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ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
BEST AMERICAN 
 ORATIONS 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED 
 BY 
 
 JOHN R. HOWARD 
 
 editor, " best american poems," " best american 
 
 essays"; managing editor, "library of the 
 
 world's best poetry," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
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 Copyright, igio, 
 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 
 €^CI.A268475 
 
I 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 "There were giants in the earth in those days." 
 What days ? Whenever giants were needed. In the 
 time of personal physical force, as in the ancient 
 Hebrew tradition quoted, "the mighty men of old" 
 were heroes of battle. In succeeding ages, every 
 great national crisis seems to have developed the 
 strong men for its needs. So has it been in Amer- 
 ica. The Colonial, Revolutionary, and Constructive 
 periods had their giants; the day of expanding terri- 
 tory, commerce, and manufactures, with conflicting 
 sectional interests and discussion of the mutual 
 relations of the States and the Union, had its cham- 
 pions; and the culminating struggle over slavery, 
 involving the very existence of the Union and the 
 Constitution, bred its men of might, both civil and 
 military, on both sides of the vast conflict. 
 
 America has always been prolific of orators, as is- 
 natural in a land of popular government, where 
 frequent appeal to the people is requisite. Aside 
 from the pulpit invocations to higher personal Kfe, 
 nothing is so important or so universally interesting 
 as the public discussion of public poUcies. Thus it 
 is that politics, in the larger sense — the ethical 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 regulation of government in the interest of the people, 
 evokes the clearest logic, the most fervid passion, 
 and the most effective rhetoric of oratory. Its range 
 is general, but its appeal is personal; and the finest 
 examples of public speech in any nation will therefore 
 be found in its poUtical records. 
 
 It is inevitable, then, that a collection of American 
 orations must be chiefly from the utterances of its 
 statesmen upon the great issues of their times; 
 so that this little gathering of themes and thinkers 
 presents almost an outUne sketch of the history of 
 our country, as is shown by the chronological table 
 of Contents. In any largely representative compila- 
 tion of such addresses there are many — very many 
 — that might be advantageously included; but in 
 so compact a selection as the present, only the most 
 notable and influential may be taken. Even of 
 these, some treat of so numerous a range of sub- 
 ordinate matters or are so variously illustrated that 
 our Umits have compelled abridgment of portions — 
 which, however, are always indicated in the text. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 James Otis 
 
 The Writs of Assistance (1761) 
 
 Patrick JiENRY 
 
 On Military Defence of the Colony (1775) 
 
 Samuel Adams . 
 
 The Independence of America (1776) 
 
 Alexander Hamilton 
 
 The Federal Senate (1788) 
 
 George Washington 
 
 Farewell Address (1796) . 
 
 John Adams 
 
 Inaugural Address (1797) . 
 
 Thomas Jefferson 
 
 First Inaugural Address (1801) 
 
 John Randolph 
 
 On Rupture with England (1806) 
 
 Edward Everett 
 
 The History of Liberty (1828) . 
 
 Robert Young Hayne 
 
 The South and the Constitution (1830) 
 
 Daniel Webster 
 
 The States and the Constitution (1830) 
 
 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 On Expunging the Jackson Censure (1837) 
 V 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Charles Sumner 
 
 The True Grandeur of Nations (1845) 
 
 Henry Clay 
 
 The Compromise Measures (1850) 
 
 John Caldwell Calhoun 
 
 Slavery and the Union (1850) . 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 The Divided House (1858) 
 Gettysburg Address (1863) 
 
 William Henry Seward 
 
 The Irrepressible Conflict (1858) 
 
 Wendell Phillips 
 
 Toussaint L'Ouverture (1861) . 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher 
 
 Abraham Lincoln (1865) . 
 
 Henry Woodfin Grady 
 
 The New South (1886) . 
 
 William McKinley 
 
 World-relations of America (1901) 
 
 193 
 217 
 
 233 
 
 251 
 
 265 
 
 267 
 279 
 
 305 
 321 
 
 335 
 
JAMES OTIS 
 
Of a wealthy and aristocratic colonial family in Massachu- 
 setts, a graduate of Harvard, with fine classical training and a 
 wide taste in literature, a brilliantly successful lawyer, James 
 Otis was not a Tory, like many of his social grade, but an ardent 
 defender of the rights of the colonies. 
 
 In 1760 the royal governors had arranged a new device 
 called Writs of Assistance, or search-warrants, to enable them 
 to seek out goods suspected of not having paid taxes due, 
 which greatly troubled the merchants of Boston and Salem. 
 The application of the Crown to the court to issue such writs 
 was argued in February, 1761. Otis, who had been Crown 
 Advocate-General, resigned that position, to appear for the 
 merchants in opposition. He was, wrote John Adams, " a 
 flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth 
 of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a 
 profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into 
 futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried 
 away all before him. American independence was then and 
 there born." As to the writs, the court withheld its decision, 
 and at the next term no more was heard of them. 
 
 This speech, of which but a portion remains, placed Otis 
 among the friends of colonial freedom and the enemies of 
 royalty, and he was so received by both parties. He was a 
 member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1761, of the Con- 
 gress at New York in 1765, and again legislator in Massachu- 
 setts in 1766. Everywhere Otis took high rank as lawmaker, 
 lawyer, and orator. He was also one of the most convincing 
 writers on the hotly contested political topics of the time, and 
 throughout the Revolution was a prime factor in sustaining 
 the cause of independence. 
 
THE WRITS OF ASSISTANCE 
 
 May it Please Your Honors : I was desired by 
 one of the court to look into the books, and consider 
 the question now before them concerning writs of 
 assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and 
 now appear not only in obedience to your order, but 
 likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, 
 who have presented another petition, and out of 
 regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take 
 this opportunity to declare, that whether under a fee 
 or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee), 
 I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and 
 faculties God has given me, all such instruments of 
 slavery on the one hand, and villany on the other, as 
 this writ of assistance is. 
 
 It appears to me the worst instrument of arbi- 
 trary power, the most destructive of English liberty 
 and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was 
 found in an English law-book. I must therefore 
 beg your honors' patience and attention to the whole 
 range of an argument, that may perhaps appear 
 uncommon in many things, as well as to points of 
 learning that are more remote and unusual ; that the 
 whole tendency of my design may the more easily be 
 perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the 
 3 
 
4 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 force of them be better felt. I shall not think much 
 of my pains in this cause, as I engaged in it from 
 principle. I was solicited to argue this cause as 
 Advocate-General ; and because I would not, I have 
 been charged with desertion from my office. To this 
 charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I re- 
 nounced that office, and I argue this cause from the 
 same principle; and I argue it with the greater 
 pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time 
 when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth 
 declaring from his throne that he glories in the name 
 of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are 
 dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of 
 his crown; and as it is in opposition to a kind of 
 power, the exercise of which in former periods of 
 history cost one king of England his head, and 
 another his throne. I have taken more pains in this 
 cause than I ever will take again, although my en- 
 gaging in this and another popular cause has raised 
 much resentment. But I think I can sincerely de- 
 clare, that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious 
 name for conscience' sake; and from my soul I 
 despise all those whose guilt, maUce, or folly has 
 made them my foes. Let the consequences be what 
 they will, I am determined to proceed. The only 
 principles of pubHc conduct, that are worthy of a 
 gentleman or a man, are to sacrifice estate, ease, 
 health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred 
 calls of his country. 
 
JAMES OTIS 5 
 
 These manly sentiments, in private life, make the 
 good citizens ; in public life, the patriot and the hero. 
 I do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall 
 be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought 
 to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will 
 be then known how far I can reduce to practice 
 principles which I know to be founded in truth. In 
 the meantime I will proceed to the subject of this 
 writ. 
 
 Your honors will find in the old books concerning 
 the office of a justice of the peace, precedents of 
 general warrants to search suspected houses. But in 
 more modern books, you v/ill find only special war- 
 rants to search such and such houses, specially named, 
 in which the complainant has before sworn that he 
 suspects his goods are concealed; and will find it 
 adjudged, that special warrants only are legal. In 
 the same manner I rely on it, that the wTit prayed 
 for in this petition, being general, is illegal. It is a 
 power that places the liberty of every man in the 
 hands of every petty officer. I say I admit that 
 special writs of assistance, to search special places, 
 may be granted to certain persons on oath; but I 
 deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted, 
 for I beg leave to make some observations on the 
 writ itself, before I proceed to other Acts of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 In the first place, the writ is universal, being 
 directed "to all and singular justices, sheriffs, con- 
 
6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 stables, and all other officers and subjects"; so that, 
 in short, it is directed to every subject in the King's 
 dominions. Every one with this writ may be a 
 tyrant; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a 
 legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or murder 
 any one within the realm. In the next place, it is 
 perpetual, there is no return. A man is accountable 
 to no person for his doings. Every man may reign 
 secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and 
 desolation around him, until the trump of the arch- 
 angel shall excite different emotions in his soul. In 
 the third place, a person with this writ, in the day- 
 time, may enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and 
 command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ, 
 not only deputies, etc., but even their menial ser- 
 vants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this 
 but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on 
 us; to be the servant of servants, the most despicable 
 of God's creation ? 
 
 Now one of the most essential branches of English 
 liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's 
 house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as 
 well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, 
 if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate 
 this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter 
 our houses when they please; we are commanded 
 to permit their entry. Their menial servants may 
 enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their 
 way; and whether they break through maUce or 
 
JAMES OTIS 7 
 
 revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare sus- 
 picion without oath is sufi&cient. This wanton 
 exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion 
 of a heated brain. I will mention some facts. Mr. 
 Pew had one of these writs, and when Mr. Ware suc- 
 ceeded him, he indorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware; 
 so that these writs are negotiable from one ofl&cer 
 to another; and so your honors have no opportunity 
 of judging the persons to whom this vast power is 
 delegated. Another instance is this: Mr. Justice 
 Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by 
 a constable, to answer for a breach of the Sabbath- 
 day acts, or that of profane swearing. As soon as 
 he had finished, Mr. Ware asked him if he had done. 
 He replied, ''Yes." "Well then," said Mr. Ware, " I 
 will show you a Httle of my power. I command you 
 to permit me to search your house for uncustomed 
 goods;" and went on to search the house from the 
 garret to the cellar; and then served the constable 
 in the same manner! 
 
 But to show another absurdity in this writ: if 
 it should be estabUshed, I insist upon it every person, 
 by the 14th of Charles II, has this power as well as 
 the custom-house officers. The words are: "It shall 
 be lawful for any person or persons authorized," etc. 
 What a scene does this open ! Every man prompted 
 by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the 
 inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of as- 
 sistance. Others will ask it from self-defence; one 
 
8 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society- 
 be involved in tumult and in blood. 
 
 [Here ends the only direct report of the speech that 
 remains; but John Adams, who heard the oration, 
 and who said that in it American independence was 
 born, wrote out an abstract of it, which here fol- 
 lows: — ] 
 
 1. He began with an exordium, containing an 
 apology for his resignation of the position of Advo- 
 cate-General in the Court of Admiralty: and for his 
 appearance in that cause in opposition to the Crown 
 and in favor of the town of Boston and the merchants 
 of Boston and Salem. 
 
 2. A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of 
 nature. He asserted that every man, merely natural, 
 was an independent sovereign, subject to no law 
 but the law written on his heart and revealed to him 
 by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature, 
 and the inspiration of his understanding and his 
 conscience. His right to his hfe, his liberty, no 
 created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his 
 right to his property less incontestable. The club 
 that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for 
 defence, was his own. His bow and arrow were his 
 own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a 
 squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, 
 had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an 
 eel, or a smelt, or a sculpin, it was his property. In 
 short, he sported^upon this topic with so much wit 
 
JAMES OTIS 9 
 
 and humor, and at the same time with so much indis- 
 putable truth and reason, that he was not less enter- 
 taining than instructive. He asserted that these 
 rights were inherent and inaUenable ; that they never 
 could be surrendered or alienated, but by idiots or 
 madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were 
 void, and not obligatory, by all the laws of God and 
 man. Nor were the poor negroes forgotten. Not a 
 Quaker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson in Virginia, 
 ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms. 
 Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered 
 at the doctrine he taught; and I have all my Ufe 
 shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences 
 that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we 
 say that the rights of masters and servants clash, 
 and can be decided only by force ? I adore the idea 
 of gradual abolitions ! but who shall decide how 
 fast or how slowly these aboHtions shall be made ? 
 
 3. From individual independence he proceeded 
 to association. If it was inconsistent with the dig- 
 nity of human nature to say that men were grega- 
 rious animals, like wild geese, it surely could offend 
 no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature: 
 that there were natural sympathies, and, above all, 
 the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon 
 draw them together in little groups, and by degrees 
 in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and 
 defence. And this must have happened before any 
 formal covenant, by express words or signs, was 
 
10 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 concluded. When general councils and deliberations 
 commenced, the objects could be no other than the 
 mutual defence and security of every individual for 
 his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose 
 them to have surrendered these in any other way than 
 by equal rules and general consent was to suppose 
 them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never 
 binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or 
 compelled by force into any other compact, such fraud 
 and such force could confer no obligation. Every 
 man had a right to trample it under foot whenever 
 he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be 
 derived only from nature and the Author of nature: 
 that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible 
 by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipula- 
 tions which man could devise. 
 
 4. These principles and these rights were wrought 
 into the English Constitution as fundamental laws. 
 And under this head he went back to the old Saxon 
 laws, and to Magna Charta, and the fifty confirma- 
 tions of it in ParHament, and the executions ordained 
 against the violators of it, and the national ven- 
 geance which had been taken on them from time to 
 time, down to the Jameses and Charleses, and to the 
 Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights and the 
 Revolution. He asserted that the security of these 
 rights to life, Hberty, and property had been the 
 object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, 
 temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military 
 
 } 
 
JAMES OTIS IT 
 
 and ecclesiastical, in every age. He asserted that 
 our ancestors, as British subjects, and we, their 
 descendants, as British subjects, were entitled to 
 all those rights, by the British Constitution, as 
 well as by the law of nature and our provincial 
 charter, as much as any inhabitant of London or 
 Bristol, or any part of England; and were not to 
 be cheated out of them by any phantom of " vir- 
 tual representation," or any other fiction of law 
 or politics, or any monkish trick of deceit and 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 5. He then examined the Acts of Trade, one by 
 one, and demonstrated that if they were considered 
 as revenue laws, they destroyed all our security of 
 property, liberty, and life, every right of nature, 
 and the English Constitution, and the charter of the 
 province. Here he considered the distinction be- 
 tween ''external and internal taxes," at that time 
 a popular and commonplace distinction. But he 
 asserted that there was no such distinction in theory, 
 or upon any principle but "necessity." The neces- 
 sity that the commerce of the empire should be under 
 one direction was obvious. The Americans had been 
 so sensible of this necessity that they had connived 
 at the distinction between external and internal 
 taxes, and had submitted to the Acts of Trade as 
 regulations of commerce, but never as taxations or 
 revenue laws. Nor had the British government till 
 now ever dared to attempt to enforce them as taxa- 
 
12 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tions or revenue laws. They had lain dormant in 
 that character for a century almost. The Naviga- 
 tion Act he allowed to be binding upon us, because 
 we had consented to it by our own legislature. Here 
 he gave a history of the Navigation Act of the first 
 of Charles II., a plagiarism from OUver Cromwell. 
 This act had lain dormant for fifteen years. In 
 1675, after repeated letters and orders from the king. 
 Governor Leverett very candidly informs his Maj- 
 esty that the law had not been executed, because it 
 was thought unconstitutional, ParUament not having 
 authority over us. 
 
PATRICK HENRY 
 
 I 736-1 799 
 
A POOR boy in Virginia, with few early advantages and too 
 little energy to improve those, Henry became a lawyer, and for 
 some time an unsuccessful one. But finally, in a case that 
 interested and roused him, — defence of the legislature against 
 a salary suit by the clergy, — he dropped the stilted fashion of 
 speech he had imitated from older men, and giving free rein to 
 his native sense and emotional power, thrilled his hearers and 
 surprised himself with a startling success. This changed the 
 man; he had found himself, and others had found him, for 
 thenceforward he was as brilliantly successful as before he had 
 dismally failed. His eloquence — simple, direct, forcible, irre- 
 sistible — gave him reputation, and in 1765, at the age of 
 twenty-nine, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. 
 
