of sections were learning to see each other clearer and to love each other better. He was meeting bitterness in the warmth of his patrial sym- pathies, sections were being linked in the logic of his liquid sentences, and when he died he was lit- erally loving a nation into peace. Fit and dramatic climax to a glorious mission that he should have lived to carry the South's last and greatest message to the center of the nation's culture; then, with the gracious answer to his transcendent service locked in his loyal heart, came home to die among the people he had served! Fitter still that as he walked in final triumph through the streets of his beloved city he should have caught upon his knightly head that wreath of Southern roses, richer jewels than Victoria wears, plucked by the hands of Georgia women, borne by the hands of Georgia men, and flung about him with a loving tenderness that crowned him for his burial, that, in the unspeakable fragrance of Georgia's full and sweet approval, he might " draw the drapery of his couch about him and lie down to pleasant dreams!" If I should seek to touch the core of all his great- ness, I would lay my hand upon his heart. I should speak of his humanity, his almost inspired sympa- thies, his sweet philanthropy, and the noble heartful- 5 66 THE PEARL SPEAKER. ness that ran like a silver current through his life. His heart was the furnace where he fashioned all his glowing speech. Love was the current that sent his golden sentences pulsing through the world, and in the honest throb of human sympathies he found the anchor that held him steadfast to all things great and true. He was the incarnate triumph of a heart- f ul man. I thank God, as I stand above my buried friend, that there is not one ignoble memory in all the shin- ing pathway of his fame. Of all the glorious gifts that the Almighty gave him, not one was ever bent to willing service in unworthy cause. He lived to make the world about him better. With all his splendid might he helped to build a happier, hearti- er, and more wholesome sentiment among his kind. And in fondness mixed with reverence I believe that the Christ of Calvary, who died for men, has found a welcome sweet for one who fleshed within his per- son the golden spirit of the new commandment, and spent his powers in glorious living for his race. O brilliant and incomparable Grady, we lay for a season thy precious dust beneath the soil that bore and cherished thee, but we fling back against all our brightening skies the thoughtless speech that calls thee dead. God reigns and his purpose lives, and al- though these brave lips are silent here the seeds sown in this incarnate eloquence will scatter patriots through the years to come, and perpetuate thy living in a race of nobler men. Kobeet E. Lee. — John B. Gordon. When the light of impartial history shall be thrown upon the achievements of the Confederate arms they THE PEARL SPEAKER. 67 will be invested with a halo not less radiant than that which crowns the heroic daring of men in any age of the world. Through the matchless skill of her lead- ers and the inspired courage of her soldiers, the em- battled legions of the South were hurled upon oppos- ing superiority of numbers with such energy that the contest was prolonged for four long years, and the brilliancy of its events has excited the wonder of military science in every part of the globe. Had Lee, like Napoleon, with approximate equality of numbers, met only the minions of despotic power, instead of the sturdy sons of freedom, who can doubt that the glories of a hundred Jenas and Marengos would have gathered around his standard, or that Gettysburg would have been converted into another Chancellorsville, and Spottsylvania into another Ma- nassas ? And who can doubt for a moment that he would have worn these accumulated honors with the same exemplary modesty and abnegation of self that characterized his entire life? History presents no soldier on the one hand with a prouder record of victories won against obstacles apparently insur- mountable, and no citizen on the other with a char- acter more lordly and knightly. When Lee died chivalry bowed its head in grief, and Christendom realized that a great light had gone out. We can al- most imagine that the great guns of Von Moltke, then thundering before the gates of Paris, ceased their sullen roar in transient recognition of the mo- mentous event. There was about this man an eleva- tion of purpose, a magnanimity of spirit, and an in- tegrity of heart that purified the very atmosphere around him. His life was an emphatic rebuke of all bitterness 68 THE PEARL SPEAKER and meanness of soul; and no unworthy motive, no social passion, no selfish ambition could live in his presence. Unlike other objects in nature, Gen. Lee's character needed no distance to lend enchantment. Here was one man whose personal, intellectual, and moral character, grand as it was graceful, grew great- er and nobler upon more intimate acquaintance, until, like that marvel of the ages, that wonder of all art, the Apollo of Borne, it appeared absolutely faultless in its symmetry as well as in its proportions. Such a life and such a character are inspirations to future generations, and they will be forever to our memo- ries and to the imagination of men a model of per- fect, ideal manhood, enhancing our affections and enchanting the world. Memorial Day. — The Nashville American. This decoration of the graves of Confederate sol- diers, who gave up their lives before the battle-flags of the lost cause were furled forever from the gaze of men, is an occasion that arouses every element of tenderness and admiration in our nature. To seal and sustain the action of the South in what was be- lieved to be the God-given right of the States to se- cede from a Union which they themselves helped to create, hundreds of thousands of brave and true Southern soldiers laid down their lives and sacrificed all on earth that the fates had given to bless and beautify existence. With those who lost property these solemn occasions can have no connection. But the soldier who could go out as did he who represented the Confederacy, and bare his bosom and hazard bold- ly upon the die of war the piled up fortune of genera- tions, is not the man to ever surrender in time of peace THE PEARL SPEAKER. 69 in the great struggle for wealth and fame. He has in fact not struggled in vain, for to-day he is a prouder and greater man than when he passed in review be- fore the peerless Lee or followed on to victory behind the glittering sword of Stonewall Jackson. He was great then, but he is greater now. The marvelous story which tells of his heroism at the Wilderness and at Shiloh and at Manassas pales into dimness when compared with that grander story which tells of his civil and -industrial triumphs at Atlanta, at Nashville, at Chattanooga, and at Birmingham. The soldier who invaded Pennsylvania and left an arm on Cemetery Heights will go down to posterity in the annals of the world's history as a sublime character, but he who followed Lee in the work of educating the youth of those who survived the war to win in peace where their fathers had failed in war, and by his own course of ambitious, unconquerable, and virtuous citizenship set example to coming genera- tions, is the hero to whom the laurel and the ivy should be awarded. But these memorial days are not for them. They are for the dead heroes who have been apotheosized by those who lived after them. They are for the martyrs whose fame is secure and whose graves shall year after year be marked by the floral tributes of loving hands and devoted hearts. The Sword of Lee. — Father Byan. Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, Flashed the sword of Lee. Far in the front of the deadly fight, High o'er the brave in the cause of right, THE PEARL SPEAKER. Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light, Led us to victory. Out of its scabbard where full long It slumbered peacefully, Roused from its rest by the battle sound, Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, Guarding the right, and avenging the wrong, Gleamed the sword of Lee. Forth from its scabbard high in air, Beneath Virginia's sky, And they who saw it gleaming there, And knew who bore it, knelt to swear That where that sword led they would dare To follow and to die. Out of its scabbard! Never hand Waved sword with stain so free. Nor purer sword led braver band, Nor braver bled for a brighter land, Nor brighter land had cause as grand, Nor cause a chief like Lee. Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed That sword might victor be! And when our tiumph was delayed, And many a heart grew sore afraid, We still hoped on while gleamed the blade Of noble Robert Lee. Forth from its scabbard! All in vain Forth flashed the sword of Lee. 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again; It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, THE PEARL SPEAKER. Defeated, yet without a stain, Proudly and peacefully. Egbert E. Lee.— J. Baeeon Hope. Our history is a shifting sea, Locked in by lofty land, And its two great " Pillars of Hercules " Above the shining sand, I here behold in majesty Uprising on each hand. These pillars of our history, In fame forever young, Are known in every latitude And named in every tongue, And down through all the ages Their story shall be sung. The Father of his country Stands above that shut-in sea, A glorious symbol to the world Of all that's great and free; And to-day Yirginia matches him, And matches him with Lee. Who shall blame the social order Which gave us men as great as these? Who shall condemn the forest soil Which brings forth giant trees? "Who presume. to doubt that Providence Shapes out our destinies? Who, again I ask the question, Who may challenge in debate 72 THE PEARL SPEAKER. With any show of truthfulness Our former social state, "Which brought forth more than heroes, In their lives supremely great? Then stand up, O my countrymen, And unto God give thanks; On mountains and on hill-sides And by sloping river banks, Thank God that you were worthy Of the grand Confederate ranks. Peace has come. God gave his blessing On the fact and on the name. The South speaks no invective, And she writes no word of blame; But we call all men to witness That we stand up without shame. O ask me, if you please, to paint Storm-winds upon the sea; Tell me to weigh great Cheops, Set volcanic forces free; But bid me not, my countrymen, To picture Robert Lee. My eyes are pained and dazzled By a radiance pure and white, Shot back by the burnished armor Of that glory-belted knight. His was all the Norman's polish And sobriety of grace; All the Goth's majestic figure; All the Roman's noble face; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 73 And he stood the tall exemplar Of a grand historic race. Baronial were his acres where Potomac's waters run; High his lineage; and his blazon Was by cunning heralds done; But better still he might have said, Of his "works" he was the "son." Truth walked beside him always. From his childhood's early years Honor followed as his shadow, Valor lightened all his cares; And he rode — that grand Virginian — Last of all the cavaliers. As his troubles gathered round him, Thick as waves that beat the shore, Atra Cura rode behind him, Famine's shadow filled his door, Still he wrought such deeds as mortal Man had never wrought before. Then came the end, my countrynen, The last thunderbolts were hurled. Worn out by his own victories His battle-flags were furled, And a history was finished That has changed the modern world. As some saint in the arena Of a bloody Roman game, As the prize of his endeavor Put on immortal frame, 74 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Through long agonies our soldier Won the crown of martial fame. But there came a greater glory To that man supremely great, When his gleaming sword he laid aside In peace to serve his State; For in his classic solitude He grandly mastered fate. He triumphed and he did not die. No funeral bells are tolled. But on that day in Lexington Fame came herself to hold His stirrup while he mounted To ride down the streets of gold. And here to-day, my countrymen, I tell you Lee shall ride With that other "rebel" down the years, Twin "rebels" side by side; And confronting such a vision All our grief gives place to pride. These two shall ride immortal, And shall ride abreast of time; Shall light up stately history, And blaze in epic rhyme; Both patriots, both Virginians true, Both " rebels," both sublime. Our past is full of glory, It is a shut-in sea, The pillars overlooking it Are Washington and Lee; And a future spreads before us Not unworthy of the free. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 75 And here and now, my countrymen, Upon this sacred sod, Let us feel, it was "our Father" Who above us held the rod, And from hills to sea, like Eobert Lee, Bow reverently to God. In Memory op the Confederate Dead. — Wm. C. P. Breckenridge. The Federal government, with pious care, has gathered the bones of those who fell under the stars and stripes, and, re-interring them in handsome cemeteries with appropriate monumental memorials, will perpetuate their names and preserve the records of their deeds and death. It owes this to its dead. No people ever did, no people ever will accomplish any thing worth remembrance, the memory of whose dead is not preserved with reverential sacredness, and their graves adorned with grateful lovingness. We appreciate and honor the feeling that prompts that tribute. To the dead I bear no enmity; upon the grave of the heroic dead, even if living he were my enemy, I have naught to lay but fragrant flowers. But the opponents of those dead were not foreign foes ; and the adversaries who could resist with varying fortunes such a government, putting forth all its en- ergies and defended by such armies, must have pos- sessed the loftiest qualities of men and soldiers. If they be heroes who fell at Manassas and are now gathered in the national cemeteries, surely those who drove them in flight and crushed their resistance must also be heroes, and their unmarked graves scattered in mournful numbers over the hills and 70 1HE PEARL SPEAKER. ravines of that memorable battle-field deserve honor at some one's hands. Ah! at whose? The South accepts this trust. They who laid down their lives with Johnston at Shiloh, who fell in the wild charge with Jackson at Chancellorsville, who went to God from the woods of Chickamauga, who gave up their lives as they cleared the underbrush of the Wilder- ness; who encircled with their bodies the dying Cle- burne in the ditch at Franklin — are our dead. No gov- ernment gathers up their bones with paternal care and preserves the records of their glorious lives and sublime death. Their government is dead. But we their comrades, and those who loved them for their cause, and our children after us, will year by year strew over their graves the sweetest flowers of spring. The neglected dead — the dead upon whom cowards may have wreaked an impotent revenge — may be plowed under the furrow their blood enriched, but the world will listen in rapt admiration as we tell of their dauntless courage and impetuous charge. Their names are written on the hearts of their countrymen; their deeds are a priceless heritage to our children, and will be cherished as long as men worship truth or women love the brave. O you who cheered us as we departed, prayed as we fought, arid welcomed us when we returned, let us never hesitate to own that every one who died for the South is our brother, and let ns swear that as long as the battle-field remains he that died on it shall be honored. We do this in no spirit of enmity. We bury the animosities, the hatreds, the passions of the past. We pray the day may come when the graves of all the dead may be- come the common care of all the living. Across these very graves we hold the olive-branch. We recognize THE PEARL SPEAKER. 77 the death of our cause. We accepted the decision of battle; wagered all, and lost. But our dead must be honored. And this day I utter what I believe to be the universal feeling of the South: never will the graves of our dead be undecorated by us until a com- mon government and a united people treat all the dead alike. And Kentucky to-day dedicates this monument in part to the past of her mother, Virginia. Virginia! her name is the synonym of every lofty quality. No oppression can degrade, no tyranny disgrace her. Her history is the most romantic, chivalric, and glorious of all her sisters. From her womb have sprung the peers of earth's greatest sons: soldiers, statesmen, orators, patriots unsurpassed in the chron- icles of man. While she stood the Confederacy stood, when she fell, all was lost. What memories cluster about her, what jewels blaze in her crown! Amid the throng which crowds the pathway of time there walks no statelier figure arrayed in more glorious garments. Upon her banner is engraved every battle from Bunker Hill to Yorktown; in her hands are the scrolls upon which are written the Declaration, the Constitution, the bills for religious freedom; upon her phylacteries blaze the names of Washington and Henry, the Lees and Marshall, Jefferson and Madi- son, and the deathless host she has given to liberty; and now in part we dedicate this monument to the queen of earthly commonwealths. Intolerance. — William J. Armstrong. Fellow-citizens, you have perhaps been somewhere told, as if it were the last refinement of appreciative 78 THE PEARL SPEAKER. praise, that the Constitution of your country should be valued as if each word were the coined substance of gold. Permit me to say that that eulogy is a sick- ly and sentimental slander of its mighty guardianship of human rights — a damning with faint praise ap- proaching almost to infinite mockery. Gold, indeed! The American Constitution is drained from human agony and tears. That Constitution represents the gathered warnings of liberty from all the ages. Its every clause is conceived from the measureless an- guish of our self -tortured race; its every word is dis- tilled from the blood of martyred millions. In the recital of those two brief propositions of intolerance may be heard the shrieks of the myriad followers of Christ nailed to the gibbets of the Caesars; may be heard the groans of millions of martyrs slain by fag- ot, wheel, and flood. In this insidious advance upon the Constitution may be heard the sobs and moans of desolated women through a thousand years of wars for opinion, the clash and clang of bloody steel, the thunder of slaughtering chariot and cannon driven by mortal hate and frenzy on batttle-fields heaped with religious murder., through twenty centuries of human history. From the shadow of these horrors the Constitution of this republic was made to save us and to protect humanity in all the coming ages. The fathers of the American Kevolution believed that opinion and conscience should be held sacred. They believed this because they believed by whatever antecedents a man came to hold an opinion, you could not by process of law invade the structure of his brain and exterminate it. They believed this be- cause they believed that there did not anywhere exist THE PEARL SPEAKER. 79 between the earth and the heavens on this planet a power wise enough to authoritatively administer the mysteries of the infinite. They believed this because they believed that that which a man held as a neces- sary result of the inscrutable processes of brain, be- yond the limits of his will, was not a crime. That sublime Constitution is their work. It is this august fabric of law, fresh with a revelation, hoary with the wisdom and warning of all the centu- ries, vindicated on this continent beyond experiment by six generations of men, which is now being as- sailed by a foreign power and by domestic fanaticism. Touch not religion with the State. Lay not on the State the finger of religion. The day on which dis- crimination for religious opinion is inaugurated in the administration of this government will be the day of the death of this republic, the failure of the American experiment, the funeral of civil liberty. Ah! these men do not see the destroying demon of intolerance they are invoking for their own children. They forget the ages of blood from which this fabric of freedom has been slowly reared. What if after their beliefs have been established and intrenched by law there should sweep back, as once in France, the tides oi unbelief, and the goddess of reason should sit enthroned in the Capitol? In that bitter hour they would recall the sacred teachings of the fathers of this nation, and the countenance of liberty would glow with a divine radiance only in the moment when it was lost. Since the beginnings of man the features of the absolute have been veiled. Standing between two worlds, with instincts beyond life, and hopes be- yond death, from this "bank and shoal of" time 80 THE PEARL SPEAKER. man lias looked with straining eyes toward the unseen, attempting to illumine with his frail candle of reason the halls of the eternal. Afflicted by sor- rows, he has awaited in all times and all lands the merciful justice of the unknown. With moans and tears he has in many a name and many a tongue for- mulated in creeds his measure of the infinite. Every faith that has given courage to our kind has been held sacred by its worshipers. Every doubt to the eye of mercy is more sacred than faith, for it gropes in suffering. For the struggling tides of men, fellow- workers and pilgrims on this mist-ridden shore, the wisdom that remains for this world is charity, the doctrine out of Nazareth, the creed of love to all mankind. On American soil a century ago, by the guidance of history and the help of the Almighty, we built for the hope of the world the political monu- ment of this sublime creed. Under its impartial shadow the worshipers of truth, whether in church or wood, in mosque, in synagogue, or in temple, have known no discrimination for opinion. Let it be the oath of Americans to guard that monument till the last hour of time. Koger Williams.— William J. Armstrong. This proposition is most ingenious and plausible: it is an appealing and fascinating argument; it is as in- nocent as the babe slumbering in its cradle in the light of a summer afternoon. And yet electric force and hydrostatic pressure, combined and operated by the genius of man, could not compress into another statement as much mingled falsehood with truth, as much malignity to the human race. For three thou- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 81 sand years this argument lias scarred the history of this world with murder. By this argument the hemlock was administered to Socrates, seized from the gardens of Athens; and Nero lit the nights of Rome with the followers of Christ converted into human torches. By this argu- ment Mohammed swept the plains of the world with flame and sword, Galileo found the filth and gloom of a dungeon, and Bruno and Savonarola felt the ag- onies of the stake. By this argument a hundred thousand Frenchmen were slaughtered in a night, and a million of Moors on the shores of the Mediter- ranean Sea. By this argument the howling passions of men were for forty centuries let loose, every plain of Asia and valley of Europe blighted with human slaughter, and the civil governments of the world turned the sunny and beautiful face of this planet into a carnival scene of flame and blood. By this ar- gument in seventeen centuries from the birth of Christ one hundred millions of men had gone to un- timely death under the religious wars of Europe, slain in the name of God and the kingdom of love. At the end of two hundred years more, in the face of the sunrise of the twentieth century, its malign and bloody ghost still stalks the high-ways of the civil- ized world. Sublime men, as if inspired by revelation, have from time to time defined the principle by which the king- doms of this world and the kingdom that is not of this world can exist side by side without murder. But it was left to a greater than these to make this declaration as broad as the scope of human need. Out of the mists and mountains of Wales into Pres- byterial England came a man who, lifting his voice 6 82 THE PEARL SPEAKER. above hierarchies and kings, cried out: "The civil power has no jurisdiction over the human con- science." That man was Roger Williams. Down amid the shadows and fogs of his sea-girt land there had fallen upon this man an inspiration that was to roll back the tide of human hate and fear that had devastated the world for forty centuries. Reflecting upon the suffering of his race, there had broken into his brain the conception, simple and sublime, of the words of the gentle and lowly Nazarene: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." England was not big enough to hold this inspired man. His continued presence would have split the throne of the Tudors. From religious persecution Roger Williams fled to the Puritans of New England; but these gentlemen, who had fled from Europe to enjoy religious liberty, had only enough liberty for themselves, and not enough for Roger Williams. And thus this brave man fled from New England to the wilderness, and among the barbarians of the North American forests, in the province of Rhode Island, established the first government according religious toleration ever founded on this earth. In an age of iron intolerance the superb moral sense of this man pierced to the core the brazen and murderous sophistry of this argument that would bind the human soul. On the page of American history, above the names of Locke and Milton, let his name be written in letters of gold. One century later that seed of toleration planted by Roger Williams expanded into the full-blossomed tree of American liberty, throwing its splendor around the world. THE PEARL SPEAKER. S3 The following century, with all the centuries of hate and blood behind it for a warning example, gave birth to the Constitution of the United States, the sole monument of all history embodying the princi- ple established by Christ for the government of the earth. Mother. — Anonymous. The sun, as he courses his way in matchless splen- dor across the great arch of day, sending his rays deep into the throbbing, quivering bosom of nature, is a glorious object. The moon, as she moves in queenly majesty along the parapet of the skies, her royal robes radiant with star-dust that sends a glow as of dawn through the ethereal midnight, is an ob- ject of entrancing interest. The blue dome of the firmament, resting in pillared grandeur high above the green temple of the earth, through whose un- numbered aisles the voices of sea and air echo and re-echo in one long, never ending anthem of praise to the great Creator, has always stirred the human heart to profoundest admiration. But there is a grander and a greater than all these. The man whose intellect has been trained in the art and sci- ence of the schools, whose spirit leaps with cheerful alertness to champion the cause of justice and mercy, and to fight with never resting energy in the conflict of human rights ; whose honor is as true and pure as the temper of a Damascene blade; whose integrity is a wall against which the blandishments of social in- fluence, or political power, or worldly gain are harm- less and ineffectual; this is a being upon whom God has set his seal. But O there is a more gloriously beautiful one than he. I bow to the majesty and 84 THE PEARL SPEAKER. glory o£ mother; of lier who possesses a form and grace that surpasses the grace of all other created things; of her whose sympathy can hear the slight- est wail of distress as if it were the voice of a trump- et. Of her whose devotion does not shudder before the approaches of the gaunt and ghastly specter of poverty and want, nor waver when pestilence stalks through the crowded marts of the world leaving corpses to show which way he has gone, nor halt be- fore the barred gloom of the prison, nor hesitate even under the very shadow of the gibbet itself. Who lingers with unwearying frame around the bedside of disease? Who always catches the first waking breath of the sufferer as he lisps his faltering wish? Whose angelic sympathy smiles hope into the aching soul? Who sits enthroned the sweet genius of home, guiding a blessed household along the shining ways of happiness? Whose loving coun- sel leads the daughter up the narrow pathway to a pure, virtuous, noble womanhood? Whose heart and soul are the treasure-house where all the aims and schemes of childhood are confidingly stored, then purified and passed back to be sweetly worked into the warp and woof of their little beings ? Who molds the plastic spirit of her boy, holds before him un- ceasingly the shining ideals of honor and truth, and points his young ambition to a lofty and honorable manhood? And whose gracious form lives forever in the memory of that boy, wherever he may be in the wide world, a beacon to light up his pathway through temptations, to call him back to rectitude and honor, and to inspire his soul to greater effort in his struggle with the world? It is the mother. Again I bow in reverence to her gracious presence THE PEARL SPEAKER. and influence, her faultless counsel, her untiring de- votion, and her undying love. Fall of Warsaw. — Thomas Campbell. O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile, And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, "When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars, Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn; Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man! Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed, Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid. "O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country save! Is there no hand on high to shield the brave? Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains! By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, And swear for her to live, with her to die! " He said: and on the rampart heights arrayed His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed; Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, Slow as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm; Low, murmuring sounds along the banners fly — "Revenge or death! " the watch- word and reply: Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm! In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few ! From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew; O! bloodiest picture in the book of Time; Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; 86 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career. Hope, for a season, bid the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword omnipotent to save? Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod, That smote the foes of Zion and of God? Departed spirits of the mighty dead, Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled, Friends of the world, restore your sword to man, Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van; Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, And make her arm puissant as your own! O once again to Freedom's cause return The patriot Tell! the Bruce of Bannockburn! Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see That man hath yet a soul — and dare be free! A little while, along thy saddening plains, The starless night of Desolation reigns; Truth shall restore the light by Nature given, And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of heaven! Prone to the dust, Oppression shall be hurled, Her name, her nature, withered from the world. Henhy W. Grady.— De. J. W. Lee. Henry W. Grady must be classed with the leaders who are in the van-guard of human progress. He looked from the side of the mind that borders the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 87 universe of ideas, visions, relations. He was an ide- alist and looked through the imagination into the kingdom of light. He saw truth and beauty and love billowing away to infinity. He despised not the world of hard limitation and fact, nor did he find his rest and inspiration in it. He slaked his thirst from the waters that flow from under the throne of God. Violets and buttercups which grew on the mountain- side did not waste their fragrance as he passed by, but there they grew, covering the hills of day for him with their blue and their beauty. Leaves in the autumn woods were not ignored by him, but he cul- tivated the habit of looking toward the clime where the leaves never die. All sights and sounds and seasons in the world of change and death were loved by him; but a window there was in his mind, look- ing into an illimitable realm where all sights brought gladness, all sounds hope, all seasons inspiration. Genius of the highest order is capable of express- ing itself in all the forms of art. Michael Angelo was by turns poet, painter, sculptor, and architect. So the genius of Henry W. Grady so far arose above the plane of ordinary talent that it was capable of transmutation into any of the fine arts. Had he lived in the sixteenth century, he would have been a painter. Had he lived in the seventeenth century, and in England, he would have been a poet. In thought and spirit he lived in the boundless, the radiant, the beautiful. He saw visions as beautiful as Rubens's, and temples as perfect as that of Phidias. But his genius was controlled by his heart, and his sympathy for men was so constant and so universal that it denied his genius expression in forms which only touched the few. His love impelled his thought 88 THE PEARL SPEAKER. to expression as wide as the needs, as deep as the suffering, and as complex as the interests and rela- tions of his fellow-men. What medium did he unconsciously select by which to express the ideas of truth and beauty and goodness, that they might have the widest flow? What instrument permitted him to touch most peo- ple? In what way could he get into relation with most human wants? What touched man on most sides of his character and stimulated most thought and provoked most endeavor? It was the age of the newspaper. It flew into every man's home, and car- ried a message to every man's thought. Into the newspaper he would breathe his message, and through the newspaper he would tell to men the visions he saw of hope and help and inspiration. The news- paper became his brush, letters his pigments, and the South his canvas. Into every man's home he would send a message that would stir his heart and move his will. Through men he would embody the ideas he saw, and put them into fields of waving grain, into cattle on every hill, into a home for every family, and around every home he would plant orchards and vineyards, and trace vines and flowers over every door. Thus he would paint a picture, standing over men, under men, and blessing men. Did ever man have ambition nobler than to lift his countrymen from want to plenty, from dejection to hope, from misunderstanding to love and charity? Did ever fairer, lovelier vision float before the artist's eye from out the sky of the ineffable, to be thrown into form sublimer, or poem kinder, or music sweeter? He used beauty to stimulate human courage, to em- bellish human spirits, to enlarge human thought. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 89 His conceptions gathered themselves into clothes for human forms, into bread for children's months, into inspiration for human hearts. He was God's almon- er. Freely he received, freely he gave. Counted by years his life was not long, but it is my honest con- viction that he got more of heaven's wealth into this world and more of heaven's hope and joy into the hearts of his countrymen than any man of his time. Far beyond any man I know he drove out life's shad- ows by the light of eternity's day, and hushed its tu- mults by the repose of eternity's truth. Andrew Jackson. — Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald. What is the meaning of the pageant of this day? What means this parade of citizen soldiery, this music of drum and fife, the booming of artillery, the eloquence of the orator, the smiles of beauty, and the benediction of religion on this eighth day of Janu- ary, 1890? It means the renaissance of valor, patri- otism, honor, and the true chivalry that never quails before the face of man, but which is ready to die for woman, and stands uncovered in humility before God. It is the voice of Tennessee and the republic invoking the spirit of Andrew Jackson, and saying: "Come back, old hero, with your heart of fire and nerves of steel, and ride again at the head of the moving columns. Come back, and let us hear again the ring of your martial voice along the lines, and catch the flash of your eagle eye. Come back again, Old Hickory, and demonstrate to us, as you did to our fathers, that a human will, backed by an honest soul and patriotic purpose, is invincible. " Come back, Andrew Jackson, that we may give you 90 THE PEARL SPEAKER. a demonstration that a true man, whatever might be his minor faults, will have true followers, and that a noble people will forgive the blemishes, from which none are wholly free, if the heart be gold. " Come back to reanimate the chivalry that glorified this land with the knightliest men and the queenliest women that ever lived on this earth; that chivalry which in its simplest expression was embodied in the parting words of the mother to her boy: 'Good-by, Andy, my son, and take my parting advice: Never give a lie-bill, never carry a slander suit into a court of justice, and never take the lie.' He was her own son, and literally he followed the brave little woman's advice. If he was not always mild, he was always true; if he was not always saintly, he was always heroic." Jackson's dust sleeps here in Tennessee where he lived and died, and where his impress will remain as long as this Capitol hill shall rest on its rocky foun- dations, or the rim of the Tennessee basin encircle the spot where he reposes by the side of his beloved Rachel, awaiting the reveille of the final muster of the judgment-clay. Here rests his mortal part, but his spirit still lives and will never die. He has stamped his character upon the people, making cow- ardice the one unpardonable sin. He has inspired such a chivalrous sentiment toward woman that in this city of Nashville no Tennesseean remains seated in a street-car when woman stands, whether she be the matchlessly beautiful belle, sparkling in smiles and jewels, and arrayed in finest apparel, or an aged toiler of the poorer class, with wrinkled face, bent form, and calloused hands. Come back, Andrew Jackson, to repeat in thunder THE PEARL SPEAKER. 91 tones your immortal maxim: "Ask nothing that is not right, submit to nothing that is wrong;" a max- im that embodies the golden rule of political ethics, and crystallizes the sentiment and avows the purpose which must guide the action and nerve the souls of people worthy of freedom; a maxim that means war upon every scheme of legislative robbery, every pi- ratical plundering combination ; a maxim that means that liberty is sweeter than life, and that every people must be the guardians and defenders of their own freedom. Come back, Andrew Jackson, and ride again at the head of the volunteer soldiery, not those who were with you at Talladega, Emuckfaw, and New Orleans; not with those who rode with Forrest and Cheatham and Hatton and Zollicoffer; not with those who came out of the fiery furnace of the late revolution alive, whose names will be enrolled with those of the heroic dead when they go to join their old comrades in the land of souls ; but to lead by the inspiration of your words and deeds in the battle which must be fought by this generation for all that is precious in our in- heritance of constitutional government and Chris- tian civilization. Come back, O man of the people, and ride again at the head of the mighty host that is rallying for this fight. Let our old men catch once more the sight of the idol of their youthful enthusi- asm; and let our young men fall into line, and keep step in the forward march under the lead of the pa- triot hero, who whipped the British, who whipped thft Indians, who whipped the bank, who by his repent- ance and his faith whipped the devil, and who, being with us in the inspiration of his noble life, will help us to whip every foe that threatens the peace, the 92 THE PEARL SPEAKER. honor, the prosperity, and the unity of this great re- public. Duluth.— Proctor Knott. Sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the termini of this great and indispensable road should be until I overheard some gentleman mention the name of "Duluth." Duluth! the word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleep- ing innocence. Duluth ! 'twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panted for water-brooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance, that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my de- lighted ear. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the library, exam- ined all the maps I could find, and discovered in one of them a delicate, hair-like line, diverging from the Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was intended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth. And yet I knew it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it; that the ele- ments of material nature would loug since have re- solved themselves back into original chaos, if there had been such an hiatus in creation as would have THE PEARL SPEAKER. 93 resulted in leaving out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that, wherever it was, it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the be- nighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the act- ual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was in fact but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Du- luth. I was certain that Herodotus had died a mis- erable death, because in all his travels and with all his geographical research he had never heard of Du- luth. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that cre- ated by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty gen- ius upon the fall of Troy, it had not been his more blessed lot to crystallize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by the legislature of Min- nesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my melan- choly fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint 94 THE PEARL SPEAKER. exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whis- pered: "Where is Duluth?" But, thanks to the be- neficence of that band of ministering angels who have their bright abodes in the far off capital of Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was about to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed map was placed in my hands, and as I unfolded it, a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured vision of the wandering peri, through the opening gates of paradise. There, there, for the first time my enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word "Duluth." Same Continued. — No 2. This map, sir, as it appears from its title, is intend- ed to illustrate the position of Puluth in the United States; but if gentlemen will examine it I think they will concur with me in the opinion that it is far too modest in its pretensions. It not only illustrates the position of Duluth in the United States, but exhibits its relations with all created things. It even goes further than this. It lifts the shadowy veil of futur- ity, and affords us a view of the golden prospects of Duluth far along the dim vista of ages yet to come. If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth not only in the center of the map, but represented in the center of a series of concentric circles one hun- dred miles apart, and some of them as much as four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous sweep the fragrant savannas of the sun- lit South and the eternal solitudes of snow that man- tle the ice-bound North. How these circles were produced is perhaps one of those primordial myste- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 95 ries that tlie most skillful paleologists will never be able to explain. But the fact is, sir, Duluth is pre-eminently a central place, for I am told by gen- tlemen who have been so reckless of their own per- sonal safety as to venture away into those awful re- gions where Duluth is supposed to be that it is so exactly in the center of the visible universe that the sky comes down precisely the same distance all around it. I am unable to say where its exact location is, or whether it is lying around loose. I really cannot tell whether it is one of those ethereal creations of intellectual frost-work, more intangible than the rose- tinted clouds of a summer sunset; one of those airy exhalations of the speculator's brain, which 'I am told are ever flitting in the form of towns and cities along those lines of railroad built with government subsidies, luring the unwary settlers as the mirage of the desert lures the famished traveler on and ever on until it fades away in the darkening horizon; or whether it is a real, substantial city, all staked off, with the lots marked with their owners' names, like that proud commercial metropolis discovered on the desirable shores of San Domingo. But, however that may be, I am satisfied Duluth is there; for I see it stated on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred and ninety miles from Liverpool. Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unques- tionably the most salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord's earth. I have always supposed the cold on Lake Superior was cold enough for nine months of the year to freeze the smoke- stack off a locomotive. But, gentlemen, I have great- ly deceived myself; for I see it represented on this 96 THE PEARL SPEAKER. map that Duluth is situated exactly half -way between the latitudes of Paris and Yenice ; so those who have inhaled the exhilarating air of the one, or basked in the golden sunlight of the other, must see that Du- luth must be a place of untold delights, a terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-bloom- flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of nature's choicest songsters. The Idea of Deity. Christian teachers have with one voice proclaimed the doctrine of a hidden god. From all ages and from all climes comes this confession, and in every phase of condition from barbarism to the highest civilization we see all sorts of men building altars to the unknown and unknowable God. Every seeker brings back the same unvarying re- port. Science scales all heights and sounds all abyss- es, counts the stars, turns over the granite leaves of the globe's history, bathes in the light of the morn- ing and broods amid the shadows of the evening, and comes back from ocean caverns and mountain peaks, from beds of fossils, and from the silvery pavement of the milky way with the same unvarying message: "There are foot-prints, but he that made them cannot be found." The heart sends out over the waste of waters the dove of its tender feelings, but the wearied wing finds no resting-place on the bounding billow. The timid bird hurries back to its home bearing in its mouth no message but an olive-branch, the symbol of peace. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 97 With sturdy resolution conscience goes forth to sound the dim and perilous way. But the scent is lost amid the jungles and rocky passes of the world. Terrified by the glare of the tiger, the spring of the leopard, the coil of the serpent, the sting of the rep- tile, horror-stricken by triumphant iniquity and bleeding equity, shocked at seeing a Tiberius on the throne and a Jesus on the cross, Nero an emperor and Epictetus a slave, it loses the thread of the mor- al law, and recoils from problems it cannot confront. With the lamp of duty pressed faithfully against its bosom, it stands with bended head and waits. Boldest of all, the soul plumes her wings of faith for a flight to the very empyrean itself. Her pinions of aspiration bear her above the earth, she distances vision, outruns the calculations of the mathemati- cian, leaves time and space behind, and with open eye looks steadily at the sun. But the sun itself is a shadow. Light there is a shoreless ocean of light, atmospheres glowing with its radiance, throbbing with its gracious undulations; on its waves she floats serenely; in its silence she rests at peace. But no voice breaks the silence, no form of created godhead walks on the sea of glory. The soul must be content to find a home as wide as infinite thought, as warm as eternal love, but never to see the fashion of it, never to find the soft bosom of the mother in whose breast it can nestle. She dwells in a castle of air built by the vapors exhaled from tears, and made gorgeous by the upward-slanting light of her hope. The New Political Era. — Henry George. A new political era has begun and a new party has 7 98 THE PEARL SPEAKER. been born that is destined to write itself deep into the institutions and laws of this republic, and to em- phasize in tones of thunder the eternal principles enunciated by the Declaration of American Inde- pendence. There is in this sublime movement some- thing deeper, something wider, something nobler and higher than we are accustomed to associate with po- litical movements. We are not striving to put men in office; far from it, we are striving to abolish that curse of this beautiful world, poverty. We are strug- gling to make the American republic a republic in truth as in name; a republic not of governed and governors, not of millionaires and tramps, not of the idle class and the working class, but a republic of free and independent citizens, equal in opportunities, equal in political rights, and carrying in their own hands their own destiny. We are striving for a re- public where there shall be work for all, leisure for all, comfort for all, and abundance for all. We want a republic in which no child shall ever go hungry, in which no woman shall ever want for bread or ever bend herself to unseemly toil. We are striving for a republic wherein the poorest may have every oppor- tunity for the development of every faculty, for at- taining that destiny which the Creator has given us the chance of securing in the natural laws which he has made for the government of this bounteous world and of those human children which he brings into it. No matter how hard the work may be, no matter how hopeless at times it may have seemed, it is yet the highest privilege for any man to engage in this work. We battle not for ourselves, but for the myriads of children that are to come after us. Eyes are turned to us, not only from every part of THE PEARL SPEAKER. 99 the American Union, but from every part of the civ- ilized world, where men are struggling for the rights of man, are striving for a higher, better, purer social condition. Their hearts will be with us, and our vic- tory will be their triumph. The New South. — Heney W. Grady. — No. 1. In speaking to the toast with which you have hon- ored me I accept the term "The New South" as in no sense disparaging the old. Dear to me, sir, are the home of my people and the traditions of my people. There is a New South not through any protest against the old, but because of new conditions, new adjust- ments, and, if you please, new ideas and new aspira- tions. I ask you, gentlemen, to picture if you can the foot-sore soldier, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which is to be the testimony of his fidelity and faith, as he turned his face southward from Appomattox. Think of him as, ragged, half- starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds; think of him as, having fought to exhaustion, he sur- renders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades, and casts his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills; think of him as he pulls his gray cap over his brow, and begins his slow and painful journey. What does he find, let me ask you who went to your homes ea- ger to find all the welcome you had justly earned, full pa}^ment for four years' sacrifice, what does he find when he reaches the home he left four years before? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns empty, his 100 THE PEARL SPEAKER. trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social sys- tem, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, he sees his very traditions swept away. There he moves without money, credit, em- ployment, material, or training, and more than this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence: the establishing 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 single day. Surely God, who had scourged him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was there a swifter restoration. 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 the very lap of luxury cut up their dresses to make clothing for their husbands, and gave their hands to work with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a gar- ment. From the ashes of 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; and somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded not one single ignoble prej- udice or memory. We have established thrift in city and country, and we have fallen in love with work. We have re- stored comfort to homes from which culture and ele- gance have never departed. We have let economy take root and spread among us as rank as the crab- grass which sprung from Sherman's cavalry camp. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 101 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 on the field by their swords. It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, howev- er humble, in this glorious work. Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and inspiring of the prostrate and bleeding South, mis- guided perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, generous always. In the record of her social, industrial, and political restoration we await with confidence the verdict of the world. A DISCLAIMER OF INJUSTICE TO THE NEGRO. — HENRY W. Grady. I assert here — and a bar as intelligent and upright as the bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion — that in the Southern courts, from the high- est to the lowest, pleading for life, liberty, and prop- erty, the negro has distinct advantage because he is a negro, apt to be overreached and oppressed, and that this advantage reaches from the juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuring his sentence. How can it be seriously maintained that we are ter- rorizing the people from whose willing hands come every year one billion of farm products, or that we have robbed a people who twenty -five years from unrewarded slavery have in one State amassed twen- ty millions of property? Do we intend to oppress the people we are arming every day? or are we striving to deceive them when we are educating them 102 THE PEARL SPEAKER. to the utmost limit of our ability? Can it be be- lieved that we outlaw them when we daily work with them side by side? Does any one dream that we would re-enslave 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-countrymen, as you yourselves may some- times have to appeal to the bar of human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people the fair and unanswerable conclusion of these incontestible facts. But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there is disorder and violence. This I admit. And there will be disorder until there is one ideal community on earth after which we may pattern. But how widely it is misjudged! It is hard to measure with exactness whatever touches the negro. His helpless- ness, his isolation, his century of servitude — these dispose us to emphasize and magnify his wrongs. This disposition, inflamed by prejudice and partisan- ry, has led to injustice and delusion. Lawless men may ravage a county in Iowa, and it is accepted as an incident; but in the South a drunken row is declared to be the fixed habit of a community. Kegulators may whip vagabonds in Indiana by platoons, and it scarcely arrests attention; but a chance collision in the South between relatively the same classes is gravely accepted as evidence that one race is destroy- ing the other. I am not one of those who becloud American honor with the parade of the outrages of either section, and belie American character by de- claring them to be significant and representative. I prefer to maintain that they are neither, and stand for nothing but the passion and sin of our fallen hu- manity. These gentlemen who come with me here, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 103 knit into Georgia's busy life, never saw, I dare assert, an outrage committed on a negro. And if they did, not one of you would be swifter to protect or to pun- ish. It is through them and the men who think with them that these two races have been carried thus far with less of violence than would have been possible anywhere else on earth. And in their fairness and courage and steadfastness, more than in all the laws that can be passed or all the bayonets that can be mustered, is the hope of the future to our loved and generous South. I stand here to profess no new loy- alty. When General Lee, whose heart was the tem- ple of our hopes, and whose arm was clothed with our strength, renewed his allegiance to the govern- ment at Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, and he spoke for every honest man from Maine to Texas. From that day to this Hamilcar has nowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and revenge, but everywhere to loyalty and to love. In proof of this, bear witness to the soldier standing at the base of a Confederate monument, over the remains of his dead 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 I declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human aspiration, they would die, if need be, to re- store this republic their fathers fought to dissolve. Dr. Deems at Hopkinsville Monument. The thunder and lightning of the Civil War in the 104 THE PEARL SPEAKER. United States attracted the attention of trie civilized world. Men everywhere have been studying that great conflict, and they feel that we have proved our- selves capable of being the beginning of the con- federation of man. We have made it possible for Englishmen everywhere to agitate and discuss the question of a federation of those States which have gradually been forming under the aegis of Great Britain. We can begin to hope that following such imperial British legislation some day, it may be a far day, the world will behold the United States of Eu- rope, of Asia, of Africa, and then, when there is a United States on every continent, will come the day of all days, the day when, in some splendid metropo- lis of the earth, shall be opened the first session of the " Parliament of Man." To that august consummation the greatest contri- bution ever since the world began came from the two opposing armies of our civil war. And as houses, cities, States, institutions of all kinds among men have owed more to those whose names have been lost than to those whose names have been preserved, so to the unknown Federal and Confederate dead the world is a greater debtor than to Grant and Sherman and Meade, or to Lee and Jackson and Johnston. And you, my silent brothers, sleeping unnamed in the quiet tomb under this noble monument, you fought a good fight for something much more pre- cious than any treasured thought of yours, and as sa- cred as your altars and your fires. You fought for all the altars worth erecting anywhere, and for all the fires worth kindling in any age; you fought for that which makes the mortal life of man a worthy vestibule to human immortality. And he who caused THE PEARL SPEAKER. 105 this beautiful monument to rise on this fair spot, it seems to me, "builded better than he knew." He has expressed his own manly sense of manliness and gallant sense of gallantry, and has said that the names of heroes may become unknown, but heroism shall not go unacknowledged among men. He has done more. In days to come, when he and you and I shall be in the camps where these departed soldiers have pitched their tents, groups of boys shall stand before this monument and study its proportions, and read its eloquent inscription, and ponder its meaning, and shall gather from their older friends its deeper lessons. As they learn that men were ready to leave venerable fathers and mothers, beautiful sisters and sweethearts, dearest children and wives, to abandon trades and fields, to forsake the paths of social dal- liance and delight, and to endure the hardships of camps and hospitals and battle-fields, and to die at last, not only unsung, but unnamed; and to do all this because fair liberty is so beautiful and sweet — when they learn this these boys will grow into men not unworthy to be the successors of the blessed dead. This ought to be a glorious day to us. We have lived to see the animosities of the war die out, to wit- ness famous generals of both armies marching side by side in the procession of peace, to behold the great captains, once opposed, now bending side by side, and placing chaplets of mourning upon the sods above the blue and gray. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, and the blood of the patriot is the seed of the State. Cold though those blood-seed lie, through winter long and drear, they do not wholly die. They spring 106 THE PEARL SPEAKER. again to make the land rich and beautiful with flow- ers and fruits. Southekn Love foe the Negeo. — Heney W. Geady. The love we feel for that race you cannot measure or comprehend. 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 the sweet music of her croonings steals 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 fluttering 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 appre- hensions, and in a big, homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands, now worn and wrinkled, yet fairer to me than 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 she is safe in her sanctuary, 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 sol- dier struck, staggering, has 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 trem- ble 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 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 107 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 sol- dier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open grave, mute, motionless, 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 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 brighter and better day. And a voice comes from the grave 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, bewil- dering both, I follow. And may God forget my peo- ple 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; whether, forever dislocated and sep- arated, they remain a weak people beset by a strong- er, and exist as the Turk, who lives in the jealousy and not in the conscience of Europe; or whether in this miraculous republic they break through the caste of twenty centuries 'and, belying universal his- tory, reach the full stature of citizenship, and in peace maintain it — we shall give them uttermost jus- tice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into whatever seeming estrangement we may be driv- 108 THE PEARL SPEAKER. en, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this repub- lic, or mitigate our consecration to its service. What Is Minority? What is minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in a minority. There is not a so- cial, political, or religious privilege that we enjoy to- day that was not bought for us by the blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is a minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is the minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble and good in the history of the world. You will find that each generation has been always busy in gather- ing up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a na- tion's history. Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments — to whom? To the Covenant- ers. Ah ! yes, they were in a minority. But read their history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the very tips of your fingers. These were the minority that through blood and tears and hootings and scourg- ings, dyeing the waters with their blood and staining the heather with their gore, fought the glorious bat- tles of religious freedom. If a man stand up for the right, though the right be on the scaffold, while wrong sits in the seat of gov- ernment; if he stand for the truth, though he eat with truth a wretched crust; if he walk in obloquy and scorn through the by-ways while falsehood ruf- fles itself in silken attire, let him remember that wherever truth and right are there are "troops of tall and beautiful angels" gathered around him, and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 109 God himself stands within the dim future and keeps watch over his own. If a man stands for the right, though every man's finger be pointed at him, and though every woman's lips be curled in scorn, he walks with a vast and glorious majority. The minor- ities that have piloted the stupendous reforms of modern times were once as the little cloud, small as the human hand, low down on the horizon's verge. But, ah! the cloud so small tossed and rolled and grew and swept onward until it covered the firma- ment of the social and political world; and in the cy- clone that burst upon the startled multitude useless traditions, false theories, profitless speculations, dead customs, threadbare creeds were swallowed up and swept out forever from the gaze of the world. Out of this tremendous upheaval the right and true have risen to glorious pre-eminence, and their banners fl-oat high over the rush and smoke of the conflict with falsehood and wrong. Yes, the minority have often been despised and scorned and ridiculed, but that omnipotent God who sent them into the world to champion the right and the true has borne them up until their noble cause has been vindicated and intrenched in the hearts of millions; and though they may not have lived to wit- ness the glad fruition of their labors and sacrifices, later times have zealously and lovingly commemorat- ed them in monuments of marble and bronze. Then, my friends, let us take heart and be brave; for if, though in the minority, down deep in the inner re- cesses of our souls we feel that we are right, then the right and our own fearless selves under the overrul- ing providence of God must prevail. 110 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The Confederate Dead. — Col. John F. House. The graves where the glorious heroes of the lost cause are sleeping are very humble. No government pours out its wealth to gather their dust into magnifi- cent cemeteries, adorned with all that taste and art can contribute to beautify those cities of the dead. In the deep bosom of the wild wood, where human footsteps have rarely trod, many of them sleep the last sleep, with only nature and solitude as companions of their dream- less rest. The birds of the forest sing their morning and even- ing hymns above their unrecorded graves. No an- cestral oak shall ever throw its welcome shadow over their heroic dust, and no monumental marble sentinel the undiscovered spot where their ashes repose. But they have monuments in hearts that are warmer than marble, and homes in memories that will never cast them out. Dearer to me their hallowed dust than the golden sands of all California. No amount of detraction can shake my faith in their integrity, and no temptation of power can ever make me false to the traditions of their history. I know they are stigmatized as traitors, but this hand will never consent to write such a name upon such a grave. My heart must be as cold as death can make it before it will cease to warm at the mention of their names or to cherish the memorials of their virtue. Thank God, this privilege is still left us. Even the ingenuity of hate has never yet invented a process by which the human heart can be entered and robbed of its treasures. No spy can bring reports from this enchanted land, no detective explore this unknown region, no rude THE PEARL SPEAKER. Ill soldiery put the forms of beauty that people it in ar- rest, and no court-martial pronounce its bloody de- crees against them, for this is hallowed ground where no tyrant's foot ever trod. Cruelty and oppression, and all the dark cohorts which the human passion rallies to carry out its orders, stand baffled and pow- erless outside its walls; for the angels of God mount guard upon its parapets, and their naming swords turn everywhere to guard this citadel of the soul. To characterize that prolonged and terrific struggle as a mere riot or a mob, and assume that every man en- gaged in it was a conscious traitor, unworthy of trust and devoid of honor, is to trine with truth and insult the common understanding of mankind. Reason re- jects such a view of the subject as an absurdity, jus- tice brands it as a falsehood, and the muse of history will scorn to transfer it to her immortal page. Questions that rallied millions of us intelligent men as the American masses to the battle-field for their solution, must have had, did have two sides to them. And we dare assert that in purity of motive, in stain- less honor, in dauntless courage, and in lofty devotion to principle, the men who bore arms in the lost cause are the peers of the proudest that ever marched under any banner or illustrated the annals of any land. The Same Concluded. Upon the floor in the United States Senate, an honorable member who had the courage to speak a few words for this much-slandered people challenged our maligners to point to a single instance where a Con- federate soldier had violated his parole since the sur- render. The challenge was not accepted, and will never be. The history of the world might safely be 112 THE PEARL SPEAKER. defied to produce from among its ruddering records an instance parallel to the high-toned and chivalrous manner in which the Confederate soldier, in the midst of provoking irritations, has kept his plighted honor inviolate. After the bitterness of defeat and the humiliation of failure, why should any one wish to rob us of the poor privilege of believing we are not disgraced? But let us suffer and be strong. This is a privilege which can neither be given nor taken away. They cannot build a dungeon to imprison the soul, or forge man- acles to confine the mind. Thought, like the winged lightning or the wayward tempest, scorns all the puny efforts of man to fetter or subdue it. Shall the mother be forbidden to mourn the loss of her gallant boy without first confessing that he fills a traitor's grave? No human law can force that mother to associate with his memory a traitor's shame. She knows he was noble, brave, and true, and when the last trumpet sounds she will rise from the grave with that opinion. Shall the father be stigmatized as " disloyal," and stripped of all the attributes of a freeman because his heart beats with a quickened pulsation at the recital of the heroic part his manly son bore in the bloody scenes of Chickamauga? If so, he will die a " disloy- al" man. If it be necessary to tear from his heart all feelings of parental pride and affection before he can become " loyal," he will never be able to reach that extraordi- nary state of political perfection. Ah no! They'll tell their names in storied song, Those men of Chickamauga fight ; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 113 And on the moss-grown cottage wall Will hang their pictures brave and bright. Shall the maiden be required to turn a deaf ear to the voice of her lover because that voice once shouted in the charge of Forrest's invincible battalions. If so, the rose of loyalty will never bloom upon her cheek. Shall our fair country-women be denounced as re- bellious because they strew the earliest and sweetest flowers of spring upon the graves of our dead? Was she true to the claims of patriotism who, when a fair, young soldier-boy lay dead far away from his home, bent above his bier, and with angelic sweetness said: " Let me kiss him for his mother? " It is not treason — and he is a fool who thinks so — to indulge a natural feeling of pride in the achieve- ments of our arms, respect for the men who led us, and veneration for those who fell. Hard, hard indeed is the fate of those who fell in the lost cause if their surviving comrades are forbidden the melancholy pleasure of dropping a tear upon their graves. When reason shall mount her throne, when a preju- dice that is both deaf and blind shall cease to rule the hour, justice will be done the motives of these men. Appealing from the passions of the present to the more impartial judgment of posterity, let us submit their deeds and the cause in which they fell to the arbitrament of history. Sleep sweetly in your humble graves ; Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause ; Though yet no marble column craves The pilgrim here to pause. In seeds of laurel in the earth The garlands of your fame are sown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone. 8 114 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Adams and Jefferson. — Wirt. In the structure of their characters, in the course of their action, in the striking coincidences that marked their high career, there is a moral sublimity which overwhelms the mind and hushes all its powers into silent amazement. The European who should have heard the sound without apprehending the cause would be apt to inquire: " What is the meaning of all this? What have these men done to elicit this unani- mous and splendid acclamation? Why has the whole American nation risen up as one man to do them honor, and offer to them this enthusiastic homage of the heart? Were they mighty warriors? and was the peal we have heard the shout of victory? Were they great commanders, returning from their distant conquests, surrounded with the spoils of war? and was this the sound of their triumphant procession? Were they covered with martial glory in any form ? and was this the noisy wave of the multitude rolling back at their approach ? " Nothing of all this. No; they were peaceful and aged patriots who, having served their country togeth- er through their long and useful lives, had now sunk together to the tomb. They had not fought battles, but they had formed and moved the great machinery of which battles were only a small and comparative- ly trivial consequence; they had not commanded ar- mies, but they had commanded the master springs of the nation, on which all its great political and military movements depend. By the wisdom and energy of their counsels, by the potent mastery of their spirits, they had contributed pre-eminently to produce a mighty revolution which has changed the aspect of the world; a revolution THE PEARL SPEAKER. 115 which in one-half of the world has already restored man to his long lost liberty, and the government to its only legitimate object — the happiness of the peo- ple — and on the other hemisphere has thrown a light so strong that even the darkness of despotism is be- ginning to recede. Compared with the solid glory of an achievement like this, what are battles and what the pomp of war but the poor and fleeting pageants of the theater? What was the selfish and petty am- bition of Alexander to conquer a little section of a savage world compared with this magnificent advance toward the emancipation of an entire race? And this, be it remembered, has been the fruit of intellectual exertion, the triumph of mind. What a proud testimonial does it bear to the character of our nation that it is able to make a proper estimate of services like these; that while in other countries the senseless mob fall down in stupid admiration before the bloody wheels of the conqueror, in this our peo- ple rise with one accord to pay their homage to intel- lect and virtue! What a cheering pledge does it give of the stability of our institutions that while abroad the benighted multitude are prostrating themselves before the idols which their own hands have fashioned into kings here, in this land of the free, our people are everywhere starting up with one impulse to fol- low with their acclamations the ascending spirits of the great fathers of the republic! This is a spectacle of which we may be permitted to be proud. It honors our country no less than the illustrious dead; and could these great patriots speak to us, they would tell us that they have more pleasure in the testimony which these honors bear to the character of their country than in that which they bear to their individ- 116 THE PEARL SPEAKER. ual services. They now see as they were seen while in the body, and know the nature of the feeling from which these honors flow. It is love for love. It is the gratitude of an enlightened nation to the noblest order of benefactors. It is the only glory worth the aspiration of a generous spirit. Who would not pre- fer this living tomb in the hearts of his countrymen to the proudest mausoleum that the genius of sculpt- ure could erect? Jefferson and Adams were great men by nature — not great and eccentric minds " shot madly from their spheres" to fright the world and scatter pestilence in their course; but strong and steady lights, restrained within their proper orbits by the happy poise of their characters, they came to cheer and gladden a world that had been buried for ages in political night. They were Heaven-called avengers of degraded man. They came to lift him to the station for which God had formed him, and to put to flight those idiotic super- stitions with which tyrants had contrived to enthrall his reason and his liberty. And that Being who sent them on this mission had fitted them pre-eminently for his glorious work. He filled their hearts with a love of country which burned strong within them, even in death. He gave them a power of understanding which no sophistry could baffle, no art elude; and a moral heroism which no dangers could appall. Care- less of themselves, reckless of all personal conse- quences, trampling under foot the petty ambition of office and honor, which constitutes the master passion of little minds, they bent all their mighty powers to the task for which they had been delegated— the free- dom of their beloved country and the restoration of fallen man. They felt that they were apostles of hu- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 117 man liberty, and well did they fulfill their high com- mission. They rested not until th ey had accomplished their work at home and given such an impulse to the great ocean of mind that they saw the waves rolling on the farthest shore before they were called to their reward, and then left the world hand in hand, exult- ing as they rose. Dying Speech of Makino Faliero. {Adapted.) I speak to time and to eternity, of which I grow a part, and not to man. Ye elements in which to be resolved I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit upon you. Ye blue waves which laved my banner, ye winds that fluttered over it as if you loved it, and filled my swelling sails as they were wafted to many a triumph, bear witness to the curse I heap on this doomed city! And thou, my native earth which I havp bled for, and that foreign earth which drank this willing blood from many a wound; ye stones in which my gore will not sink, but reek up to heaven ; ye skies which will receive it; thou sun which shinest on these things, and Thou who kindleth and quencheth suns, attest the hate I bear this base and loathsome senate! I am not innocent; but are these guiltless? If I perish, I shall not perish unavenged. Far ages float up from the abyss of time to be, and show these eyes, before they close, the doom of this proud city, and I leave my curse on her and hers forever. Yes! the hours are silently engendering that accursed day when she who built against Attila a bulwark shall blood- lessly and basely yield unto a bastard Attila, without shedding so much blood, in her last defense, as those old veins oft drained in shielding her. She shall be bought and sold, and be an appanage to those who 118 THE PEARL SPEAKER. shall despise her! She shall stoop and be a province for an empire, a petty town in lieu of a capital, with slaves for a senate, beggars for nobles, and panders for a people! Then, when the Hebrew is in thy pal- aces, when the Hun is in thy high places, and when the Greek walks over thy mart and smiles on it for his ; when thy patricians beg their bitter bread in nar- row streets, and in their shameful need make their nobility a plea for pity — then may they cry in vain from the hell of their desolation, and feel the scor- pions of want and hunger sting every nerve and fiber of their being till the very marrow shall dry and rat- tle in their bones! When all the ills of conquered states shall cling to them, vice without splendor, smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure; youth without honor, and age without respect; when meanness and meekness and a sense of woe have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, then in the last gasp of thine agony, amid the slime and mold and rot that like a deadening stench shall reek from thy wasting homes and palaces; then, amidst thy many thousand murders, think of mine! Thou den of drunkards, crazed with the blood of princes ! thou sea of Sodom ! thou beastly, shameless Gomorrah! May wreck and ruin and the death of all that makes thy heart glad pour upon you a never ending night of gloom! May thy viperous fangs at last turn upon thine own living carcass, and set thy veins on fire with a venom that is fatal as the asp! May the owl flap his ominous wings within thy halls and portals! and may lizards and snails crawl upon the couches where once reposed thy princes and thy princesses! May thy patrician palaces at last crumble under the hideous canker of decay! and in THE PEARL SPEAKER. 119 their heaps of ruins may thy beggared populace find their only habitation! And then, to fill the cup of thy last extremity with all the woes that can fall upon an accursed people, may pestilence and contagion, those twin calamities of the human race, stalk through the silent streets and deserted by-ways, and fill the air of this doomed city with such a poison that rot, ruin, and annihilation shall sit enthroned above all thy des- olate walls! And day by day the burning sun shall mock thy grief, and the pitiless stars of night shall hurry past and shudder at the retribution of thy pride and crimes! Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods, thee and thy serpent seed forever! Tribute to Jefferson Davis. — John W. Daniels. We cannot see the movement of the hand on the dial; but it does move nevertheless, and so surely as it keeps pace with the circling sun' so surely will the hour come when the misunderstandings of the past will be rec- onciled, and its clamors die away ; and then it will be recognized by all the world that Jefferson Davis was more than the representative of a section, more than the intelligent guide of a revolution, more than the champion ot secession. He will stand revealed as a political philosopher, to be numbered among the great expounders of American principles and the great heroes and champions of the Anglo-Saxon race. "When the turbid streams of war have become clear and flow evenly in their channels, it will be seen that, underneath the hostile currents which impelled two great peoples in collision, there was a unity of senti- ment which, operating from different poles of circum- stances and interest, threw into separate masses those 120 THE PEARL SPEAKER. who by natural instinct would have cohered together. And in this separation it was fortunate for the South, for America, for humanity, that at the head of the South was a true type of its honor, character, and history — a man whose clear rectitude preserved every complication from impeachment of bad faith; a pa- triot whose love of law and liberty was paramount to all expediency; a commander whose moderation and firmness could restrain, and whose lofty passion and courage could inspire. At the same time we behold a publicist whose intellectual attainments have made him the peer of any statesman who has championed the rights of commonwealths in debate, or stood at the helm when the ship of state encountered the tempest of civil comotion. But he is gone! All are gone, and forever gone! The Confederacy and its sons in gray have vanished; and at last, hoary with years, the chieftain rests, his body mingling with the ashes of the brave which once quickened with a country's holy passion. Hither let his body be borne by the old soldiers of the Confederacy ! In gloriuos Eichmond by the James, where his war home was, where his child is buried, where his armies were marshaled, where the Congress sat, where was the capitol, the arsenal, the citadel, the field of glory, and at last the tomb of the Confederacy — there let him be buried, and the land of Washington and Lee and Jackson will hold in sacred trust his memory and his ashes! The restless tide of humanity will rush hither and thither over the land of battles. The ages will sweep on, and Rift the hills, roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 121 The white sails of commerce will thicken on your riv- er, and the smoke of increasing factories blacken your skies. Mountains will pour forth the precious metals, and fields will glow in the garniture of richer harvests. The remnants of lives spared from the battle will be interwoven with the texture of the Union; new stars will cluster upon the flag, and the sons of the South will bear it as their fathers bore it to make the bounds of freedom wider yet. Our great race will meet and solve every problem, however dark, that it now faces, and a people reconciled and mighty will stretch forth their arms to stay the oppressor. But no greater souls will rise than those who find rest under the Southern sod, from Sumter's battered wall to the trailing vines and ivy leaves of Hollywood, and none will come forth of truer heart or cleaner hands or higher crest to lead them. To the dust we gave his body; but the ages will re- ceive his memory. They have never failed to do jus- tice to him who stood by his people and made their cause his own. And we but forecast the judgment of the years to come when we pronounce that Jefferson Davis was great and pure as statesman, man, and pa- triot. In the eyes of Him to whom a thousand years are as a watch in the night, the war and the century in which it came are but as a single heart-throb in the breast of time; and when the myriads of this great land shall look back through unclouded skies to the old heroic days the smoke and the stain of the battle will have vanished from the hero's name. The tall chieftain of the men who wore the gray will stand be- fore them " with a countenance like the lightning, and in raiment as white as snow." 122 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The Employment of Indians against Ameri- cans. — Lord Chatham. I am astonished, I am shocked to hear such princi- ples confessed: to hear them avowed in this house, or even in this country. I did not intend to have en- croached again on your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity. " That God and nature put into our hands." What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain I know not; but I do know that such detest- able principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian's scalping-knife; to the cannibal savages, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of their mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every senti- ment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that reverend and this most learned bench to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanc- tity of their lawn, upon the judges to interpose the purity of the ermine to save us from such pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, r,nd to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my coun- try to invoke 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 did he defend THE PEARL SPEAKER. 123 the liberty and establish the religion of Britain, if these worse than savage cruelties and inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood, and against whom ? Your Protestant brethren ! To lay waste their country, to desolate their dwell- ings, to extirpate their race and name, by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hell-hounds of war! Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbar- ity. She armed herself with blood-hounds to extir- pate the wretched natives of Mexico; but we, more ruthless, loose the dogs of war against our country- men in America, endeared to us by every tie which should sanctify humanity. My lords, I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the State, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the indelible stigma of public abhorrence. More partic- ularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away with this iniquity; let them perform a lustra- tion to purify their country from this deep and deadly sin. My lords, I am old and weak and unable to say more, but my feelings and indignation were too strong to say 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 enormous and preposterous principles. Lord Chatham on His Motion to Amend the Ad- dress to the Throne. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop it, and display 124 THE PEARL SPEAKER. . in its full danger and genuine colors the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parlia- ment be so dead to its dignity and duty as to give its support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them — measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But yesterday, "and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor to do her reverence." The people whom we first despised as rebels, bat whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their embassadors entertained by your inveterate enemy: and our ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the English troops than I do. I know their virtue and their valor; I know they can achieve any thing except impossibili- ties, and I know the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we do know that in. three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell every expense, and strain every effort, and accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every Ger- man despot; your attempts forever will be vain and impotent; and doubly so because of this mercenary aid in which you rely, for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your adversaries to overrun and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American as I am an Englishman, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 125 while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of war, 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 inhabitant of the woods; to dele- gate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war- fare against his brethren? My lords, these enormi- ties cry aloud for redress and punishment. Famil- iarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, our army can no longer boast of the noble and generous prin- ciples which dignify a soldier, No longer are their feelings awake to the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war; " but the sense of honor is degraded into a vile spirit of plunder and the systematic prac- tice of murder. From the ancient connection between Great Britain and her colonies both parties derived the most im- portant advantage. While the shield of our protec- tion was extended over America she was the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the basis of our power. It is not, my lords, a wild and lawless banditti that we oppose; the resistance of America is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. Let us then seize with eagerness the present moment of rec- onciliation. America has not yet finally given herself up to France; there yet remains a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusion. In this com- plicated crisis of danger, weakness, and calamity, ter- rified and insulted by the/ieighboring powers, unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, where is the man who will venture to flatter us with 126 THE PEARL SPEAKER. the hope of success from the perseverance in measures productive of these dire effects ? Who has the effront- ery to attempt it? Let him, if he dare, stand forth and show his face. You cannot conciliate America by your present measures; neither can you subdue her by your present or any other measures. An Optimist Traveling in the South. — Howard Henderson. The South has had her share of shadow and of gloom, but now she is rising to a vision of brightness and transformation. Out of the crucible of war the hardened muscles and toughened nerves of her sol- diery came well prepared to grapple with fortune and with fate. Over the rifted clouds of low-lying mists she has discerned the auguries of the closing day and caught the happy omens of the future. The tradi- tions that have clogged her energies have been left amid the leached ashes and cooled cinders, while every feather of her plumage quivers with an inspiring life that lifts her wings and yields them waft. A resolute courage whose fiber has been refined by the flame of her altar fires braces her winged heart; noble prey in- vites her quarry, and, with many a daring swoop she is seizing strength-giving game with strong talons, and bearing it with easy flight and float to the sun- gilded sky of prosperity. If bayonets are supposed to think, what must be the reflecting power of engines and forges and dynamos? The anvil chorus is ringing, and to its hammer-beats Birminghams and Sheffields and Chattanoogas are rising. Everywhere, up and down this bright land, the eye THE PEARL SPEAKER. 127 beholds scenes of the happiest omen, and the ear catches the myriad sounds of contentment and hope. White men and black men work side by side, harmo- niously, in fields and furnaces, in factories and mines and marts. Hosts of sober, industrious men are seen weaving prosperity with work and extorting tribute from field and forest, from mine and stream. Day after day we hear the booming of towns, the boat crews chanting their river melodies, the spindles hum- ming, the looms clattering, the furnaces breathing — a mighty orchestral chorus of cheerful life. At night we hear the banjo humming to the measured tramp of dancing feet; full-breasted songs sung by stento- rian lungs make the welkin ring. Yes, my friends, you may depend upon it that we see on every hand inspiring pictures of contentment, of prosperity, and of hope. Adams and Jefferson. — Webster. Adams and Jefferson are no more. They are no more, as bold and fearless advocates of independence, no more as aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are dead. But how little is there of the great and good that can die! To their country they yet live, and live for- ever. They live in all that perpetuates the remem- brance of men on earth: in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their in- tellect, in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their examples; and they live and will live in the influence which their lives and efforts, their prin- ciples and opinions, will exercise on the affairs of men 128 THE PEARL SPEAKER. not only in their own country, but throughout the civilized world. A superior and commanding intellect, a truly great man, when heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for awhile and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind, so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows; but it leaves the world all light and on fire from the potent contact of its own spirit. Bacon died; but the human understanding, roused by the touch of his miraculous wand to a perception of the true philosophy, has kept on its course success- fully and gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on in the orbits which he saw and described for them in the infinity of space. No two men now live — no two men have lived in any one age — who, more than those we now com- memorate, have impressed their sentiments on the politics and government of mankind, infused their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. The tree which they have planted will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep; it has sent them to the very center; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread their pro- tecting arms broader and broader; and its top is des- tined to reach the heavens. We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will come in which the American revolution THE PEARL SPEAKER. 129 will appear less than it is, one of the greatest events in human history. No age will come in which it will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step was made in human affairs on the fourth of July, 1776. And no age will come so ignorant or so unjust as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of those we now honor in producing that momentous event. The Yeto Power. — Henry Clay. Mr. President, I protest against the right of any chief to come into either House of Congress and scrutinize the motives of its members; to examine whether a measure has been passed with promptitude or repugnance ; and to pronounce upon the willingness or the unwillingness with which it has been adopted or rejected. The official and constitutional relations between the President and the two houses of Con- gress subsist with them as organized bodies. His action is confined to their consummated proceedings, and does not extend to measures in their incipient stages, during their progress through the houses, nor to the motives by which they are actuated. There are some parts of this message that ought to excite deep alarm, and that especially in which the President announces that each public officer may in- terpretthe Constitution as he pleases. Now I conceive, with great deference, that the President has mistaken the purport of the oath to support the Constitution of the United States. No one swears to support it as he understands it, but to support it simply as it is in truth. All men are bound to obey the laws of which the Constitution is the supreme law; but must they 130 THE PEARL SPEAKER. obey them as tliey are, or as they understand them? If the obligation of obedience is limited and con- trolled by the measure of information; in other words, if the party is bound to obey the Constitution only as he understands it, what will be the consequence? The judge of an inferior court will disobey the man- date of a superior tribunal because it is not in con- formity to the Constitution as he understands if; a custom-house officer will disobey a circular from the treasury department because contrary to the Consti- tution as he understands it; an American minister will disregard an instruction from the President, because not agreeable to the Constitution as he understands it; and a subordinate officer in the army or navy will violate the orders of his superiors because they are not in accordance with the Constitution as he under- stands it. We will have nothing settled, nothing stable, noth- ing fixed. There will be general disorder and confu- sion throughout every branch of the administration from the highest to the lowest officer — universal nul- lification. For what is the doctrine of the President but that of South Carolina applied throughout the Union? The President independent of both the Con- gress and the Supreme Court ! Only bound to execute the laws of the one and the decisions of the other, as far as they conform to the Constitution of the United States as he understands it! Then it should be the duty of every President, on his installation into office, carefully to examine all the acts in the statute-books and mark out those which he is resolved not to exe- cute, and to which he means to apply this new species of veto, because they are repugnant to the Constitu- tion as he understands it. And after every term of THE PEARL SPEAKER. 131 the Supreme Court he should send for the record of its decisions and discriminate between those which he will and those which he will not execute, because they are or are not agreeable to the Constitution as he un- derstands it. Mr. President, we are about to close one of the longest and most arduous sessions of Congress under the present Constitution; and when we return among our Constituents, what account of the operations of their government shall we be bound to communicate? We shall be compelled to say that the Supreme Court is paralyzed and the missionaries retained in prison in contempt of its authority and in defiance of numer- ous treaties and laws of the United States; that the executive, through the Secretary of the Treasury, sent to Congress a tariff bill which would have destroyed many branches of our domestic industry; and, to the final destruction of all, that the veto has been applied to the bank of the United States, our only reliance for a safe and uniform currency; that the Senate has been violently attacked for the exercise of a clear, constitutional power; that the House of Eepresenta- tives has been unnecessarily assailed; and that the President has promulgated a rule of action for those who have taken the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, that must, if there be practical conformity to it, introduce general nullification and end in the absolute subversion of the government. Jefferson Davis. — John Bandolph. Tucker. We join with the millions in the South to do rev- erence to the splendid name and fame of Jefferson 132 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Davis, the soldier, the statesman, and the Christian patriot. We will not revive the thoughts, the motives, or the actions of a past generation; but with warm and hon- est hearts we avow that, though our Confederacy be buried forever, we still love and revere the truth and integrity, the constancy and fortitude, the honor and the virtues, the genius and patriotism of the heroes who led and filled our armies; and of the executive chieftain whose master hand directed our destiny in that momentous crisis. And why do we join in this tribute to his memory? Because he was in himself worthy of admiration and esteem. He had a splendid intellect, keen and crit- ical in insight and profound and diligent in research. He was a philosophical thinker on the highest prob- lems of political science, and he had in a high degree the practical sense for the administration of public affairs. In the Senate, standing erect in mind and person as the champion of truth, he flung down the gage of battle in the arena of debate with a courage as heroic as his courtesy was knightly. His will was guided by the deepest conviction, his judgment was sound and reliable, and his soul was the seat of honor and of chivalry. Always true to his friends, he was firm and resolute to his foes. His affections were ar- dent, his impulses noble, his motives pure, and his faith in God fixed, humble, and sincere. Again, we owe him reverence, for Davis was the heroic friend of the Southland. He heard her clarion call, and he obeyed it with a religious purpose to save her liberty in the new Confederacy. He had experi- ence in statesmanship, knowledge of affairs, and per- sonal magnetism; with a resolution which could not THE PEARL SPEAKER. 133 be turned aside, and a will which would not yield to fear, he could not be seduced by policy or personal in- terest. Taking him as civilian and soldier, statesman and popular leader, as a judicious counselor, and the possessor of an aggressive and unbending will, I think it may be said that none of his contemporaries equaled him in the entireness of his manhood, though many excelled him in some one of his wonderful gifts. If he failed, who could have succeeded? If he made mistakes, which one of his contemporaries would have made less in number or less in degree? This much is undoubtedly true, Jefferson Davis heroically main- tained the principles for which the South contended, with an eye that never quailed, with a cheek that never blanched, with a step that never faltered, a courage that never flinched, a fortitude that never failed, a fidelity that even captivity could not repress, and with a constancy even unto death! For four years, without commerce or national recognition, with a government new and imperfectly organized, with an army and navy to be raised, with scarcely one-half the numbers of its foe, and less than half the resources, the Confederacy, under his leadership, and with the genius of its military and naval heroes, upheld a con- flict which was the miracle of the age in which it oc- curred, and will be the romance of the future his- torian. It is true the Confederacy went down below the horizon of history forever, and its name as a nation is effaced from the page of human annals for all time to come, yet the cheeks of our children will not blush for its fate, but will flush with pride and admiration as they hear the tale of patience, constancy and forti- tude, the adventurous daring and heroism, the gen- 134 I HE PEARL SPEAKER. ius of leadership, and the victories of their noble fathers. Our Confederacy sunk in sorrow, but not in shame. Dark and gloomy clouds gathered in heavy folds around its setting, but they did not, they could not blacken it! It lit them into effulgence with its transcendent glory. Continuation of the Same. Jefferson Davis deserves our reverence, because he stood for a quarter of a century in our place. He en- dured a cruel captivity of two years; and for many years afterward was the vicarious victim of obloquy and reproach that was due to us all. His fortitude and devotion to truth never failed. He endured not in silence, but with a protest which history has re- corded and will preserve as an emphatic vindication of the Confederacy from malign aspersions on the motives of its friends, on the origin and causes of its formation, and on the purposes of justice and liberty which inspired those who died in its defense, or who survived to illustrate its principles in doing the duties, public and private, which God in his providence as- signed them to perform. He died a citizen of Mis- sissippi and of the United States, and under disabil- ity to hold office under the government of the United States. He desired no place: why should he now de- sire a recognition who had filled his place in the tem- ple of fame and in the domain of history? He lived and died in personal dignity and in the peace of God. What artificial disability could taint his real nature? Why seek to remove it? He made an heroic and hon- est effort to give freedom and independence to the South, and had failed. God's will be done ! He chose the sacred retirement of home, its charms of family THE PEARL SPEAKER. 135 and friends, and waited with firm reliance on divine goodness for the last summons which comes to him who has humbly but bravely, conscientiously, and with undaunted courage and patience done his duty as he saw it, to truth, to his country, and to God. Virginia, keeping guard over the holy dust of Lee and Jackson, turns aside with millions of her coun- trymen, with mournful reverence and tender hearts, to twine a wreath of martial glory and weave a chap- let of civic fame to rest upon the tomb of Jefferson Davis. On the grave of our Confederacy will be in- scribed in imperishable characters the immortal name of the martial civilian who was its first, its only Pres- ident. We will plant flowers about it, and we will water them with our tears, not hoping for its antici- pated resurrection, but to embalm it in our fragrant memories and in our most precious affections. And then, turning from the ashes of the dead past to the active duty dictated by Johnston and Jackson and Lee and Davis, we will labor with a fidelity wrought by the stern but noble discipline of our past experi- ence for the maintenance of our constitutional liberty they imperiled their lives to save, and for the promo- tion of the true prosperity, progress, and glory of our common country. Defense of One on Tkial for Murder. — John J. Crittenden. Gentlemen, my task is done; the decision of this case, the fate of this prisoner, is in your hands. Guilty or innocent — life or death, whether the captive shall joyfully go free or be consigned to a disgraceful and ignominious death, all depend on a few words from you. 136 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Is there any thing in this world more like omnipo- tence, more like the power of the Eternal, than that you now possess? Yes, you are to decide: and, as I leave the case with you, I implore you to consider it well and mercifully before you pronounce a verdict of guilty — a verdict which is to cut asunder all the tender cords that bind heart to heart, and to consign this young man, in the flower of his days and in the midst of his hopes, to shame and to death. Such a verdict must often come up in your recollections, must live forever in your minds. And in after days, when the wild voice of clamor that now fills the air is hushed, when memory shall review this busy scene, should her accusing voice tell you you have dealt hardly with a brother's life, that you have sent him to death when you have a doubt whether it is not your duty to restore him to life, O what a moment that must be! How like a cancer will that remembrance prey upon your hearts ! But if, on the other hand, having rendered a con- trary verdict, you feel that there should have been a conviction, that sentiment will be easily satisfied. You will say: " If I erred, it was on the side of mercy; thank God I incurred no hazard by condemning a man I thought innocent! " How different the memory from that which may come in any calm moment, by day or by night, knocking at the door of your hearts, and reminding you that in a case where you were doubtful by your verdict you sent an innocent man to disgrace and death! O pronounce do such, I be- seech you, but on the most certain, clear, and solid grounds! If you err, for your own sake as well as his, keep on the side of humanity, and save him from THE PEARL SPEAKER. 137 so dishonorable a fate; preserve yourselves from so bitter a memory. I am no advocate, gentlemen, of any criminal licen- tiousness. I desire that society shall be protected, that the laws of my country may be obeyed and en- forced. Any other state of things I should deplore: but I have examined this case, I think, carefully and calmly. I see much to regret, much that I wish had never happened; but I see no evil intentions and mo- tives, no wicked malignity, and therefore no murder, no felony. There is another consideration of which we should not be unmindful. We are all conscious of the infirm- ities of our nature, and the law makes an allowance for such infirmities. The Author of our being has been pleased to fashion us out of great and mighty elements, which make us but little lower than the angels, but he has mingled in our composition weak- ness and passions. Will he punish us for frailties which nature has stamped upon us, or for their nec- essary results? The difference between these and acts that proceed from a wicked and malignant heart is founded on eternal justice; and, in the words of the Psalmist, "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." Shall not the rule He has estab- lished be good enough for us to judge by? Gentlemen, the case is closed. Again I ask you to consider it well before you pronounce a verdict which shall consign this prisoner to a grave of ignominy and dishonor. These are no idle words you have heard so often. This is your fellow-citizen — a youth of prom- ise, the rose of his family, the possessor of all kind and virtuous and manly qualities. It is the blood of a Kentuckian you are called upon to shed. The blood 138 THE PEARL SPEAKER. that flows in liis veins has come down from those noble pioneers who laid the foundations for the greatness and glory of our State; it is the blood of a race who have never spared it when demanded by their coun- try's cause. It is his fate you are to decide. I excite no poor, unmanly sympathy; I appeal to no low, groveling spirit. He is a man — you are men — and I only want that sympathy which man can give to man. I will not detain you longer; but you know — and it is right you should — the terrible suspense in which some of these hearts must beat during your absence. It is proper for you to consider this, for in such a case as this all the feelings of the mind and heart should sit in council together. Your duty is yet to be done; perform it as you are ready to answer for it here and hereafter. Perform it calmly and dispassionately, remembering that vengeance can give no satisfaction to any human being. But if you exercise it in this case, it will spread black midnight and despair over many aching hearts. May the God of all mercy be with you in your deliberations, assist you in the per- formance of your duty, and teach you to judge your fellow-man as you hope to be judged hereafter! Bum. (Adapted.) I have inquired, I have sought, I have read, and I have reflected; and as I have reflected, I have con- cluded that whisky is of all things hated the ally of discord. Rum is the breeder of sullenness, rum is the genius of disorder; and when the American people, roused from the intolerable apathy that holds them in its stupefying thrall, shall look around for the disturber of the public peace, they will discover THE PEARL SPEAKER. 139 that strong drink is the moving cause everywhere of nearly all the ills that afflict society. Rum is a dreadful knife whose edge is never red with blood, but it severs throats from ear to ear. It assassinates the peace of families, it cuts away honor from the family name, it lets out the vital spark of life, and is followed by inconsolable death. It pierces hearts, and enters the bosom of trust, goring it with gashes that God alone can heal. It is deaf to the cries of hungry children, and refuses to hear the pleadings of famished wives. Behold the barriers of flame it often throws around poor, despairing, miserable men! Listen to their indifference, their self-condemnation, their wail of agony! Can you wonder that the outcast abandons hope, and plunges the knife into his own heart? Driven to madness, and feeling that all is lost, he commits an act that does indeed lose every thing for him, for it bars the gates of heaven against him. Let us expel rum from the nation; let us establish a vigilant quarantine against him as an immigrant more to be dreaded than the deadliest plague or the most loathesome leprosy; and, thus protected, let so- briety reign without a drunkard to menace the peace of home, the safety of the street, the security of the highway, the sanctity of the shrine, or the incense of the altar. Then the bright morning-star of hope will twinkle over the cradle of innocence, the stronghold of youth, and the citadel of silver-haired age; it will hang in the gray gates of the dawn, the welcome her- ald of the king of the day, and erelong, with the transfiguring splendor of celestial pageantry, the con- quering monarch will mount his throne of fire and sway all the spaces with a scepter of light swung by love. 140 1HE PEARL SPEAKER. It is simply a question of pig-men or pig-iron; of outrage or order, of slavery to drink or the freedom of sobriety. America has many problems to solve, but the unknown quantity in every equation presented to statesmanship or philanthropy is the influence of the still and vat, the saloon and beer-garden, the drunkard and the cause of his drunkenness. Dethrone King Alcohol, and America will be free from despot- ism: a land of light, of love, and of liberty. Spartacus to the Gladiators At Capua. — E. Kellogg. Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus — a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when at noon I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture and partook together oar rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 141 an old man, was telling of Marathon, and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans. in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother part- ing the hair off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temple and bid me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse, the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arena; and when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died; the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked when in adventurous boyhood we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph. I told the pretor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile and mourn over its ashes. Ay, upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleding clay! And the pretor drew back as I were pollution, and sternly said: "Let the carrion rot, there are no noble men but Romans!" And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender 142 THE PEARL SPEAKER. nurse to me. Ah! thou hast given to that poor, gen- tle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe; to gaze into the glaring eye-balls of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl ! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deep- est ooze thy life-blood lies curdled! Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis breathing sweet per- fume from his curly locks shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn and bet sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours — and a dainty meal for him ye will be! If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylae. Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors ! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle! Spartacur to the Roman Envoys.— E. Kellogg. Envoys of Rome, the poor camp of Spartacus is too THE PEARL SPEAKER. 143 much honored by your presence. And does Eome stoop to parley with the escaped gladiator — with the rebel ruffian, to whom heretofore no slight has been too scornful ? You have come with steel in your right hand and with gold in your left. What heed we give the former, ask Cossineus; ask Claudius; ask Varin- ius; ask the bones of your legions that fertilize the Lucanian plains. And for your gold — would ye know what we do with that? Go ask the laborer and trod- den poor, the helpless and the hopeless on our route; ask all whom Roman tyranny had crushed or Roman avarice plundered. Ye have seen me before; but ye did not then shun my glance as now. Ye have seen me in the arena, when I was Rome's pet ruffian, daily smeared with blood of men or beasts. One day — shall I forget it ever? — ye were present; I had fought long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, your lord of the games, bethought him it were an equal match to set against me a new man, younger and lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance on his brow ! Bloody and brief the fight. " He has it!" cried the people; "habet! habet!" But still he lowered not his arm until, at length, I held him gash- ed and fainting in my power. I looked around upon the podium, where sat your senators and men of State, to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the van- quished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I was about to slay when a few hurried words — rather a welcome to death than a plea for life — told me he was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena van- ished. I was in Thrace, upon my native hills! The sword dropped from my hands. I raised the dying 144 THE PEARL SPEAKER. youth tenderly in my arms. O the magnaminity of Borne! Your haughty leaders, enraged at being cheated o£ their death-show, hissed their disappoint- ment and shouted: " Kill! " I heeded them as I would heed the howl of wolves. Kill him? They might better have asked the mother to kill the babe smiling in her face. Ah! he was already wounded unto death; and, amid the angry yells of the spectators, he died. That night I was scourged for disobedience. I shall not forget it; should memory fail, there are scars here to quicken it. Well; do not grow impatient. Some hours after, finding myself with seventy fellow-gladiators, alone in the amphitheater, the laboring thought broke forth in words. I said I know not what. I only know that when I ceased my comrades looked each other in the face, and then burst forth the simultaneous cry: " Lead on! lead on, O Spartacus! " Forth we rushed, seized what rude weapons chance threw in our way, and to the mountains speeded. There day by day our little band increased. Disdainful Rome sent after us a handful of her troops, with a scourge for the slave Spartacus. Their weapons soon were ours. She sent an army ; and down from old Vesuvius we poured and slew three thousand. Now it was Spartacus the dreaded rebel! A larger army, headed by the pretor, was sent and routed; then another still. And always I remember that tierce cry riving my heart and call- me to " kill ! " In three pitched battles have I obeyed it. And now affrighted Rome sends her two Con- suls and puts forth all her strength by land and sea, as if a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal were on her borders! Envoys of Rome! to Lentulus and Gellius bear this message: "Their graves are measured!" Look on THE PEARL SPEAKER. 145 that narrow stream, a silver thread high on the mount- ain side! Slenderly it winds; but soon, swelled by others meeting it, until a torrent terrible and strong, it sweeps to the abyss, where all is ruin. So Spar- tacus comes on; so swells his force — small and de- spised at first, but now resistless! On, on to Kome we come ! The gladiators come ! Let Opulence trem- ble in all his palaces! Let Oppression shudder to think the oppressed may have their turn! Let Cru- elty turn pale at thought of redder hands than his! we shall not forget Rome's many lessons! She shall not find her training was all wasted upon indo- cile pupils. Now, begone! prepare the eternal city for our games. ElENZI TO THE ROMANS. — MAEY RUSSELL MlTFORD. Friends! 1 come not here to talk. You know too well The story of our thralldom. We are slaves! The bright sun rises to his course, and lights A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam Falls on a slave — not such as, swept along By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads To crimson glory and undying fame; But base, ignoble slaves! — slaves to a horde Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords, Rich in some dozen paltry villages; Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great In that strange spell — a name ! Each hour dark fraud Or open rapine or protected murder Cries put against them. But this very day An honest man, my neighbor — there he stands — Was struck — struck like a dog by one who wore The badge of Ursius! because, forsooth 10 146 THE PEARL SPEAKER. He tossed not high his ready cap in air, Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men, And suffer such dishonor? Men, and wash not The stain away in blood? Such shames are common; I have known deeper wrongs, I that speak to ye : I had a brother once, a gracious boy, Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the look Of heaven upon his face, which limners gave To the beloved disciple. How I loved That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years, Brother at once and son ! He left my side, A summer bloom on his fair cheeks — a smile Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried For vengeance ! Bouse, ye Bomans ! rouse, ye slaves ! Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl To see them die! Have ye fair daughters? Look To see them live, torn from your arms, disdained, Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice, Be answered by the lash! Tet this is Borne, That safe on her seven hills, and from her throne Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Bomans. Why, in that elder day, to be a Boman Was greater than a King! And once again — Hear me, ye walls that echoed to the tread Of either Brutus! — once again I swear The Eternal City shall be free! The Soldier's Dream. — Thomas Campbell. Our bugle sung truce, for the night cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 147 And thousands had sunk on the ground overpow- ered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again. Me thought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed o'er a desolate track; 'Twas autumn — and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young, I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledged we tne wine-cups and fondly I swore From my .home and my weeping friends never to part: My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart: "Stay, stay with us— rest, thou art weary and worn!" And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. Besistance to British Aggeession. — Patrick Henry. Mr. President, it is natural to 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 of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is 148 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 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 our temporal 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 w T ay of judging the future but by the past; and, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which the gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has lately been received? Trust it not, sir: it will prove a snare to your feet! Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask your- selves how the 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 recon- ciled 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 argu- ments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us into 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 armies and navies? No, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 149 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 has been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we any thing 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 treaty and supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already ex- hausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive our- selves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to ar- rest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parlia- ment. Our petitions have been slighted, our remon- strances have produced additional violence and insult, our supplications have been 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 inviolate 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 ob- ject 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 ! 150 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Continuation of the Same. 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 hug- ging 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, and 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 act- ive, 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; let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain 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 the clash of re- sounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen THE PEARL SPEAKER. 151 wish? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be pur- chased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death ! North American Indians.— Sprague. Not many generations ago, where you now sit, en- circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved an- other race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head the Indian hunter pursued the pant- ing deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and the help- less, and the council fire glared on the wise and dar- ing. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here was the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowl- edged in every thing around. He beheld him in the star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling, in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne, in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze, in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirl- 152 THE PEARL SPEAKER. winds, in the timid warbler that never left its native grove, in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet in clouds, in the worm that crawled at his feet, and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration. And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprung up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nat- ure, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how un- like their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touch- ing ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council fires have long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sad- ly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide that is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder upon the structure of their disturbed remains, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 153 and wonder to what manner of man they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their un- happy fate as a people. Supposed Speech of John Adams. — Webster. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, in- deed, that at the beginning we aimed not at independ- ence; but "there's a divinity that shapes our end." The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth for it, and it is ours. Why, then, shall we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconcilia- tion with England, which shall leave either safety to the* country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair; is not he, our venerable colleague, near you; are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we 154 THE PEARL SPEAKER. intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men — that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war as well as the polit- ical hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives ? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of Amer- ican liberty, may my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him ! The war then must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they can never do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence than consent by repeal- ing her acts to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injustice and oppres- sion. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our independence than by yielding the points in contro- versy to her rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, sir, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 155 do we not, as soon as possible, change this from a civil to a national war? And> since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory? Conclusion of the Preceding. The cause will raise up armies, the cause will create navies. The people — the people — if we are true to them, will carry us and will carry themselves glori- ously through the struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts and can- not be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has ex- pressed its willingness to follow if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for restoration of privilege, for re- dress of grievances, for chartered immunities held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army: every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit: religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls ; proclaim it there ; let them hear it who first heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Con- cord: and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I 156 THE PEARL SPEAKER. see clearly through this day's business. You aud I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die — die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignomin- ously and on the scaffold! Be it so! Be it so! If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But, while I do live,, let me have a country, or at least the hope of country, and that a free country. But whatever may be our fate, be assured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure and it may cost blood, but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an im- mortal day. When we are in our graves our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiv- ing, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears — copious, gushing tears — not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress; but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour has come! My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope for in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Dec- laration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment — Independence now, and independence forever! Imperishability of Great Examples.— Everett. To be cold and breathless — to feel not and speak THE PEARL SPEAKER. 157 not — this is not the end of existence to the men who have breathed their spirits into the institutions of their country, who have stamped their characters on the pillars of the age, who have poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public prosperity. Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yonder sacred height, is Warren dead? Can you not still see him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving re- splendent over the field of honor, with the rose of heaven upon his cheek and the fire of liberty in his eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the shades of Mount Vernon, is Washington in- deed shut up in that cold and narrow house? That which made these men and men like these cannot die. The hand that traced the charter of independence is, indeed, motionless ; the eloquent lips that sustained it are hushed; but the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, and maintained it, and which alone, to such men, "make it life to live," these cannot expire: These shall resist the empire of decay, When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away; Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once can never die. The Baron's Last Banquet. — Albert G. Greene. O'er a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray, Where, in his last strong agony, a dying warrior lay — - The stern old Baron Budiger, whose frame had ne'er been bent By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had spent. 