 This was in the heat of the discussion of the hated Stamp 
 Act, when men hardly knew whether to submit or to resist; 
 but Henry introduced resolutions declaring that Virginians 
 were bound to pay no taxes not imposed by their own legisla- 
 ture, and flung himself into the debate with that short and now 
 familiar speech in which he cried, "Caesar had his Brutus, 
 Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third" — 
 "Treason!" cried the Speaker — "may profit by their exam- 
 ple," concluded Henry; and his resolutions were passed. 
 
 In 1775 he uttered before the Virginia Convention of Dele- 
 gates the vehement address here following, arousing the Virgin- 
 ians to arms ; and in all his legislative career, in the Continental 
 Congress of 1774 and the Virginia Convention of 1775, he 
 was foremost in repelling the idea of British aggression. He 
 was made Governor of Virginia in 1 776-1 779 and in 1784- 
 1786. In 1788, in the Virginia Ratification Convention, he 
 opposed the new Constitution as giving too much power to the 
 general government. From first to last Patrick Henry was 
 a singularly eloquent Tribune of the People. 
 
 14 
 
AMERICAN LIBERTY 
 
 Mr. President: No man thinks more highly than 
 I do of the patriotism, as well as abiUties, of the very 
 worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. 
 But different men often see the same subject in dif- 
 ferent lights; and, therefore, I hope that it wdll not 
 be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, 
 entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very 
 opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments 
 freely and without reserve. This is no time for cere- 
 mony. The question before the House is one of 
 awful moment to this country. For my own part I 
 consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom 
 or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of 
 the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. 
 It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at 
 truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we 
 hold to God and our country. Should I keep back 
 my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving 
 offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason 
 towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty 
 towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above 
 all earthly kings. 
 
 Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge 
 15 
 
1 6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 in the illusions of Hope. We are apt to shut our eyes 
 against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that 
 siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the 
 part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous 
 struggle for Uberty? Are we disposed to be of the 
 number of those who, having eyes, see not, and hav- 
 ing ears, hear not, the things which so nearly con- 
 cern their 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 
 way of judging of 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 
 gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves 
 and the House? Is it that insidious smile with 
 which our petition has been lately received? Trust 
 it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer 
 not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask 
 yourselves how this gracious reception of our peti- 
 tion comports with these warlike preparations which 
 cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets 
 and armies necessary to a work of love and recon- 
 ciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilHng to 
 be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back 
 our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These 
 
PATRICK HENRY 17 
 
 are the implements of war and subjugation; the last 
 arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, 
 Sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be 
 not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen as- 
 sign any other possible motives for it? Has Great 
 Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, 
 to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? 
 No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they 
 can be meant for no other. They are sent over to 
 bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British 
 ministry have been so long forging. 
 
 And what have wt to oppose to them? Shall we 
 try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for 
 the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer 
 on the subject? Nothing. We have held the sub- 
 ject up in every light of which it is capable; but it 
 has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty 
 and humble supplication? What terms shall we find 
 which have not been already exhausted? Let us 
 not, I beseech you. Sir, deceive ourselves longer. 
 Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to 
 avert the storm which is now coming on. We have 
 petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have sup- 
 pHcated; we have prostrated ourselves before the 
 throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest 
 the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. 
 Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances 
 have produced additional violence and insult; our 
 supplications have been disregarded; and we have 
 
l8 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the 
 throne. 
 
 In vain, after these things, may we indulge the 
 fond hope of peace and reconciUation. There is no 
 longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free 
 — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inesti- 
 mable privileges for which we have been so long con- 
 tending — 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 aban- 
 don until the glorious object of our contest shall be 
 obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, Sir, we must 
 fight ! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is 
 all that is left us! 
 
 They tell us. Sir, that we are weak; unable to cope 
 with so formidable an adversary. But when shall 
 we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next 
 year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, 
 and when a British guard shall be stationed in every 
 house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution 
 and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effec- 
 tual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and 
 hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our 
 enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, 
 we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the 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 pos- 
 sess, are in\incible by any force which our enemy 
 
PATRICK HENRY 1 9 
 
 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 
 active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. 
 If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late 
 to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but 
 in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! 
 Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston ! 
 The war is inevitable — and let it come ! I repeat it, 
 Sir, let it come! 
 
 It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentle- 
 men 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 
 resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the 
 field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that 
 gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life 
 so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
 price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty 
 God! I know not what course others may take; 
 but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 
 
 I 722-1803 
 
Samuel Adams — born, bred, living, and dying in Boston — 
 was one of the potent forces, not only in the American Revolu- 
 tion itself, but in promoting and bringing it about. From the 
 first, he refused to believe that any good could come out of 
 further British control of America, repudiated parliamentary 
 taxation without representation, rejected all compromising 
 measures, busied himself in correspondence urging cooperation 
 between the Colonies, aimed at independence, and did his best 
 to ferment the war feeling. 
 
 Adams early entered political life, being in the Massachusetts 
 legislature in 1776. He was an influential member of the First 
 and of the Second Continental Congresses, a signer of the 
 Declaration of Independence, an earnest member of the Massa- 
 chusetts Ratification Convention, and tireless in speaking, 
 writing, publishing, the fieriest appeals to his countrymen. 
 His speech on American Independence, here given, was de- 
 livered in Philadelphia, August i, 1776, and had great weight. 
 
 After the war and the new Constitution, he was Lieutenant- 
 governor of Massachusetts in 1789 and Governor in 1794. 
 His death at the age of eighty-two removed one of the most 
 notable figures of that great time. 
 
 22 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 
 
 Delivered at the State House, in Philadelphia, Au- 
 gust I, ijy6 
 
 Countrymen and Brethren: I would gladly 
 have declined an honor to which I find myself un- 
 equal. I have not the calmness and impartiaHty 
 which the infinite importance of this occasion de- 
 mands. I will not deny the charge of my enemies, 
 that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our 
 country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthu- 
 siasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment 
 and expression which men of cooler passions may 
 possess. Let me beseech you, then, to hear me with 
 caution, to examine without prejudice, and to correct 
 the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my 
 zeal. 
 
 Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of 
 mankind. Your unperverted understandings can 
 best determine on subjects of a practical nature. 
 The positions and plans which are said to be above 
 the comprehension of the multitude may be always 
 suspected to be visionary and fruitless. He who 
 made all men hath made the truths necessary to 
 human happiness obvious to all. 
 
24 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Our forefathers threw off the yoke of popery in 
 religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveHng 
 the popery of politics. . . . What an affront to the 
 King of the universe, to maintain that the happiness 
 of a monster, sunk in debauchery and spreading 
 desolation and murder among men, of a Cahgula, 
 a Nero, or a Charles, is more precious in his sight 
 than that of milHons of his supphant creatures, 
 who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
 their God! No! in the judgment of Heaven there 
 is no other superiority among men, than a superiority 
 in wisdom and virtue. And can we have a safer 
 model in forming ours? The Deity then has not 
 given any order or family of men authority over 
 others, and if any men have given it, they only could 
 give it for themselves. Our forefathers, 'tis said, 
 consented to be subject to the laws of Great Britain. 
 I will not, at present, dispute it, nor mark out the 
 limits and conditions of their submission; but will 
 it be denied that they contracted to pay obedience, 
 and to be under the control of Great Britain, because 
 it appeared to them most beneficial in their then 
 present circumstances and situations? We, my 
 countrymen, have the same right to consult and pro- 
 vide for our happiness, which they had to promote 
 theirs. If they had a view to posterity in their 
 contracts, it must have been to advance the felicity 
 of their descendants. If they erred in their expec- 
 tations and prospects, we can never be condemned 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 25 
 
 for a conduct which they would have recommended 
 had they foreseen our present condition. 
 
 Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the 
 property, lives, and religion of millions depend on 
 the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; 
 who would send us to antiquated charters, of uncer- 
 tain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the 
 present generation are not bound to be victims to 
 cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our 
 pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the 
 miserable privilege of having the rewards of our 
 honest industry, the fruits of those fields which they 
 purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will 
 of men over whom we have no check? Did they con- 
 tract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect 
 that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed 
 invaders which have been denied to our suppUca- 
 tions at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear 
 our character as a people ridiculed with indifference ? 
 Did they promise for us that our meekness and pa- 
 tience should be insulted; our coasts harassed; our 
 towns demolished and plundered, and our wives 
 and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and 
 death, without feehng the resentment of men, and 
 exerting those powers of self-preservation which God 
 has given us ? No man had once a greater venera- 
 tion for EngHshmen than I entertained. They were 
 dear to me as branches of the same paternal trunk, 
 and partakers of the same religion and laws; I still 
 
26 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 view with respect the remains of the Constitution 
 as I would a lifeless body which had once been ani- 
 mated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am 
 roused by the din of arms; when I behold legions of 
 foreign assassins, paid by Englishmen to imbrue 
 their hands in our blood; when I tread over the 
 uncoffined bones of my countrymen, neighbors and 
 friends; when I see the locks of a venerable father 
 torn by savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping 
 her infants to her bosom, and on her knees imploring 
 their lives from her own slaves, v/hom Englishmen 
 have allured to treachery and murder; w^hen I behold 
 my country, once the seat of industry, peace, and 
 plenty, changed by Englishmen to a theater of blood 
 and misery. Heaven forgive me, if I cannot root out 
 those passions which it has implanted in my bosom 
 and detest submission to a people who have either 
 ceased to be human, or have not virtue enough to 
 feel their own wretchedness and servitude. 
 
 Men who content themselves with the semblance 
 of truth, and a display of w^ords, talk much of our 
 obligations to Great Britain for protection! Had 
 she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of shop- 
 keepers are very seldom so disinterested. Let us 
 not be so amused wdth words; the extension of her 
 commerce was her object. When she defended our 
 coasts, she fought for her customers, and convoyed 
 our ships loaded with wealth, which we had acquired 
 for her by industry. She has treated us as beasts of 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 27 
 
 burden, whom the lordly masters cherish that they 
 may carry a greater load. Let us inquire also against 
 whom she has protected us? Against her own 
 enemies with whom we had no quarrel, or only on her 
 account, and against whom w^e always readily exerted 
 our wealth and strength when they were required. 
 Were these Colonies backward in giving assistance 
 to Great Britain, when they w^ere called upon in 1739, 
 to aid the expedition against Carthagena? They 
 at that time sent three thousand men to join the 
 British army, although the war commenced without 
 their consent. But the last w^ar, 'tis said, was purely 
 American. This is a vulgar error, which, like many 
 others, has gained credit by being confidently re- 
 peated. The dispute between the Courts of Great 
 Britain and France related to the limits of Canada 
 and Nova Scotia. The controverted territory was 
 not claimed by any in the Colonies, but by the 
 Crown of Great Britain. It was therefore their 
 own quarrel. The infringement of a right which 
 England had, by the Treaty of Utrecht, of trading 
 in the Indian country of Ohio, was another cause of 
 the war. The French seized large quantities of 
 British manufactures, and took possession of a fort 
 which a company of British merchants and factors 
 had erected for the security of their commerce. The 
 war was therefore waged in defence of lands claimed 
 by the Crown, and for the protection of British prop- 
 erty. The French at that time had no quarrel with 
 
28 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 America; and, as appears by letters sent from their 
 commander-in-chief, to some of the Colonies, wished 
 to remain in peace with us. The part therefore 
 which we then took, and the miseries to which we 
 exposed ourselves, ought to be charged to our affec- 
 tion for Britain. These Colonies granted more than 
 their proportion to the support of the war. They 
 raised, clothed, and maintained nearly twenty-five 
 thousand men, and so sensible were the people of 
 England of our great exertions, that a message was 
 annually sent to the House of Commons purporting: 
 "That His Majesty, being highly satisfied of the 
 zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects in 
 North America had exerted themselves in defence of 
 His Majesty's just rights and possessions, recom- 
 mended it to the House, to take the same into con- 
 sideration, and enable him to give them a proper 
 compensation." 
 
 But what purpose can arguments of this kind an- 
 swer? Did the protection we received annul our 
 rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of 
 being miserable? Who among you, my country- 
 men, that is a father, would claim authority to make 
 your child a slave because you had nourished him 
 in his infancy? It is a strange species of generosity 
 which requires a return infinitely more valuable than 
 anything it could have bestowed. . . . 
 
 Courage, then, my countrymen! our contest is 
 not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 29 
 
 whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum 
 on earth, for civil and religious hberty. Dismissing 
 therefore the justice of our cause, as incontestable, 
 the only question is, What is best for us to pursue 
 in our present circumstances? 
 
 The doctrine of dependence on Great Britain is, 
 I believe, generally exploded; but as I would attend 
 to the honest weakness of the simplest of men, you 
 will pardon me if I offer a few words on that subject. 
 
 We are now on this continent, to the astonishment 
 of the world, three milUons of souls united in one 
 common cause. We have large armies, well disci- 
 plined and appointed with commanders inferior to 
 none in mihtary skill, and superior in activity and 
 zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores 
 beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign 
 nations are waiting to crown our success by their 
 alliances. There are instances of, I would say, an 
 almost astonishing Providence in our favor; our 
 success has staggered our enemies, and almost given 
 faith to infidels; so that we may truly say it is not 
 our own arm which has saved us. 
 
 The hand of heaven appears to have led us on to 
 be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the 
 great providential dispensation which is completing. 
 We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not 
 look back, lest we perish and become a monument 
 of infamy and derision to the world! For can we 
 ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation 
 
3© BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 for defence; more infatuation of counsel among our 
 enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves ? 
 The same force and resistance which are sufficient 
 to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious 
 independence and support us in the dignity of free, 
 imperial States. We cannot suppose that our oppo- 
 sition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation 
 more friendly to America, or created in them a 
 greater respect for the rights of mankind. We can 
 therefore expect a restoration and estabhshment of 
 our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries 
 we have received from their want of power, from 
 their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanim- 
 ity and valor, which will effect an honorable peace, 
 can render a future contest for our liberties unneces- 
 sary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf 
 is a madman if he lets him loose without drawing 
 his teeth and paring his nails. 
 
 From the day on which an accommodation takes 
 place between England and America, on any other 
 terms than as independent States, I shall date the 
 ruin of this country. A poUtic minister will study 
 to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent 
 of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence 
 would melt down the \drtue, which the violence of 
 the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a 
 state of tranquillity, wealth, and luxury, our descend- 
 ants would forget the arts of war, and the noble 
 activity and zeal which made their ancestors invin- 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 3I 
 
 cible. Every art of corruption would be employed 
 to loosen the bond of union which renders our assist- 
 ance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which 
 now animates our hearts and gives success to our 
 arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, 
 and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye aban- 
 doned minions of an infatuated ministry, if perad- 
 venture any should yet remain among us! — remem- 
 ber that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered 
 among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies 
 of our countrymen, and then say. What should be 
 the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our pos- 
 terity bow the knee, suppHcate the friendship, and 
 plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the 
 men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot 
 in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth ? 
 If we love wealth better than liberty, the tranquilUty 
 of servitude than the animating contest of freedom 
 — go from us in peace. We ask you not counsels or 
 arms. Crouch down and Hck the hands which feed 
 you. May your chains set Ughtly upon you and 
 may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen ! 
 To unite the supremacy of Great Britain and the 
 hberty of America, is utterly impossible. So vast 
 a continent and of such a distance from the seat of 
 empire will every day grow more unmanageable. 
 The motion of so unwieldy a body cannot be directed 
 with any despatch and uniformity, without commit- 
 ting to the Parliament of Great Britain powers 
 
32 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and 
 force which would be absolutely necessary for the 
 preservation of the peace and good order of this 
 continent, would put all our valuable rights within 
 the reach of that nation. 
 
 As the administration of government requires 
 firmer and more numerous supports in proportion 
 to its extent, the burdens imposed on us would be 
 excessive, and we should have the melancholy pros- 
 pect of their increasing on our posterity. . . . 
 