158 THE PEARL SPEAKER. " They come around me here, and say my days of life are o'er — That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no more: They come, and, to my beard, they dare to tell me now that I, Their own liege lord and master born, that I — ha, ha! — must die. "And what is death? I've dared him oft, before the Paynim spear; Think ye he's entered at my gate — has come to seek me here? I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was raging hot; I'll try his might, I'll brave his power! — defy, and fear him not! "Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, and fire the culverin ; Bid each retainer arm with speed ; call every vassal in ; Up with my banner on the wall; the banquet board prepare ; Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there!" A hundred hands were busy then; the banquet forth was spread, And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread; "While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted wall, Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, o'er the proud old Gothic hall. Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed re- tainers poured, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 159 On through the portals' frowning arch, and thronged around the board; While at its head, within his dark, carved oaken chair of state, Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger, with girded falchion sate. "Fill every beaker up, my men! pour forth the cheer- ing wine! There's life and strength in every drop — thanks- giving to the vine! Are ye all there, my vassals true? — mine eyes are waxing dim; Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim! " Ye're there, but yet I see you not! Draw forth each rusty sword, And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board! I hear it faintly; louder yet! What clogs my heavy breath? Up, all! and shout for Rudiger: 'Defiance unto death!'" Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel, and rose a deafening cry That made the torches flare around and shook the flags on high : "Ho, cravens! do ye fear him? Slaves! traitors! have ye flown? Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone? "But I defy him! let him come!" Down rang the massy cup, 160 THE PEARL SPEAKER. While from its sheath the ready blade came flashing half-way up; And, with the black and heavy plumes scarce trem- bling on his head, There, in his dark, carved oaken chair, old Rudiger sat — dead! Destruction of Sennacherib.— Lord Byron. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host, with their banners, at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strewn. For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still! And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, And through them there rolled not the breath of his pride ; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 161 And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! South Cakolina and Massachusetts, 1830. — Web- STEK. The eulogium pronounced on the State of South Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her revo- lutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concur- rence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of dis- tinguished 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 my countrymen, one and all. The Lawrences, the Butledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Ma- rions — Americans all — whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than their talent and patri- otism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation they served and honored the country, and the whole coun- try, and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears— does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suf- ferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of South Carolina. Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, rather. Sir, I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the 11 162 THE PEARL SPEAKER. spirit which is said to be 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, here in my place in the Senate or else- where, to sneer at public merit because it happened 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 patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endow- ment of heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just char- acter and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollec- tions; let me indulge in refreshing 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 the Kevolu- tion; hand to hand they stood around the adminis- tration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean upon them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist; alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatu- ral to such soil, 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 Massachusetts — she needs none. There she is; be- hold her and judge for yourselves. There is her his- tory: the world knows it by heart. The past is at least secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 163 Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New En- gland to Georgia; and there they 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 and fullness of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at it and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salu- tary and necessary restraints shall succeed to separate 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 vigor, 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. American Literature.— Geimke. We cannot honor our country with too deep a rev- erence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her count- less sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her harvest home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest sea and inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio and her 164 THE PEARL SPEAKER. majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich planta- tions of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family — our country? If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that which has sculptured with such energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and vividly the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe; if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the glit- tering march of armies and the revelry of the camp; the shrieks and blasphemies and all the horrors of the battle-field, then let us set on high for our imitation the blood-stained glories of Napoleon. If we desire to unchain the furious passions of jeal- ousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge, and ambi- tion, those lions that now sleep harmless in their den; if we desire that the lake, the river, the ocean should blush with the blood of brothers; that the winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the sea to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle; that the very mountain-tops should become altars for the sacrifice of brothers; if we desire that these and such as these — the elements, to an incredible extent, of the literature of the Old World — should be the elements of our literature then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the majestic statue of our Union, and scat- ter its fragments over all our land. But, if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, loveliest literature the world has ever seen; such a literature as shall honor God and bless mankind; a literature whose smiles might play upon an angel's THE PEARL SPEAKER. 165 face, whose "tears would not stain an angel's cheek," then let us cling to the union of these States with a patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a Christian's hope. In her heavenly character as a holocaust self- sacrificed to God; at the height of her glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peacefu], Christian people, American literature will find that the intellectual spirit is her very tree of life, and that union her garden of paradise. Death of Lafayette. — S. S. Peentiss. Death, who knocks with equal hand at the door of the cottage and the palace gates, has been busy at his appointed work. Mourning prevails throughout the land, and the countenances of all are shrouded in the mantle of regret. Far across the wild Atlantic, amid the pleasant vineyards in the sunny land of France, there too is mourning, and the weeds of sor- row are alike worn by prince and peasant. And against whom has the monarch of the tomb turned his remorseless dart, that such wide-spread sorrow should prevail? Hark! and the agonized voice of Freedom, weeping for her favorite son, will tell you in strains sadder than those with which she shrieked at Kosciusko's fall, that Lafayette, the gallant and good, has ceased to live. The friend and companion of Washington is no more. He who taught the eagle of our country, while yet unfledged, to plume his young wing and mate his talons with the lion's strength, has taken his flight far beyond the stars beneath whose influence he fought so well. Lafayette is dead. The gallant ship whose pennon has so often bravely streamed above 166 THE PEARL SPEAKER. the roar of battle and the tempest's rage has at length gone slowly down in the still and quiet waters. Well might thou, O death, now recline beneath the laurels thou hast won; and for awhile forego thy relentless task; for never since, as the grim messenger of al- mighty vengeance, thou earnest into the world did a more generous heart cease to heave beneath thy chill- ing touch, and never will thy insatiable dart be hurled against a nobler breast. Who does not feel, at the mournful intelligence, as if he had lost something cheering from his own path through life — as if some bright star at which he had been accustomed frequent- ly and fondly to gaze had been suddenly extinguished in the firmament? The page of history abounds with those who have struggled forth from the nameless crowd, and, stand- ing forward in the front ranks, challenged the notice of their fellow-men. But when, in obedience to their bold demand, we examine their claims to our admi- ration, how seldom do we find aught that excites our respect or commands our veneration! With what pleasure do we turn from the contemplation of the Csesars and Napoleons of the human race to meditate upon the character of Lafayette! We feel proud that we belong to the same species, we feel proud that we live in the same age, and we feel still more proud that our own country drew forth and nurtured those gen- erous virtues which went to form a character that, for love of liberty, romantic chivalry, unbounded gen- erosity arid unwavering integrity, has never had a parallel. The Lone Star of Texas. — Webb. The brilliancy of its dawn gives token of a bright THE PEARL SPEAKER. 167 and glorious future. What eye that beheld that star arise but became animated aud fired in the gaze upon its transcendent beauty, its wavering light, its divine struggles to gleam in the ascendant? Its feeble glim- mer was first discerned amid the storm and the tem- pest; occasionally, as the wrathful clouds would sepa- rate, its faint ray of youthful light and hope would dart forth, sprinkling, as with the roseate blush of morn, the thick panoply of the surrounding gloom, and finding its way to the deep recesses of many patriot bosom. The thunders of tyranny and the storms of oppression being well-nigh exhausted, this lone star was seen standing out upon the broad and silvery heaven of Texas in solitary but bold relief. No sister star was near to lend the light of her countenance or greet it with an approving smile. Not a beam which emanated from its effulgence was borrowed; not a ray of light did it cast over a benight- ed land but was given forth from its own brilliant and exhaustless orbit. Brighter and purer did it shine as it continued to rise and mount into the high heaven of hope and promise, but not without some- times almost failing to give token of its presence; it flickered as with expiring energy over the fierce and unequal conflict of Concepcion; it was seen faintly glimmering over the gory field of Goliad, and sending out the last ray of its hope upon the awful scene of the Alamo. It moved despondingly through all these scenes of bloody strife, presided at each mortal combat, cheered the weak and despairing, and shone with fearful dim- ness in that hour when the light of mortality of a Fannin and his brave companions was submerged in the night of eternal infamy. But lo! where next 168 THE PEARL SPEAKER. doth gleam this single star ? Over the immortal strug- gle of San Jacinto it hangs suspended; its light has returned; its rays enkindle with a sweeter, brighter, more entrancing fire; the battle rages; the fight is desperate, deadly; the neighing of the war-steed, the groaning of the dying soldier, the piercing, startling, enthusiastic cry of "Remember the Alamo! " all went up to heaven in a solemn league, and as they passed away "the lone star of Texas" blazed forth in re- splendent beauty and brightness, reflecting all over the consecrated ground of Jacinto a light in which was seen written in blazing capitals, " Victory ! Liberty ! Texas is Free!" The South During the Revolution. — Hayne, 1830. If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, that may challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina. Sir, from the very commencement of the Revolution up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condi- tion of her domestic affairs, though deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded with dif- ficulties, the call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound: every man became at once reconciled to his brethren; and the sons of Carolina were all seen crowding to- gether to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar of their common country. What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 169 Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her con- duct in that glorious struggle; but, great as is Jbke praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a generous zeal which did not surfer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a guarantee that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But trampling on all considerations either of interest or of safety, they rushed into conflict, and, fighting for principle, they periled all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world high- er examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance than by the Whigs of South Caro- lina during the Revolution. The whole State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an over- ' whelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. The " plains of Carolina " drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitation of her children. Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impen- etrable swamps, even then the spirit of liberty sur- vived; and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved by her con- duct that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible. Part of Emmet's Defense. What have I to say why sentence of death should 170 THE PEARL SPEAKER. not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say which can alter your predetermination, or that it would become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and which I must abide. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and which you have labored, as was necessarily your office in the present circumstances of this oppressed country, to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds can be so free from impurity as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter. I have no hope that I can anchor my character in the heart of a court constituted and trammeled as this is. I only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice until it finds some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the rude storm by which it is at present buffeted.* Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor! Let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression and miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks for my views. No inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic ty- * Emmet's Defense No. 2 may be introduced after "buffeted." THE PEARL SPEAKER. 171 rant. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived for my country, who have sub- jected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watch- ful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence — am I to be loaded with calumny, and riot suffered to resent it? No; God for- bid! If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a mo- ment, deviated from those principles of morality aud patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for which I am now to offer up my life. My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim: it cir- culates, warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be ye patient! I have but a few more words to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extin- guished. My race is run. The grave opens to re- ceive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask, at my departure from this world: it is the charity of silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dare now vindi- cate them, let not prejudice or ignorance calumniate 172 THE PEARL SPEAKER. me. Let me lie in my grave with no epitaph above my head until other men and other times can do justice to my memory. Then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. Paet of Emmet's Defense. (No. 2.) Were I only to suffer death after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor in its own vindication to consign my char- acter to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere: whether in the sentence of the court or in the catas- trophe, posterity must determine. Man dies, but his memory lives; that mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field, in the defense of their country and of virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domina- tion by blasphemy of the Most High; which dis- plays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts its hand, in the name of God, against the throat of that doomed creature who doubts a little more or a lit- tle less than the government standard; a government THE PEARL SPEAKER. 173 which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the or- phans and the widows it has made. I appeal to the immaculate God; I swear by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear; by the blood of the martyred patriots who have gone before me, that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and through all my purpose, governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and by no other view than the cure and the emancipation of my country from the super-inhuman oppression un- der which she has too long and too patiently groaned. [After several interruptions by Lord Norbury, he proceeded.] I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the law; I have also understood that judges sometimes think it their duty to hear with patience and to speak with humanity: to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer with ten- der benignity their opinions of the motives by which he was actuated in the crime of which he had been found guilty. That a judge has found it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your institutions, where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy and not your justice is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vin- dicate the principles by which he was actuated? My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold, but worse to me than the purposed shame of the scaffold's terrors would be the tame endurance of charges and impu- 174 THE PEARL SPEAKER. tations laid against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit! If I stand at the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this bar, and dare not vindicate it, how dare you calumniate it! Does your sentence of death, which your policy inflicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period cf my ex- istence; but while I exist I will not cease to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions, and as a man to whom fame is dearer than life I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and love and for whom I am proud to perish. Emmet's Defense. (Part 3.) I am charged with being an emissary of France! An emissary of France! and for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I am no emissary: and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achieve- ment! Sell my country's independence to France! Was it for a change of masters? No! but for ambi- tion! O my country, had it been personal ambition that influenced me, had that been the soul of my ac- tions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed THE PEARL SPEAKER. 175 myself amongst the proudest of my oppressors? My country was my idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life! No, my lord, I acted as an Irishman, deter- mined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyrant, from a crimson and bloody tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction which is joint partner and perpetra- tor in the patricide; from the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly-riveted despotism. I wished to put her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth; I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world. Connection with France was indeed intended; but only as far as our mutual interest would sanction and require. "Were they to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction. We sought aid, and we sought it as we had assurance we should obtain it: as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. Were the French to come as invaders or ene- mies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I should advise you to meet them upon the beach, with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other ; I would meet them with all the destructive fury, and I would animate my countrymen to immo- late them in their boats before they had contami- nated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior dis- cipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last intrenchment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do 176 THE PEARL SPEAKER. myself, if I should fail, I should leave as a last charge to my countrymen to accomplish, for I should feel conscious that life, any more than death, is unprof- itable when a foreign nation holds my country in subjection. But it was not as an enemy that the succors of France were to land. I looked in- deed for assistance to France; but I wished to prove to France and the world that Irishmen de- served to be assisted; that they were indignant at slavery, and ready to assert the independence and liberty of their country. I wished to procure for my country the guarantee that Washington procured for America; to procure an aid, which by its example would be as important as its valor, disciplined and gallant, pregnant with science and experience; who would perceive the good, and polish the rough points of our character. They would come to us as strangers and leave us as friends, after sharing oar evils and alleviating our burdens. These were my objects, not to receive new task-makers, but to expel old tyrants; these were my views, and these only become Irishmen. I know your most implacable enemies are in the bosom of your country. I have been charged with that importance in the efforts to emancipate my country as to be considered the key-stone of the com- bination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expresses it, "the life and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honor overmuch; you have given to a subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conception of yourself, my lord; men before the splendor of whose genius and virtues I shall bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves dishonored to be called THE PEARL SPEAKER. 177 your friend; who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand. Cataline's Defiance.— Croly. Conscript Fathers! I do not rise to waste the night in words; Let the Plebeian talk: 'tis not my trade; Bat here I stand for right, For Koman right; though none, it seems, dare stand To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there! Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves! His charge is false But this I will avow, that I have scorned, And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong! Who brands me on my forehead, breaks my sword, Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts The gates of honor on me, turning out The Roman from his birthright; and for what? To fling your offices to every slave — Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb, And having wound their loathsome track to the top, Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome, Hang hissing at the nobler man below! Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones; Fling down your scepters; take rod and ax, And make the murder as you make the law! Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free From the daily contact of the things I loathe? "Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this? Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? Banished! I thank you for it. It breaks my chain! I held some slack allegiance till this hour, 12 178 THE PEARL SPEAKER. But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords! I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, I have within my heart's hot cells shut up. But here I stand to scoff you! here, I fling Hatred and full defiance in your face! Here I devote your senate! I've had wrongs To stir a fever in the blood of age, Or make an infant's sinews strong as steel. This day's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords! For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods, Shapes hot from Tartarus! — all shames and crimes! Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn; Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup; Naked Eebellion, with the torch and ax, Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones; Till Anarchy comes down on you like night, And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave. William Tell and Switzerland. — Knowles. Once Switzerland was free! With what a pride I used to walk these hills, look up to heaven, And bless God that it was so ! It was free ! From end to end, from cliff to lake, 'twas free; Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks, And plow our valleys without asking leave; Or, as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow In very presence of the regal sun ! How happy was I in it then! I loved THE PEARL SPEAKER. 179 Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge The wind came roaring. I have sat and eyed The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled To see him shake his lightning o'er my head, And think I had no master save his own. You knew the jutting cliff, round which a track Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow To such another one, with scanty room For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along, And while gust followed gust more furiously, As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, And I have thought of other lands, whose Storms are summer flaws to those of mine, and just Have wished me there; the thought that mine was free Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head And cried in thralldom to that furious wind: "Blow on! this is the land of liberty! " William Tell among the Mountains.— Knowles. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the hands you first beheld, To show they still are free. Methinks I hear A spirit in your echoes answer me, And bid your tenant welcome to his home Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! How high you lift your heads unto the sky! How huge you are! how mighty, and how free! Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, 180 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Eobed or unrobed, do all the impress wear Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you once again. I call to you With all my voice! I hold my hands to you, To show they still are free. I rush to you As though I could embrace you ! Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow O'er the abyss; his broad-expanded wings Lay calm and motionless upon the air, As if he floated there without their aid, By the sole act of his unlorded will That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still His airy circle, as in the delight Of measuring the ample range beneath And round about; absorbed, he heeded not The death that threatened him. I could not shoot! 'Twas liberty! I turned my bow aside, And let him soar away. A Psalm of Life. — Longfellow. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream ! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal: "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow Is our destined end and way; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 181 But to act that each to-morrow Find us further than to-day. Art is long and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! Heart within and God o'erhead. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us Foot-prints on the sands of time. Foot-prints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate ; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. Gen. Bain's Beply. On behalf of the gallant men before us I accept these colors and return to you, and through you to the fair donors, our most hearty thanks for the beau- 182 THE PEARL SPEAKER. tiful gift and the handsome manner in which it has been presented. I feel conscious of the sacred trust I assume in receiving from the hands of beauty this glorious emblem of human rights; and had I the least lingering apprehension that its proud folds would ever wave above one coward heart, or trail be- neath a conquering foe, I would refuse to accept the proffered gift. But, sir, I can accept it with the con- fident assurance that they will defend it with a pa- triotic zeal which shall infinitely prefer death to dis- honor. From the " Old Dominion " they have snuffed the scent of battle and caught the shout of victory from on high, and are champing at the bit for the fight. Tell the fair dames from whom you bear your commission that these men will never disgrace that Hag ; that they will prize it as the dearest object of a sol- dier's affection, the holiest emblem of a just cause, and the grandest incentive of a patriotic chivalry. Tell them, too, that in the shock of battle, when grim- visaged war shall shake his gory locks, bristle his angry crest, and send his death-dealing messengers thick and fast among their ranks, they will turn their eyes to where that banner floats, and, catching fresh inspiration from its proud folds, they will march with steadier step and stouter heart to the deadly as- sault. It will give newer zest to the soldier's joy when a field has been won, and soothe the dying pangs of those whose blood the victory cost. To you, brave men, I commit this banner. To your keeping is committed the sacred badge of an oppressed peo- ple's rights. Take it and defend it. Defend it with your valor and your lives. Defend it for the love of those who gave it. Defend it for the honor of those who bear it. Let it be to you the never-failing THE PEARL SPEAKER. 183 incentive to heroism, the sure harbinger of victory, and the symbol o£ an everlasting devotion to a holy cause. And should it be your good fortune to fling it to the breeze in the face of the foe, then rear with your stout arms an impenetrable rampart about it, or build with your lifeless bodies a sacred mausoleum above it. You may fall, brave men, in defending the trust you have this day assumed; but if fall you must, you will not fall in vain. You may sleep the silent sleep of death on some far off battle-field, mingled with the undistinguished dust of thousands more, but your name will still live and linger among those for whom you died. Nowhere can a man fall more glo- riously than in defense of his own liberty and his coun- try's honor. In no way can he make his name sweet- er to surviving friends. In no way can he invest with brighter memory the sod which shall one day cover him than to fall battling for his country's freedom. The story of your deeds, recalling, as I know they will, the well-fought battle-field with all its brilliant associations, will send a thrill of sympathy through the heart of every true lover of the South, xlnd now, my brave boys, with the blessings of age and the bene- dictions of patriotic hearts, you go forth to add fresh laurels to the chaplet of Tennessee's glory. With one parting look to the bright sun, and one prayer to heaven, with one glance at that banner which floats so gloriously on high, Rush on like the young lion When he bounds on his prey, Let your sword flash on high, Fling the scabbard away; Rush on like the thunder-bolt Over the plain, We'll come back in glory, Or we'll come not again. 184 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The Peoblem of the Hour. — Henry W. Grady. Never, sir, lias such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never before in the history of 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 man was shut out of this republic because he was an alien and inferior. The red man was the owner of the land, the yellow man highly civil- ized and assimilable ; but they hindered both sections, and are gone. But the black mau, 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 pros- perity. It matters not that other races have been excluded and routed, without rhyme or reason. It matters not that wherever the whites and blacks have touched, in any era or in 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 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 univer- sal verdict of racial history. And we are driven to this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks no delay, a vigor that accepts no excuse, and a sus- picion that discourages frankness and sincerity. We do not shrink from this trial. It is so interwoven with our industrial fabric that we could not clisen- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 185 tangle it if we would, so bound up in our honora- ble obligation to the world that we would not if we could. Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our hands alone can know. But this the weakest and wis- est 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 through 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 feel the beatings of your approving hearts. The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South — the men whose fathers made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American history, whose courage and fortitude you tested in four 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 prob- lem in their hearts and 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 wdiose de- spite 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 ap- prehension than is needed to complete their conse- cration. 186 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Eolla's Speech. — Sheridan. My brave associaties! partners of my toil, my feel- ings, and my fame! can Holla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts ? No ; you have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, plunder, and extended rule; ice for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love, a God whom we adore. Where'er they move in anger, deso- lation tracks their progress! Where'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship ! They boast they come to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds who are them- selves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection. Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs, covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all of good we have inher- ited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this : The throne we honor is the people's choice, the laws we reverence are oar brave fathers' legacy, the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind and die with the hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this; and tell them, too, we seek no change, and, least of all, such change as they would bring us. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 187 Centennial Address.— Judge Story. The old world has already revealed to us in its un- sealed books the beginning and the end of all its marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece, " the land of scholars and the nurse of arms," where sister republics in fair processions chanted the praises of liberty and the gods; where and what is she? For two thousand years the op- pressor has bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery; the fragments of her palaces and her columns ar 4 e in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermop- ylae and Marathon, and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She fell, conquered by her factions and by the hands of her own people. Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun, where and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her des- olation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal dis- ease was upon her vitals before Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The Goths and Yandals and Huns, the swarms of the north completed only what was begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold, but the people offered the trib- ute money. And where are the republics of modern times which clustered around immortal Italy? Venice and Genoa exist but in name. The Alps, indeed, look 188 THE PEARL SPEAKER. down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss, in their native fastness, but the guaranty of their freedom is in their weakness and not in their strength. Nature presents her eternal barriers on every side, to check the wantonness of ambition; and Switzerland remains with her simple institutions, a military road to fairer climates, protected by the jealousy of her neighbors. "If He Live till Sundown To-moeeow, He Will Get Well."— Heney W. Geady. A soldier lay wounded in a hard-fought field; the roar of the battle had died away, and he rested in the deadly stillness of its aftermath. Not a sound was heard as he lay there, sorely smitten and speech- less, but the shriek of the wounded and the sigh of the dying soul as it escaped from the tumult of earth into the unspeakable peace of the stars. Off over the field flickered the lanterns of the surgeons, with their litter-bearers, searching that they might take away those whose lives could be saved, and leave in sorrow those who were doomed to die with pleading eyes through the darkness. This poor soldier watched, unable to move or speak, as the lantern drew nearer. At last the light flashed in his face, and the surgeon, with kindly glance, bent over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head, and was gone, leaving the poor fellow alone with death. He watched in patient agony as they went on from one part of the field to another. As they came back the surgeon bent over him again. "I believe if this poor fellow lives till sundown to-morrow, he will get well," again leaving him not with death, but with hope. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 189 All night long those words fell into his heart, as the dews fell from the stars upon his lips: " If he but live till sundown, he will get well." He turned his weary head to the east, and watched for the coming sun. At last the stars went out, the east trembled with radiance, and the sun, slowly lifting above the horizon, tinged his pallid face with flame. He watched it inch by inch as it climbed slowly up the heavens. He thought of life, its hopes and ambitions, its sweetness and its raptures, and he fortified his soul against despair until the sun had reached high noon. It sloped down its slow descent, and his life was ebbing away, and his heart was faltering, and he needed stronger stimulants to make him stand the struggle until the end of the day had come. He thought of his far off home — the blessed house resting in tranquil peace with the roses climbing to its door, and the trees whispering to its windows, and the or- chard dozing in the sunshine, and the little brook running like a silver thread through the forest. " If I live till sundown, I shall see it again. I will walk again down the shady lane. I will open the battered gate, and the mock-bird shall call to me from the orchard, and I will drink again at the old mossy spring." And he thought of the wife that had come from the neighboring farm-house and put her hand shyly in his, and brought sweetness to his life and light to his home. " If I live till sundown, I shall look once more into her deep and loving eyes, and press her brown head once more to my aching breast." And he thought of his old father, patient in prayer, bending lower and lower every year with his load of sorrow and old age. " If I but live till sundown, I shall see him again and wind my strong 190 THE PEARL SPEAKER. arms about his feeble body, and his hands shall rest on my head while the unspeakable healing of his blessing falls into my heart." And he thought of the little children that clambered on his knees and tan- gled their little hands in his heart-strings, making him such music as the world shall not equal or heaven surpass. "HI live till sundown, they shall again find my parched lips with their warm mouths, and their little fingers shall run once more over my face." And he then thought of his old mother, who gathered these children about her, and breathed her old heart afresh in their brightness, and attuned her old lips anew to their prattle, that she might live till her big boy came home. " If I live till sundown, I will see her again, and I will rest my head at my old place on her knees, and weep away all memory of this desolate night." And the Son of God who died for men, bend- ing from the stars, put the hand that had been nailed to the cross upon the ebbing life, and he held on the stanch until the sun went down, and the stars came out and shone down on the brave man's heart, and blurred in his glistening eyes, and the lantern of the surgeon came, and he was taken from death to life. The world is a battle-field strewn with the wrecks of governments and institutions, of theories and of faiths, that have gone down in the ravage of years. On this battle-field lies the South, sown with her problems. Amid the carnage walks the great Physi- cian. Over the Pouth he bends. If ye shall live till sundown, ye shall endure, my countrymen. Let us then turn our faces to the east and watch as the sol- dier watched for the coming sun. Let us stanch her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mounts the skies. As it descends to us, minister to her and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 191 stand constant at her side, for the sake of onr chil- dren and the generations nnborn that shall suffer if she fail. And when the sun has gone down and the day of her probation is ended, and the stars have rallied her heart, the lantern shall be swung over the field, and the great Physician shall lead her up from trouble into content, from suffering into peace, from death to life. Let every man here pledge himself in this high and ardent hour, as I pledge myself; every man, hand to hand and heart to heart, that in death and earnest loyalty, in patient and painstaking care, he will watch her interest, advance her fortunes, defend her fame, and guard her honor as long as life shall last. Every man under the sound of my voice, under the deep consecration he owes to the Union, will consecrate himself to the South. Have no ambition but to be first at her feet and last at her service ; no hope but, after a long life of devotion, to sink into sleep in her bosom as a little child sleeps at its mother's breast and rests untroubled in the light of her smile. Young Men and Temperance.— Cuyler. During the next quarter of this century the moral destiny of the world depends upon the youth of this present age. The strong hands of the veterans are, one by one, palsied by the touch of age. The voices that have rung out for God and truth are slowly passing into the harmonies of a better world. Upon your shoulders the ark of reform is hence to rest. In your hands the torch of human progress is to be borne onward. The God of love stood by the tem- perance reform from its cradle and guided it onward through its most critical periods. To the young men 192 THE PEARL SPEAKER. of our time it is now committed, both as a trial and as a trust. What is it that God and humanity demand of us? What is the great question for our practical solution? Unless we greatly err, that question sim- ply is: Shall we, by Jehovah's help, destroy the traf- fic in intoxicating poisons ? or shall they destroy us ? Shall we send alcohol to his grave, or permit him to send a myriad of our comrades to their own? Shall we consent to have the most brilliant intellects among us any longer extinguished? Shall we permit the fair bride of to-day to become the desolate widow of to- morrow? Shall we stand idly by and see the noblest of our brotherhood go down to darkness and the worm? Shall we suffer this monster evil to cast its hideous shadow athwart the rays that fall from Cal- vary itself? or shall we, hand in hand, join in the strug- gle against it? The destiny of millions hangs upon our answer. The determination of this question demands great plainness of speech, as well as earnestness in action. Let us learn to speak right out. The press that is silent upon this subject deserves a place in the cellars of Herculaneum. The legislator wdio has not studied it is unworthy of the seat he incumbers. The orator is to point his shafts, the voter must aim his ballots, and the philanthropist direct his prayerful efforts straight toward this as the grand moral question of the age. Comrades in this sublime warfare, we are com- passed about with a great cloud of witnesses. Hu- manity beckons onward. We tread upon the dust of heroes as we advance. White-robed love, floating in mid-air before us, leads us to the conflict. The shouts of the ransomed are in our tents, and the voice of praise makes music amid our banners. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 193 Let us press forward with our age. Let us wear a bright link in the history of our country. Let us lie down to our rest nearer to the goal of human perfec- tion. Let us find in our toils an ever exciting stim u- lus, an ever fresh delight. So shall our posterity be cheered by that sun which shall shine with a seven- fold luster, as " the light of seven days." The Corrupters of Youth Abandon Their Vic- tims. — Beecher. Kemember, young men, if evil men entice you to ruin, you will have to bear it alone. They are strong to seduce, but heartless to sustain their victims. They will exhaust your means, teach you to despise the God of your fathers, lead you into every vice, go with you while you afford them any pleasure or profit; and then, when the inevitable disaster of wickedness be- gins to overwhelm you, they will abandon whom they have debauched. When at length death gnaws at your bones and knocks at your heart; when stagger- ing and worn out, your courage wasted, your hope gone, your purity and long, long ago your peace gone — will he who first enticed your steps now serve your extremity with one office of kindness? Will he stay your head, cheer your dying agony with one word of hope, or light the way for your coward steps to the grave, or weep when you are gone, or send one piti- ful scrap to your desolate family? What reveler wears crape for a dead drunkard? what gang of gam- blers ever intermitted a game for the death of a com- panion or went on missions of relief to broken-down fellow-gamblers? what harlot weeps for a harlot? what debauchee mourns a debauchee? They would 13 194 THE PEARL SPEAKER. carouse at your funeral and gamble on your coffin. If one flush more of pleasure were to be had by it, they would drink shame and ridicule to your memory out of your own skull, and roar in bacchanal revelry over your damnation. A Midnight Mukdee. — Anonymous. 'Twas night! and the stars were shrouded in a veil of mist; a cloudy canopy overhung the world, the vivid lightnings flashed and shook their fiery darts upon the earth, the deep-toned thunder rolled along the vaulted sky, the elements were in commotion, the the storm-spirit howled in the air, the winds whistled, the hail-stones fell like leaden balls, the huge undu- lations of the ocean dashed against the rock-bound shore, and torrents leaped from the mountain-tops; when the murderer sprung from his sleepless couch with vengeance on his brow, murder in his heart, and the fell instrument of destruction in his hand. The storm increased, the lightnings flashed with brighter glare, the thunder growled with a deeper energy, the winds whistled with a wilder fury, the confusion of the hour was congenial to his soul and the stormy passions which raged within his bosom. He clinched his weapon with a sterner grasp; a demoniac smile gathered on his lip; he grated his teeth, raised his arm, sprung with a yell of triumph on his victim, and relentlessly killed — a bed-bug. Washington and Clay.— Charlton. Above the bosom of the broad Potomac a hill lifts its head on high and throws its shadows on the danc- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 195 ing wave. There, on that gentle declivity is a vault, and there, fast moldering into dust, is a noble and gallant heart that throbbed once with the purest pa- triotism, the highest, loftiest courage. There withers the arm that struck down the hosts of the enemy and flung to the breeze the banner of our freedom. There the feet are at rest that plunged through ice and snow, that trod the burning sands; and the mind that con- ceived, and the spirit that nourished, and the iron energy that executed, and the bold and noble man whose form contained all these, and to whom, under God, we this day owe our greatness and glory — all are buried there. No unhallowed foot tramples upon that sacred soil. The rude laugh is hushed and the fierce strife restrained; and with tearful eyes and un- covered brows generations have stood, and generations will stand, around and about the grave of Washington. And why? Was it simply because he was a mighty warrior? So was Napoleon. Was it because he struck boldly for his country's banner? So did thou- sands besides him. It was these, but it was more : it was because he added to his powerful mind the pure and lofty principles of morality, and crowned the rest by a heavenly faith, a confiding hope, a holy life. Never be ashamed, my young friends, of being es- teemed religious. If any mock you, if any ask you what courageous, what noble mind has ever embraced its holy teachings, point them to that tomb, beside yon bounding river, and answer: "Washington." Another name should here be mentioned. The tears are still in the eyes of this great nation, the heart of our country is still throbbing with unfeigned sorrow at the loss of one who was chief among the orators, the patriots, the sages of America. Amid the 196 THE PEARL SPEAKER. pride of station, the crowd of honors, the cheering uproar of applause, surrounded by prosperity, by friends, by fame, the still small voice of the messen- ger from heaven whispered to his heart: "All this is not thy rest: follow thou me." And he obeyed; first doubtfully, then willingly, and at the close gladly; and so life sweetly, beautifully passed away, leaving the name of Henry Clay dear to us for his brave and patriotic and splendid achievements, but dearer to the Christian heart for the humility and faith and hope which clustered around life's closing scenes. Speech on the Trial of a Murderer. — Daniel Webster. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and punish- ment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobium, how much soever it may be ; which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning or a hand in ex- ecuting this deed of midnight assassination may be brought to answer for their euormous crime at the bar of public justice. This is a most extraordinary case. In some re- spects it has no precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation upon their virtue, overcoming it before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or to satiate long-settled and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 197 deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-mak- ing murder. It was all " hire and salary, and not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life, the counting out of so many pieces of silver for so many ounces of blood. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house and in his own bed, is made the victim of butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in a spot where least to have been looked for, here in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the blood-shot eye emitting livid fires of malice; let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless de- mon; a picture in repose rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its deprav- ity and in its paroxysms of crime as an infernal nat- ure, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character. The deed was executed with a degree of self-pos- session and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The as- sassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces a lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs and reaches the door 19S THE PEARL SPEAKER. of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges, and he enters and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon resting on the gray locks of his aged temple showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes without a struggle or a motion from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wound of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse. He feels it and ascertains that it beats no longer. The deed is done. He re- treats, he retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. No eye has seen him; no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and he is free! Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises and beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is that " murder will out." True it is that providence hath so ordained and doth so govern things that those who break the great law of heaven by shedding men's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. A thou- sand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every THE PEARL SPEAKER. 199 thing, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle, at the slightest circumstance, into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own se- cret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an irresist- ible impulse to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it does not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confes- sion but suicide, and suicide is confession. Soliloquy of Henky IV. — Shakespeake. O sleep, gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 200 THE PEARL SPEAKER. And steep my senses in f orgetf ulness ? Why, rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile, In loathesome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, A watch-case to a common 'larum bell? Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude, imperious surge; And, in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deafening clamors in the slippery shrouds, That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes? Canst thou, O partial Sleep ! give thy repose To the wet sea boy, in an hour so rude, And in the calmest and the stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy, lowly clown! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. The Closing Yeak.— Pkentice. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell Of the departed year. No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, Like a pale and spotless shroud; the air is stirred THE PEARL SPEAKER. 201 As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the seasons seem to stand — Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter, with his aged locks — and breathe In mournful cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind harp's wild, touching wail, A melancholy dirge, o'er the dead year, Gone from the earth forever. 'Tis a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of time Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions that have passed away, And left no shadow of their loveliness In the dead waste of life. That specter lifts The coffin lid of Hope and Joy and Love, And bending mournfully above the pale, Sweet forms that slumber, scatters dead flowers O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man; and the haughty form Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er 202 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The battle plain, where sword and spear and shield Flashed in the light of midday; and the strength Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushing and moldering skeleton. It came, And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams. Remorseless Time! Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity. On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depth, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane, And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and sinks down To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain; and empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 203 Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, Time, the tomb-builder, holds its fierce career, Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he had wrought. The Dying Alchemist. — Willis. The night wind with a desolate moan swept by, And the old shutters of the turret swung Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon, As the torn edges of the cloud flew past, Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes So dimly that the watchful eye of death Scarcely was conscious when it went and came. The fire beneath his crucible was low, Yet still it burned; and ever, as his thoughts Grew insupportable, he raised himself Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals With difficult energy; and when the rod Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips Muttered a curse on death ! The silent room From its dim corners mockingly gave back His rattling breath; the humming in the fire Had the distinctness of a knell ; and when Duly the antique horologe beat one, He drew a vial from beneath his head, 204 THE PEARL SPEAKER. And drank; and instantly his lips compressed, And with a shudder in his skeleton frame He rose with supernatural strength, and sat Upright, and communed with himself: "I did not think to die Till I had finished what I had to do ; I thought to pierce the eternal secret through With this my mortal eye. I felt— O God! it seemeth even now, This cannot be the death-dew on my brow; And yet it is; I feel Of this dull sickness at my heart afraid; And in my eyes the death sparks flash and fade, And something seems to steal Over my bosom like a frozen hand, Binding its pulses with an icy band. And this is death! But why Feel I this wild recoil? It cannot be The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free! Would it not leap to fly, Like a chained eaglet, at its parent's call? I fear, I fear that this poor life is all! Yet thus to pass away ! To live but for a hope that mocks at last! To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast, To waste the light of day, Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought, All that we have and are, for this! for naught! — Grant me another year, God of my spirit! but a day, to win Something to satisfy this thirst within ! I would know something here. Break for me but one seal that is unbroken! Speak for me but one word that is unspoken ! THE PEARL SPEAKER. 205 Vain, vain! my head is turning With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick, And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick, And I am freezing, burning, Dying! O God, if I might only live! My vial! — ha, it thrills me; I revive. Ay, were not man to die, He were too glorious for this narrow sphere! Had he but time to brood on knowledge here, Could he but train his eye, Might he but wait the mystic word and hour, Only his Maker would transcend his power! Earth has no mineral strange, The illimitable air no hidden wings, Water no quality in its covert springs, And fire no power to change, Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell, Which the unwasting soul might not compel. O but for time to track The upper stars into the pathless sky; To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye; To hurl the lightning back; To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls; To chase Day's chariot to the horizon's walls; And more, much more (for now The life sealed fountains of my nature move); To nurse and purify this human love; To clear the godlike brow Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down, Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one. This were indeed to feel The soul thirst slaken at the living stream; To live — O God! that life is but a dream; And death — Aha! I reel — 206 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Dim — dim — I faint — darkness comes over my eye; Cover me! save me! God of heaven! I die! " Alcohol. What is alcohol, that fiery principle in all spiritu- ous liquors? and whence is it obtained? Is it one of those good things which a bounteous Providence has given for the comfort and happiness of man ? Ask nat- ure in all her wide domain, explore her secret laborato- ries, for this mighty agent, and the indignant response reverberates through the deep caverns of earth : " It is not in me." Neither the mineral, animal, or vegetable world know aught of alcohol. Chemistry has never yet found it one among the compounds built up by plants. The solar beam which reaches like the finger of God across the abyss of space, and in the labora- tory of vegetation takes to pieces poisonous gases and puts together their atoms in new groups, which are capable of nourishing the animal body; this celestial force never arranged together the atoms that form alcohol. On the contrary, it is a production of disso- lution — of the wreck and decomposition of the prin- ciples of human food. It is the result not of growth, but of decay; not of life, but of death. It has the same origin as those malignant and fatal exhalations which constitute the germs of pestilence, the death and putrefaction of organic matter. It no more forms a part of the cereal grains from the decay and decom- position of which it may be obtained than does the deadly miasmata that arise from putrid vegetation. American Progress.— Hilliard. Our progress has more than transcended that of the fabled god of the ancients, who, beginning his THE PEARL SPEAKER. 207 morning journey in the east, drove his flaming chariot through the sky until he dipped his glowing axle in the western waves. Behind us have sprung up all the blessings of a high civilization; nor will they disap- pear beneath the waves of that placid ocean which we have reached in our march. There they will grow and flourish, and the kindly luster will spread over the Polynesian island and gild the distant shores of Asia with a richer and purer splendor than they ever enjoyed before. We are yet in the freshness of our youth; our coun- try, the latest born of the great nations, is like the youngest daughter of King Lear, the fairest of the sisters : Ah! mayst thou ever be what thou now art, Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring. The horoscope which shone so resplendently over thy birth, O my country, announced a glorious des- tiny. We have witnessed its grand fulfillment. Berkeley's vision, revealed in poetic measures, is fully realized — Time's noblest offspring is the last. A powerful nation, in the full vigor of her youth, unfurls the banner of freedom, and its mighty folds float over a continent. Thrown out at first against a stormy sky, and in defiance of tyrants, it is bathed to-day in the light of peace; the eyes of all mankind are fixed upon it as the sign of hope. Shall it be rent asunder? Shall its stars be quenched and its folds droop? Shall it live in the memory of mankind only as the sign of fallen power and departed glory? No! no! let it float forever the standard of a republic, the proudest, the happiest, the greatest which the world has ever beheld. Let the sun, as he rises out 208 THE PEARL SPEAKER. of the Atlantic wave, gild it with his morning beam; let him throw his parting splendor upon it as it sinks beneath the placid waters of the Pacific, its gorgeous folds still streaming with undiminished luster over States free, powerful, and prosperous, associated in a Union as indissoluble as it is glorious. Honor to Our Workmen. — H. Clay Preuss. Whom shall we call our heroes, To whom our praises sing? The pampered child of fortune, The titled lord or king? They live by others' labor, Take all, and nothing give; The noblest types of manhood Are they who work to live. Who spans the earth with iron, And rears the palace dome? Who fashions for the rich man The comforts of his home? It is the patient toiler; All honor to him then! The true wealth of a nation Is in her working-men. For many barren ages Earth hid her treasures deep, And all her giant forces Seemed bound as in a sleep; Then labor's " anvil chorus " Broke on the startled air, And lo! the earth in rapture Laid all her riches bare! THE PEARL SPEAKER. 209 'Tis toil that over nature Gives man his proud control; And purines and hallows The temple of his soul; It scatters foul diseases, With all their ghastly train, Puts iron in the muscle And crystal in the brain. The grand, almighty Builder, Who fashioned out the earth, Hath stamped his seal of honor On labor from her birth. In every angel flower That blossoms from the sod, Behold the master-touches, The handiwork of God! Then, honor to our workmen, Our hardy sons of toil, The heroes of the workshop And monarchs of the soil! Death of Hamilton. — Dr. Mason. Sad, my fellow-citizens, are the recollections and forebodings which the present solemnities force upon the mind. Five years have not elapsed since your tears flowed for the father of your country, and you are again assembled to shed them over her eldest son. No, it is not an illusion ; would to God it were! Your eyes behold it; the urn which bore the ashes of Wash- ington is followed by the urn which bears the ashes of Hamilton. Fathers, friends, countrymen! the grave of Hamil- 14 210 THE PEARL SPEAKER. ton speaks. It charges me to remind you that lie fell a victim not to disease or accident, not to the fortune of glorious warfare, but — how shall I utter it? — to a custom which has no origin but superstition, no ali- ment but depravity, no reason but in madness. Alas ! that he should thus expose his precious life. This was his error; a thousand bursting hearts reiterate, this was his error. Shall I apologize? I am forbidden by his living protestations, by his dying regrets, by his wasted blood. Shall a solitary act, into which he was be- trayed and dragged, have the authority of a prece dent? The plea is precluded by the long decisions of his understanding, by the principles of his con- science, and by the reluctance of his heart. Ah! when will our morals be purified, and an imaginary honor cease to cover the most pestilent of human passions? My appeal is to military men. Your honor is sa- cred. Is it honorable to enjoy the esteem of the wise and the good? The wise and good turn with disgust from the man who lawlessly aims at his neighbor's life. Is it honorable to serve your country? That man cruelly injures her who from private pique calls his fellow-citizen into the dubious field. Is fidelity honorable? The man forswears his faith who turns against the hearts of his countrymen weap- ons put into his hands for their defense. Are gener- osity, humanity, sympathy honorable? The man is superlatively base who mingles the tears of the widow and orphan with the blood of a husband and father. Do refinement and courtesy and benig- nity entwine with the laurels of the brave? The blot is yet to be wiped from the soldier's name, that he THE PEARL SPEAKER. 211 cannot treat his brother with the decorum of a gen- tleman unless the pistol or the dagger be every moment at his heart. Let the votaries of honor now look at their deed. Let them compare their doctrine with this horrible comment. My countrymen, the land is defiled with blood un- righteously shed. Its cry, disregarded on earth, has gone up to the throne of God; and this day does our punishment reveal our sin. It is time for us to awake. The voice of moral virtue, the voice of domestic alarm, the voice of the fatherless and widow, the voice of a nation's wrong, the voice of Hamilton's blood, the voice of impending judgment, calls for a remedy. An Eloquent Peeoeation. — Keveedy Johnson. Is the cause one that justifies or excuses a refusal to associate politically with Northern brethren? If it is, where will it lead? No sane man can believe that such legislation can now be obtained. If not, the remedy, and the only one left to the South, unless she is false to her professed convictions of duty, and acts the mere braggart, is secession from Congress, and of course from the Union. Is this mere theoretical, abstract question to sunder the ties which have so long and gloriously kept us together and made us a nation the wonder and admiration of the world ? May the memory and spirit of our fathers forbid it! May the hope of freedom throughout Christendom not be blasted by it! May so foul a dishonor never be suf- fered to tarnish the American name! O that Choate and Webster were living to animate the hearts of their countrymen with their own patriotic fire, and invoke them, as they surely would, to gather around 212 THE PEARL SPEAKER. the Union, and upon its altars swear perpetual alle- giance to it. O that they were now here, to fill this hall once more in this their country's trial with their lessons of wisdom and duty, and to commend them to national approval by their almost superhuman elo- quence! But the hope is vain. Let us, therefore, stimulated by the memories of the great dead, nerve ourselves to the struggle. Let us, standing by the rights of all under the Constitution, maintain those rights with untiring devotion and with scrupulous good faith. Let us do all we can to restore our an- cient harmony, our former fraternity, and, discarding all sectional prejudices, demonstrate to the world that we recognize as countrymen the whole people of the United States, that we know but one country — that which is now covered by one glorious ensign of all the stripes and stars — that we will now and forever support the government formed by our fathers for the common defense and general welfare, and to se- cure to them and their posterity the blessings of lib- erty forever. Virginia. — D. W. Yooehees. Yirginia teaches no doubtful lesson on the subject of her devotion to the Constitution and the Union. Happy are they who sit at her feet and learn wisdom from her precepts. She is rich in historical renown. She rocked the cradle of the Union and defended the infant Hercules from the grasp of the serpent. Within her bosom repose the ashes of those most il- lustrious in the cause of liberty since the song of Mi- riam arose as a song of deliverance on the banks of the Red Sea. The curious traveler threads his way amongst the tombs of Westminster Abbey, and on THE PEARL SPEAKER. 213 either hand sleep kings, conquerors, princes, poets, statesmen, historians, and philosophers. In that sol- emn pile genius rests from its brilliant triumphs and its exquisite sorrows, and eloquence and learning hal- low the spot with the glory of intellectual excellence. But the modest eminence of Mount Yernon and the quiet heights of Monticello contain more precious dust than was ever treasured away in the " storied urn " of human greatness or the royal sepulcher of kings. The soil of this ancient and revered common- wealth is rich with the shrines of the mighty. Her children have been the tall spirits of the earth, and every mountain is full of thrilling memories. The drama of the Revolution closed within her borders. The spirit of American liberty here first took assur- ance of safety and a permanent existence. But the historian who records the various and exalted glories of Virginia will find in her loyalty and devotion to the Union and the Constitution, as it now is, some- thing of more priceless value, a jewel of more radiant luster, than any of the historical glories with which she is so richly endowed. Whatever hereafter may be the policy reluctantly adopted by Yirginia, no one can charge her with a ready and willing desertion of the established order of things. Bonaparte. — E. A. Nisbet. From an island of the Middle Sea came the man of destiny. No title graced his name; no heraldic in- signia emblazoned his shield. Age has scarce marked him with the impress of maturity, yet in his heart fluttered the high hopes, and around his soul circled the daring resolves of unparalleled genius. With his mind and his good sword the means, and glory his 214 THE PEARL SPEAKER. end, lie headed the soldiery. He bade the boiling caldron of popular licentiousness to cease its bubbling, and it yielded to his incantations. He seized on power as his guerdon, and victory was his familiar spirit. The antiquated tactics of the continent dissolved be- fore the energy of the conqueror like frost-work be- fore the sun of the tropics; nor Alpine heights, nor swollen streams, nor veteran host, nor time, nor space could limit his career. In his ire he scourged the nations, and in his complacency he hushed their mournings. Around him he scattered, as if in very wantonness, scepters, crowns, and diadems, and king- doms were to him but holiday souvenirs. Onward was his watch-word, and onward he marched over fallen thrones and vanquished realms and pros- trate systems. On the field of "Waterloo went down the star of the lord paramount of Europe; in gloom, 'tis true, yet still in glory; and we must yet doubt whether it was most conspicuous in the blaze of its ascendant or the beauty of its Occident. His name attained to an elevation of sublimer attitude than any that is known to the registry of fame. For him his- tory has no peers and futurity no oblivion. If mind and its developments in action is the test of greatness, then was Napoleon surpassingly great. He was the instrument of good, and Europe may long bless his advent; yet Azrael himself is not a more fell destroyer than was Bonaparte. He was the minister of misery and the great high priest of suffering. Bonaparte. — Charles Phillips. (Written after his second abdication.) The bloody drama of Europe is concluded, and the great tragedian who for twenty years had made the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 215 earth his theater and set the world in tears has left the stage forever. Never was there so ambitious, so restless a spirit; never so daring, so fortunate a sol- dier. His aim was universal dominion, and he gazed at it steadfastly with the eye of an eagle and the ap- petite of a vulture. He combined within himself all the elements of terror, nerve, malice, and intellect; a heart that never melted, a hand that never trembled, a mind that never wavered. The Almighty seemed to have intrusted to him the destinies of the globe, and he used them to destroy. He shrouded the sun with the smoke of battle and unveiled the night with its fires. Amid all the physical, political, and moral changes which he produced he was still the same. Always ambitious, always inexorable, no conquests satisfied, no compassion assuaged, no remorse deterred, no dan- gers alarmed him. Like the barbarians, he conquered Italy; and rolling back to its source the deluge that overwhelmed Eome, he proved himself the Attila of the South. He crossed the Alps in triumph; was a second Scipio in Africa, and standing on the pyra- mids of Egypt he looked down on the fame of Alex- der. His name inspired universal terror, and the ob- scurity of his designs invested him with mystery and awe. He made war before he declared it, and peace was with him a signal for hostilities. His friends were the first whom he assailed, and his allies his chosen objects of plunder. There was a singular opposition between his alleged motives and his conduct. He would have enslaved the land to make the ocean free, and he wanted only power to enslave both. If he was arrogant, his un- paralleled successes must excuse him. Who could 216 THE PEARL SPEAKER. endure the giddiness of such, a mountain elevation? "Who that amid the slaughter o£ millions had escaped unhurt would not suppose, like Achilles, that a deity had lent him armor ? Who that had risen from such obscurity, overcome such mighty obstacles, van- quished so many monarchs, won such extensive em- pires — who, in the fullness of unequaled power, and in the pride of exulting ambition, would not believe himself the favorite of heaven? He received the tribute of love and fear and admi- ration. The weight of the chains which he imposed on France was forgotten in their splendor. The blood-stained soldier adorned his throne with the trophies of art, and made Paris the seat of taste as of power. There the old and new world met and con- versed; there time was robbed of his scythe, linger- ing among beauties which he could not destroy; there the heroes and sages mingled in splendid alliance and joined in the march of fame. These will appeal to posterity to mitigate the sentence which humanity claims against the tyrant Bonaparte. Awful indeed will be that sentence, but when will posterity be a disinterested tribunal ? When will the time arrive when Europe shall have put off mourning for his crimes? In what distant recess of futurity will the memory of Moscow sleep? When will Jena, Yerona, and Austerlitz; when will Jaffa, Corunna, and Waterloo be named without tears of anguish and vows of retribution? Earth and man can never for- get them. His life is a picture of ruin, and the light that dis- plays it is the funeral torch of nations. It exhibits one mighty sepulcher crowded with the mangled vic- tims of murderous ambition. He should carry with THE PEARL SPEAKER. 217 him beyond the grave reflections on his enormous abuse of power, his violated faith, his shameless dis- regard of all law and justice. Let him carry with him the recollection of the sins of his political life: an example of the catastrophe of wicked grandeur, and the vanity of false greatness. Great he unques- tionably was; great in the resources of a misguided spirit; great in the conception and execution of evil; great in mischief, like the pestilence; great in deso- lation, like the whirlwind. Expunging Eesolutions in the United States Sen- ate. — H. Clay. But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exertions ? The decree has gone forth. The deed is to be done — that foul deed which, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will not wash out. Pro- ceed, then, with the noble work which lies before you, and, like other skillful executioners, do it quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and pur- est lights that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defense of the Consti- tution, and have bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that henceforward, no matter what daring or outra- geous act any President may perform, you have her- metically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, com- mand a military detachment to enter the halls of the 218 THE PEAEL SPEAKER. capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the Consti- tution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice. That it must wait until the House of Representatives, hum- ble and subdued like itself, and a majority of it com- posed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedi- ence and non-resistance. And if the people do not pour out their indignations and imprecations, I have yet to learn the character of American freemen. The Union. — Matthew Ranson. Now let me ask what it is which gives you and me and all of us a patriotic participation in the world- wide renown of Prescott, the ever-charming page of Irving, the noble story of Bancroft, and the morning song of Longfellow? What gives us a share in the fame of that philosophy which has tamed the flaming minister of the skies and made it the obedient mes- senger of human thought? What is it that reflects on us the glory of that eloquence whose breath, in- spired by philanthropy, fanned the flame of liberty in two continents at once, as it was wafted across the ocean and echoed from the classic isles of Greece to the sunny shores of South America? What is it that sheds upon us the splendor of that science which his connected the hemispheres by steam, brought the whole family of man into one neighborhood, made a new chart of the ocean, and with an electric pen re- cords the motions of the planets? What is it that imparts to us a property in the beauty of that art which glows on the canvas of Sully, bodies the maj- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 219 esty of greatness in the bronze of Mills, and will live forever in the breathing marble of Powers? What is it but the Union that blends all of these separate glories and blessings into one beautiful and consist- ent illumination; which spreads out like a canopy over the whole American name, and blazes all over the earth as brilliant and dazzling as the aurora bore- alis, and steady and constant as the Milky Way? What is it but the Union which, by the peace and prosperity it has secured, has enabled us to build up our thousand printing-presses, our myriad schools, our countless colleges, and our overflowing libraries? What is it but the Union which has secured to the people of these States a common inheritance of free- dom, a common enjoyment of renown, and a common opportunity of intelligence? And as I, as a patriot, would not part with my legacy in the fame of Lex- ington and Bunker Hill and King's Mountain and Mexico at a less price than the precious blood which they cost; so, as a scholar, I could not, without tears of sorrow and a heart broken with shame, behold the day when I could not hold up my head and declare all over the world that I was a countryman of Frank- lin and Fulton, and breathed the same air of liberty with Webster, Calhoun, and Clay. Effects of Intemperance. — Henry W. Miller. Are you a youth, burning with a high and lauda- ble ambition to excel in all the noble pursuits of life, and to build up for yourself a lofty and imperishable fame? If so, beware, I entreat you, how you touch the fatal cup. Are you a patriot? Do you desire to see perpetuated those civil and religious institutions 220 THE PEARL SPEAKER. which were won by the blood and have been trans- mitted to you by the wisdom of your fathers ? Do you value, as above all price, that glorious Union which has heretofore made us one people — one in in- terest, one in hope, one in feeling, one in glory, one in destiny ? Do you wish to secure from being broken into fragments that sacred urn in which are depos- ited the ashes of the illustrious dead of our land and around which is clinging the rich remembrance of their immortal deeds? If you do, beware how you intrust the destinies of the nation to men who, scorn- ing the melancholy teachings of experience, and in- fusing more of intoxication into the brain than pa- triotism into the heart, are fit subjects to become at any moment the supple and sycophantic followers or the maddened leaders of any fanatical crusade against the best and most sacred institutions of the land. Are you a Christian? Do you profess to be a follower of Him who whilst here upon earth went about doing good, and whose whole example was one of benevo- lence, charity, and love? If so, how in the name of all that is good here and all that is awful in the real- ities of the life to come can you stand aloof and gaze upon the suffering, the degradation and misery which have been produced by intemperance without an effort to alleviate its evil or stay its progress ? Can you list- en with composure and cold indifference to the appeals of wretchedness which come up from thousands and tens of thousands of habitations throughout the land? And am I asked for evidence of the reality of all this ? Go to the miserable hovel, and ask its care-worn ten- ant what brought her and her tattered and half-starved offspring to such condition. Go to your prison-houses, and inquire of the trem- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 221 bling culprit whence came the tempter who mixed such poison in his cup of life. Go to your hospitals, where disease and death glare their terrific visages, and ask what hand scattered the fatal seeds. Go to the prostrate and blasted genius, and in- quire what demon dipped in venom the arrow which brought him down from his lofty eyrie. Go to the home of the broken and bleeding heart, and ask whence came the serpent that turned its par- adise into a hell. Go to the wretched maniac, and seek to know what ruthless hand erased from his once erect and well- poised mind the image of its Deity. Go to the whitened head of age, and ask what pal- sied touch shattered his trembling limbs and bent down his once noble frame prematurely to its mother earth. Go to the bedside of one who writhes under the burning grasp of delirium, and catch if you can a glimpse of the hideous forms and terrific visions which flit in quick succession across his distempered imagi- nation. Ash him what has shut out from his view all of peace and hope and fixed upon his soul the horrors of the damned? Get a response from all such, and then, if you re- main longer silent and careless spectators of the great work of kindness, charity, and temperance which is going on around you, heavy, awful indeed, will be the accountability which is in store for you, if there be truth, as there assuredly is, in the word of God, and justice at his judgment-seat! Ignorance in Our Country a Crime.— H. Mann. In all the dungeons of the old world, where the 222 THE PEARL SPEAKER. strong champions of freedom are now pining in cap- tivity beneath the remorseless power of the tyrant, the morning sun does not send a glimmering ray into their cells, nor does night draw a thicker veil of dark- ness between them and the world, but the lone pris- oner lifts his iron-laden arms to heaven in prayer that we, the depositaries of freedom and of human hopes, may be faithful to our sacred trust; while, on the other hand, the pensioned advocates of despotism stand with listening ear to catch the first sound of lawless violence that is wafted from our shores, to note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy among us, and to convert them into arguments against liberty and the rights of man. There is not a shout sent up by an insane mob on this side of the Atlantic but it is echoed by a thou- sand presses and by ten thousand tongues along every mountain and valley on the other. There is not a conflagration kindled by the ruthless hand of vio- lence but its flame glares over all Europe from hori- zon to zenith. On each occurrence of a flagitious scene, whether it be an act of turbulence or devasta- tion, or a deed of perfidy or breach of faith, monarchs point them out as fruits of the growth and omens of the fate of republics, and claim for themselves and their heirs a further extension of the lease of des- potism. The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us; they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of their numbers ; to look upon our vast natural resources not as tempters to ostentation and pride but as a means to be converted, by the refining alchemy of education into mental and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 223 spiritual treasures. They supplicate as to seek for whatever complacency we are disposed to indulge, not in the extent of our territory, or in the products of our soil, but in the expansion and perpetuation of the means of human happiness. They beseech us to ex- change the luxuries of sense for the joys of charity, and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity and whose virtues are equal to its power. For these ends they enjoin upon us a more earnest, a more universal, a more religious devotion to our exertions and resources, to the culture of the youthful mind and heart of the na- tion. Their gathered voices assert the eternal truth that in a republic ignorance is a crime; and that private immorality is not less an opprobrium to the state than it is guilt in the perpetration. The South. — Henry W. Geady at Boston. Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from this section by a line, once denned in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratricidal 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 are centered all that can please or prosper human kind. A perfect climate, above a fertile soil, invites the stranger. Beautiful as is this land, why are there fewer North- ern-born people in the South in 1880 than in 1870, fewer in 1870 than in 1860? 