 Prejudice, I confess, may warp our judgments. 
 Let us hear the decision of Englishmen on this sub- 
 ject, who cannot be suspected of partiaHty: "The 
 Americans," say they, "are but Httle short of half 
 our number. To this number they have grown from 
 a small body of original settlers by a very rapid in- 
 crease. The probability is that they will go on to 
 increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be 
 double our number; and form a mighty empire, con- 
 sisting of a variety of States, all equal or superior 
 to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which 
 give dignity and happiness to human hfe. In that 
 period will they be still bound to acknowledge that 
 supremacy over them w^hich we now claim? Can 
 there be any person who will assert this, or whose 
 mind does not revolt at the idea of a vast continent, 
 holding all that is valuable to it, at the discretion of 
 a handful of people on the other side the Atlantic? 
 But if at that period this would be unreasonable, 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 33 
 
 what makes it otherwise now? Draw the line if you 
 can. But there is still a greater difficulty. Britain 
 is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, 
 and its legislature consists of a body of able and inde- 
 pendent men, who govern with wisdom and justice. 
 The time may come when all will be reversed; when 
 its excellent constitution of government will be sub- 
 verted; when, pressed by debts and taxes, it will 
 be greedy to draw to itself an increase of rev- 
 enue from every distant province, in order to ease 
 its own burdens; when the influence of the Crown, 
 strengthened by luxury and an universal profligacy 
 of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken 
 down every fence of liberty, and rendered us a nation 
 of tame and contented vassals; when a general elec- 
 tion will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, 
 and when the Parliament, the grand council of the 
 nation, and once the faithful guardian of the state 
 and a terror to e\dl ministers, will be degenerated 
 into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, 
 always ready to confirm any measures, and httle 
 more than a public court for registering royal edicts. 
 Such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the 
 state of Great Britain. What will at that period be 
 the duty of the Colonies? Will they be still bound 
 to unconditional submission? Must they always 
 continue an appendage to our Government and fol- 
 low it implicitly through every change that can hap- 
 pen to it? Wretched condition, indeed, of millions 
 
34 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 of freemen as good as ourselves! Will you say that 
 we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger 
 of such revolution? Would to God that this were 
 true. But will you not always say the same? Who 
 shall judge whether we govern equitably or not? 
 Can you give the Colonies any security that such a 
 period will never come ?" 
 
 No! The period, countrymen, is already come. 
 The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppres- 
 sion was raised over us. We were roused from our 
 slumbers, and may we never sink into repose imtil 
 we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance 
 to our posterity. This day we are called upon to give 
 a glorious example of what the wisest and best of 
 men were rejoiced to view only in speculation. This 
 day presents the world with the most august specta- 
 cle that its annals ever unfolded. Millions of free- 
 men, deHberately and voluntarily forming themselves 
 into a society for their common defence and common 
 happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, 
 and Sidney! will it not add to your benevolent joys 
 to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, 
 and evincing to the world the reaUty and expediency 
 of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that 
 equal liberty which you were happy, when on earth, 
 in deUneating and recommending to mankind? 
 
 Other nations have received their laws from con- 
 querors; some are indebted for a constitution to the 
 sufferings of their ancestors through revohdng cen- 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 35 
 
 tunes. The people of this country, alone, have 
 formally and deliberately chosen a government for 
 themselves, and with open and uninfluenced con- 
 sent bound themselves into a social compact. Here, 
 no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to 
 honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and 
 vice with the name of hereditary authority. He 
 who has most zeal and abiUty to promote pubhc 
 felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This 
 is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave 
 the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature 
 intended him, and expect only from the eagle to 
 brush the clouds with his wings, and look boldly in 
 the face of the sun. 
 
 Some who would persuade us that they have 
 tender feelings for future generations, while they are 
 insensible to the happiness of the present, are per- 
 petually foreboding a train of dissensions under our 
 popular system. Such men's reasoning amounts to 
 this — give up all that is valuable to Great Britain, 
 and then you will have no inducements to quarrel 
 among yourselves; or suffer yourselves to be chained 
 down by your enemies, that you may not be able to 
 fight with your friends. 
 
 This is an insult on your virtue as well as your 
 common sense. Your unanimity this day and 
 through the course of the war, is a decisive refutation 
 of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have 
 already had evidence that our present Constitution 
 
36 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and 
 the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. 
 When the law is the will of the people, it will be uni- 
 form and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, 
 and inconsistency of councils must be expected under 
 those governments where every revolution in the 
 ministry of a court produces one in the state. Such 
 being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they 
 ever pursue measures directly opposite to those of 
 their predecessors. 
 
 We shall neither be exposed to the necessary con- 
 vulsions of elective monarchies, nor to the want of 
 wisdom, fortitude, and virtue, to which hereditary 
 succession is liable. In your hands it will be to per- 
 petuate a prudent, active and just legislature, and 
 which will never expire until you yourselves lose the 
 virtues which give it existence. . . . 
 
 By the beneficence of Providence, we shall behold 
 our empire arising, founded on justice and the volun- 
 tary consent of the people, and giving full scope to 
 the exercise of those faculties and rights which most 
 ennoble our species. Besides the advantages of lib- 
 erty and the most equal constitution, heaven has 
 given us a country with every variety of climate 
 and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is 
 necessary for the support, comfort, and strength of 
 a nation. Within our own borders we possess all 
 the means of sustenance, defence, and commerce; 
 at the same time, these advantages are so distributed 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 37 
 
 among the different States of this continent, as if 
 nature had in view to proclaim to us — Be united 
 among yourselves, and you will want nothing from 
 the rest of the world. . . . 
 
 These natural advantages will enable us to remain 
 independent of the world, or make it the interest of 
 European powers to court our alliance, and aid in 
 protecting us against the invasions of others. What 
 argument therefore do we want, to show the equity 
 of our conduct; or motive of interest to recommend 
 it to our prudence? Nature points out the path, 
 and our enemies have obliged us to pursue it. 
 
 If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer 
 a dependence on Great Britain to the dignity and 
 happiness of Hving a member of a free and indepen- 
 dent nation, let me tell him that necessity now de- 
 mands what the generous principle of patriotism 
 should have dictated. 
 
 We have now no other alternative than indepen- 
 dence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. 
 The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; 
 desolation and death mark their bloody career; 
 whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem 
 to cry out to us as a voice from heaven — ^'Will you 
 permit our posterity to groan under the galling 
 chains of our murderers? Has our blood been ex- 
 pended in vain? Is the only reward which our 
 constancy, till death, has obtained for our own coun- 
 try, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more 
 
38 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 ignominious vassalage? Recollect who are the men 
 that demand your submission; to whose decrees 
 you are invited to pay obedience!" . . . 
 
 Countrymen! the men who now invite you to 
 surrender your rights into their hands, are the men 
 who have let loose the merciless savages to riot in 
 the blood of their brethren — who have dared to 
 estabhsh popery triumphant in our land — who 
 have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted 
 them to assassinate your wives and children. 
 
 These are the men to whom we are exhorted to 
 sacrifice the blessings which Providence holds out 
 to us — the happiness, the dignity of uncontrolled 
 freedom and independence. 
 
 Let not your generous indignation be directed 
 against any among us who may advise so absurd 
 and maddening a measure. Their number is but few 
 and daily decreases; and the spirit which can render 
 them patient of slavery will render them contemptible 
 enemies. 
 
 Our Union is now complete; our Constitution 
 composed, estabhshed, and approved. You are 
 now the guardians of your own Hberties. We may 
 justly address you, as the Decemviri did the Romans, 
 and say — "Nothing that we propose can pass into a 
 law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Ameri- 
 cans, the authors of those laws on which your happi- 
 ness depends." 
 
 You have now in the field armies sufficient to 
 
SAMUEL ADAMS 
 
 39 
 
 repel the whole force of your enemies, and their base 
 and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your sol- 
 diers beat high with the spirit of freedom — they are 
 animated with the justice of their cause, and while 
 they grasp their swords, can look up to heaven for as- 
 sistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches 
 who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn 
 religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, 
 direct their swords against their leaders or their 
 coimtry. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, 
 with gratitude to Heaven, for past success, and confi- 
 dence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask 
 no greater blessing than to share with you the common 
 danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer 
 to my soul, than that my ashes may be mingled with 
 those of a Warren and Montgomery — it is that these 
 American States may never cease to be free and inde- 
 pendent! 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 
 
 1 757-1 804 
 
A VERY rare genius was this young West Indian, who at 
 fifteen years of age broke away from a clerk's desk and came 
 to New York to enter King's College (now Columbia). A 
 brilliant scholar, an omnivorous reader, a cogent writer, he 
 entered at once into the political interests of the time, published 
 essays on colonial rights, urged the people to arms in public 
 speech, and himself entered the Revolutionary army as a captain 
 of artillery. 
 
 He soon attracted Washington's attention, and became 
 his aide-de-camp and secretary through the war, at times being 
 intrusted with active military duties. His talents seemed 
 equal to any emergency, and he rapidly rose in rank. 
 
 Hamilton was essentially aristocratic in nature, feeling, and 
 opinion, and, naturally, of the highest ambition. He took 
 foremost part in the construction of the new Constitution, with 
 urgent conviction of the need of a strong central government. 
 He made several effective speeches in the Convention itself, 
 and others in the New York Ratification Convention, — one of 
 which is here given, — and wrote most of the famous papers 
 of "The Federalist," in advocacy of ratifying the Constitution, 
 He was Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury, his finan- 
 cial policies winning him wide fame. He went to New York, 
 and there stood the acknowledged head of the bar. 
 
 In every relation of life, Hamilton showed wisdom, skill, 
 prudence, energy, and unequaled capacity. Capable soldier, 
 brilliant lawyer, comprehensive legislator, great financier, 
 gifted with personal attractiveness, clear-minded, logical, and 
 persuasive with pen and tongue, he used his remarkable in- 
 tellect and all his powers in the service of America. And 
 rightly America holds his memory as a precious legacy. 
 
 42 
 
THE FEDERAL SENATE ^ 
 
 I AM persuaded, Mr. Chairman, that I in my turn 
 shall be indulged in addressing the committee. We 
 all, in equal sincerity, profess to be anxious for the 
 establishment of a republican government, on a safe 
 and solid basis. It is the object of the wishes of 
 every honest man in the United States, and I pre- 
 sume I shall not be disbelieved, when I declare, that 
 it is an object of all others, the nearest and most 
 dear to my own heart. The means of accomplishing 
 this great purpose become the most important study 
 which can interest mankind. It is our duty to ex- 
 amine all those means with peculiar attention, and 
 to choose the best and most effectual. It is our duty 
 to draw from nature, from reason, from examples, 
 the best principles of poHcy, and to pursue and apply 
 them in the formation of our government. We 
 should contemplate and compare the systems which, 
 in this examination, come under our view; distin- 
 guish, with a careful eye, the defects and excellencies 
 of each, and discarding the former, incorporate the 
 latter, as far as circumstances will admit, into our 
 Constitution. If we pursue a different course and 
 
 * June 24 and 25, 1788. 
 43 
 
44 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 neglect this duty, we shall probably disappoint the 
 expectations of our country and of the world. 
 
 In the commencement of a revolution, which re- 
 ceived its birth from the usurpations of tyranny, 
 nothing was more natural than that the public mind 
 should be influenced by an extreme spirit of jealousy. 
 To resist these encroachments, and to nourish this 
 spirit, was the great object of all our public and pri- 
 vate institutions. The zeal for liberty became pre- 
 dominant and excessive. In forming our Confedera- 
 tion, this passion alone seemed to actuate us, and we 
 appear to have had no other view than to secure our- 
 selves from despotism. The object certainly was a 
 valuable one, and deserved our utmost attention. 
 But, Sir, there is another object, equally important, 
 and which our enthusiasm rendered us little capable 
 of regarding: I mean a principle of strength and 
 stability in the organization of our government, 
 and vigor in its operations. This purpose can never 
 be accompHshed but by the establishment of some 
 select body, formed peculiarly upon this principle. 
 There are few positions more demonstrable than that 
 there should be in every republic, some permanent 
 body to correct the prejudices, check the intemperate 
 passions, and regulate the fluctuations of a popular 
 assembly. It is evident, that a body instituted for 
 these purposes, must be so formed as to exclude, as 
 much as possible, from its own character, those in- 
 firmities and that mutability which it is designed to 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 45 
 
 remedy. It is therefore necessary that it should be 
 small, that it should hold its authority during a con- 
 siderable period, and that it should have such an 
 independence in the exercise of its powers as will 
 divest it as much as possible of local prejudices. 
 It should be so formed as to be the center of political 
 knowledge, to pursue always a steady line of conduct, 
 and to reduce every irregular propensity to system. 
 Without this estabUshment, we may make experi- 
 ments without end, but shall never have an efficient 
 government. 
 
 It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the 
 people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity; 
 but it is equally unquestionable, that they do not 
 possess the discernment and stability necessary for 
 systematic government. To deny that they are 
 frequently led into the grossest errors by misinforma- 
 tion and passion, would be a flattery which their own 
 good sense must despise. That branch of adminis- 
 tration especially, which involves our political rela- 
 tions with foreign states, a community wall ever be 
 incompetent to. These truths are not often held up 
 in public assemblies; but they cannot be unknown 
 to any who hear me. From these principles it follows, 
 that there ought to be two distinct bodies in our 
 government: one, which shall be immediately con- 
 stituted by and peculiarly represent the people, and 
 possess all the popular features; another, formed 
 upon the principle, and for the purposes before 
 
46 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 explained. Such considerations as these induced the 
 convention who formed your State constitution to 
 institute a senate upon the present plan. The his- 
 tory of ancient and modern republics had taught 
 them, that many of the evils which these republics 
 suffered arose from the want of a certain balance and 
 mutual control indispensable to a wise administra- 
 tion; they were convinced that popular assemblies 
 are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden 
 impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and 
 that some firm barrier against these operations was 
 necessary; they therefore instituted your Senate, 
 and the benefits we have experienced have fully 
 justified their conceptions. 
 
 Now, Sir, what is the tendency of the proposed 
 amendment? ^ To take away the stability of gov- 
 ernment, by the depriving the Senate of its perma- 
 nency; to make this body subject to the same weak- 
 ness and prejudices which are incident to popular 
 assemblies, and which it was instituted to correct; 
 and by thus assimilating the complexion of the two 
 branches, destroy the balance between them. The 
 amendment will render the senator a slave to all 
 the capricious humors among the people. It w^ll 
 probably be here suggested, that the legislatures, not 
 the people, are to have the power of recall. Without 
 
 ^ That no senator should serve more than six years in any 
 term of twelve years, and that the State legislatures might at 
 any time recall and replace any senator. 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 47 
 
 attempting to prove that the legislatures must be, 
 in a great degree, the image of the multitude, in re- 
 spect to Federal affairs, and that the same prejudices 
 and factions will prevail, I insist that, in whatever 
 body the power of recall is vested, the senator will 
 perpetually feel himself in such a state of vassalage 
 and dependence, that he never can possess that firm- 
 ness which is necessary to the discharge of his great 
 duty to the Union. 
 
 Gentlemen, in their reasoning, have placed the 
 interests of the several States and those of the United 
 States in contrast: this is not a fair view of the sub- 
 ject; they must necessarily be involved in each other. 
 What we apprehend is, that some sinister prejudice, 
 or some prevailing passion, may assume the form of 
 a genuine interest. The influence of these is as 
 powerful as the most permanent conviction of the 
 public good; and against this influence we ought to 
 provide. The local interests of a State ought in 
 every case to give way to the interests of the Union; 
 for when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, 
 the former becomes only an apparent, partial in- 
 terest, and should yield, on the principle that the 
 small good ought never to oppose the great one. 
 When you assemble from your several counties in 
 the legislature, were every member to be guided 
 only by the apparent interest of his county, gov- 
 ernment would be impracticable. There must be a 
 perpetual accommodation and sacrifice of local 
 
48 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 advantage to general expediency; but the spirit of a 
 mere popular assembly would rarely be actuated by 
 this important principle. It is therefore absolutely 
 I necessary that the Senate should be so formed, as 
 to be unbiassed by false conceptions of the real in- 
 terests, or undue attachment to the apparent good 
 of their several States. . . . 
 