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 slave- holder stood guard every inch of its way? 224 THE PEARL SPEAKER. There can be but one answer. It is the very prob- lem we are now to consider. The key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the fairest half of this republic, and free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes are already kindling with its beauty. Bet- ter than this, it will open the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting comrade- ship a million hands now withheld in doubt. Nothing, sir, but this problem, and the suspicions it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a perfect union. Nothing else stands between us and such love as bound Georgia and Massachusetts at Yalley Forge and Yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices at Manas- sas 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. I thank God as heartily as you do that human slav- ery is gone forever from the American soil. But the freedman remains, and with him a problem without precedent or parallel. This, sir, imposes a mighty duty, and a mighty inspiration impels 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 redeem the earth from king- craft 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. Oar history, sir, has been a constant and expand- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 225 ing miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way — ay, 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 mir- acles of our past with the spectacle of a republic com- pact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love 1 — lov- ing from the Lakes to the Gulf — the wounds of war healed in every heart and on every hill — 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. James Otis in 1765. — Lydia Maria Child. England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the steps of freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switz- erland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies. We are two millions, one-fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and call no man master. To the nation from whom we are proud to derive our origin we ever were and ever will be ready to yield unforced assistance ; but it must not, and never can be extorted. Some have sneeringly asked: "Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper?" No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. 15 226 THE PEARL SPEAKER. But the right to take ten pounds implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the specter is now small, but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land. Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount of that debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the dam which has brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or left it to perish amid the winds and storms of the desert. We plunged into the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and torch were behind us. We have waked this new world from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path; towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics, and the fires in our au- tumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the in- crease of our wealth and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother country? No! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her; to the pelting storms that invigorated our helpless infancy. But others will say: "We ask do money from your gratitude; we only ask that you should pay your ex- penses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their neces- sity? Why, the king! Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. In every instance those who take are to judge for those who pay. But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous in- justice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and Kome, but the light of its glowing embers is still THE PEARL SPEAKER. 227 bright and strong on the shores of America. Actu- ated by its sacred influence, we will resist until death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their enemies shall be amply and speedily re- paired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember that a fire is lighted in these colonies which one breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it. The Natural and Moral Worlds. — Grimke. Man, the noblest work of God in this lower world, walks abroad through its labyrinths of grandeur and beauty, amid countless manifestations of creative pow- er and providential wisdom. He acknowledges in all that he beholds the might that called them into be- ing, the skill which perfected the harmony of the parts, and the benevolence which consecrated all to the glory of God and the welfare of his fellow-creat- ures. He stands entranced on the peak of iEtna, on Teneriffe, and looks down upon the far-distant ocean, silent to his ear and tranquil to his eye, amid the rushing of tempestuous winds and the fierce conflict of stormy billows. He sits enraptured upon the mountain summit, and beholds, as far as the eye can reach, a forest robe flowing in all the varieties of grace- ful undulation over declivity after declivity, as though the fabulous river of the skies were pouring its azure waves over all the landscape. He hangs over the precipice, and gazes with awful delight on the savage glen, rent open as it were by the earthquake, and black with lightning - shattered rocks ; its only music the echoing thunder, the scream of the lonely eagle, and the tumultuous waters of the 228 THE PEARL SPEAKER. mountain torrent. He reclines in pensive mood on the hill-top, and sees around him and beneath him all the luxuriant beauties of field and meadow, of olive-yard and vineyard, of wandering stream and grove-encircled lake. He descends to the plain, and amid waving har- vests, verdant avenues, and luxuriant orchards sees between garden and grass plot the farm-house, em- bosomed in copse -wood, or "tall ancestral trees." He walks through the valley fenced in by barrier cliffs, to contemplate with mild enthusiasm its scenes of pastoral beauty; the cottage and its blossomed ar- bor, the shepherd and his flock, the clumps of oaks, or the solitary willow. He enters the caverns buried far beneath the surface, and is struck with amaze- ment at the grandeur and magnificence of a subter- ranean palace hewn out as it were by the power of the genii, and decorated by the taste of Armida, or of the queen of the fairies. Such is the natural world; and such, for the most part, has it ever been since men began to subdue the wilderness, to scatter the ornaments of civilization amid the rural scenery of nature, and to plant the lily on the margin of the deep, the village on the hill- side, and martial battlements in the defiles of the mountains. Such has been the natural world, wheth- er beheld by the eye of savage and barbarian, of civ- ilized and refined. Such has it been, for the most part, whether contemplated by the harpers of Greece, the bards of Northern Europe, or the voluptuous min- strels of a Troubadour age. Such it was when its beauties, like scattered stars, beamed on the page of classic lore; and such when its "sunshine of picture" poured a flood of meridian splendor on modern liter- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 229 ature. Such is the natural world to the ancient and modern, the pagan and the Christian. Admirable as the natural world is for its sublimity and beauty, who would compare it even for an in- stant with the sublimity and beauty of the moral world. Is not the soul, with its glorious destiny and its capacities for eternal happiness, more awful and majestic than the boundless Pacific or the intermina- ble Andes? Is not the mind, with its thoughts that wander through eternity and its wealth of intellectual power, an object of more intense interest than forest or cataract or precipice? And the heart so eloquent in the depth, purity, and pathos of its affections; can the richest scenery of hill and dale, can the mel- ody of breeze and brook and bird rival it in loveli- ness? The same God is the author of the visible and in- visible world. The moral beauty and grandeur of the world of man are equally the production of his wisdom and goodness with the fair, the sub- lime, the wonderful in the physical creation. What, indeed, are these but the outward manifestations of his might, skill, and benevolence? What are they but a glorious volume, forever speaking to the eye and ear of man, in the language of sight and sound, the praises of its Author? And what are those but images, faint and imperfect as they are, of his own incomprehensible attributes? What are they — the soul, the mind, the heart of an immortal being — but the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling-place of him whom the heaven of heavens cannot con- tain, who inhabiteth eternity? How, then, can we compare, even for a moment, the world of nature with the world of man? 230 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The Futuke of the South. — W. P. C. Bkecken- EIDGE AT HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. It is, indeed, a surpassing future which tempts us to noble duties. No people were ever given such a theater upon which to perform their part. A mag- nificent continent to be peopled, and that with a race of enlightened Christian freemen, whose destiny it is to give constitutional liberty to the world, and whose duty it is to be fit for such high destiny. "Give constitutional liberty to the world." How vast and far-reaching is the import included in those simple words! " Midway between Europe and the continents, where the colored races have had the cent- uries for their development; with a language that is fit vehicle for immortal aspirations and eternal hopes, with the pervasive spirit of eternal liberty, with the irresistible power of a divine religion, our mission is full of ineffable glory." There will be no other limit to our growth than that set by justice to our neighbor and our duties to humanity. Every field of greatness opens before us, and glorious enterprises beckon us to intenser labors. Sorrows and sacrifices, errors and follies, the brutal- ities and ferocities of progress may be our part of the future; this has always been— this is the lot of mankind. But in spite of these the advancing day grows brighter, the climbing sun shines more radi- antly, the horizon widens before our entranced vision and we press on with unfaltering heart into that future that lies before us. At the foot of this stately monument of granite, this stone hewn from the mountains of Maine, planted now in the heart of Kentucky in the honor of soldiers from far off Texas, we invoke the Almighty to grant THE PEARL SPEAKER. 231 that in the ceaseless contest our children may be as heroic and enduring as these unknown dead; ready to live for the right, and ready, if need be, to die for the right. On this monument these heroes are called "un- known," but on the muster-rolls of their commands their names remain; on the hearts of those who loved them and mourned for them their names are en- graven; and on God's roll on high their immortal names are radiant. We cannot repeat their names; we can honor their memories; we can reverence their deeds; we can emu- late their virtues; we can commemorate their deaths. On this gentle ascent stand, thou silent witness, and testify to all who come to this sacred place — here in the awful presence of the buried dead, in the tearful sight of the recurring visitations on the sad errands of burial, in the august presence of an ever- living God — that to lofty virtues sanctified by death, and noble hopes purified by sorrows and sacrifice, there is an immortality of bliss. Speech of Walpole in .Reproof of Mr. Pitt. I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this de- bate, while it was carried on with decency and calm- ness, by men who do not suffer the ardor of opposition to cloud their reason, or transport them to such ex- pressions as the dignity of this assembly does not admit. I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman, who declaimed against the bill with such fluency and rhetoric and such vehemence of gesture, who charged the advocates for the expedients now proposed with 232 THE PEARL SPEAKER. having no regard to any interest but their own, and with making laws only to consume paper, and threat- ened them with the defection of their adherents and the loss of their influence upon this new discovery of their folly and ignorance. Nor do I now answer him for any other purpose than to remind him how little the clamor of rage and petulancy of invective contribute to the end for which this assembly is called together; how little the discovery of truth is promoted and the security of the nation established by pompous diction and theatrical emotion. Formidable sounds and furious declamation, con- fident assertions and lofty periods may affect the young and inexperienced; and perhaps the gentleman may have contracted his habits of oratory by con- versing more with those of his own age than with sach as have more opportunities of acquiring knowl- edge, and more successful methods of communicating their sentiments. If the heat of temper would per- mit him to attend to those whose age and long ac- quaintance with business give them an indisputable right to deference and superiority, he would learn in time to reason rather than declaim, and to prefer justness of argument and accurate knowledge of facts to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impression on the mind. He would learn that to accuse and prove are very different, and that reproaches unsupported by evidence affect only the character of him who utters them. Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory are in- deed pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it would surely contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak, to prove THE PEARL SPEAKER. 233 the inconveniences and injustice of this bill than barely to assert them with whatever magnificence of language or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compas- sion. Pitt's Keply to Kobert Walpole. The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with hoping that I may be one of those whose follies cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be im- puted to a man as a reproach i will not assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have sub- sided. The wretch who, after seeing the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more is he to be abhorred who as he has advanced in age has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less tempta- tion; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth is not my only crime: I am accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarity of gesture or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opin- ions and language of another man. In the first sense, 234 THE PEARL SPEAKER. the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to nse my own lan- guage; and though perhaps I may have some ambi- tion to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or mod- eled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with the- atrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench them- selves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resent- ment; age, which always brings one privilege — that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But, with regard to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them was the ardor of conviction and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainies and whoever may partake of his plunder. Eulogy on Lafayette. — Charles Sprague. While we bring our offerings for the mighty of our own land, shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits THE PEARL SPEAKER. 235 of other shores who shared with them the hour of weakness and woe? Pile to the clouds the majestic column of glory; let the lips of those who can speak well hallow each spot where the bones of your bold repose; but forget not those who with your bold went out to battle. Among these men of noble daring there was one, a young and gallant stranger who left the blushing, vine-clad hills of his ' delightful France. The people whom he came to srtecor were not his people; he knew them only in the melancholy story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary wretch striving for the spoil of the vanquished; the palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valleys yielded him their increase. He was no nameless man staking life for reputation ; he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. He was no friendless outcast seeking for a grave to hide his cold heart; he was girdled by the companions of his childhood; his kinsmen were about him; his wife was before him. Yet from all those he turned away and came; like a lofty tree that shakes down its green glories to bat- tle with the winter's storm, he flung aside the trap- pings of place and pride to crusade for freedom in free- dom's holy land. He came; but not in the day of successful rebellion; not when the new-risen sun of independence had burst the cloud of time, and ca- reered to its place in the heavens. He came when .darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plow stood still in the field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of beauty; when fathers were dying, and mothers were weeping over them; when the wife was binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden 236 THE PEARL SPEAKER. was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her lover. He came when the brave began to fear the power of man, and the pious to donbt the favor of God. It was then that this one joined the ranks of a re- volted people. Freedom's little phalanx bid him a grateful welcome. With them he courted the battle's rage; with theirs his arm was lifted; with theirs his blood was shed. Long and doubtful was the conflict. At length kind Heaven smiled on the good cause, and the beaten invaders fled. The profane was driv- en from the temple of liberty, and at her pure shrine the pilgrim warrior with his adored commander knelt and worshiped. Leaving there his offering, the in- cense of an uncorrupted spirit, he at length rose and, crowned with benedictions, turned his happy feet to- ward his long-deserted home. A After nearly fifty years that one has come again. Can mortal tongue tell, can mortal heart feel the sub- limity of that coming? Exulting millions rejoice in it; and the loud, long, transporting shout like the mingling of many winds rolls on undying to free- dom's farthest mountain. A congregated nation comes around him. Old men bless him, and children rever- ence him. The lovely come out to look upon him; the learned deck their halls to greet him; the rulers of the land rise up to do him homage. How his full heart labors? He views the rusting trophies of de- parted days; he treads upon the high places where his brethren molder; he bends before the tomb of his father; his words are tears — the speech of sad re- membrance. But he looks around upon a ransomed land and a joyous race; he beholds the blessings those trophies secured, for which those brethren died, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 237 for which that father lived; and again his words are tears — the eloquence of gratitude and joy. Spread forth creation like a map; bid earth's dead multitude revive; and of all the pageants that ever glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on a sight like this ? Of all the myriads that have come and gone, what cherished minion ever ruled an hour like this r Many have struck the redeeming blow for their own freedom, but who, like this man, has bared his bosom in the cause of strangers? Others have lived in the love of their own people, but who, like this man, has drunk his sweetest out of welcome with another ?v Matchless chief! of glory's immortal tab- lets there is one for him, for him alone! Oblivion shall never shroud its splendor! The everlasting flame of liberty shall guard it, that the generations of men may repeat the name recorded there, the beloved name of Lafayette. Napoleon and His Acquisitions. — Thomas Cor win. Mr. President, a mind more prone to look for the judgments of heaven in the doings of men than mine cannot fail, in all unjust acquisitions of territory, to see the providence of God. When Moscow burned it seemed as if the earth was lighted up that the na- tions might behold the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered and heaved and rolled upward and yet higher, it did seem as though the God of the nations was writing in characters of flame on the front of his throne that doom which shall fall upon the strong nation that tramples upon the weak. And what fortune awaits him, the appointed execu- tor of this work, when it was all done? He too con- ceived the notion that his destiny pointed to univer- 238 THE PEARL SPEAKER. sal domain. France was too small. Europe, lie thought, should bow down before him. But as soon as this idea takes possession of his soul he too be- comes powerless. His Terminus must recede too. Right there, while he witnessed the humiliation and doubtless meditated the subjugation of Eussia, he who holds the winds in his fist gathered the snows of the north and blew them upon his six hundred thou- sand men. They fled, they froze, they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal dominion, he too is summoned to an- swer for the violation of that ancient law: "Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbor's." How is the mighty fallen! He beneath whose proud footstep Europe trembled is now an exile at Elba, and now finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena; and there on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an extinct volcano, there is the death- bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations have come to that! His last hour is now at hand, and he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still, even as the beggar so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury to the throne of the only power that controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that won- derful warrior, another witness to the existence of that eternal decree that they who do not rule in righteousness shall perish from the earth. He has found " room " at last. And France, she too has found "room." Her "eagles" now no longer scream along the banks of the Danube and the Po. They have re- turned home to their old aerie between the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 239 So shall it be with your eagles. You may carry them to the loftiest peak of the Cordilleras; they may wave with insolent triumph in the halls of the Mon- tezumas; the armed men of Mexcio may quail before them; but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of justice, may call down on you a power in the presence of which the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes. The Resurrection in Italy. — Thomas Francis Meagher. Sir, is there nothing in the events now transpiring around us to rouse Ireland from her sleep? is there nothing to stir the blood of her sons ? Beyond the Alps a trumpet calls the dead nations of Europe from their shrouds. Do you not hear it ? Does it not ring through the soul and quiver through the brain ? Italy, at whose tomb the poets of the Christian world have knelt and received their inspiration; Italy, amid the ruins of whose forum the orators of the world have learned to sway the souls of men; Italy, from whose radiant skies the sculptor draws down the fire that quickens the marble into life; Italy, the brave, the beautiful, and the gifted Italy, is in arms. Prostrate for centuries amid the dust of heroes, wasting silently away, she has started from her swoon, for the vestal flame could not be extinguished. Aus- tria, old, decrepit, haggard thief, clotted with the cost- ly blood of Poland, trembles as she sheathes her sword and plays the penitent within the walls of Ferrara. Glory to the citizens of Eome who have sworn that they prize liberty as a treasure to be battled for with their lives! And glory to the maids and matrons of 240 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Eome who bid the chivalry of their homes to go forth in the righteous cause! And what can Ireland do to aid this brilliant nation in her struggle? In rags, in hunger, and in sickness — sitting like a widowed queen amid the shadows of her pillared towers and the gray altars of a forgotten creed — with two millions of her sons and daughters lying slain and shroudless at her feet— what can this poor island do? Weak, sorrowful, and treasureless as she is, I believe there are a few rich drops within her heart that she can spare. Perish the law that forbids her to give more ! Per- ish the law that, having drained her of her wealth, forbids her to be the boldest spirit in the fight! Perish the law which, in the language of one whose genius I admire, but whose apostasy I shall never imitate, converts the island which ought to be the most fortunate in the world into a receptacle of suf- fering and degradation, counteracting the magnificent arrangement of Providence, frustrating the benefi- cent designs of God. Thebe Are No Dead. — Bulwee. There is no death! The stars go down To rise upon some fairer shore; And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown They shine forevermore. There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain or mellow fruit, Or rainbow-tinted flowers. There is no death! An angel form Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 241 He bears our best loved tilings away, And then we call them "dead." Born into that undying life, They leave us but to come again; With joy we welcome them — the same, Except in sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe Is life. There are no dead. Teaces of the Ocean. — Hugh Miller. Was it the sound of the distant surf that was in my ears, or the low moan of the breeze as it crept through the neighboring woods? O that hoarse voice of the ocean, not silent since time first began! Where has it not been uttered? There is stillness amid the calm of the arid and rainless desert, where no spring rises and no streamlet flows, and the long caravan plies its weary march amid the blinding glare of the sand and the red, unshaded rays of the fierce sun. But once again, and yet again, has the roar of ocean been there. It is his sands that the winds heap up; and it is the skeleton remains of his vassals — shells and fish, and the strong coral — that the rocks underneath inclose. There is silence on the mountain-peak, with its glittering mantle of snow, where the panting lungs labor to inhale the thin, bleak air, where no insect murmurs and no bird flies, and where the eye wanders over multitudinous hill-tops that lie far beneath, and vast dark forests that sweep on to the distant horizon, and down long, 16 242 THE PEARL SPEAKER. hollow valleys, where the great rivers begin. And yet once and again, and yet again, has the roar of ocean been there. The elegies of his more ancient denizens we find sculptured on the crags, where they jut from beneath the ice into the mist wreath; and his later beaches, stage beyond stage, terrace the de- scending slopes. Where has the great destroyer not been — the devourer of continents, the blue foaming dragon, whose vocation it is to eat up the land ? His ice floes have alike furrowed the flat steppes of Siberia and the rocky flanks of Schehallion; and his fish lie embedded in the great stones of the Pyr- amids hewn in the times of the old Pharaohs, and in rocky folds of Lebanon still untouched by the tool. So long as Ocean exists there must be disintegration, dilapidation, change ; and should the time ever arrive when the elevatory agencies, motionless and chill, shall sleep within their profound depths to awaken no more, and should the seas till continue to impel its currents and to roll its waves, every continent and island would at length disappear, and again, as of old, "when the fountains of the great deeps were broken up," A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe. The Last Man. — Campbell. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume ~- Its immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep That gave my spirit strength to sweep THE PEARL SPEAKER. 243 Adown the gulf of time! I saw the last of human mold That shall creation's death behold, As Adam saw her prime. The sun's eye had a sickly glare, The earth with age was wan, The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man! Some had expired in fight — the brands Still rusted in their bony hands ; In plague and famine some! Earth's cities had no sound nor tread; And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb! Yet prophet-like that lone one stood, With dauntless words and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by — Saying, " We are twins in death, proud sun, Thy face is cold, thy race is run, 'Tis mercy bids thee go; For thou ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow. " What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill, And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, The vassals of his will? Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, Thou dim, discrowned king of day: For all those trophied arts And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, 244 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Healed not a passion or a pang Entailed on human hearts. " Go, let oblivion's curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Nor with thy rising beams recall Life's tragedy again. Its piteous pageants bring not back, Nor waken flesh upon the rack Of pain anew to writhe; Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred Or mown in battle by the sword, Like grass beneath the scythe. " Even I am weary in yon skies To watch thy fading fires; Lest of all sumless agonies, Behold not me expire. My lips that speak thy dirge of death — Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath To see thou shalt not boast; The eclipse of nature spreads my pall, The majesty of darkness shall Receive my parting ghost! " This spirit shall return to Him Who gave its heavenly spark; Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim, When thou thyself art dark! No! it shall live again and shine In bliss unknown to beams of thine, By Him recalled to breath Who captive led captivity, Who robbed the grave of victory, And took the sting from death! THE PEARL SPEAKER. 245 " Go, sun, whilst mercy holds me up On nature's awful waste, To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste; Go, tell the night that hides thy face, Thow saw'st the last of Adam's race On earth's sepulchral clod The darkening universe defy To quench his immortality Or shake his trust in God! " HOHENLINDEN* — CAMPBELL. On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow; And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. But Linden saw another sight When the drum beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery. By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neighed, To join the dreadful revelry. Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steed to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven Far flashed the red artillery. But redder yet that light shall glow On Linden's hills of stained snow; And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 246 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun, Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun, Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout in their sulph'rous canopy. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry. Few, few shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier's sepulcher. The Paupek's Dbive. — Thomas Noel. There's a grim, one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot, To the church-yard a pauper is going, I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs; And hark to the dirge which the sad driver sings: "Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!" O where are the mourners? Alas! there are none; He's left not a gap in the world, now he's gone — Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man; To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can: Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! What a jolting, and creaking, and plashing, and din! The whip how it cracks ! and the wheels how they spin! How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! The pauper at length makes a noise in the world. Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! THE PEARL SPEAKER. 247 Poor pauper defunct, he has made some approach To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach! He's taking a drive in his carriage at last; But it will not be long if he goes on so fast. Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! You bumpkins ! who stare at your brother conveyed, Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low, You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go. Battle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity clad Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, And depart from the light without leaving a friend. Battle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! The Ocean. — Byron. Boll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep o'er thee in vain: Man marks the earth with ruin; his control Stops with the shore, Upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 248 THE PEARL SPEAKER. And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, and spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — Assyria, Greece, Borne, Carthage, where are they? Thy waters washed them power when they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou: Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime; The image of eternity, the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. Erin. — Thomas N. Burke. One of the strongest passions and one of the no- blest that God has implanted in the heart of man is the love of the land that bore him. Breathes there a man with soul so dead, "Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 249 The pleasure of standing upon the soil of our birth; the pleasure of preserving the associations that surrounded our boyhood and our youth; the pleasure — sad and melancholy though it be — of watching every gray hair and every wrinkle which time sends ever to those whom we love — these are among the keenest and best pleasures of which the heart of man is capable. Exile from native land has been looked upon by men as a penalty and a griev- ance. This is true even of those whom nature has placed upon the most barren and rugged soil. The Swiss peasant, who lives amidst the everlasting snows of the Upper Alps, who sees no form of beauty in nature except her grandest and most austere propor- tions, so dearly loves his arid mountain home that it is heart-breaking to him to be banished from it, even though he were placed to spend his exile in the most delicious quarter of the globe. Much more does the pain of exile rest upon the children of a race at once the most generous, the most kind- hearted, and the most loving of any on earth. Much more sadly does it rest upon the children of a race who look back to their mother-land as to a fair and beautiful land; a climate temperate and delicious; a soil fruitful and abundant; scenery now rising into the glory of magnificence, now sinking into the ten- derest pastoral beauty ; . a history the grandest of all the nations of earth; associations so tender and pure that they aggravate the misery and enhance the pain which the Irishman, of all other men,, feels when he is exiled from his native land. But there is a future for these exiles, for our beau- tiful Emerald Isle. And what is the future that is yet to dawn on this dearly loved land of ours? O how 250 THE PEARL SPEAKER. glorious will it be when all Irishmen are united in one common faith and one common love! O how fair will our beloved Erin be when, clothed in unity, equal- ity, and freedom, she shall rise out of the ocean wave as fair, as lovely in the end of time as she was in the glorious days when the world, entranced by her beauty, proclaimed her the mother of saints and sages. Yes, I see her rising emancipated: no trace of blood or persecution on her virgin face; the crown so long lost to her resting on her fair brow! I see her in peace and concord with ail the nations around her, and with her own children inclosed within her warm embrace. I see her venerated by the nations afar off and most of all by the mighty nation which in that day, in its strength, and in its youth, and in its vigor shall sway the destinies of the world. I see her as Columbia salutes her across the ocean waves. But the light of freedom coming from around my mother's face will reflect the light of freedom coming from the face of that nation which has been nursed in freedom, cradled in freedom, and which has never violated the principles of freedom and equality. I see her with the light of faith shining on her face; I see her be- loved, revered, and cherished by the nations as an ancient and most precious thing. I behold her ris- ing in the energy of a second birth, when nations that have held their heads high are humbled in the dust. And I hail thee, O mother Erin, and say to thee: "The nations are fallen, but thou still art young, Thy sun is but rising when others' have set; And though slavery's clouds round thy morning have hung, The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet." THE PEARL SPEAKER. 251 Destiny of Amebica.— Stoky. We stand the latest and, if we fail, probably the last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppression of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been en- feebled by the vices or the luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are we have been from the beginning — - simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-govern- ment and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press and religion are free. Knowledge reaches or may reach every home. What fairer prospects of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary than for the people to preserve what they themselves have created? Already has the age caught the spirit of our insti- tutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe and w T armed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north, and, moving onward to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? that she is to be added to the cat- alogue of republics the inscription upon whose ruins is: "They were, but they are not?" Forbid it, my countrymen; forbid it, Heaven! I call on you, my 252 THE PEARL SPEAKER. fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear ashes that repose in this precious soil, by all you are and all you hope to be, resist every encroachment upon your liberties; resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extin- guish your system of public instruction. I call on you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of your offspring, teach them as they climb on your knees and lean on your bosom, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country and never forget or forsake her. I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are, whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if nec- essary in defense of your country. I call upon you, old men, for your counsels and your prayers and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down to the grave with the recollection that you have lived in vain! May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of slaves! No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions. We who are assembled here must soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time for our departure is near at hand, to make way for our children upon the theater of life. May he who at the distance of another cent- ury shall stand here to celebrate this day still look round on a free, virtuous, happy people! A Withering Invective. — S. S. Prentiss. Need I dwell longer upon this subject? Need I say THE PEARL SPEAKER. 253 that the defendants are no murderers? That they acted in self-defense, and took life from necessity, not from malice? But there is a murderer, and, strange to say, his name appears upon the indictment, not as a criminal, but as a prosecutor. His garments are wet with the blood of those upon whose deaths you hold this solemn inquest. Yonder he sits, allaying for a moment the hunger of that fierce vulture, conscience, by casting before it the food of pretending regret, and false but apparent eagerness for justice. He hopes to appease the manes of his slaughtered victims — victims to his falsehood and treachery — by sacrificing upon their graves a hecatomb of innocent men. By base misrep- resentation of the conduct of the defendants he in- duced his prudent friends to attempt a vindication of his pretended wrongs by violence and bloodshed. His clansmen gathered at his call, and followed him for vengeance; but when the fight began, and the keen weapons clashed in the sharp conflict — where was this wordy warrior? Ay, "Where was Boberick then?" No " blast upon his bugle horn " encouraged his com- panions as they were laying down their lives in his quarrel; no gleam of his dagger indicated a desire to avenge their fall. With treacherous cowardice he left them to their fate, and all his vaunted courage ended in ignominious flight. Sad and gloomy is the path that lies before him. You will in a few moments dash untasted from his lips the sweet cup of revenge, to quaff whose intoxicating contents he has paid a price that would have purchased the goblet of the Egyptian queen. I behold gathering around him, thick and fast, dark and corroding cares. That face which looks so ruddy, and even now is flushed with 254 THE PEARL SPEAKER. shame and conscious guilt, will from this day grow pale until the craven blood shall refuse to visit his haggard cheek. In his broken and distorted sleep his dreams will be more fearful than those of the "false, perjured Clarence;" and around his waking pillow, in the deep hour of night, will flit the ghosts of his actions, shrieking their curses in his shrinking ear. Upon his head rests all the blood shed in this unfortunate strife. But I dismiss him, and do con- sign him to the furies, trusting in all charity that the terrible punishment he must suffer from the scorpion- lash of a guilty conscience will be considered in his last account. Teibute to Washington. — Harbison. Hard, hard indeed was the contest for freedom and the struggle for independence. The golden sun of liberty had nearly set in the gloom of an eternal night, ere its radiant beams illumined our western horizon. Had not the tutelar saint of Columbia hovered around the American camp, and presided o'er her destinies, freedom must have met with an untimely grave. Nev- er can we sufficiently admire the wisdom of those statesmen and the skill and bravery of those uncon- querable veterans, who, by their unwearied exertions in the cabinet and in the field, achieved for us the glorious revolution. Never can we duly appreciate the merits of a Washington who, with but a handful of undisciplined yeomanry, triumphed over a royal army, and prostrated the lion of England at the feet of the American eagle. His name — so terrible to his foes, so welcome to his friends — shall live forever upon the brightest page of the historian, and be remem- bered with the warmest emotions of gratitude and THE PEARL SPEAKER. 255 pleasure by those whom he has contributed to make happy, and by all mankind when kings and princes and nobles for ages shall have sunk into their mer- ited oblivion. Unlike them, he needs not the assist- ance of the sculptor or architect to perpetuate his memory; he needs no princely dome, no monumental pile, no stately pyramid, whose towering height shall pierce the stormy clouds, and rear its lofty head to heaven, to tell posterity his fame. His deeds, his worthy deeds alone have rendered him immortal! When oblivion shall have swept away thrones, king- doms, and principalities; when every vestige of hu- man greatness and grandeur and glory shall have moldered into dust, and the last period of time become extinct — eternity itself shall catch the glowing theme and dwell with increasing rapture on his name. Criminality of Dueling. — Nott. Hamilton yielded to the force of an imperious cus- tom; and yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interest; and he is lost — lost to his country, lost to his family, lost to us. For this act, because he disclaimed it, and was penitent, I forgive him. Bat there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean not his antagonist— over whose erring steps, if there be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already all that humanity can suffer; suffers, and wherever he may fly will suffer, with the poignant recollection of having taken the life of one who was too magnani- mous in return to attempt his own. Had he known this, it must have paralyzed his arm while he pointed at so incorruptible a bosom the instrument of death. 