 Every member must have been struck with an 
 observation of a gentleman from Albany. Do what 
 you will, says he, local prejudices and opinions will 
 go into the Government. What! shall we then form 
 a constitution to cherish and strengthen these preju- 
 dices? Shall we confirm the distemper instead of 
 remedying it? It is undeniable that there must be 
 a control somewhere. Either the general interest is 
 to control the particular interests, or the contrary. 
 If the former, then certainly the Government ought 
 to be so framed, as to render the power of control 
 efficient to all intents and purposes: if the latter, a 
 striking absurdity follows; the controlling powers 
 must be as numerous as the varying interests, and 
 the operations of government must therefore cease; 
 for the moment you accommodate these different 
 interests, which is the only way to set the Govern- 
 ment in motion, you establish a general controlling 
 power. Thus, whatever constitutional provisions 
 are made to the contrary, every government will be 
 at last driven to the necessity of subjecting the par- 
 tial to the universal interest. The gentlemen ought 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 49 
 
 always, in their reasoning, to distinguish between 
 the real, genuine good of a State, and the opinions 
 and prejudices which may prevail respecting it ; the 
 latter may be opposed to the general good, and con- 
 sequently ought to be sacrificed; the former is so in- 
 volved in it, that it never can be sacrificed. . . . 
 
 Sir, if you consider but a moment the purposes 
 for which the Senate w^as instituted, and the nature 
 of the business which they are to transact, you will 
 see the necessity of giving them duration. They, 
 together with the President, are to manage all our 
 concerns with foreign nations ; they must understand 
 all their interests and their pohtical systems. This 
 knowledge is not soon acquired — but a very small 
 part is gained in the closet. Is it desirable, then, 
 that new and unqualified members should be con- 
 tinually thrown into that body? When public bodies 
 are engaged in the exercise of general powers, you 
 cannot judge of the propriety of their conduct but 
 from the result of their systems. They may be 
 forming plans which require time and dihgence to 
 bring to maturity. It is necessary, therefore, that 
 they should have a considerable and fixed duration, 
 that they may make their calculations accordingly. 
 If they are to be perpetually fluctuating they can 
 never have that responsibility which is so important 
 in republican governments. In bodies subject to 
 frequent changes, great pohtical plans must be con- 
 ducted by members in succession : a single assembly 
 
50 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 can have but a partial agency in them, and conse- 
 quently cannot properly be answerable for the final 
 event. Considering the Senate, therefore, with a 
 view to responsibility, duration is a very interesting 
 and essential quality. 
 
 There is another view in which duration in the 
 Senate appears necessary. A government, change- 
 able in its policy, must soon lose its sense of national 
 character, and forfeit the respect of foreigners. 
 Senators will not be soHcitous for the reputation of 
 public measures in which they have had but a 
 temporary concern, and will feel lightly the burden 
 of public disapprobation in proportion to the number 
 of those who partake of the censure. Our political 
 rivals will ever consider our mutable counsels as evi- 
 dence of deficient wisdom, and will be little appre- 
 hensive of our arriving at any exalted station in the 
 scale of powTr. Such are the internal and external 
 disadvantages which would result from the principle 
 contended for. Were it admitted, I am fully per- 
 suaded. Sir, that prejudices would govern the public 
 deliberations, and passions rage in the councils of 
 the Union. If it were necessary, I could illustrate 
 my subject by historical facts; I could travel through 
 an extensive field of detail, and demonstrate that 
 wherever the fatal principle of the head suffering 
 the control of the members, has operated, it has 
 proved a fruitful source of commotions and disorder. 
 
 This, Sir, is the first fair opportunity that has been 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 5 1 
 
 offered of deliberately correcting the errors in gov- 
 ernment. Instability has been a prominent and very 
 defective feature in most republican systems. It is 
 the first to be seen and the last to be lamented by a 
 philosophical inquirer. It has operated most bane- 
 fully in our infant republic. It is necessary that we 
 apply an immediate remedy, and eradicate the 
 poisonous principle from our government. If this 
 be not done, Sir, we shall feel and posterity will be 
 convulsed by a painful malady. 
 
 [Jime 2j, Hamilton continuing.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman: In debates of this kind it is ex- 
 tremely easy, on either side, to say a great number 
 of plausible things. It is to be acknowledged that 
 there is even a certain degree of truth in the reason- 
 ings on both sides. In this situation it is the province 
 of judgment and good sense to determine their force 
 and appUcation, and how far the arguments ad- 
 vanced on one side are balanced by those on the 
 other. The ingenious dress in which both may ap- 
 pear renders it a difficult task to make this decision, 
 and the mind is frequently unable to come to a safe 
 and solid conclusion. On the present question, some 
 of the principles on each side are admitted, and the 
 conclusions drawn from them denied, while other 
 principles, with their inferences, are rejected alto- 
 gether. It is the business of the committee to seek 
 the truth in this labyrinth of argument. 
 
52 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 There are two objects in forming systems of gov- 
 ernment, — safety for the people and energy in the 
 administration. When these objects are united, the 
 certain tendency of the system will be to the public 
 welfare. If the latter object be neglected, the 
 people's security will be as certainly sacrificed as 
 by disregarding the former. Good constitutions are 
 formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the indi- 
 vidual with the strength of government; if the tone 
 of either be too high, the other will be weakened too 
 much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliat- 
 ing these objects to institute one branch peculiarly 
 endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge 
 and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual 
 control of these bodies, the Government will reach, 
 in its operations, the perfect balance between liberty 
 and power. . . . 
 
 Sir, the senators will constantly be attended with 
 a reflection that their future existence is absolutely 
 in the power of the States. Will not this form a 
 powerful check? It is a reflection which appHes 
 closely to their feelings and interests, and no candid 
 man, who thinks deliberately, will deny that it would 
 be alone a sufficient check. The legislatures are to 
 provide the mode of electing the President, and must 
 have a great influence over the electors. Indeed, 
 they convey their influence through a thousand 
 channels into the general government. Gentlemen 
 have endeavored to show that there will be no clash- 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 53 
 
 ing of local and general interests; they do not seem 
 to have sufficiently considered the subject. We have 
 in this State ^ a duty of sixpence per pound on salt, 
 and it operates lightly and with advantage ; but such 
 a duty would be very burdensome to some of the 
 States. If Congress should, at any time, find it 
 convenient to impose a salt tax, would it not be op- 
 posed by the Eastern States? Being themselves 
 incapable of feehng the necessity of the measure, 
 they could only feel its apparent injustice. Would 
 it be wise to give the New England States a power 
 to defeat this measure, by recalling their senators 
 who may be engaged for it? I beg the gentlemen 
 once more to attend to the distinction between 
 the real and apparent interests of the States. I ad- 
 mit that the aggregate of individuals constitutes the 
 government; yet every State is not the government; 
 every petty district is not the government. Sir, 
 in our State legislatures, a comxpromise is frequently 
 necessary between the interests of counties; the same 
 must happen in the general government between 
 States. In this the few must yield to the many; 
 or, in other words, the particular must be sacrificed 
 to the general interest. If the members of Congress 
 are too dependent on the State legislatures, they will 
 be eternally forming secret combinations from local 
 views. This is reasoning from the plainest principles. 
 Their interest is interwoven with their dependence, 
 
 1 New York. 
 
54 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 and they will necessarily yield to the impression of 
 their situation. . . . 
 
 It has been remarked that there is an incon- 
 sistency in our admitting that the equal votes in 
 the Senate were given to secure the rights of the 
 States, and, at the same time, holding up the idea 
 that their interests should be sacrificed to those of 
 the Union. But the committee certainly perceive 
 the distinction between the rights of the State and 
 its interests. The rights of a State are defined by 
 the Constitution, and cannot be invaded without 
 a violation of it; but the interests of a State have 
 no connection with the Constitution, and may be 
 in a thousand instances constitutionally sacrificed. 
 An uniform tax is perfectly constitutional, and yet 
 it may operate oppressively upon certain members 
 of the Union. The gentlemen are afraid that their 
 State governments will be aboUshed. But, Sir, 
 their existence does not depend upon the laws of 
 the United States. Congress can no more abolish 
 the State governments than they can dissolve the 
 Union. The whole Constitution is repugnant to it, 
 and yet the gentlemen would introduce an additional 
 useless provision against it. It is proper that the 
 influence of the States should prevail to a certain 
 extent. But shall the individual States be the judges 
 how far? Shall an unlimited power be left them to 
 determine in their own favor? . . . 
 
 Sir, in contending for a rotation, the gentlemen 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 
 
 55 
 
 carry their zeal beyond all reasonable bounds. I 
 am convinced that no government, founded on this 
 feeble principle, can operate well. I believe, also, 
 that we shall be singular in this proposal. We 
 have not felt the embarrassments resulting from 
 rotation, that other States have: and we hardly 
 know the strength of their objections to it. There 
 is no probability that we shall ever persuade a ma- 
 jority of the States to agree to this amendment. 
 The gentlemen deceive themselves. The amend- 
 ment would defeat their own design. When a man 
 knows he must quit his station, let his merit be what 
 it may, he will turn his attention chiefly to his own 
 emolument: nay, he will feel temptations, which 
 few other situations furnish, to perpetuate his power 
 by unconstitutional usurpations. Men will pursue 
 their interests. It is as easy to change human 
 nature as to oppose the strong current of the selfish 
 passions. A wise legislator will gently divert the 
 channel, and direct it, if possible, to the public good. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 1732-1799 
 
It cannot be needful to say much here about the best known 
 of all Americans. His Virginian birth; his comparatively 
 brief schooling (ceasing when he was sixteen) ; his surveying 
 expeditions in wild regions; his precocious military experience; 
 his diplomacy with the French forces in Pennsylvania districts; 
 his exploit at Fort Necessity, and later valuable service and 
 wonderful escape in the Braddock defeat; his driving the 
 French from Western frontiers; his retirement and marriage; 
 his work as colonial and congressional legislator; his entrance 
 into the army as commander-in-chief, and diflficult, perilous, 
 disheartening, but finally triumphant career through the Revo- 
 lution, — all are familiar. 
 
 His services in forming and ratifying the Constitution and 
 his two presidential terms as chief of the new Republic empha- 
 size the peculiar quality of Washington's nature, in that, with- 
 out special brilliancy (except his thunderbolt speed in war after 
 patient awaiting of opportunity), his character was so admirably 
 balanced that all men rested upon his judgment and his integ- 
 rity. At nineteen, he was Assistant Adjutant-General of 
 Virginia; at twenty-six, "Commander-in-Chief of all the forces 
 raised and to be raised in Virginia " (French and English War) ; 
 in 1776, acclaimed head of the Revolutionary army; later, 
 President of the Constitutional Convention; finally, through 
 two terms, President of the United States, — everywhere and 
 always trusted as leader. 
 
 Washington's public addresses were all in the elaborately 
 formal style of his time, unimpassioned, lucid, fundamentally 
 sensible, and elevated in sentiment. The one here selected is 
 his Farewell Address to the people (September 17, 1796) 
 before his final retirement in the December following. It is 
 one of the American classics. The kindly wisdom of its coun- 
 sels cannot be too often read and pondered by Americans, — 
 especially in these days of expanding powers and interests, 
 temptations of ambition, loosening of religious ties, clashing of 
 party conflicts, and divers allurements, against which the vener- 
 able chieftain proffered his sagacious, prophetic warnings. 
 
 58 
 
FAREWELL ADDRESS 
 
 Friends and Fellow-citizens : The period for a 
 new election of a citizen, to administer the executive 
 government #f the United States, being not far dis- 
 tant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts 
 must be employed in designating the person who 
 is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears 
 to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more 
 distinct expression of the pubHc voice, that I should 
 now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, 
 to decline being considered among the number of 
 those out of whom a choice is to be made. 
 
 I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice 
 to be assured that this resolution has not been taken 
 mthout a strict regard to all the considerations ap- 
 pertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful 
 citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing 
 the tender of service which silence, in my situation, 
 might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of 
 zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grate- 
 ful respect for your past kindness, but am supported 
 by a full conviction that the step is compatible with 
 both. 
 
 The acceptance of and continuance hitherto, in 
 59 
 
6o BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the office to which your suffrages have twice called 
 me, have been a uniform sacrifice of incHnation 
 to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what 
 appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that 
 it would have been much earlier in my power, con- 
 sistently with motives which I was not at liberty 
 to disregard, to return to that retirement from which 
 I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of 
 my incUnation to do this, previous to the last elec- 
 tion, had even led to the preparation of an address, 
 to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the 
 then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs 
 with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of 
 persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to 
 abandon the idea. 
 
 I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external 
 as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit 
 of incHnation incompatible with the sentiment of 
 duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever 
 partiality may be retained for my services, that in 
 the present circumstances of our country, you will 
 not disapprove of my determination to retire. 
 
 The impressions with which I first undertook the 
 arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. 
 In the discharge of this trust I will only say, that 
 I have with good intentions contributed towards 
 the organization and administration of the govern- 
 ment, the best exertions of which a very fallible 
 judgment was capable. Not imconscious, in the 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 6l 
 
 outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, ex- 
 perience, in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the 
 eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to 
 diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing 
 weight of years admonishes me more and more that 
 the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it 
 will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances 
 have given peculiar value to niy services they were 
 temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that 
 while choice and prudence invite me to quit^ the 
 political scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 
 
 In looking forward to the moment which is in- 
 tended to terminate the career of my pubHc fife, 
 my feeHngs do not permit me to suspend the deep 
 acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I 
 owe to my beloved country for the many honors 
 it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast 
 confidence with which it has supported me; and for 
 the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of mani- 
 festing my inviolable attachment, by services, 
 faithful and persevering, though in usefulness un- 
 equal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our 
 country from these services, let it always be re- 
 membered to your praise, and as an instructive 
 example in our annals, that under circumstances 
 in which the passions, agitated in every direction, 
 were hable to mislead, amidst appearances some- 
 times dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often dis- 
 couraging, in situations in which not unfrequently 
 
62 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 want of success has countenanced the spirit of 
 criticism, the constancy of your support was the 
 essential prop of the efforts, and the guarantee of 
 the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly 
 penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me 
 to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing 
 wishes that heaven may continue to you the choicest 
 tokens of its beneficence; that your union and 
 brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free 
 Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may 
 be sacredly maintained; that its administration, 
 in every department, may be stamped with wisdom 
 and virtue ; that, in fine, the happiness of the people 
 of these States, under the auspices of Hberty, may 
 be made complete by so careful a preservation and 
 so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to 
 them the glory of recommending it to the applause, 
 the affection, and adoption of every nation which 
 is yet a stranger to it. 
 
 Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude 
 for your welfare, which cannot end but with my Hfe, 
 and the apprehension of danger, natural to that 
 solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, 
 to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to rec- 
 ommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, 
 which are the result of much reflection, of no incon- 
 siderable observation, and which appear to me 
 all-important to the permanency of your fehcity 
 as a people. These will be offered to you with 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 6^ 
 
 the more freedom, as you can only see in them the 
 disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can 
 possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. 
 Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your 
 indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former 
 and not dissimilar occasion. 
 
 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every 
 ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine 
 is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. 
 
 The unity of government which constitutes you 
 one people is also now dear to you. It is justly 
 so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real 
 independence, the support of your tranquillity at 
 home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your 
 prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly 
 prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different 
 causes and from different quarters, much pains will 
 be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in 
 your minds the con\dction of this truth; as this is 
 the point in your poHtical fortress against which the 
 batteries of internal and external enemies will be 
 most constantly and actively (though often covertly 
 and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment 
 that you should properly estimate the immense 
 value of your national Union, to your collective and 
 individual happiness; that you should cherish a 
 cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to 
 it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of 
 it as of the palladium of your poUtical safety and 
 
64 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous 
 anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest 
 even a suspicion that it can in any event be aban- 
 doned; and indignantly frowning upon the first 
 dawning of every attempt to ahenate any portion 
 of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred 
 ties which now Hnk together the various parts. 
 
 For this you have every inducement of sympathy 
 and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a 
 common country, that country has a right to con- 
 centrate your affections. The name of American, 
 which belongs to you in your national capacity, 
 must always exalt the just pride of patriotism 
 more than any appellation derived from local dis- 
 criminations. With slight shades of difference, 
 you have the same rehgion, manners, habits, and 
 political principles. You have, in a common cause, 
 fought and triumphed together; the independence 
 and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils 
 and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, 
 and successes. 
 
 But these considerations, however powerfully 
 they address themselves to your sensibihty, are 
 greatly outweighed by those which apply more 
 immediately to your interest. Here every portion 
 of our country finds the most commanding motives 
 for carefully guarding and preserving the union of 
 the w^hole. 
 
 The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 65 
 
 the South, protected by the equal laws of a common 
 government, finds, in the productions of the latter, 
 great additional resources of maritime and com- 
 mercial enterprise, and precious materials of manu- 
 facturing industry. The South, in the same inter- 
 course, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees 
 its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. 
 Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of 
 the North, it finds its particular navigation invigo- 
 rated; and while it contributes, in different ways, 
 to nourish and increase the general mass of the 
 national navigation, it looks forward to the protection 
 of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally 
 adapted. The East, in like intercourse with the 
 West, already finds, and in the progressive improve- 
 ment of interior communications, by land and water, 
 will more and more find a valuable vent for the 
 commodities which it brings from abroad or manu- 
 factures at home. The West derives from the East 
 supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and 
 what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must 
 of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensa- 
 ble outlets for its own productions to the weight, 
 influence, and the future maritime strength of the 
 Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indis- 
 soluble community of interest as one nation. Any 
 other tenure, by which the West can hold this essen- 
 tial advantage, whether derived from its own sep- 
 arate strength, or from an apostate and unnat- 
 
66 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 ural connection with any foreign power, must be 
 intrinsically precarious. 
 
 While, then, every part of our country thus feels 
 an immediate and particular interest in union, all 
 the parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united 
 mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater 
 resource, proportionably . greater security from ex- 
 ternal danger, a less frequent interruption of their 
 peace by foreign nations; and what is of inestimable 
 value, they must derive from union an exemption 
 from those broils and wars betw^een themselves which 
 so frequently afflict neighboring countries, not tied 
 together by the same government, which their own 
 rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but 
 which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and 
 intrigues, would stimulate and embitter. Hence, 
 likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those over- 
 grown military establishments, which, under any 
 form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and 
 which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to 
 republican liberty. In this sense it is that your 
 Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your 
 liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear 
 to you the preservation of the other. 
 
 These considerations speak a persuasive language 
 to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit 
 the continuance of the Union as a primary object 
 of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a 
 common government can embrace so large a sphere ? 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 67 
 
 Let experience solve it. To listen to mere specula- 
 tion, in such a case, were criminal. We are au- 
 thorized to hope that a proper organization of the 
 whole, with the auxiUary agency of governments 
 for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy 
 issue to the experiment. 'Tis well worth a fair and 
 full experiment. With such powerful and obvious 
 motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, 
 while experience shall not have demonstrated its 
 impracticabihty, there will always be reason to 
 distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, 
 may endeavor to weaken its hands. 
 
 In contemplating the causes, which may disturb 
 our Union, it occurs, as a matter of serious concern, 
 that any ground should have been furnished for 
 characterizing parties by geographical discriminations 
 — Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western — 
 whence designing men may endeavor to excite a 
 belief that there is a real difference of local interests 
 and views. One of the expedients of party to 
 acquire influence within particular districts is to mis- 
 represent the opinions and aims of other districts. 
 You cannot shield yourselves too much against the 
 jealousies and heart-burnings w^hich spring from 
 these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien 
 to each other those who ought to be bound together 
 by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our 
 Western country have lately had a useful lesson on 
 tliis head. They have seen, in the negotiation by 
 
68 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by 
 the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the 
 universal satisfaction of that event throughout the 
 United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were 
 the suspicions propagated among them of a poUcy 
 in the general government and in the Atlantic States, 
 unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Missi- 
 sippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of 
 two treaties — that with Great Britain and that 
 with Spain — which secure to them everything 
 they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, 
 towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not 
 be their wisdom to rely, for the preservation of these 
 advantages, on the Union by which they were pro- 
 cured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those 
 advisers, if such they are, who would sever them 
 from their brethren, and connect them with aliens? 
 To the eflScacy and permanency of your Union, 
 a government for the whole is indispensable. No 
 alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be 
 an adequate substitute; they must inevitably ex- 
 perience the infractions and interruptions; which 
 alliances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible 
 of this momentous truth, you have improved upon 
 your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of 
 government better calculated than your former 
 for an intimate union, and for the efficacious man- 
 agement of your common concerns. This govern- 
 ment, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 69 
 
 and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and 
 mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, 
 in the distribution of its powers uniting security 
 with energy, and containing within itself a provision 
 for its own amendment, has a just claim to your 
 confidence and your support. Respect for its 
 authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence 
 in its measures, are duties enjoined by the funda- 
 mental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our 
 political systems is the right of the people to make 
 and to alter the constitutions of government. But 
 the constitution, which at any time exists, until 
 changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole 
 people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very 
 idea of the power and the rights of the people to 
 establish a government presupposes the duty of 
 every individual to obey the established government. 
 All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all 
 combinations and associations, under whatever 
 plausible character, with the real design to direct, 
 control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation 
 and action of the constituted authorities, are de- 
 structive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal 
 tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give 
 it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the 
 place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of 
 a party, often a small, but artful and enterprising 
 minority of the community; and according to the 
 alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the 
 
70 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted 
 and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the 
 organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by 
 common councils, and modified by mutual interests. 
 
 However combinations or associations of the above 
 description may now and then answer popular ends, 
 they are likely, in the course of time and things, to 
 become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, 
 and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the 
 power of the people, and to usurp for themselves 
 the reins of government; destroying afterward the 
 very engines which have lifted them to unjust 
 dominion. 
 
 Toward the preservation of your government and 
 the permanency of your present happy state, it is 
 requisite, not only that you speedily discountenance 
 irregular opposition to its acknowledged authority, 
 but also that you resist with care the spirit of in- 
 novation upon its principles, however specious the 
 pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, 
 in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which 
 will impair the energy of the system, and thus to 
 undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. 
 In all the changes to which you may be invited, 
 remember that time and habit are at least as neces- 
 sary to fix the true character of governments as of 
 other human institutions; that experience is the 
 surest standard by which to test the real tendency 
 of the existing constitution of a country; that 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 7 1 
 
 facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hy- 
 pothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, 
 from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion. 
 And remember especially, that for the efficient 
 management of your common interests, in a country 
 so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor 
 as is consistent v/ith the perfect security of liberty, 
 is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such 
 a government, with powers properly distributed 
 and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, 
 little else than a name, where the government is 
 too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction; 
 to confine each member of society within the limits 
 prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the 
 secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of 
 person and property. 
 
 I have already intimated to you the danger of 
 parties in the State, with particular reference to 
 the founding of them on geographical discrimination. 
 Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and 
 warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the 
 baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. 
 
 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our 
 nature, having its root in the strongest passions of 
 the human mind. It exists under different shapes, 
 in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, 
 or repressed. But in those of the popular form, it 
 is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their 
 worst enemy. 
 
72 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 The alternate domination of one faction over 
 another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural 
 to party dissensions, which, in different ages and 
 countries, has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, 
 is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads, at 
 length, to a more formal and permanent despotism. 
 The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually 
 incline the minds of men to seek security and repose 
 in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner 
 or later, the chief of some prevaiHng faction, more 
 able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns 
 this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation 
 on the ruins of public Hberty. 
 
 Without looking forward to an extremity of this 
 kind, (which, nevertheless, ought not to be entirely 
 out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs 
 of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the 
 interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and 
 restrain it. 
 
 It serves to always distract the public councils, 
 and enfeeble the pubKc administration. It agitates 
 the community with ill-founded jealousies and false 
 alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against 
 another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. 
 It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, 
 which find a facilitated access to the government 
 itself, through the channels of party passion. Thus 
 the policy and the will of one country are subjected 
 to the poUcy and will of another. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 73 
 
 There is an opinion, that parties, in free countries, 
 are useful checks upon the administration of the 
 government, and serve to keep aHve the spirit of 
 liberty. This, ^\^thin certain limits, is probably 
 true; and, in governments of a monarchical cast, 
 patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with 
 favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of 
 popular character, in governments purely elective, 
 it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their 
 natural tendency, it is certain there will always be 
 enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. 
 And there being constant danger of excess, the effort 
 ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate 
 and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands 
 a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a 
 flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. 
 
 It is important, likewise, that the habits of think- 
 ing, in a free country, should inspire caution in those 
 intrusted with its administration, to confine them- 
 selves within their respective constitutional spheres, 
 avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one depart- 
 ment, to encroach upon another. The spirit of 
 encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all 
 the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever 
 the form of government, a real despotism. A just 
 estimate of that love of power, and proneness to 
 abuse it, which predominate in the human heart, 
 is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. 
 The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of 
 
74 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 political power, by dividing and distributing it into 
 different depositaries, and constituting each the 
 guardian of the public weal against invasion by the 
 other, has been evinced by experiments ancient and 
 modern: some of them in our country, and under 
 our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary 
 as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, 
 the distribution or modification of the constitutional 
 powers, be, in any particular, wTong, let it be cor- 
 rected by an amendment in the way which the Con- 
 stitution designates. But let there be no change by 
 usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be 
 the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon 
 by which free governments are destroyed. The 
 precedent must always greatly overbalance, in per- 
 manent evil, any partial or transient benefit which 
 the use can at any time yield. 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to 
 political prosperity, religion and morality are in- 
 dispensable supports. In vain would that man 
 claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to 
 subvert these great pillars of human happiness, 
 these firmest props of the destinies of men and citi- 
 zens. The mere politician, equally with the pious 
 man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume 
 could not trace all their connection with private and 
 public feHcity. Let it simply be asked, where is 
 the security for property, for reputation, for life, 
 if the sense of religious obUgation desert the oaths, 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 75 
 
 which are the instruments of investigation in courts 
 of justice? And let us with caution indulge the 
 supposition that morality can be maintained without 
 religion. Whatever may be conceded to the in- 
 fluence of refined education on minds of pecuHar 
 structure, reason and experience both forbid us to 
 expect, that national morahty can prevail in ex- 
 clusion of religious principles. 
 
 It is substantially true, that virtue or morality 
 is a necessary spring of proper government. The 
 rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every 
 species of free government. Who, that is a sincere 
 friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts 
 to shake the foundation of the fabric? 
 
 Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, 
 institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. 
 In proportion as the structure of a government 
 gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public 
 opinion should be enlightened. 
 
 As a very important source of strength and security, 
 cherish public credit. One method of preserving 
 it is to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding 
 occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but re- 
 membering also that timely disbursements to pre- 
 pare for danger frequently prevent much greater 
 disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the 
 accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occa- 
 sions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time 
 of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable 
 
76 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throw- 
 ing upon posterity the burden which w^e ourselves 
 ought to bear. The execution of these maxims 
 belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary 
 that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate 
 to them the performance of their duty, it is essential 
 that you should practically bear in mind, that to- 
 w^ards the payment of debts there must be revenue; 
 that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no 
 taxes can be devised which are not more or less in- 
 convenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic em- 
 barrassment, inseparable from the selection of the 
 proper objects (which is always the choice of diffi- 
 culties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid 
 construction of the conduct of the government in 
 making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the 
 measures for obtaining revenue which the public 
 exigencies may at any time dictate. 
 
 Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; 
 cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and 
 morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that 
 good pohcy does not equally enjoin it? It will be 
 worthy of a free, enUghtened, and, at no distant 
 period, a great nation, to give to mankind the mag- 
 nanimous and too novel example of a people always 
 guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 
 Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, 
 the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any 
 temporary advantages that might be lost by a steady 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 77 
 
 adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not 
 connected the permanent feUcity of a nation with its 
 virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended 
 by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. 
 Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? 
 
 In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more 
 essential than that permanent, inveterate antipa- 
 thies against particular nations, and passionate 
 attachments for others, should be excluded; and 
 that in place of them, just and amicable feelings 
 towards all should be cultivated. The nation, which 
 indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an 
 habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is 
 a slave to its animosity or its affection, either of 
 which is sufificient to lead it astray from its duty and 
 its interest. Antipathy in' one nation against an- 
 other, disposes each more readily to offer insult and 
 injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and 
 to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or 
 trifling occasions of dispute occur. 
 
 Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, 
 and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by 
 ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war 
 the government, contrary to the best calculations 
 of policy. The government sometimes participates 
 in the national propensity, and adopts through 
 passion what reason would reject; at other times, 
 it makes the animosity of the nation subservient 
 to projects of hostility mstigated by pride, ambition, 
 
78 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 and other sinister and pernicious motives. The 
 peace often, and sometimes, perhaps, the liberty of 
 nations, has been the victim. 
 
 So, Ukewise, a passionate attachment of one nation 
 for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy 
 for the favorite nation facilitating the illusion of 
 an imaginary common interest in cases where no 
 real common interest exists, and infusing into one 
 the enmities of the other, betrays the former into 
 a participation in the quarrels and wars of the lat- 
 ter, without adequate inducement or justification. 
 It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation 
 of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly 
 to injure the nation making the concessions; by 
 unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been 
 retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a 
 disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom 
 equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to am- 
 bitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote 
 themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray, 
 or sacrifice the interests of their own country, with- 
 out odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, 
 with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obliga- 
 tion, a commendable deference for public opinion, 
 or laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish 
 compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 
 
 As avenues to foreign influence, in innumerable 
 ways, such attachments are particularly alarming 
 to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 79 
 
 How many opportunities do they afford to tamper 
 with domestic factions; to practice the arts of se- 
 duction; to mislead pubKc opinion; to influence or 
 awe the pubhc councils! Such an attachment of a 
 small or weak nation, toward a great and powerful 
 one, dooms the former to be the sateUite of the latter. 
 
 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I 
 conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens), the jeal- 
 ousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; 
 since history and experience prove, that foreign in- 
 fluence is one of the most baneful foes of republican 
 government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must 
 be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the 
 very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense 
 against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign 
 nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those 
 whom they actuate, to see danger only on one side; 
 and serve to veil and even second the arts of in- 
 fluence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist 
 the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become sus- 
 pected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp 
 the applause and confidence of the people, to sur- 
 render their interests. 
 
 The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to 
 foreign nations is, in extending our commercial re- 
 lations, to have with them as little political connec- 
 tion as possible. So far as we have already form.ed 
 engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good 
 faith. Here let us stop. 
 
So BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Europe has a set of primary interests, which to 
 us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence 
 she must be engaged in frequent controversies, 
 the causes of which are essentially foreign to our 
 concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise 
 in us to impUcate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the 
 ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary 
 combinations and collisions of her friendships and 
 enmities. 
 
 Our detached and distant situation invites and 
 enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain 
 one people, under an efficient government, the period 
 is not far off when we may defy material injury 
 from external annoyance; when we may take such 
 an attitude as will cause the neutraUty we may at 
 any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; 
 when belligerent nations, under the impossibility 
 of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly 
 hazard the giving us provocation; when we may 
 choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by 
 justice, shall counsel. 
 
 Why forego the advantages of so pecuUar a situa- 
 tion? Why quit our own, to stand upon foreign 
 ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with 
 that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and 
 prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rival - 
 ship, interest, humor, or caprice? 
 
 'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent 
 alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 8l 
 
 far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for 
 let me not be understood as capable of patroniz- 
 ing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the 
 maxim no less applicable to public than to private 
 affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I 
 repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be ob- 
 served in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it 
 is unnecessary, and would be unwdse, to extend them. 
 
 Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable 
 establishments, in a respectable defensive posture, 
 we may safely trust to temporary alliances for ex- 
 traordinary emergencies. 
 
 Harmony, and a Hberal intercourse with all nations, 
 are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. 
 But even our commercial policy should hold an equal 
 and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting 
 exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the nat- 
 ural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, 
 by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but forc- 
 ing nothing; estabUshing, with powers so disposed, 
 in order to give trade a stable course, to define the 
 rights of our merchants, and to enable the govern- 
 ment to support them, conventional rules of inter- 
 course, the best that present circumstances and mu- 
 tual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable 
 to be, from time to time, abandoned or varied, as 
 experience and circumstances shall dictate; con- 
 stantly keeping in view% that it is folly in one nation 
 to look for disinterested favors from another; that 
 
82 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 it must pay, with a portion of its independence, for 
 whatever it may accept under that character; that, 
 by such acceptance, it may place itself in the con- 
 dition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, 
 and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for 
 not giving more. There can be no greater error 
 than to expect or calculate upon real favors from 
 nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience 
 must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. 
 