256 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Does he know this now, his heart, if it be not ada- mant, must soften; if it be not ice, it must melt. But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, if he is penitent, I forgive him; and if he be not, be- fore these a] tars, where all of us appear as suppliants, I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in be- half of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers. But I have said, and I repeat it, there are those whom I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive that minister at the altar, who has hitherto forborne to remonstrate on the subject. I cannot forgive that public prosecutor, who, intrusted with the duty of avenging his country's wrongs, takes no measures to avenge them. I cannot forgive that judge on the bench, or that governor in the chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offenses. I cannot forgive the public in whose bosom the duel- ist finds a sanctuary. I cannot forgive you, my brethren, who till this late hour have been silent, while successive murders have been committed. No; I cannot forgive you that you have not, in common with the freemen of this State, raised your voice to the powers that be and loudly and explicitly demand- ed an execution of your laws; demanded this in a manner, which, if it did not reach the ear of govern- ment, would at least have reached the ear of Heaven, and have pleaded your excuse before the God that filleth it, in whose presence as I stand I should not feel myself innocent of the blood which crieth against us had I been silent. But I have not been silent. Many of you who hear me are my witnesses — the walls of yonder temple, where I have hereto- fore addressed you, are my witnesses how freely I THE PEARL SPEAKER. 257 have animadverted upon this subject, in the presence both of those who have violated the laws and of those whose indispensable duty it is to see the laws execut- ed on those who violate them. I enjoy another opportunity; and would to God I might be permitted to approach for once the last scene of death! Would to God I could there assemble on the one side the disconsolate mother with her seven fatherless children, and on the other those who ad- minister the justice of my country! Could I do this, I would point them to these sad objects. I would en- treat them by the agonies of bereaved fondness to listen to the widow's heart-felt groans, to mark the or- phans' sighs and tears; and having done this, I would uncover the breathless corpse of Hamilton, I would lift from his gaping wound his bloody mantle, I would hold it up to heaven before them, and I would ask, in the name of God I would ask, whether at the sight of it they felt no compunction. Te who have hearts of pity, ye who have experienced the anguish of dissolv- ing friendship, who have wept and still weep over the moldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter into this reflection. O thou disconsolate widow! robbed, so cruelly robbed, and in so short a time, both of a husband and a son! what must be the plenitude of thy sufferings! Could we approach thee, gladly would we drop the tear of sympathy and pour into thy bleeding bosom the balm of consolation. How could we comfort her whom God hath not comforted! To his throne let us lift up our voice and weep. O God, if thou art still the widow's husband and the father of the fatherless; if in the fullness of thy goodness there be yet mer- cies in store for miserable mortals, pity, O pity this 17 258 THE PEARL SPEAKER. afflicted mother, and grant that her hapless orphans may find a benefactor, a father, in thee! The Patriot's Elysium.— Montgomery. There is a land, of every land the pride, Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside; Where brighter suns dispense serener light, And milder moons imparadise the night; A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. The wandering mariner, whose eye explores The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, Views not a realm so beautiful and fair, Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; In every clime the magnet of his soul, Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole; For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, The heritage of nature's noblest race, There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, Where man, creation's tyrant, cast aside His sword and scepter, pageantry and pride, While in his softened looks benignly blend The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life; In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, An angel-guard of loves and graces lie; Around her knees domestic duties meet, And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found? Art thou a man? — a patriot? — look around; O thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, That land thy country and that spot thy home. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 259 The Smack in School. — Anonymous. In a district school not far away, Mid Berkshire hills, one winter's day, Was humming with its wonted noise Of threescore mingled girls and boys; Some few npon their task intent, But more on furtive mischief bent; The while the master's downward look Was fastened on a copy-book; When suddenly, behind his back, Bose sharp and clear a rousing smack! As 'twere a battery of bliss Let off in one tremendous kiss! " What's that? " the startled master cries; "That thir," a little imp replies, " Wath William Willith, if you pleathe; I thaw him kith Thuthannah Peathe!" With frown to make a statue thrill, The master thundered: "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came — A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed and birch upraised, The threatener faltered: "I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude! Before the whole set school to boot; What evil genius put you to 't?" "'Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad; " I didn't mean to be so bad, And when Susannah shook her curls, 260 THE PEARL SPEAKER. And whispered I was 'fraid of girls, And dare not kiss a baby's doll, I couldn't stand it, sir, at all, But up and kissed her on the spot! I know — boo-hoo — I ought to not, But somehow from her looks — boo-hoo- I thought she kind o' wished me to!" Occasional Epilogue. — Anonymous. Our parts are performed and our speeches are ended, We are monarchs and courtiers and heroes no more; To a much humbler station again we've descended, And are now but the school-boys you've known us before. Farewell, then, our greatness; 'tis gone like a dream. "lis gone; but remembrance will often retrace The indulgent applause which rewarded each theme, And the heart-cheering smiles that enlivened each face. We thank you! — our gratitude words cannot tell, But deeply we feel it — to you it belongs; With heart-felt emotion we bid you farewell, And our feelings now thank you much more than our tongues. We'll strive to improve, since applauses thus cheer us, That our juvenile efforts may gain your kind looks, And we hope to convince you the next time you hear us That praise has but sharpened our relish for books. Press On.— Benjamin. Press on ! surmount the rocky steps, Climb boldy o'er the torrent's arch; THE PEARL SPEAKER. 261 He fails alone who feebly creeps, He wins who dares the hero's march. Be thou a hero! let thy might Tramp on eternal snows the way, And, through the ebon walls of night, Hew down a passage into day. Press on! if once and twice thy feet Slip back and tumble, harder try; From him who never dreads to meet Danger and death they are sure to fly. To coward ranks the bullet speeds, While on their breasts who never quail Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds, Bright courage, like a coat of mail. Press on! if fortune play thee false To-day, to-morrow she'll be true; Whom now she sinks she now exalts, Taking old gifts and granting new. The wisdom of the present hour Makes up for follies past and gone; To weakness strength succeeds, and power From frailty springs — press on, press on! Therefore, press on! and reach the goal, And gain the prize, and wear the crown; Faint not! for to the steadfast sonl Come wealth and honor and renown. To thine own self be true, and keep Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil; Press on! and thou shalt surely reap A heavenly harvest for thy toil! Defense of a Client. — S. S. Pbentiss. It is said that my client had no right to interfere in 262 THE PEARL SPEAKER. defense of his brother; so says the commonwealth's attorney. Go, gentlemen, and ask your mothers and sisters whether that be law. I refer you to no musty tomes, but to the living volumes of nature. What! a man not permitted to defend his brother against con- spirators, against assassins, who are crushing out the very life of their bruised and powerless victim? Why he who wo aid shape his conduct by such a principle does not deserve to have a brother or a friend. To fight for self is but the result of an honest in- stinct which we have in common with the brutes. To defend those who are dear to us is the highest ex- ercise of the principle of self-defense. It nourishes all the noblest social qualities, and constitutes the germ of patriotism itself. Why is the step of the Kentuckian free as that of the bounding deer; firm, manly, and confident as that of the Macgregor when the foot was on the heather of his native hills, and his eye on the peak of Ben Lomond? It is because he feels independent and proud; independent in the knowledge of his rights, proud in the generous consciousness of ability and courage to defend them, not only in his own person, but in the persons of those who are dear to him. It was not the blood that would desert a brother or a friend which swelled the hearts of your fathers in the "olden time" when, in defense of those they loved, they sought the red savage through all the fastnesses of his native forest. It was not such blood that was poured out, free as a gushing torrent, upon the dark banks of the melancholy Raisin, when all Kentucky armed her warrior sires. They were as bold and true as ever fought beneath a plume. The Roncesvalles Pass, where fell before the oppos- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 263 ing lance the harnessed chivalry of Spain, looked not upon a braver or a better band. Kentucky has no law which precludes a man from defending himself, his brother, or his friend. Better for my client had he never been born than that he should have failed in his duty on this occa- sion. The Best of Liquok. There, there gushing up from the bosom of the earth, with a sound like a shout of joy, there is the liquor which God, the eternal, brew T s for his chil- dren. Not in the simmering still over smoking fires, choked with poisonous gasses and mid sickening- odors and rank corruption, doth your Father in heaven prepare the precious essence of life — pure, cold water; but in the green glade and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to play, there God himself brews it; and low down in the deepest valleys, w T here fountains murmur and the rills sing; and high upon the mountain-tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder storms crash; and away far out on the wide, wide se»a, where Hur- ricane howls music, and big waves roar chorus — there, there he brews it, that beverage of life — health- giving water! And everywhere it is a thing of beauty: gleaming in the dew-drop, shining in the ice gem, where the trees are turned to living jewels, spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a white gauze round the midnight moon, or sporting in the cataract; there you see it sleeping in the glacier, dancing in the hail-shower, folding bright 264 THE PEARL SPEAKER. snow-curtains softly above the wintery world, and weaving the many-colored iris, that seraph zone of the sky, whose warp is the rainbow of the earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checked over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of refraction. Still always is it beautiful — that blessed cold water! No poison bubbles at its brink; its foam brings not madness and murder; no blood stains its liquid glass; pale and starving orphans weep no burning tears in its clear depths; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in words of despair. Speak, speak out, my friends, would you exchange it for the demon's drink, alcohol? Intempekance. The common calamities of life may be endured. Poverty, sickness, and even death, may be met; but there is that which, while it brings all these with it, is worse than all these together. When the husband and father forgets the duties he once delighted to fulfill, and by slow degrees becomes the creature of intemperance, there enters into his house the sor- row that rends the spirit, that cannot be alleviated, that will not be comforted. It is here above all, where she who has ventured every thing feels that every thing is lost. Woman — silent, suffering, devot- ed woman — here bends to her direst affliction. The measure of her woe is, in truth, full, whose husband is a drunkard. Who shall protect her, when he is her insulter, her oppressor? What shall delight her, when she shrinks from the sight of his face, and trembles at the sound of his voice? The hearth is indeed dark, that he has made desolate. There, through the dull midnight hour, her griefs are whis- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 2G5 pered to herself; her bruised heart bleeds in secret. There, while the cruel author of her distress is drowned in distant revelry, she holds her solitary vigil, waiting yet dreading his return that will only wring from her, by his unkindness, tears even more scalding than those she shed over his transgression. To fling a deeper gloom across the present, memory turns back and broods upon the past. Like the recollection of the sun-stricken pilgrim of the cool spring that he drank at in the morning, the joys of other days come over her as if only to mock her parched and weary spirit. She recalls the ardent lover, whose graces won her from the home of her infancy; the enraptured father, who bent with such delight over his newborn children; and she asks if this can really be he ; this sunken being, who has now nothing for her but the sot's disgusting brutality, nothing for those abashed and trembling children but the sot's disgusting example! Can we wonder that, amid these agonizing mo- ments, the tender cords of violated affection should snap asunder; that the scorned and deserted wife should confess "there is no killing like that which kills the heart; " that though it would have been hard for her to kiss for the last time the cold lips of her dead husband, and lay his body forever in the dust, it is harder to behold him so debasing life that even his death would be greeted in mercy? Had he died in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his fam- ily the inheritance of an untarnished name, the ex- ample of virtue that should blossom for his sons and daughters from the tomb — though she would have wept bitterly indeed, the tears of grief would not have been also the tears of shame. But to behold 266 THE PEARL SPEAKER. him fallen away from the station he once adorned, degraded from eminence to ignominy — at home, turn- ing his dwelling to darkness, and its holy endear- ments to mockery; abroad, thrust from the compan- ionship of the worthy, a self-branded outlaw; this is the woe that the wife feels is more dreadful than death, that she mourns over as worse than widow- hood. Address to the Army of Italy. Soldiers, you are precipitated like a torrent from the heights of the Apennines; you have overthrown and dispersed all that dared oppose your march. Piedmont, rescued from Austrian tyranny, is left to its natural sentiment of regard and friendship to the French. Milan is yours; and the republican standard is displayed throughout all Lombardy. The dukes ot Parma and Modena are indebted for their political existence only to your generosity. The army, which so proudly menaced you, has had no other barrier than its dissolution to oppose your invincible cour- age. The Po, the Ticino, the Adda, could not re- tard you a single day. The vaunted bulwarks of Italy were insufficient. You swept them with the same rapidity that you did the Apennines. Those successes have carried joy into the bosom of the country. Your representatives decreed a festival dedicated to your victories, and to be celebrated throughout all the communes of the republic. Now your fathers, your mothers, your wives, and your sisters will re- joice in your success, and take pride in their relation to you. Yes, soldiers, you have done much; but more still remains for you to do. Shall it be said of us that we know how to conquer, but not to profit by THE PEARL SPEAKER. 267 our victories? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But already I see you fly to arms. You are fatigued with an in- active repose. You lament the days that are lost to your glory! Well, then, let us proceed; we have other forced marches to make, other enemies to subdue, more laurels to acquire, and more injuries to avenge. Let those who have unsheathed the dagger of civil war in France, who have basely assassinated our min- isters, who have burned our ships at Toulon — let them tremble! the knell of vengeance has already tolled! But to quiet the apprehensions of the people we de- clare ourselves the friends of all, and particularly of those who are the descendants of Brutus, of Scipio, and those other great men whom we have taken for our models. To re-establish the capital; to replace the statues of those heroes who have rendered it im- mortal; to rouse the Roman people, entranced in so many ages of slavery — these shall be the fruit of our victories. It will be an epoch for the admiration of posterity; you will enjoy the immortal glory of chang- ing the aspect of affairs in the finest part of Europe. The free people of France, not regardless of modera- tion, shall accord to Europe a glorious peace; but it will indemnify itself for the sacrifices of every kind which it has been making for six years past. You will again be restored to your firesides and homes, and your fellow-citizens, pointing you out, shall say: " There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy." Never Give Up. Never give up! It is wiser and better Always to hope, than once to despair; Fling off the load of doubt's heavy fetter, 268 THE PEARL SPEAKER. And break the dark spell of tyrannical fear. Never give up, or the burden may sink you; Providence kindly has mingled the cap, And in all the trials or troubles, bethink you, The watch-word of life must be: "Never give up! " Never give up! though the grape-shot may rattle, Or the full thunder-cloud over you burst, Stand like a rock, and the storm or the battle Little shall harm you, though doing their worst. Never give up ! if adversity presses, Providence wisely has mingled the cup, And the best counsel in all your distresses. Is the stout watch-word of — " Never give up ! " Warning to the Young. Could I call around me, in one vast asse'mbly, the young men of this nation, I would say: "Hopes of my country, blessed be ye of the Lord, now in the dew of your youth ! But look well to your footsteps, for vi- pers and scorpions and adders are around your way. Look at the generation who have just preceded you. The morning of their life was cloudless, and it dawned as brightly as your own. But behold, now, the smit- ten, enfeebled, inflamed, debauched, idle, poor, irre- ligious, and vicious, with halting step, dragging on- ward to meet an early grave. Their bright prospects are clouded, and their sun is set, never to rise. No house of their own receives them, while from poorer to poorer tenements they descend, as improvidence dries up their resources. And now, who are those that wait on their footsteps, with muffled faces and sabled garments? That is a father, and that is a mother, whose gray hairs are coming with sorrow to THE PEARL SPEAKER. 269 the grave. That is a sister weeping over evils which she cannot arrest; and there is the broken-hearted wife; and there are the children — hapless innocents! — for whom their father has provided no inheritance, save one of dishonor and nakedness and woe! And is this, beloved youth, the history of your course? In this scene of desolation, do you see the image of your future selves? Is this the poverty and the dis- ease, which, as an armed man, shall take hold on you ? And are your relatives and friends to succeed those who now move on, in this mournful procession, weep- ing as they go? Yes, bright as your morning now opens, and high as your hopes beat, this is your noon, and your night, unless you shun those habits of in- temperance which have thus early made theirs a day of clouds and of thick darkness. If you frequent places of evening resort for social drinking; if you set out with drinking, daily, a little, prudently, tem- perately — it is yourselves, which, as in a glass, you behold." Fate of the Indians. Everywhere at the approach of the white man the Indians fade away. We hear the rustling of their f ootstepsj like that of the withered leaves of autumn ; and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and return no more. Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fire of their councils rose in every valley. The shouts of victory and the war dance rung through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. Where now are the villages and warriors and youth, 270 THE PEARL SPEAKER. the sachems, and the tribes, the hunters and their families? They have perished. They are consumed. Has wasting pestilence alone done the mighty work? No — nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart cores — a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated, a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are on their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fear- less still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer carls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or dispatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the groves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both, which chokes all utterance. It is cour- age, absorbed in despair. They linger but for a mo- ment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them; no, never. They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race. Kegulus to the Carthaginians. — E. Kellogg. Ye doubtless thought — for ye judge of Roman virt- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 271 ne by your own — that I would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. I might give reason for this, in Punic comprehension, foolish act of mine. I might speak of those eternal princi- ples which makes death for one's country a pleasure, and not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple Africans for ivory and gold! If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your ar- teries, I had remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life. I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will on this mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover them. Here, in your capitol, I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot w T heels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shat- tered Senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental ago- ny that heaves my frame. The moon has scarce waned since the proudest of Rome's proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood or the fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with fondest memory of by-gone hours entreat me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corse- 272 THE PEARL SPEAKER. let scales. I have seen her tear her gray locks and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to Carthage ; and all the assembled Sen- ate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to welcome me withal shall be to what I have endured even as the murmur of a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach. Last night as I lay fettered in my dungeon I heard a strange, ominous sound; it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xan- thippus, the Spartan general, by whose aid you con- quered me, and, with a voice low as when the solemn wind moans through the leafless forest, he thus ad- dressed me: "Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with thy dying breath, this fated city. Know that in an evil moment the Carthaginian generals, furious that I had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely mur- der me. And then they thought to stain my bright- est honor. But, for this foul deed, the wrath of Jove shall rest upon them here and hereafter." And then he vanished. And now, go bring your sharpest torments, The woes I see impending over this guilty realm shall be enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and ar- tery were a shooting pang. I die; but my death shall prove a proud triumph. And for every drop of blood ye from my veins do draw, your own shall flow in rivers. Woe to Carthage! Woe to the proud city of the waters! I see thy nobles wailing at the feet of Roman senators; thy citizens in terror; thy ships in flames. I hear the victorious shouts of Rome. I see her eagles glittering on thy ramparts. Proud city, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 273 thou art doomed! The curse of God is on thee — a clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates till hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off thy proud palaces, and every brook runs crimson to the sea. The Famine in Ireland. — S. S. Prentiss. There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully in all battles but its own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos. In this fair region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful 'ministers who fulfill his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgot- ten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its stran- gling grasp, and unhappy Ireland in the sad woes of the present forgets for a moment the gloomy history of the past. In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger wres- tles alone, day by day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terri- ble conflict, for if he had friends, how could he die of hunger? He lias not the hot blood of the soldier to sustain him ; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. 18 274 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful results? Give, then, generously and freely. Recollect that in so doing you are exercising one of the most Godlike qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has per- mitted us to exercise equally with himself that no- blest of even the divine attributes — benevolence. Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of the children of poor Ireland, and you will give according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you — not grudgingly, but with an open hand; for the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, Is not strained : It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : It blesses him that gives, and him that takes. Nature. — Dow, Jr. My dear friends, it matters not upon whichsoever side we turn our eyes, we behold such beauty in its primitive nakedness as cannot fail to captivate the heart of every true worshiper of the God of nature, and make him feel as though ten thousand caterpillars were crawling up and down the ossified railway of his back. Look at yonder myriad of stars that glittei and sparkle from the dome of heaven's high concave. Say, is there not beauty in these ? Ay, there is beau- ty magnificent in these little celestial trinkets that stud the ebon brow of night — shining as they do, like a multitude of beacon lights of glory in the blue- black of eternity, or like so many cat's eyes in a THE PEARL SPEAKER. 275 windowless garret. Observe the silvery moon, pale- faced Cynthia, wandering Luna, or whatever you choose to call her; see how gracefully she promenades the self-same path which was laid out for her at the beginning of the world. Look at the resplendent sun; see how it has maintained its unsullied bright- ness through the rust-gathering ages of time. Not a single thread has been lost from its golden fringe, and not even a fly-speck has marred its splendor; but it is to-day the same beautiful, lovely object that it was when it first burst upon paradise, and rolled back the darkness of chaos into the unknown region of nowhere. There is beauty in the sunset. Who can look at all the glories of an autumnal twilight, and not have the fuzz of his hands rise up in rapture? O it is, by all odds, the grandest and sublimest picture in the academy of nature! At the festooned gates of the west angels of peace and loveliness have furled their purple wings, and are sweetly sleeping with their heads on pillows of amber, over-canopied with curtains of damask and crimson, tempting poor mortals like us to climb up the ladder of imagination arid steal kisses by the bushel. When the morning, too, as my friend Hudibras observes, like a boiled lobster, be- gins to turn from brown to red, there is beauty of the tallest order. Yes, when Aurora hangs out her red under-garment from her chamber window, prepares her perfumed toilet, and sweeps out the last speck of darkness from the Oriental parlor, there is such blushing beauty resting upon the eastern hill-tops as cannot fail to be appreciated by any one whose heart-strings are not composed of catgut and horse- hair. 276 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Be Faithful to Your Country. — Everett. When the Old World afforded no longer any hope, it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of human- ity. The attempt has begun, is going on, freed from foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under the most benignant auspices; and it certainly rests with us to solve the great problem in human society; to settle, and that forever, the momentous question whether mankind can be trusted with a purely pop- ular system. One might almost think, without extravagance, that the departed wise and good of all places and times are looking down from their happy seats to witness what shall now be done by us; that they who lavished their treasures and their blood of old, who labored and suffered, who spoke and wrote, who fought and perished, in the one great cause of free- dom and truth, are now hanging from their orbs on high, over the last solemn experiment of humanity. As I have wandered over the spots once the scenes of their labors, and mused among the prostrate col- umns of their seriate-houses and forums, I have seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs of the departed ages — from the sepulchers of the nations which died before the sight of America gladdened the world. They exhort us, they adjure us to be faithful to our trusts; they implore us by the long trials of struggling humanity, by the blessed memory of the departed, by the dear faith which has been plighted by pure hands to the holy cause of truth and man, by the awful secrets of the prison houses where the sons of freedom have been immured, by the noble heads which have been brought to the block, by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruins THE PEARL SPEAKER. 277 of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light which is rising on the world. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying Demos- thenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute per- suasions of her mangled Tully. Yes, such is the exhortation which calls on us to exert our powers, to employ our time, and consecrate our labors in the cause of our native land. When we engage in that solemn study, the history of our race; when we survey the progress of man from his cradle in the East to these last limits of his wander- ing; when we behold him ever flying westward from civil and religious thralldom, bearing his household gods over mountains and seas, seeking rest and find- ing none, but still pursuing the flying bow of promise to the glittering hills which it spans in Hesperian climes, we cannot but exclaim with Bishop Berkeley the generous prelate of England, who bestowed his benefactions as well as blessings on our country: " Westward the star of empire takes its way ; The four first acts already past, The fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last." Chakactek of Pitt. — Robertsoit. The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. * Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty itself. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious poli- tics, no idle contests for ministerial victories sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England 278 THE PEARL SPEAKER. and his ambition fame. Without dividing, he de- stroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite, and his schemes were to affect not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic diffi- culties, no domestic weakness reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative astonished a corrupt age, and the treas- ury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country and the calamities of his enemies an- swered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spon- taneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demos- thenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully: it re- sembled sometimes the thunder and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not conduct the under- standing through the painful subtlety of argumenta- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 279 tion, nor was he forever upon the rack o£ exertion, but rather lightened on the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his. eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was something in this man that could create, subvert, or reform: an understand- ing, a spirit, an eloquence, to summon mankind to so- ciety, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded au- thority; something that could establish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a blow in the world that would resound through the universe. To the Eagle. Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, Thy home is high in heaven, Where wide the storms their banners fling, And the tempest clouds are driven. Thy throne is on the mountain-top; Thy fields the boundless air; And hoary peaks, that proudly prop The skies, thy dwellings are. Thou sittest like a thing of light, Amid the noontide blaze; The midday sun is clear and bright, It cannot dim thy gaze. Thy pinions to the rushing blast O'er the bursting billow spread, Where the vessel plunges, hurry past, Like an angel of the dead. Lord of the boundless realm of air, In thy imperial name 280 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The hearts of the bold and ardent dare The dangerous path of fame. Beneath the shade of thy golden wings The Roman legions bore From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs Their pride to the polar shore. For thee they fought, for thee they fell, And their oath was on thee laid; To thee the clarions raised their swell, And the dying warrior prayed. Thou wert, through an age of death and fears, The image of pride and power, Till the gathered rage of a thousand years Burst forth in one awful hour. And then a deluge of wrath it came, And the nations shook with dread; And it swept the earth till its fields were flame, And piled with the mingled dead. Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood, With the low and crouching slave; And together lay, in a shroud of blood, The coward and the brave. Character of Blennerhassett. — Wirt. Who then is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a pal- ace, and decorates it with every romantic embellish- ment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied blooms around him; music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his; an THE PEARL SPEAKER. 281 extensive library spreads its treasures before him; a philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. The evidence would convince you that this is but a faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes: he comes to change this par- adise into a hell. A stranger presents himself. In- troduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soons finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his de- meanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no design itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guard before its breast. Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose may enter. Such was the state of Eden when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpracticed heart of the unfortunate Blennerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affections. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring and desperate thirst for glory; an ardor pant- ing for great enterprises, for all the storm and bustle and hurricane of life. In a short time the whole man is changed, and ev- ery object of his former delight is relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene, because it has be- come flat and insipid to his taste. His books are 282 THE PEARL SPEAKER. abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery blooms and breathes its fra- grance upon the air in vain: he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music: it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no long- er affects him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstacy so unspeak- able, is now unseen and unfelt. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of dia- dems, of stars and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn, with restless emulation, at the names of great heroes and conquerors. His en- chanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wil- derness; and in a few months we find the beautiful and tender partner of his bosom, whom he lately per- mitted not the winds of heaven to visit too roughly, we find her shivering at midnight on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace, thus confounded in the toils that were deliberately spread for him, and over- whelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of an- other—this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the prin- cipal offender, while he by whom he was thus plunged in misery is comparatively innocent, a mere acces- sory. Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understand- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 283 ing will bear a perversion so monstrous ana absurd, so shocking to the soul, so revolting to reason! Let Aaron Burr, then, not shrink from the high destina- tion which he has courted; and having already ruined Blennerhassett in fortune, character, and happiness 'forever, let him not attempt to finish the tragedy by thrusting that ill-fated man between himself and pun- ishment. Chaeacter of William Penn. — Duponceau. William Penn stands first among the lawgivers whose names and deeds are recorded in history. Shall we compare with him Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, those founders of military commonwealths, who or- ganized their citizens in dreadful array against the rest of their species? AVhat benefit did mankind derive from their boasted institutions? Interrogate the shades of those who fell in the mighty contests between Athens and Lacedsemon, between Carthage and Rome, and between Rome and the rest of the universe. But see William Penn, with weaponless hand, sit- ting down peaceably with his followers in the midst of savage nations, whose only occupation was shed- ding the blood of their fellow-men, disarming them by his justice, and teaching them for the first time to view a stranger without distrust. See them bury their tomahawks in his presence so deep that man shall never be able to find them again. See them under the shade of the thick groves of Coaquannock extend the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise to preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall en- dure. See him then with his companions establish- ing his commonwealth on the sole basis of religion, 284 THE PEARL SPEAKER. morality, and universal love, and adopting as the fun- damental maxim of his government the rule handed down to us from heaven: " Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, and good-will to men." Here was a spectacle for the potentates of the earth to look upon, an example for them to imitate. But the potentates of the earth did not see, or, if they saw, they turned away their eyes from the sight; they did not hear, or, if they heard, they shut their ears against the voice that cried out to them from the wilderness : "Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere clivos." The character of William Penn alone sheds a nev- er fading luster on our history. Burial of Sir John Moore.— Wolfe. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning, By the struggling moonbeams' misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. No useless coffin inclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 285 "We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow. Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him; — But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him. But half our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory. A Farewell to Scotland. — Pringle. Our native land, our native vale, A long and last adieu: Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, And Cheviot mountains blue. Farewell, ye hills of glorious deeds, And streams renowned in song. Farewell, ye blithesome braes and meads, Our hearts have loved so long. Farewell, ye bonny elfin knowes, Where thyme and harebells grow; Farewell, ye hoary, haunted howes, O'er hung with birk and sloe. 286 THE PEARL SPEAKER. The battle mound, the Border tower, That Scotia's annals tell; The martyr's grave, the lover's bower, To each, to all, farewell! Home o£ our hearts, our father's home, Land of the brave and free, The sail is napping on the foam That bears us far from thee! We' seek a wild and distant shore Beyond the Atlantic main; We leave thee to return no more, Nor view thy cliffs again! But may dishonor blight our fame, And quench our household fires, When we, or ours, forget thy name, Green island of our sires. Our native land, our native vale, A long, a last adieu; Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, And Scotland's mountains blue. America.— Phillips. I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chron- icler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom se- cure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas! Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to com- memorate! So thought Palmyra; where is she? So THE PEARL SPEAKER. 287 thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spar- tan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, enervate Ot- toman. In his hurried march Time has but looked at their imagined immortality; and all its vanities from the palace to the tomb have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps. The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the in- spiration of their bards. Who shall say, then, con- templating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was? Who shall say that, when the European col- umn shall have moldered into the dust, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant? Flogging in the Navy. — Commodore Stockton. There is one broad proposition upon which I stand. It is this: that an American sailor is an American citizen, and that no American citizen shall, with my consent, be subjected to the infamous punishment of the lash. Placing myself upon this proposition, I am prepared for any consequences. I love the navy. And when I speak of the navy I mean the humblest sailor as well as the highest officer. They are all my fellow-citizens and yours; and, come what may, my voice will ever be raised against a punishment which 288 THE PEARL SPEAKER. degrades my countrymen to the level of the brute, and destroys all that is worth living for— personal honor and self-respect, In many a bloody conflict has the superiority of the American sailor decided the battle in our favor. I desire to secure and preserve that superiority. But can nobleness of sentiment or honorable pride of char- acter dwell with one whose every muscle has been made to quiver under the lash? Can he long continue to love a country whose laws crush out all the dignity of manhood and rouse all the exasperation of hate in his breast? Look to your history — that part of it which the world knows by heart — and you will find on its bright- est pages the glorious achievements of the American sailor. Whatever his country has done to disgrace and break his spirit, he has never disgraced her. Man for man, he asks no odds ; he cares for no odds when the cause of humanity and the glory of his country call him to fight. Who, in the darkest days of our Revolution, carried your flag into the very chops of the British Channel, bearded the lion in his den, and awoke the echo of old Albion's hills by the thunder of his cannon and the shouts of his triumph? In was the American sailor, and the names of John Paul Jones and the " Bon Homme Richard " will go down the annals of time forever. Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag, which for a hundred years had been the terror of Christendom; drove it from the Mediteranean, and put an end to the infamous tribute it had been accus- tomed to exact? It was the American sailor; and the names of Decatur and his gallant companions will be as lasting as monumental brass. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 289 In your war of 1812, wlien your arms on shore were covered by disaster, when Winchester had been de- feated, when the Army of the North-west had surren- dered, and when the gloom of despondency hung like a cloud over the land, who first relit the fires of na- tional glory and made the welkin ring with shouts of victory? It was the American sailor, and the names Hull and the " Constitution " will be remembered as long as we have any thing left worth remembering. The wand of British invincibility was broken when the flag of " Guerriere " came down. That one event was worth more to the republic than all the money which has been expended for the navy. Since that day the navy has had no stain upon its national escutcheon, but has been cherished as your pride and glory; and the American sailor has estab- lished throughout the world, in peace and in war, in storm and in battle, a reputation for heroism and prowess unsurpassed. Salathiel to Titus. — Croly. Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, as I may in the next be an exile or a slave. I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of man; I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim who is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning the cause of the city of Holiness. Titus! in the name of that Being to whom the wis- dom of the earth is folly I adjure you to beware. Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought 19 290 THE PEARL SPEAKER. her misery, often lias she been trampled by the ar- mies of the stranger; but she is still the city of the Omnipotent, and never was blow inflicted upon her by man that was not terribly repaid. The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the world; he plundered her temples and led her people into captivity. How long was it before his empire was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and an enemy on his throne? The Persian came; from her protector he turned into her oppressor, and his empire was swept away like the dust of the desert! The Syrian smote her; the smiter died in agonies of remorse, and where is his kingdom now? The Egyp- tian smote her; and who now sits on the throne of the Ptolemies? Pompey came; the invincible, jbhe con- queror of a thousand cities, the light of Rome, the lord of Asia, riding on the very wings of victory. But he profaned her temple; and from that hour he went down — down, like a millstone plunged into the ocean ! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish fears were upon the great statesman and warrior of Borne. Where does he sleep? What sands were colored with his blood? The universal conqueror died a slave, by the hand of a slave! Crassus came at the head of the legions; he plundered the sacred vessels of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him, and he was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the bones of the robber and his followers? Go tear them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of Par- thia — their fitting tomb! You, too, son of Vespasian, may be commissioned for the punishment of a stiff-necked and rebellious people. You may scourge our naked vice by force of arms; and then you may return to your own land ex- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 291 tilting in the conquest of the fiercest enemy of Rome. But shall yon escape the common fate of the instru- ment of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface the memory of your virtues and make Rome, in bit- terness of soul, curse the Flavian name? Washington.— Phillips. It matters very little what immediate spot may be the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet when the storm passed how pure was the climate that it cleared! how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington it does really ap- pear as if nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were — splendid exemplifications of some single qual- fication: Caesar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Wash- ington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty the pride of every model and the perfection of every master. As a general he marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied 292 THE PEARL SPEAKER. by discipline the absence of experience; as a states- man he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views and the phi- losophy of his counsels that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage ! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory re- turned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created! How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ! All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee Far less than thou hast forborne to be." America. If as a man, I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings toward her as an Irish- man. Never, O never, while memory remains, can Ireland forget the home of her emigrant and the asylum of her exile. No matter whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the reality of suffering, from fancy or infliction, that must be re- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 293 served from the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to investigate and record it; but surely it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate. Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sub- lime a view, so interesting anticipation ? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious frenzy may there find refuge; his in- dustry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the ex- istence of such a country presents a subject for hu- man congratulation? Who can deny that its gigantic advancement affords a field for the most rational con- jecture? At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her? Who shall say that when, in its fol- lies or its crimes, the Old World may have interred all the pride of its power and all the pomp of its civ- ilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the New? For myself, I have no doubt of it. I have not the least doubt, that when our temples and our trophies shall have moldered into dust; when the glories of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements live only in song — philosophy will rise again in the 294 THE PEARL SPEAKER. sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. The Adventukers in the Mayflower. — Everett. Me thinks I see it now, that one solitary, advent- urous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bounded across the unknown sea. I behold it pur- suing, with a thousand misgivings the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with pro- visions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill- stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves, the awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The labor- ing masts seem struggling from their base; the dis- mal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing flood over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the stag- gering vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' voyage, on the ice- clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending upon the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore; without shelter; without means; surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, upon any principle of human probabil- ity, what shall be the fate of this handful of advent- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 295 urers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baf- fled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find a parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the house- less heads of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the tomahawk? was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a mined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea? was it some or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined were able to blast this bud of hope? It is possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so im- portant, a promise yet to be fulfilled, so glorious. Character of Napoleon. — Phillips. He is fallen! We may now pause before that splen- did prodigy which towered among us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnifi- cence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, inde- pendent, and decisive; a will despotic in its dictates, 296 THE PEARL SPEAKER. an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch o£ interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character — the most extraordi- nary, perhaps, that in the annals of this world ever rose or reigned or fell. Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of a peo- ple who acknowledged no superiors, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity ! With no friend but his sword and no fortune but his talents he rushed into the lists where rank and wealth and genius had arrayed themselves, and com- petition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest, he acknowledged no criterion but success, he worshiped no God but ambi- tion, and with an Eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope ; a pre- tended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse and wore without shame the diadem of the Caesars! Necessity of Puke National Mokality. — Beechek. The crisis has come. By the people of this gener- ation, by ourselves, probably, the amazing question is to be decided whether the inheritance of our fa- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 297 thers shall be preserved or thrown away; whether our Sabbaths shall be a delight or a loathing; whether the taverns, on that holy day, shall be crowded with drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble wor- shipers; whether riot and profaneness shall fill our streets and poverty our dwellings and convicts our jails and violence our land, or whether industry and temperance and righteousness shall be the stability of our times; whether mild laws shall receive the cheerful submission of freemen, or the iron rod of a tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves. Be not deceived. The rocks and hills of New England will remain till the last conflagration. But let the Sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of God be abandoned, the government and religious in- struction of children be neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to flow, and her glory will depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her and the munition of rocks will no longer be her de- fense. The hand that overturns our doors and tem- ples is the hand of death unbarring the gate of pan- demonium and letting loose upon our land the crimes and miseries of hell. If the Most High should stand aloof and cast not a single ingredient into our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative woe. But he will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open controversy with him, he will contend openly with us. And never since the earth stood has it been so fearful a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living God. The day of vengeance is at hand, the day of judgment has come, the great earthquake which sinks Babylon is shaking the nations, and the waves of the mighty commotion are dashing upon every shore. 298 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Is this, then, a time to remove the foundations, when the earth itself is shaken? Is this the time to forfeit the protection of God, when the hearts of men are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are to come upon the earth? Is this the time to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of his buckler, when the nations are drinking blood and fainting, and passing away in his wrath ? Is this the time to throw away the shield of faith, when his ar- rows are drunk with the blood of the slain; to cut from the anchor of hope, when the clouds are collect- ing, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and thun- ders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in the heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, and every mountain, sea, and isl- and is fleeing in dismay from the face of an in- censed God? Corruption, the Cause of the Fall of States. — Croly. The Old World has already revealed to us in its un- sealed books the beginning and end of all its own marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece, "the land of scholars and the nurse of arts," where sister republics in fair possessions chant- ed the praises of liberty and the gods, where and what is she? For two thousand years the oppressor has bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the bar- racks of a ruthless soldiery: the fragments of her col- umns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopylae and Marathon, and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the THE PEARL SPEAKER. 299 Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. Rome, republican Borne, whose ea- gles glanced in the rising and setting sun, where and what is she ? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the path worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen cent- uries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Csesar had crossed the Bubican; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the North, completed only what was begun at home. Romans betrayed Borne. The legions were bought and sold, but the people offered the tribute money. Against the Infidelity of Thomas Paine. — Phil- lips. But, my lords, the fate of this half-infidel, half- trading martyr matters very little in comparison with that of the thousands he has corrupted. He has lit- erally disseminated a moral plague, against which even the nation's quarantine can scarce avail us. It has poisoned the fresh blood of infancy, it has dis- heartened the last hope of age; and hundreds must this instant be tainted with the infectious venom whose sting dies not with the destruction of the body, Imagine not because the pestilence smites not at once that its fatality is less certain; imagine not be- 300 THE PEARL SPEAKER. cause the lower orders are the earliest victims that those in the loftiest stations will not suffer in their turn. The most mortal chillness begins at the extrem- ities; and you may depend upon it, nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land into a charnel-house, where murder, anarchy, and li- centiousness, and the whole hell-brood of infidelity will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble. My lord, I am more indignant at these designs, be- cause they are sought to be concealed in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend of lib- erty to tear the mask from the fiend who has usurped it. No! no! this is not our Island Goddess bearing the mountain freshness on her cheeks and scattering the valley's bounty from her hand, known by the lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful virt- ues that attend her path, and the long blaze of glory that lingeis in her train. It is a demon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hopes and visionary realms, but even within the fpldings of its mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophistry; guard your children assid- uously against it; draw around your homes the con- secrated circle which it dare not enter. You will find an amulet in the religion of your country: it is the great mound raised by the Almighty for the protec- tion of humanity. It stands between you and the lava of human passions; and, O believe me, if you wait tamely by while it is basely undermined, the fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you hold venerable or sacred will wither into ashes. Be- lieve no one who tells you that the friends of freedom are now or ever were the enemies of religion. They THE PEARL SPEAKER. 301 know too well that rebellion against God cannot prove the basis of government for man; and that the loftiest structure that impiety can raise is but the Babel monument of its impotency and pride, mock- ing the builders with a moment's strength, and then covering them with inevitable confusion. Do you want an example? Then look to France. The mi- croscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers has not sight enough to contemplate the mighty minds that commenced her revolution. The wit, the sage, the orator, the hero — the whole family of genius — fur- nished forth their treasures, and gave them nobly to the nation's exigence. They had great provocation; they had a glorious cause; they had all that human potency could give them. Bnt relying too much on this human potency, they abjured their God, and, as a natural consequence, they murdered their king, culled their polluted deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol extinguished the flame of the altar. They crowded their scaffold with all their country held of genius and of virtue, and when the peerage and the prelacy were exhausted, the mob-executioner of to-day became the mob-victim of to-morrow. No sex was spared, no age respected, no suffering pitied; and all this they did in the sacred name of liberty, though in the deluge of human blood they left not a mountain-top on which the ark of liberty could rest. But Providence was neither dead nor sleeping. It mattered not that for a moment their impiety seemed to prosper; that victory panted after their ensanguined banners; that as their insatiate eagle soared against the sun, he seemed to replume his wing and to renew his vision. It was only for a moment, and you see at last that in the very banquet 302 THE PEARL SPEAKER. of their triumph tlie Almighty's vengeance blazed upon the wall, and the diadem fell from the brow of the idolater. Extract from a Speech or Edmund Burke. Since I had the honor — should I not rather say the dishonor ? — of sitting in this house I have been witness to many strange, many infamous transactions. What can be your intention in attacking all honor and virt- ue? Do you mean to bring all men to a level with yourselves, and to extirpate honor and independence? Perhaps you imagine a vote will settle the whole controversy. Alas! you are not aware that the man- ner in which your vote is procured is a secret to no man. Listen: for if you are not totally callous, if your consciences are not seared, I will speak daggers to your souls, and wake you to all the hell of guilty recollection. I will follow you with whips and stings, through every maze of your unexampled turpitude, and plant thorns under the rose of ministerial appro- bation. You have flagrantly violated justice and the law of the land, and opened the door for anarchy and confusion. After assuming an arbitrary dominion over law and justice, you issue orders and warrants and proclamations against every opponent, and send prisoners to your bastile all those who have the cour- age and virtue to defend the freedom of their coun- try. But it is vain you hope by fear and terror to ex- tinguish the native British fire. The more sacrifices, the more martyrs you make, the more numerous the sons of liberty will become. They will multiply like the hydra, and hurl vengeance on your heads. Let others act as they will, while I have a tongue or an arm they shall be free. And that I may not be a wit- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 303 ness of these monstrous proceedings, I will leave the House; nor do I doubt but every independent, every honest man, every friend to England, will follow me. These walls are unholy, baleful, deadly, while a pros- titute majority holds the bolt of parliamentary power, and hurls its vengeance only upon the virtuous. To yourselves, therefore, I consign you. Enjoy your pan- demonium. The American Patriot's Song. — Anonymous. Hark! hear ye the sounds that the winds on their pinions Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea, "With a voice that resounds through her boundless dominions! 'Tis Columbia that calls on her sons to be free! Behold on yon summit, where heaven has throned her, How she starts from her proud, inaccessible seat; With nature's impregnable ramparts around her, And the cataract's thunder and foam at her feet! In the breeze of her mountains her loose locks are shaken, While the soul-stirring notes of her w T arrior song From the rock to the valley re-echo: "Awaken! Awaken, ye hearts that have slumbered too long' " Yes, despots! too long did your tyranny hold us, In vassalage vile ere its weakness was known; Till we learned that the links of the chain that con- trolled us Were forged by the fears of its captives alone. 304 THE PEARL SPEAKER. That spell is destroyed, and no longer availing, Despised as detested, pause well ere you dare To cope with a people whose spirit and feeling- Are roused by remembrance and steeled by despair. Go tame the wild torrent, or stem with a straw The proud surges that sweep o'er the strand that confines them; But presume not again to give freemen a law, Nor think with the chains they have broken to bind them. To hearts that the spirit of liberty flushes, Resistance is idle, and numbers a dream: They burst from control as the mountain stream rushes From its fetters of ice, in the warmth of the beam. Darkness.— Byron. I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, Bayless and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day; And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation ; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. Some lay down, And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 305 The pall of a past world; and then again, With curses, cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did nutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came, tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless; they were slain for food. The meager by the meager were devoured; E'en dogs assailed their masters — all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead, Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But, with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, and licking the hand Which answered not with a caress, he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies. They met beside The dying embers of an altar-place, Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering, scraped, with their cold, skeleton hands, The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame, Which was a mockery: then they lifted Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects; saw, and shrieked, and died j Even of their mutual hideousness they died; Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written fiend. The world was void: 20 30G THE PEARL SPEAKER. The populous and the powerful was a lump — Seasonless, herbless, treeless, nianless, lifeless: A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lake, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped, They slept on the abyss without a surge: The waves were dead, the tides were in their graves, The moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished: darkness had no need Of aid from them; she was the universe. Pulaski's Banneb — Anonymous. The standard of Count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the attack on Savannah during the American Revolution, was of crimson silk, embroidered by the Moravian nuns of Bethlehem, Penn. When the dying flame of day Through the chancel shot its ray, Far the glimmering tapers shed Faint light on the cowled head, And the censer burning swung Where before the altar hung That proud banner which with prayer Had been consecrated there; And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while Sung low in the deep, mysterious aisle. Take thy banner. May it wave Proudly o'er the good and brave, When the battle's distant wail Wakes the Sabbath of our vale, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 307 When the clarion's music thrills To the hearts of these lone hills, When the spear in conflict shakes, And the strong lance shivering breaks. Take thy banner, and beneath The war-clouds' encircling wreath, Guard it till our homes are free; Guard it, God will prosper thee ! In the dark and trying hour, In the breaking forth of power, In the rush of steeds and men, His right hand will shield thee then. Take thy banner. But when night Closes round the ghastly fight, If the vanquished warrior bow, Spare him, by our holy vow, By our prayers and many tears, By the mercy that endears; Spare him: he our love hath shared; Spare him as thou wouldst be spared. Take thy banner; and if e'er Thou should press the soldier's bier, And the muffled drum should beat To the tread of mournful feet, Then this crimson flag shall be Martial cloak and shroud for thee ! And the warrior took that banner proud, And it was his martial cloak and shroud. Byron. — Pollok. He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced, As some vast river of unfailing source, 308 THE PEARL SPEAKER Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, And ope'd new fountains in the human heart. With nature's self He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest At will with all her glorious majesty. He laid his hand upon "the ocean's mane," And played familiar with his hoary locks, Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines; And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend; And wove his garland of the lightning's wing In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing; Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, Marching on the storm in vengeance, seemed — Then turned, and with the grasshopper, which sung His evening song beneath his feet, conversed. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were; Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms His brothers — younger brothers, whom he scarce As equals deemed. As some fierce comet of tremendous size, To which the stars did reverence as it passed ; So he through learning and through fancy took His flight sublime, and on the loftiest top Of Fame's dread mountain sat: not soiled and worn, As if he from the earth had labored up; But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair, He looked, which down from higher regions came, And perched there, to see what lay beneath. Great man! the nations gazed, and wondered much, And praised; and many called his evil good. Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness: And kings to do him honor took delight. Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame, THE PEARL SPEAKER. 309 Beyond desire, beyond ambition full, He died— he died of what? Of wretchedness. Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts That common millions might have quenched — then died Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. Only a Pkivate. — F. W. Dawson. Only a private! his jacket of gray Is stained by the smoke and the dust; As Bayard he's brave; as Rupert he's gay; Reckless as Murat in heat of the fray, But in God is his only trust. Only a private! to march, and to fight, To suffer and starve and be strong; With knowledge enough to know that the might Of justice and truth, and freedom and right, In the end must crush out the wrong. Only a private! no ribbon or star Shall gild with false glory his name; No honors for him in braid or in bar, His Legion of Honor is only a scar, And his wounds are his roll of fame! Only a private! one more here slain On the field lies silent and chill! And in the far South a wife prays in vain One clasp of the hand she may ne'er clasp again, One kiss from the lips that are still. Only a private! there let him sleep! He will need neither tablet nor stone; 110 THE PEARL SPEAKER. For the mosses and vines o'er his grave will creep, And at night the stars through the clouds will peep, And watch him who lies there alone. Only a martyr, who fought and who fell Unknown and unmarked in the strife! But still as he lies in his lonely cell Angel and seraph the legend shall tell: Such a death is eternal life. Sheeidan at the Trial of Warren Hastings. There was something in their effort to ridicule the attachment of mother to son; something in this in- tention to prohibit the reverence of son to mother; something in this determination to destroy filial and maternal tenderness, that was so vilely loathsome with all that was horrible to create aversion, as to excite overpowering disgust! If it were not a part of my duty, it would be superfluous to speak of the ties which those aliens to feeling, those apostates to hu- manity, had thus divided. In such an assembly as that 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 each sense and sensibility of man. It is that grati- tude which, softening under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the vast countless debt it never can pay, for so many long years of unceasing so- licitude, 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 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 311 aid of memory, and it needs no deduction of reason. Pre-existing, paramount over all law or human rule, few arguments can increase it and none can diminisli it. It is the sacrament of oar nature, the duty and the indulgence of man. It is his first great privilege, as it is among his last, most endearing delights. When the bosom glows with the idea of reciprocated love; when emotion is fixed into vital principle; when instinct becomes habituated into a master passion; when these sway all the sweetest energies of man, and hang over each vicissitude of all that must pass away, how tenderly and sweetly they aid the melan- choly virtues in their last sad tasks of life to explore the thought, to explain the aching eye, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and age. Conclusion of Preceding. Where the British flag was flying — that ought to have sent out rays of light and hope — men were doomed to deeper dungeons, heavier chains, and se- verer punishments. There where that flag was dis- played — which was wont to cheer the depressed and to dilate the subdued heart of misery — these venerable but unfortunate men were fated to encounter some- thing lower than perdition, and something blacker than despair. There is, there must be, a justice that will mete out due reward for this catalogue of crimes and ag- gravations, that will punish all this human malignity, this human vengeance. But this justice is not a halt and miserable object. It is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod. It is not the portentous phantom of despair, nor is it like any fabled monster formed in the eclipse of rea- 312 THE PEARL SPEAKER. son, and found in some unhallowed grove of supersti- tious darkness and political dismay. No, my lords! In the happy reverse of all this, I turn from this disgusting caricature to the real im- age. Justice I have now before me, august and pure — the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirits and aspirations of men; a justice where the mind rises, where the heart expands, where the coun- tenance is ever placid and benign; a justice whose favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate, to res- cue, to relieve, to succor, and to save; a justice ma- jestic from its mercy, venerable from its utility, be- neficent in every preference, and lovely though in her frown. On this sure and deliberate justice, abstracted from all party purpose and political speculation, I rely. By the rights it is your best privilege to preserve, by the fame it is your best pleasure to inherit — by those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature, we call on you to administer to truth and justice as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, with the most exalted bliss possible for our nature — the self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the con- demnation w T e look for, w T ill be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world. exteact from eulogy on james b. beck. — j. j. Ingalls. Nations die; races expire; and humanity itself is destined to extinction. Sooner or later the energy of the earth will be expended, and it will become inca- pable of supporting life. At some far distant day a THE PEARL SPEAKER. 313 group of feeble and pallid survivors, in some shel- tered gallery of the tropics, will behold the sun sink- behind the horizon and the pitiless stars glitter in the midnight sky. The last man will perish, and the sun will rise upon an earth without an inhabitant. Its atmosphere ; its seas, its life and heart will vanish, and the planet will be an idle cinder uselessly spin- ning in its orbit. Every hour some world dies unnoticed in the fir- mament; some sun smothers to embers and ashes on the hearth-stone of infinite space, and the mighty maze of systems sweeps ceaselessly onward in its voy- age of doom to remorseless and unsparing destruction. With the disappearance of man from the earth all traces of his existence will be lost. The palaces, towers, and temples he has reared ; the books, the creeds, the philosophies he has formulated ; all sci- ence, literature, art, and knowledge will be obliter- ated and ingulfed in empty and vacant oblivion. There is an Intelligence so vast and enduring that the flaming intervals between the birth and death of universes is no more than the flash of fireflies above the meadows of summer. There is a colossal Power by which these stupendous orbs are launched in the abyss, like bubbles blown by a child in the morning sun. There is an Omniscience whose sense of reason and justice cannot be less potential than those im- mutable statutes that are the law of being for the creatures that he has made, and which compel them to declare that if the only object of creation is de- struction, if infinity is the theater of an uninterrupt- ed series of irreparable calamities, if the final cause of life is death — then time is an inexplicable tragedy, and eternity an illogical and indefensible catastrophe. 314 THE PEARL SPEAKER. No, Mr. President, this obsequy is for the quick, and not for the dead. It is not an inconsolable lam- entation, but it is a strain of triumph. It is an af- firmation to those who survive that our departed associate, contemplating at the close of his life the monument of good deeds he had erected — more en- during than brass, and better than the pyramids of kings — might exclaim with the Eoman poet: "I shall not all die." So turning up the silent and unknown future, he could rely with just and reasonable con- fidence upon that most impressive and momentous assurance ever delivered to the human race: "He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." Irish Aliens.— E. L. Shiel. Disdaining all imposture, and abandoning all re- serve, that man, whose talents and boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party, dis- tinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as En- glishmen — that they are "aliens." Aliens? Good heavens ! Was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim : "Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty? " The bat- tles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he dis- played that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable — from Assaye to Waterloo — the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were THE PEARL SPEAKER. 315 the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Yimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of battle before? What desperate valor climbed the steeps and filled the moats of Badajoz? All, all his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory: Yimiera, Salamanca, Toulouse, and last of all the greatest —tell me, for you were there — I appeal to a gallant soldier before me— tell me, for you must needs remember— on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers— when the artillery of France, leveled with the precision of the most dead- ly science, played upon them — when her legions, in- cited by the voice and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset — tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for au instant was to be lost — tell me if the "aliens" blenched ! And when at length the moment for the last decisive movement had arrived ; when the valor, so long wisely checked, was at last let loose; when with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault — tell me if Catholic Ire- land, with less heroic valor than the natives of your own glorious isle, precipitated herself upon the foe ! The blood of England, Scotland, Ireland flowed in the same stream, drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies were de- posited ; the green corn of spring is now breaking upon their union in the grave ! Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to par- ticipate? and shall we be told, as a requital, that we 316 THE PEARL SPEAKER. are estranged from the noble country for whose sal- vation our life-blood was poured out? Archer Anderson at the Dedication of the Mon- ument to Lee. As the people saw Bobert E. Lee with antique simplicity putting aside every temptation to nse his great fame for vulgar gain; as they saw him, in self- respecting contentment with the frugal earnings of his personal labor, refusing every offer of pecuniary assistance ; as they realized his unselfish devotion of all that remained of strength and life to the nurture of Southern youth in knowledge and morals, a new conviction of his wisdom and virtue gathered force and volume, and spread into all lands. The failure of the righteous cause for which he fought denied him that eminence of civil station in which his great qualities in their happy mixture might well have afforded a parallel to the strength and moderation of Washing- ton. But what failure could obscure that moral per- fection which places him as easily by the side of the best men that ever lived, as his heroic actions make him the peer of the greatest? There are men whose influence on mankind neither worldly success nor worldly failure can affect. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. As long as our people truly love and venerate him, there will remain in them a principle of good; for all the stupendous wealth and power which in the last thirty years have lifted these States to foremost rank among the nations of the earth are less a sub- THE PEARL SPEAKER. 317 ject of pride than this one heroic man, this lmm an product of our country and its institutions. Let this monument, then, teach to generations un- born these lessons of his life. Let it stand, not as a record of civil strife, but as a perpetual protest against whatever is low and sordid in our public and private objects. Let it stand as a memorial of per- sonal honor that never brooked a stain, of knightly valor without thought of self, of far-reaching mili- tary ambition, of heroic constancy from which no cloud of misfortune could ever hide the path of duty. Let it stand for reproof and censure, if our people should ever sink below the standards of our fathers. Let it stand for patriotic hope and cheer, if a day of national gloom and disaster shall dawn upon our country. Let it stand as the embodiment of a brave and virtuous people's ideal leader. Let it stand as a great public act of thanksgiving and praise, for that it pleased Almighty God to bestow upon these South- ern States a man so formed to reflect His attributes of power, majesty, and goodness. B. H. Hill at Atlanta in 1876. We will do justice to the colored man. We are un- der the very highest obligations of a brave manhood to do justice to the negro. While he is not our equal, he is in our power, and cowardice takes no meaner shape than when power oppresses weakness. But in the name of civilization, in the name of forty millions of living whites and of hundreds of millions of their coming children, in the name of every principle rep- resented by that banner above us, I do protest to-day that there is nothing in statesmanship, nothing in 318 THE PEARL SPEAKER. philanthropy, and nothing in patriotism which justi- fies the peril or destruction of the rights and liberties of the white race in crazy wranglings over the rights and liberties of the black race. We have shed more white blood and wasted more white treasure in four years over the liberties of the negro in these States than the entire negro race of the world has shed and wasted for their own liberties in all the ages of the earth! And all this at the bidding of sectional dem- agogues who still cry for more. And hundreds of these demagogues are now ha- ranguing the honest masses of the North, seeking to retain themselves in power by keeping alive the pas- sions of sectional hate, at the hazard of every right and of every liberty intended to be preserved and protected by the American Union! God of our fa- thers! how long, O how long shall this madness con- tinue to successfully usurp the places, to disgrace the functions of elevated statesmanship? My countrymen, have you studied this wonderful system of "free constitutional government?" To him who loves liberty it is more enchanting than ro- mance, more bewitching than love, and more elevating than any other science. The snows that fall on Mount Washington are not purer than the motives which begat it. The fresh dew-laden zephyrs from the orange-groves of the South are not sweeter than the hopes its advent inspired. The flight of our own symbolic eagle, though he blow his breath on the sun, cannot be higher than its expected destiny. And is that high expected destiny all eclipsed, and that be- fore its noon? No! forever no! Patriots North, pa- triots South, patriots everywhere, let us close our ears to the men and parties that teach us to hate each other. THE PEARL SPEAKER. 319 Raise high that flag of our fathers! Let Southern breezes kiss it, and Southern skies reflect it! South- ern patriots will love it, Southern sons will defend it, and Southern heroes will die for it ! And as its folds unfurl beneath the heavens, let our voices unite and swell the loud invocation: Flag of our Union, wave on! wave ever! But wave over freemen, not over subjects! wave over States, riot over provinces! And now let the voices of patriots from the North, from the East, from the West, join our voices from the South, and send to heaven one universal according chorus: Wave on, O flag of our fathers, forever! But wave over a union of equals, not over a despot- ism of lords and vassals; over a land of law, of lib- erty, of peace, and not of anarchy, of oppression, and of strife. B. F. Wabd at Winona, Miss. The South was confronted with two bare and im- perative propositions: war or degradation. If there is a son who would have chosen the mean alternative, he is unworthy of the heroic sire who ac- cepted the issue of battle. Place the true history of the country before the youth of this splendid land, and they will love and venerate the noble deeds, the brilliant and unsullied records, the glorious memories and traditions of the South. They will understand that their grand achievements during the last two decades in rescuing this land from the wreck and desolation left in the wake of tyranny, corruption, and barbarian rule are simply manifestations of the spirit of the father in the son, and not the transfusion of new energies from alien sources. 320 THE PEARL SPEAKER. Then, my fellow- citizens, let us teach our boys that they may safely stand by the record of their fathers. Teach them, moreover, under all conditions and at every hazard to stand by the supremacy of the white man. This government is your estate; it has de- scended to you through hundreds of generations of white civilization. Your heritage goes back in un- broken title through all the ages of white progress and white domination to the very dawn of the era of man. It is yours by inheritance, yours by purchase, yours by conquest. Above all, teach them to love and honor and de- fend the character of the good and pure and patriotic women of the South, as the true source of her future greatness and grandeur and glory. Tell them never to forget — as they gaze in proud admiration upon the towering shafts that will kiss the clouds of the com- ing centuries in commemoration of the virtues of Washington and Lee and Jackson, of Calhoun and Clay and Jefferson and Johnson and Ben Hill — that higher still than grateful hearts and faithful hands can pile the monumental stone hover the spirits of the mothers who gave to the South these immortal sons. »°v ^. •• -.0 1* *P^