 In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels 
 of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope 
 they will make the strong and lasting impression I 
 could wish; that they will control the usual current 
 of the passions, or prevent our nation from running 
 the course which has hitherto marked the destiny 
 of nations! But, if I may even flatter myself, that 
 they be productive of some partial benefit, some 
 occasional good; that they may now and then recur 
 to moderate the fury of party spirit; to warn 
 against the mischiefs of foreign intrigues; to 
 guard against the impostures of pretended pa- 
 triotism; this hope will be a full recompense for 
 the- solicitude for your welfare, by which they 
 have been dictated. 
 
 How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I 
 have been guided by the principles which have 
 been delineated, the public records and other evi- 
 dences of my conduct must witness to you and to the 
 world. To myself the assurance of my own con- 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 83 
 
 science is, that I have at least believed myself to be 
 guided by them. 
 
 In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, 
 my proclamation of April 22, 1793, is the index to 
 my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, 
 and by that of your representatives in both Houses 
 of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually 
 governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter 
 or divert me from it. 
 
 After deliberate examination, with the aid of the 
 best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our 
 country, under all the circumstances of the case, had 
 a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest 
 to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I deter- 
 mined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain 
 it with moderation, perseverance, and firmness. 
 
 The considerations which respect the right to hold 
 this conduct, it is not necessary, on this occasion, to 
 detail. I will only observe, that, according to my 
 understanding of the matter, that right, so far from 
 being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has 
 been virtually admitted by all. 
 
 The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be 
 inferred, without anything more, from the obligation 
 which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in 
 cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the 
 relations of peace and amity towards other nations. 
 
 The inducements of interest for observing that con- 
 duct will best be referred to your own reflection and 
 
84 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 experience. With me, a predominant motive has 
 been to endeavor to gain time to our country to 
 settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to 
 progress, without interruption, to that degree of 
 strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, 
 humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes. 
 
 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my adminis- 
 tration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am, 
 nevertheless, too sensible of my defects, not to think 
 it probable that I may have committed many errors. 
 Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Al- 
 mighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they 
 may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that 
 my country will never cease to view them with indul- 
 gence, and that after forty-five years of my life dedi- 
 cated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults 
 of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, 
 as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 
 
 Relying on its kindness in this, as in other things, 
 and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is 
 so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of 
 himself and his progenitors for several generations, 
 I anticipate, with pleasing expectations, that retreat 
 in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, 
 the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my 
 fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws 
 under a free government — the ever favorite object 
 of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our 
 mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 
 
JOHN ADAMS 
 1735-1826 
 
Like many other notable men, John Adams, after his 
 Harvard graduation at twenty, began life as a school-teacher 
 and then studied law. He came into public notice in 1765, first 
 in connection with the closing of the courts on account of the 
 Stamp Act, and then through some published essays on canon 
 and feudal law. He was a hard-working, prominent lawyer 
 in Boston when in 1774 he was elected to the Continental 
 Congress, and did eminent work there. He went to Europe 
 in 1778 as Commissioner, with Franklin and Lee, to negotiate 
 treaties with foreign powers, and, with an interval at home in 
 the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, he returned as 
 Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace with 
 Great Britain. Franklin, Jay, Lawrence, and Jefferson 
 were added later, and the treaty of 1783 was the result. 
 
 Then Mr. Adams was Vice-President under Washington for 
 eight years (i 788-1 796) and President the next term. He was 
 offered the governorship of Massachusetts on retiring from the 
 presidency, but declined it, and after presiding over the con- 
 vention for revising the State constitution he remained quietly 
 at home until his death in 1826, at the great age of ninety-one 
 years. 
 
 All these public stations were the continuing recognition of. 
 his great abilities and unremitting devotion to public duty. He 
 was a genuine patriot, of indomitable courage and tremendous 
 energy. As a writer, he was learned, but compact, terse, and 
 logical ; as an orator, daring and ardent, but a close, persuasive 
 reasoner. His greatest fault was his intense conviction of his 
 own correctness in any matter to be decided. Yet, though 
 disagreeable to others, this was doubtless one element of many 
 achievements. A lovable side of his nature appeared in the 
 series of letters to his wife before and during the Revolution, 
 published after his death, which, with his Diary and his political 
 pamphlets, form an invaluable and intimate record of those 
 trying times, so large a part of which he was. Here is given 
 his Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797. 
 
 86 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 When it was first perceived, in early times, that 
 no middle course for America remained, between 
 unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a 
 total independence of its claims, men of reflection 
 were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable 
 power of fleets and armies they must determine to re- 
 sist, than from those contests and dissensions which 
 would certainly arise concerning the forms of govern- 
 ment to be instituted over the whole, and over the 
 parts, of this extensive country. Relying, however, 
 on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their 
 cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, 
 under an overruling Providence, which had so signally 
 protected this country from the first, the representa- 
 tives of this nation, then consisting of little more than 
 half its present numbers, not only broke to pieces the 
 chains which were forging, and the rod of iron that 
 was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which 
 had bound them, and launched into an ocean of 
 uncertainty. 
 
 The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolu- 
 tionary War, supplying the place of government, 
 commanded a degree of order, sufficient, at least, for 
 87 
 
88 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the temporary preservation of society. The Confed- 
 eration, which was early felt to be necessary, was pre- 
 pared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic 
 confederacies, the only examples which remain, with 
 any detail and precision, in history, and certainly 
 the only ones which the people at large had ever con- 
 sidered. But, reflecting on the striking difference, in 
 so many particulars, between this country and those, 
 where a courier may go from the seat of government 
 to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly 
 foreseen by some, who assisted in Congress at the 
 formation of it, that it could not be durable. 
 
 Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its 
 recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, 
 not only in individuals, but in States, soon appeared 
 with their melancholy consequences : universal lan- 
 guor, jealousies, rivalries of States, decline of navi- 
 gation and commerce, discouragement of necessary 
 manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and 
 their produce, contempt of public and private faith, 
 loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations; 
 and, at length, discontents, animosities, combina- 
 tions, partial conventions, and insurrection, threaten- 
 ing some great national calamity. 
 
 In this dangerous crisis, the people of America were 
 not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence 
 of mind, resolution, or integrity. Measures were 
 pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect 
 union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, 
 
JOHN ADAMS 89 
 
 provide for the common defense, promote the gen- 
 eral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. The 
 public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations 
 issued in the present happy constitution of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Employed in the service of my country abroad 
 during the whole course of these transactions, I first 
 saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign 
 country. Irritated by no literary altercation, ani- 
 mated by no public debate, heated by no party ani- 
 mosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result 
 of good heads, prompted by good hearts; as an 
 experiment better adapted to the genius, character, 
 situation, and relations of this nation and country 
 than any which had ever been proposed or suggested. 
 In its general principles and great outlines, it was con- 
 formable to such a system of government as I had 
 ever most esteemed; and in some States, my own 
 native State in particular, had contributed to estab- 
 lish. Claiming a right of suffrage in common with 
 my fellow-citizens in the adoption or rejection of a 
 constitution, which was to rule me and my posterity, 
 as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express 
 my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in 
 private. It was not then nor has been since any 
 objection to it, in my mind, that the Executive and 
 Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I 
 entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in 
 it, but siich as the people themselves, in the course of 
 
go BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 their experience, should see and feel to be necessary 
 or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress 
 and the State Legislatures, according to the Constitu- 
 tion itself, adopt and ordain. 
 
 Returning to the bosom of my country, after a 
 painful separation from it for ten years, I had the 
 honor to be elected to a station under the new order 
 of things; and I have repeatedly laid myself under 
 the most serious obligations to support the Constitu- 
 tion. The operation of it has equaled the most 
 sanguine expectations of its friends; and from an 
 habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administra- 
 tion, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, 
 prosperity, and happiness of the nation, I have 
 acquired an habitual attachment to it, and veneration 
 for it. 
 
 What other form of government, indeed, can so 
 well deserve our esteem and love ? 
 
 There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that 
 congregations of men into cities and nations are the 
 most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelli- 
 gences; but this is very certain, that to a benevolent 
 human mind there can be no spectacle presented by 
 any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or 
 august, than an assembly like that which has so often 
 'been seen in this and the other chamber of Congress 
 — of a government in which the executive authority, 
 as well as that of all the branches of the legislature, 
 are exercised by citizens, selected at regular periods 
 
JOHN ADAMS 91 . 
 
 by their neighbors, to make and execute laws for 
 the general good. Can anything essential, anything 
 more than mere ornament an4 decoration, be added 
 to this by robes or diamonds? Can authority be 
 more amiable or respectable, when it descends from 
 accidents or institutions established in remote an- 
 tiquity, than when it springs fresh from the hearts 
 and judgments of an honest and enUghtened people ? 
 For it is the people only that are represented; it is 
 their power and majesty that is reflected, and only 
 for their good, in every legitimate government, 
 under whatever form it may appear. The existence 
 of such a government as ours for any length of time, 
 is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowl- 
 edge and virtue throughout the whole body of the 
 people. And what object of consideration, more 
 pleasing than this, can be presented to the human 
 mind ? If national pride is ever justifiable or excus- 
 able, it is when it springs, not from power or 
 riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of 
 national innocence, information, and benevolence. 
 In the midst of these pleasing ideas, we should be 
 unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight 
 of the danger to our liberties — if anything partial 
 or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, 
 fair, ^drtuous, and independent elections. If an 
 election is to be determined by a majority of a single 
 vote, that can be procured by a party through arti- 
 fice or corruption, the government may be the choice 
 
9^ BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 of a party, for its own ends, not of the nation for 
 the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be 
 obtained by foreign nations, by flattery or menaces, 
 by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, 
 the government may not be the choice of the Amer- 
 ican people, but of foreign nations. It may be for- 
 eign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, 
 who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowl- 
 edge that, in such cases, choice would have little 
 advantage to boast of over lot or chance. 
 
 Such is the amiable and interesting system of gov- 
 ernment (and such are some of the abuses to which 
 it may be exposed) which the people of America have 
 exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise 
 and virtuous of all nations for eight years, under the 
 administration of a citizen, who, by a long course of 
 great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, tem- 
 perance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired 
 with the same virtues, and animated with the same 
 ardent patriotism and love of liberty, to indepen- 
 dence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexam- 
 pled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his 
 fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of 
 foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with 
 posterity. 
 
 In that retirement, which is his voluntary choice, 
 may he long hve to enjoy the delicious recollection 
 of his services — the gratitude of mankind; the 
 happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which 
 
JOHN ADAMS 93 
 
 are daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of 
 the future fortunes of his country, which is opening 
 from year to year. His name may be still a ram- 
 part, and the knowledge that he Hves a bulwark, 
 against all open or secret enemies of his country's 
 peace. 
 
 This example has been recommended to the imita- 
 tion of his successors, by both Houses of Congress, 
 and by the voice of the legislatures and the people, 
 throughout the nation. 
 
 On this subject it might become me better to be 
 silent, or to speak with difhdence; but as something 
 may be expected, the occasion, I hope, will be ad- 
 mitted as an apology, if I venture to say, that if a 
 preference, upon principle, of a free republican gov- 
 ernment, formed upon long and serious reflection, 
 after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; 
 if an attachment to the Constitution of the United 
 States, and a conscientious determination to sup- 
 port it, until it shall be altered by the judgments 
 and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode pre- 
 scribed in it; if a respectful attention to the consti- 
 tutions of the individual States, and a constant 
 caution and delicacy towards the State governments; 
 if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, inter- 
 ests, honor, and happiness of all the States in the 
 Union without preference or regard to a northern or 
 southern, eastern or western position, their various 
 political opinions on essential points, or their personal 
 
94 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 attachments; if a love of virtuous men, of all parties 
 and denominations; if a love of science and letters, 
 and a wish to patronize every rational affort to 
 encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, 
 and every institution for propagating knowledge, 
 virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, 
 not only for their benign influence on the happiness 
 of life, in all its stages and classes, and of society in 
 all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our 
 Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of 
 sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, 
 profligacy, and corruption, and the pestilence of 
 foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction 
 to elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of 
 justice and humanity in the interior administration; 
 if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, 
 and manufactures for necessity, convenience, and 
 defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity towards 
 the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition 
 to ameUorate their condition, by inclining them to 
 be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more 
 friendly to them; if an inflexible determination to 
 maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, 
 and that system of neutrality and impartiality 
 among the belligerent powers of Europe which has 
 been adopted by the government, and so solemnly 
 sanctioned by both Houses of Congress, and ap- 
 plauded by the legislatures of the States and the 
 public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained 
 
JOHN ADAMS 95 
 
 by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French 
 nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly 
 among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the 
 friendship, which has been so much for the honor 
 and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious 
 honor and integrity of the people of America, and 
 the internal sentiment of their own power and ener- 
 gies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to in- 
 vestigate every just cause, and remove every colorable 
 pretense, of complaint; if an intention to pursue, 
 by amicable negotiation, a reparation for the injuries 
 that have been committed on the commerce of our 
 fellow-citizens, by whatever nation; and if success 
 cannot be obtained, to lay the facts before the legis- 
 lature, that they may consider what further measures 
 the honor and interest of the government and its 
 constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice, 
 as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all 
 nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevo- 
 lence with all the world; if an unshaken confidence 
 in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American 
 people, on which I have so often hazarded my all,, 
 and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the 
 high destinies of this country, and of my own duties 
 towards it, founded on a knowledge of the moral 
 principles and intellectual improvements of the 
 people, deeply engraven on my mind in early life, 
 and not obscured but exalted by experience and age ; 
 and with humble reverence, I feel it my duty to add, 
 
96 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 if a veneration for the religion of a people, who pro- 
 fess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed reso- 
 lution to consider a decent respect for Christianity 
 among the best recommendations for the public 
 service, can enable me, in any degree, to comply 
 with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor 
 that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses 
 shall not be without effect. 
 
 With this great example before me ; with the 
 sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and 
 interest of the same American people, pledged to 
 support the Constitution of the United States, I en- 
 tertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy; 
 and my mind is prepared, without hesitation, to lay 
 myself under the most solemn obligations to support 
 it to the utmost of my power. 
 
 And may that Being who is supreme over all, the 
 patron of order, the fountain of justice, and the pro- 
 tector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, 
 continue his blessing upon this nation and its gov- 
 ernments, and give it all possible success and dura- 
 tion, consistent with the ends of his providence. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON 
 
 I 743-1826 
 
"After Washington and Franklin," wrote Lord 
 Brougham, "there is no person who fills so eminent a place 
 among the great men of America as Jefferson." He was, in- 
 deed, a powerful leader of men. Not as an orator, for he rarely 
 gave personal utterance to his productions, but as a writer. 
 With a penetrating and logical intellect, educated at the William 
 and Mary College of Virginia, a profound student of social and 
 political developments ancient and modern, Jefferson was sent 
 to the House of Burgesses at the age of twenty-six (1769); 
 in 1775 was member of the Continental Congress and penned 
 the Declaration of Independence — "title-deed of American 
 liberties," as Webster called it. He was made Governor of 
 Virginia in 1779, and after the establishment of the new Consti- 
 tution was Ambassador to France, succeeding Franklin, was 
 Washington's Secretary of State, and Vice-President under 
 the presidency of John Adams, whom he succeeded as Presi- 
 dent, serving two terms. 
 
 Jefferson was as democratic in feeling and opinion as Ham- 
 ilton was aristocratic, and the two men frequently clashed, 
 although not in enmity. He opposed the new Constitution as 
 too centralized, and was the natural head of the Anti-Federalists, 
 — the party that was later called Republican, and after that 
 Democratic, — the party originally demanding strict construc- 
 tion of the Constitution, lest from being federal it should become 
 national. His many state papers were singularly lucid and 
 strong — witness his First Inaugural Address herein (March 4, 
 1801); his "Notes on Virginia," describing the State and its 
 resources, with exposition of Republican ideas, was highly 
 praised, especially in France ; he was a great promoter of educa- 
 tion and founded the University of Virginia, while his opposi- 
 tion to negro slavery and his ardent advocacy of religious 
 liberty were in advance of his times. He not only was a great 
 political leader, but he still is — among those who really cherish 
 the principles rather than the mere name of " Jeffersonian 
 Democracy." 
 
 98 
 
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 Friends and Fellow-citizens: Called upon to 
 undertake the duties of the first executive office of 
 our country, I avail myself of the presence of that 
 portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assem- 
 bled, to express my grateful thanks for the favor 
 with which they have been pleased to look toward 
 me, to declare a sincere consciousness, that the task 
 is above my talents, and that I approach it with 
 those anxious and awful presentiments, which the 
 greatness of the charge, and the weakness of my 
 powers, so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread 
 over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas 
 with the rich productions of their industry, engaged 
 in commerce with nations who feel power and forget 
 right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the 
 reach of mortal eye; when I contemplate these tran- 
 scendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, 
 and the hopes of this beloved country committed to 
 the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from 
 the contemplation, and humble myself before the 
 magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, 
 should I despair, did not the presence of many, 
 whom I see here, remind me, that, in the other high 
 99 
 
lOO BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 authorities provided by our Constitution, I shall find 
 resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal, on which 
 to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentle- 
 men, who are charged with the sovereign functions 
 of legislation, and to those associated with you, I 
 look with encouragement for that guidance and sup- 
 port which may enable us to steer with safety the 
 vessel in which we are all embarked, amidst the 
 conflicting elements of a troubled world. 
 
 During the contest of opinion through which we 
 have passed, the animation of discussions and of 
 exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might 
 impose on strangers unused to think freely, and to 
 speak and to write what they think; but this being 
 now decided by the voice of the nation, announced 
 according to the rules of the Constitution, all will of 
 course arrange themselves under the will of the law, 
 and unite in common efforts for the common good. 
 All too will bear in mind this sacred principle, that 
 though the will of the rnajority is in all cases to pre- 
 vail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; 
 that the minority possess their equal rights, which 
 equal laws must protect, and to violate which would 
 be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite 
 with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social 
 intercourse that harmony and affection without 
 which liberty and even life itself are but dreary 
 things. And let us reflect, that having banished 
 from our land that religious intolerance under which. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON lOI 
 
 mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet 
 gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance, 
 as despotic, as wicked, and as capable of as bitter 
 and bloody persecutions. During the throes and 
 convulsions of the ancient w^orld, during the agoniz- 
 ing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood 
 and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not won- 
 derful that the agitation of the billows should reach 
 even this distant and peaceful shore; that this 
 should be more felt and feared by some, and less by 
 others, and should divide opinions as to measures 
 of safety; but every difference of opinion is not a 
 difference of principle. We have called by different 
 names brethren of the same principle. We are all 
 Republicans; we are all Federalists. If there be 
 any among us who wish to dissolve this Union, or to 
 change its republican form, let them stand undis- 
 turbed as monuments of the safety with which error 
 of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free 
 to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest 
 men fear that a republican government cannot be 
 strong; that this government is not strong enough. 
 But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of 
 successful experiment, abandon a government which 
 has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and 
 visionary fear, that this government, the world's 
 best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to pre- 
 serve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the 
 contrary, the strongest government on earth. I 
 
I02 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 believe it the only one where every man, at the call 
 of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and 
 would meet invasions of the public order as his own 
 personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man 
 cannot be trusted with the government of himself. 
 Can he then be trusted with the government of 
 others? Or, have we found angels in the form of 
 kings, to govern him? Let history answer this 
 question. 
 
 Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue 
 our own federal and republican principles; our at- 
 tachment to union and representative government. 
 Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from 
 the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; 
 too high-minded to endure the degradation of the 
 others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough 
 for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth 
 generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal 
 right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisi- 
 tion of our own industry, to honor and confidence 
 from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, 
 but from our actions and their sense of them; en- 
 lightened by a benign religion, professed indeed and 
 practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcat- 
 ing honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the 
 love of man, acknowledging and adoring an over- 
 ruling Providence, which, by all its dispensations, 
 proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, 
 and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON I03 
 
 blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy 
 and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow- 
 citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall 
 restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave 
 them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of 
 industry and improvement, and shall not take from 
 the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is 
 the sum of good government; and this is necessary 
 to close the circle of our felicities. 
 
 About to enter, fellow-citizens, ujoon the exer- 
 cise of duties which comprehend everything dear 
 and valuable to you, it is proper you should under- 
 stand what I deem the essential principles of our 
 government, and consequently, those which ought 
 to shape its administration. I will compress them 
 within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating 
 the general principle, but not all its Hmitations. 
 Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state 
 or persuasion, religious or poHtical; peace, commerce, 
 and honest friendship with all nations, entanghng 
 alliances with none; the support of the State gov- 
 ernments in all their rights, as the most competent 
 administrations for our domestic concerns, and the 
 surest bulwarks against anti-repubhcan tendencies; 
 the preservation of the general government in its 
 whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of 
 our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care 
 of the right of election by the people, a mild and 
 safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the 
 
I04 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are 
 unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions 
 of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from 
 which there is no appeal but to force, the vital 
 principle and immediate parent of despotism; a 
 well-disciplined militia, our best reUance in peace, 
 and for the first moments of war, till regulars may 
 relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the 
 military authority; economy in the public expense, 
 that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest 
 payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the 
 public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of 
 commerce as its handmaid; the difTusion of in- 
 formation, and arraignment of all abuses at the 
 bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, 
 freedom of the press, and freedom of person, under 
 the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial 
 by juries impartially selected. These principles 
 form the bright constellation, which has gone be- 
 fore us, and guided our steps through . an age of 
 revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our 
 sages, and blood of our heroes, have been devoted 
 to their attainment; they should be the creed of our 
 political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touch- 
 stone by which to try the services of those we trust; 
 and should we wander from them in moments of 
 error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, 
 and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, 
 liberty, and safety. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON I05 
 
 I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have 
 assigned me. With experience enough in subordi- 
 nate offices to have seen the difficulties of this, the 
 greatest of all, I have learned to expect that it will 
 rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man, to retire 
 from this station with the reputation and the favor 
 which bring him into it. Without pretensions to 
 that high confidence you reposed in our first and 
 greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent 
 services had entitled him to the first place in his 
 country's love, and destined for him the fairest page 
 in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much 
 confidence only as may give firmness and effect to 
 the legal administration of your affairs. I shall 
 often go wrong through defect of judgment. When 
 right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose 
 positions wdll not command a view of the whole 
 ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, 
 which will never be intentional; and your support 
 against the errors of others, who may condemn 
 what they would not, if seen in all its parts. The 
 approbation impKed by your suffrage, is a great 
 consolation to me for the past; and my future solici- 
 tude will be, to retain the good opinion of those who 
 have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of 
 others, by doing them all the good in my power, and 
 to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom 
 of all. 
 
 Relying then on the patronage of your good-will, 
 
Io6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 I advance with obedience to the work, ready to 
 retire from it whenever you become sensible how 
 much better choices it is in your power to make. 
 And may that infinite Power which rules the des- 
 tinies of the universe, lead our councils to what 
 is best, and give them a favorable issue for your 
 peace and prosperity. 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 1773-1S33 
 
Virginia certainly furnished her full share of masterful men 
 as leaders of opinion and activity in the early days of the re- 
 public. John Randolph of Roanoke was one of them. Of an 
 aristocratic family, and a slave-owner, he was imbued, never- 
 theless, with earnest ideas as to individual liberty, both civil 
 and religious, was not a political partisan of slavery, and freed 
 his slaves by will at his death, while throughout his political 
 career he was usually in violent opposition to the general govern- 
 ment along the lines of State rights. He went to Congress 
 in 1799 and in 1801 became chairman of the Committee on 
 Ways and Means, — an important post. He was keen of per- 
 ception, and, if not highly cultivated, was widely read, so that, 
 with a native fluency of language and a keen wit, his legislative 
 experience made him a strong debater, — too strong, indeed, for 
 his causes or his own interest, since a rash and fiery temper 
 and a lack of consideration for others kept him usually in a 
 turmoil of misunderstandings. 
 
 Perhaps the most important of his deliverances was the 
 speech in Congress, March 5, 1806, opposing a commercial 
 rupture wnth Great Britain then proposed, a portion of which is 
 here reproduced. It cost him his place in Congress, although 
 he was again returned in 1815. He went abroad in 1821 for 
 relaxation, returned for a two years' term as United States 
 Senator, and in 1830 was sent as Minister to Russia. On a 
 reelection he returned to Congress, but died in 1833. 
 
 Randolph was trusted by Virginia, and was valuable in 
 Washington, yet his bitter temper deprived both him and his 
 country of much of the influence of his better qualities. 
 
 108 
 
OPPOSING A RUPTURE 
 WITH ENGLAND 
 
 I AM not surprised to hear this resolution^ discussed 
 by its friends as a war measure. They say, it is 
 true, that it is not a war measure ; but they defend 
 it on principles which would justify none but war 
 measures, and seem pleased with the idea that it 
 may prove the forerunner of war. If war is neces- 
 sary, if we have reached this point, let us have war. 
 But while I have life, I will never consent to these 
 incipient war measures, w^hich in their commence- 
 ment breathe nothing but peace, though they plunge 
 us at last into war. . . . 
 
 It has always appeared to me that there are three 
 points to be considered, and maturely considered, 
 before we can be prepared to vote for the resolution 
 of the gentleman from Pennsylvania: first, Our 
 ability to contend with Great Britain for the question 
 
 ^ That until equitable and satisfactory arrangements con- 
 cerning impressment of seamen and seizures of American 
 vessels should be made between the United States and British 
 governments, it was expedient that no goods, wares or mer- 
 chandise, of the growth, product or manufacture of Great 
 Britain, or any of the colonies or dependencies thereof, ought 
 to be imported into the United States, until otherwise pro- 
 claimed by the President. 
 
 J09 
 
no BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 in dispute; secondly, The policy of such a contest; 
 and thirdly, In case both these shall be settled affirm- 
 atively, the manner in which we can, with the 
 greatest effect, react upon and annoy our adversary. 
 
 WTiat is the question in dispute ? The carrying 
 trade. What part of it ? The fair, the honest, 
 and the useful trade that is engaged in carrying our 
 own productions to foreign markets, and bringing 
 back their productions in exchange ? No, Sir; it 
 is that carrying trade which covers enemy's property, 
 and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other West 
 India products, to the mother-country. No, Sir; 
 if this great agricultural nation is to be governed by 
 Salem and Boston, New^ York and Philadelphia, 
 and Baltimore and Norfolk and Charleston, let 
 gentlemen come out and say so; and let a committee 
 of public safety be appointed from those towns to 
 carry on the government. I, for one, wdll not mort- 
 gage my property and my liberty to carry on this 
 trade. The nation said so seven years ago; I said 
 so then, and I say so now. It is not for the honest 
 carrying trade of America, but for this mushroom, 
 this fungus of war, for a trade which, as soon as the 
 nations of Europe are at peace, will no longer exist; 
 it is for this that the spirit of avaricious traffic would 
 plunge us into war. . . . 
 
 But we are asked, are we willing to bend the neck 
 to England; to submit to her outrages? No, Sir; 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH III 
 
 I answer, that it will be time enough for us to tell 
 gentlemen what w^e will do to vindicate the violation 
 of our flag on the ocean, when they shall have told 
 us what they have done, in resentment of the viola- 
 tion of the actual territory of the United States by 
 Spain — the true territory of the United States, 
 not your new-fangled country over the Mississippi, 
 but the good old United States — part of Georgia, 
 of the old tliirteen States, where citizens have been 
 taken, not from our ships, but from our actual terri- 
 tory. When gentlemen have taken the padlock 
 from our mouths, I shall be ready to tell them what 
 I will do relative to our dispute wdth Britain, on the 
 law of nations, on contraband, and such stuff. . . . 
 France is at war with England: suppose her power 
 on the Continent of Europe no greater than it is on 
 the ocean. How would she make her enemy feel 
 it? There would be a perfect non-conductor be- 
 tween them. So with the United States and Eng- 
 land ; she scarcely presents to us a vulnerable point. 
 Her commerce is carried on, for the most part, in 
 fleets; where in single ships, they are stout and well- 
 armed; very different from the state of her trade 
 during the American war, w4ien her merchantmen 
 became the prey of paltry privateers. Great Britain 
 has been too long at war with the three most powerful 
 maritime nations of Europe, not to have learnt how 
 to protect her trade. She can afford convoy to it 
 all ; she has eight hundred ships in commission ; 
 
112 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the navies of her enemies are annihilated. Thus, 
 this war has presented the new and curious pohtical 
 spectacle of a regular annual increase (and to an 
 immense amount) of her imports and exports, 
 and tonnage and revenue, and all the insignia of 
 accumulating wealth, whilst in every former war, 
 without exception, these have suffered a greater or 
 less diminution. And wherefore? Because she 
 has driven France, Spain, and Holland, from the 
 ocean. Their marine is no more. I verily believe 
 that ten EngUsh ships of the line would not decUne 
 a meeting with the combined fleets of those nations. 
 But this is not my only objection to entering upon 
 this naval warfare. I am averse to a naval war with 
 any nation whatever. I was opposed to the naval 
 war of the last administration, and I am as ready to 
 oppose a naval war of the present administration, 
 should they meditate such a measure. What ! shall 
 this great mammoth of the American forest leave his 
 native element, and plunge into the water in a mad 
 contest with the shark? Let him beware that his 
 proboscis is not bitten off in the engagement. Let 
 him stay on shore, and not be excited by the mussels 
 and periwinkles on the strand, or political bears, in 
 a boat to venture on the perils of the deep. Gentle- 
 men say, will you not protect your violated rights? 
 and I say, why take to water, where you can neither 
 fight nor swim ? Look at France ; see her vessels 
 stealing from port to port, on her own coast; and 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH II3 
 
 remember that she is the first military power of the 
 earth, and as a naval people, second only to England. 
 Take away the British navy, and France to-morrow 
 is the tyrant of the ocean. 
 
 This brings me to the second point. How far is 
 it politic in the United States to throw their weight 
 into the scale of France at this moment ? — from 
 whatever motive to aid the views of her gigantic 
 ambition — to make her mistress of the sea and land 
 — to jeopardize the liberties of mankind ? Sir, you 
 may help to crush Great Britain — you may assist 
 in breaking down her naval dominion, but you can- 
 not succeed to it. The iron scepter of the ocean will 
 pass into his hands who wears the iron crown of the 
 land. You may then expect a new code of maritime 
 law. Where will you look for redress? I can tell 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts, that there is 
 nothing in his rule of three that will save us, even 
 although he should outdo himself, and exceed the 
 financial ingenuity which he so memorably displayed 
 on a recent occasion. No, Sir ; let the battle of Ac- 
 tium be once fought, and the whole line of sea-coast 
 will be at the mercy of the conqueror. The Atlantic, 
 deep and wide as it is, will prove just as good a barrier 
 against his ambition, if directed against you, as the 
 Mediterranean to the power of the Caesars. Do I 
 mean, when I say so, to crouch to the invader ? No, 
 I will meet him at the water's edge, and fight every 
 inch of ground from thence to the mountains, from 
 
114 BEST AMERICAxM ORATIONS 
 
 the mountains to the Mississippi. But after tamely 
 submitting to an outrage on your domicile, will you 
 bully and look big at an insult on your flag three 
 thousand miles off? 
 
 But, Sir, I have yet a more cogent reason against 
 going to war for the honor of the flag in the narrow 
 seas, or any other maritime punctilio. It springs 
 from my attachment to the principles of the Govern- 
 ment under which I live. I declare, in the face of 
 day, that this Government was not instituted for 
 the purposes of offensive war. No ; it was framed, 
 to use its own language, for the common defense and 
 the general welfare, which are inconsistent with 
 offensive war. I call that offensive war, which goes 
 out of our jurisdiction and limits, for the attainment 
 or protection of objects, not within those limits, and 
 that jurisdiction. As, in 1798, I was opposed to 
 this species of warfare, because I believed it would 
 raze the Constitution to the very foundation; so, 
 in 1806, am I opposed to it, and on the same grounds. 
 
 For my part, I never will go to war but in self- 
 defense. I have no desire for conquests — no am- 
 bition to possess Nova Scotia — I hold the liberties 
 of this people at a higher rate. Much more am I 
 indisposed to war, when among the first means for 
 carrying it on, I see gentlemen propose the confisca- 
 tion of debts due by Government to individuals. 
 Does a bona fide creditor know who holds his paper? 
 Dare any honest man ask himself the question? 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH II5 
 
 'Tis hard to say whether such principles are more 
 detestably dishonest than they are weak and foolish. 
 What, Sir; will you go about with proposals for open- 
 ing a loan in one hand, and a sponge for the national 
 debt in the other ? If, on a late occasion, you could 
 not borrow at a less rate of interest than eight per 
 cent when the Government avowed that they would 
 pay to the last shilling of the public ability, at what 
 price do you expect to raise money with an avowal 
 of these nefarious opinions ? • — God help you ! if 
 these are your ways and means for carrying on 
 war. . . . 
 
 But the gentleman has told you that we ought to 
 go to war, if for nothing else, for the fur trade. Now, 
 Sir, the people on whose support he seems to calcu- 
 late, follow, let me tell him, a better business; and 
 let me add, that whilst men are happy at home reap- 
 ing their own fields, the fruit of their labor and in- 
 dustry, there is Httle danger of their being induced 
 to go sixteen or seventeen hundred miles in pursuit 
 of beavers, raccoons or opossums — much less of 
 going to war for the privilege. They are better 
 employed where they are. This trade. Sir, may be 
 important to Britain, to nations who have exhausted 
 every resource of industry at home — bowed down 
 by taxation and wretchedness. Let thema, in God's 
 name, if they please, follow the fur trade. They 
 may, for me, catch every beaver in North America. 
 Yes, Sir, our people have a better occupation — 
 
Il6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 a safe, profitable, honorable employment. Whilst 
 they should be engaged in distant regions in hunting 
 the beaver, they dread, lest those whose natural 
 prey they are, should begin to hunt them — should 
 pillage their property, and assassinate their consti- 
 tution. Instead of these wild schemes, pay off your 
 public debt, instead of prating about its confiscation. 
 Do not, I beseech you, expose at once your knavery 
 and your folly. You have more lands than you know 
 what to do with; you have lately paid fifteen 
 millions for yet more. Go and work them, and 
 cease to alarm the people w^th the cry of wolf, until 
 they become deaf to your voice, or at least laugh at 
 you. . . . 
 
 I am prepared, Sir, to be represented as willing to 
 surrender important rights of this nation to a for- 
 eign government. I have been told that this senti- 
 ment is already whispered in the dark, by time- 
 servers and sycophants; but if your clerk dared to 
 print them, I would appeal to your journals! — I 
 would call for the reading of them, but that I know 
 they are not for profane eyes to look upon. I confess 
 that I am more ready to surrender to a naval power 
 a square league of ocean than to a territorial one a 
 square inch of land, within our limits ; and I am ready 
 to meet the friends of the resolution on this ground, 
 at any time. Let them take off the injunction of 
 secrecy. They dare not. They are ashamed and 
 afraid to do it. They may give winks and nods, and 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH 1 17 
 
 pretend to be wise, but they dare not come out, and 
 tell the nation what they have done. Gentlemen 
 may take notes, if they please; but I will never, from 
 any motives short of self-defense, enter upon war. 
 I will never be instrumental to the ambitious schemes 
 of Bonaparte, nor put into his hands what will 
 enable him to wield the world, — and on the very 
 principle that I wished success to the French arms 
 in 1793. And wherefbre ? Because the case is 
 changed. Great Britain can never again see the 
 year 1760. Her Continental influence is gone for- 
 ever. Let who will be uppermost on the Continent 
 of Europe, she must find more than a counterpoise 
 for her strength. Her race is run. She can only be 
 formidable as a maritime power; and even as such, 
 perhaps not long. Are you going to justify the acts 
 of the last administration for which they have been 
 deprived of the government, at our instance ? Are 
 you going back to the ground of 1798- 1799 ? 
 
 I ask of any man who now^ advocates a rupture with 
 England, to assign a single reason for his opinion, 
 that w^ould not have justified a French war in 1798. 
 If injury and insult abroad w^ould have justified it, 
 we had them in abundance then. But what did the 
 Republicans say at that day? That under the cover 
 of a war with France, the executive would be armed 
 with a patronage and power which might enable it 
 to master our liberties. They deprecated foreign 
 war and navies, and standing armies, and loans, and 
 
Il8 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 taxes. The delirium passed away — the good sense 
 of the people triumphed — and our differences were 
 accommodated without a war. And what is there 
 in the situation of England that invites to war with 
 her? 'Tis true she does not deal so largely in per- 
 fectability, but she supplies you with a much more 
 useful commodity — with coarse woolens. With 
 less professions, indeed, she occupies the place of 
 France in 1793. She is the sole bulwark of the 
 human race against universal dominion. No thanks 
 to her for it! In protecting her own existence, she 
 insures theirs. I care not who stands in this situa- 
 tion, whether England or Bonaparte — I practice 
 the doctrines now, that I professed in 1798. Gen- 
 tlemen may hunt up the journals if they please — 
 I voted against all such projects under the admin- 
 istration of John Adams, and I will continue to do 
 so under that of Thomas Jefferson. . . . 
 
 Is it to be inferred from all this, that I would 
 yield to Great Britain ? No ; I would act towards 
 her now, as I was disposed to do towards France in 
 1 798-1 799 — treat with her ; and for the same reason, 
 on the same principles. Do I say treat with her ? 
 At this moment you have a negotiation pending with 
 her government. With her you have not tried 
 negotiation, and failed, totally failed, as you have 
 done with Spain, or rather France. And wherefore, 
 under such circumstances, this hostile spirit to the 
 one, and this (I won't say w^hat), to the other ? . . . 
 
JOHN RANDOLPH II9 
 
 But you are told England will not make war — 
 she has her hands full. Holland calculated in the 
 same way, in 1781. How did it turn out ? You 
 stand now in the place of Holland, then — without 
 her navy, unaided by the preponderating fleets of 
 France and Spain — to say nothing of the Baltic 
 powers. Do you want to take up the cudgels w^here 
 these great maritime powers have been forced to 
 drop them? to meet Great Britain on the ocean, 
 and drive her off its face? If you are so far gone 
 as this, every capital measure of your policy has 
 hitherto been wrong. You should have nurtured 
 the old, and devised new systems of taxation — 
 have cherished your navy. Begin this business when 
 you may, land-taxes, stamp-acts, window-taxes, 
 hearth-money, excise, in all its modifications of vexa- 
 tion and oppression, must precede, or follow after. 
 
 But, Sir, since French is the fashion of the day, I 
 may be asked for my projet. I can readily tell gen- 
 tlemen what I will not do. I will not propitiate any 
 foreign nation with money. I will not launch into a 
 naval war with Great Britain, although I am ready 
 to meet her at the Cowpens, or Bunker's Hill. And 
 for this plain reason. We are a great land animal, 
 and our business is on shore. I will send her no 
 money, Sir, on any pretext whatsoever, much less 
 on pretense of buying Labrador, or Botany Bay, 
 when my real object was to secure hmits which she 
 formally acknowledged at the peace of 1783. I go 
 
I20 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 further: I would (if anything) have laid an embargo. 
 This would have got our own property home, and 
 our adversary's into our power. If there is any 
 wisdom left among us, the first step towards hostility 
 will always be an embargo. In six months all your 
 mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, al- 
 though it would cut deep, w^e can stand it. Without 
 such a precaution, go to war when you will, you go 
 to the wall. As to debts, strike the balance to-mor- 
 row, and England is, I beheve, in our debt. . . . 
 
 Gentlemen may say what they please. They may 
 put an insignificant individual to the ban of the 
 republic; I shall not alter my course. I blush with 
 indignation at the misrepresentations which have 
 gone forth in the public prints of our proceedings, 
 public and private. Are the people of the United 
 States, the real sovereigns of the country, unworthy 
 of knowing what, there is too much reason to 
 believe, has been communicated to the privileged 
 spies of foreign governments ? . . . Let the nation 
 know what they have to depend upon. Be true to 
 them, and, trust me, they will prove true to them- 
 selves and to you. The people are honest; now at 
 home at their plows, not dreaming of what you 
 are about. But the spirit of inquiry, that has too 
 long slept, will be, must be, awakened. Let them 
 begin to think; not to say Such things are proper 
 because they have been done — but What has been 
 done ? and wherefore ? — and all will be right. 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 I 794-1865 
 
A MAN of fine rather than strong qualities, Everett was an 
 excellent type of the intellectual culture that in New England, 
 and especially Massachusetts, succeeded the vigorous Revolu- 
 tionary energy of the Puritan element. He was an accomplished 
 gentleman, scholar, and rhetorican. His early ministrations in 
 a Boston church were greatly admired ; his Greek professorship 
 and later presidency at Harvard were eminently satisfactory; 
 his service in the House of Representatives and in the United 
 States Senate was both useful and elegant ; his ambassadorship 
 to England reflected credit upon his country and greatly in- 
 terested many of the foremost British statesmen and men of 
 letters; his governorship of Massachusetts was all that it 
 should be; as President Fillmore's Secretary of State, in 1852, 
 amidst the turmoil of domestic political conflict he serenely 
 guided the nation's foreign affairs. In all the official stations 
 with which he was honored, he satisfactorily fulfilled his 
 duties. 
 
 Everett's prime gift, however, was oratory. It was not 
 "the power of speech to move men's blood," but the historic 
 research, the admirable grouping and presentation of events 
 and their consequences, the felicity of illustration, the harmony 
 of language, the music of voice, the grace of pose and gesture, 
 that made Everett a favorite orator on all specific " occa- 
 sions." His oration on "Washington" he repeated about a 
 hundred and fifty times, the pecuniary returns, enlarged by 
 payments for periodical writings to $100,000, being given 
 towards the purchase of Mount Vernon as a national property. 
 His discourse on "The History of Liberty" (at Charlestown, 
 Massachusetts, July 4, 1828), here given, is one of his char- 
 acteristic deliverances. 
 
 But the difference between his elegancies and the direc 
 speech of more practical men is well shown in what he himself 
 wrote to President Lincoln the day after they had both made 
 addresses at the Gettysburg Dedication: "I should be glad if 
 I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of 
 the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." 
 
THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY 
 
 The event which we commemorate is all-im- 
 portant, not merely in our own annals, but in those 
 of the world. The sententious English poet has de- 
 clared that ''the proper study of mankind is man," 
 and of all inquiries of a temporal nature, the history 
 of our fellow-beings is unquestionably among the 
 most interesting. But not all the chapters of hu- 
 man history are alike important. The annals of our 
 race have been filled up with incidents which concern 
 not, or at least ought not to concern, the great com- 
 pany of mankind. History, as it has often been 
 written, is the genealogy of princes, the field-book 
 of conquerors; and the fortunes of our fellow-men 
 have been treated only so far as they have been 
 affected by the influence of the great masters and 
 destroyers of our race. Such history is, I will not 
 say a worthless study, for it is necessary for us to 
 know the dark side as well as the bright side of our 
 condition. But it is a melancholy study which fills 
 the bosom of the philanthropist and the friend of 
 liberty with sorrow. 
 
 But the history of liberty — the history of men 
 struggling to be free — the history of men who have 
 123 
 
124 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 acquired and are exercising their freedom — the 
 history of those great movements in the world, by 
 which Uberty has been estabHshed and perpetuated, 
 forms a subject which we cannot contemplate too 
 closely. This is the real history of man, of the human 
 family, of rational immortal beings. ... 
 
 We hear much at school of the liberty of Greece 
 and Rome — a great and complicated subject, 
 which this is not the occasion to attempt to dis- 
 entangle. True it is that we find, in the annals of 
 both these nations, bright examples of public virtue 
 — the record of faithful friends of their country — 
 of strenuous foes of oppression at home or abroad — 
 and admirable precedents of popular strength. 
 But we nowhere find in them the account of a popu- 
 lous and extensive region, blessed with institutions 
 securing the enjoyment and transmission of regu- 
 lated liberty. In freedom, as in most other things, 
 the ancient nations, while they made surprisingly 
 close approaches to the truth, yet, for want of some 
 one great and essential principle or instrument, 
 they came utterly short of it in practice. They had 
 profound and elegant scholars; but, for want of the 
 art of printing, they could not send information out 
 among the people, where alone it is of great use 
 in reference to human happiness. Some of them 
 ventured boldly out to sea, and possessed an aptitude 
 for foreign commerce; yet, for want of the mariner's 
 compass, they could not navigate distant seas, but 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 125 
 
 crept for ages along the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 In respect to freedom, they estabHshed popular 
 governments in single cities; but, for want of the 
 representative principle, they could not extend these 
 institutions over a large and populous country. 
 But as a large and populous country, generally 
 speaking, can alone possess strength enough for 
 self-defense, this want was fatal. The freest of 
 their cities accordingly fell a prey, sooner or later, 
 either to a foreign invader or to domestic traitors. 
 
 In this w^ay, Hberty made no firm progress in 
 the ancient states. It was a speculation of the 
 philosopher, and an experiment of the patriot, but 
 not an estabUshed state of society. The patriots 
 of Greece and Rome had indeed succeeded in en- 
 lightening the public mind on one of the cardinal 
 points of freedom — the necessity of an elected 
 executive. The name and the office of a king were 
 long esteemed not only something to be rejected, 
 but something rude and uncivilized, belonging to 
 savage nations, ignorant of the rights of man, as 
 understood in cultivated states. . . . The [Roman] 
 empire began and continued a pure military des- 
 potism, ingrafted, by a sort of permanent usurpa- 
 tion, on the forms and names of the ancient republic. 
 The spirit, indeed, of liberty had long since ceased 
 to animate these ancient forms, and when the bar- 
 barous tribes of Central Asia and Northern Europe 
 burst into the Roman empire, they swept away the 
 
126 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 poor remnant of these forms, and established upon 
 their ruins the system of feudal monarchy from 
 which all modern kingdoms are descended. Efforts 
 were made in the Middle Ages by the petty republics 
 of Italy to regain the political rights which a long 
 proscription had wrested from them. But the 
 remedy of bloody civil wars between neighboring 
 cities was plainly more disastrous than the disease 
 of subjection. The struggles of freedom in these 
 little states resulted much as they had done in Greece, 
 exhibiting brilliant examples of individual character 
 and short intervals of public prosperity, but no per- 
 manent progress in the organization of liberal 
 governments. 
 
 At length a new era seemed to begin. The art of 
 printing was invented. The capture of Constanti- 
 nople by the Turks drove the learned Greeks of that 
 city into Italy, and letters revived. A general 
 agitation of public sentiment in various parts of 
 Europe ended in the religious reformation. A 
 spirit of adventure had been awakened in the mari- 
 time nations, projects of remote discovery were 
 started, and the signs of the times seemed to augur 
 a great pohtical regeneration. But, as if to blast 
 this hope in its bud; as if to counterbalance at once 
 the operations of these springs of improvements; 
 as if to secure the permanence of the arbitrary in- 
 stitutions which existed in every part of the Con- 
 tinent, at the moment when it was most threatened, 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 127 
 
 the last blow at the same time was given to the re- 
 maining power of the great barons, the sole check 
 on the despotism of the monarch which the feudal 
 system provided was removed, and a new institution 
 was firmly established in Europe, prompt, efficient, 
 and terrible in its operation beyond anything which 
 the modern world has seen — I mean the system of 
 standing armies; in other words, a military force 
 organized and paid to support the king on his throne 
 and retain the people in their subjection. . . . 
 
 All hope of liberty then seemed lost; in Europe 
 all hope was lost. A disastrous turn has been given 
 to the general movement of things; and in the dis- 
 closure of the fatal secret of standing armies, the 
 future political servitude of man was apparently 
 decided. 
 
 But a change is destined to come over the face of 
 things, as romantic in its origin as it is wonderful in 
 its progress. All is not lost; on the contrary, all 
 is saved, at the moment when all seemed involved 
 in ruin. . . . The discovery of America had taken 
 place under the auspices of the government most 
 disposed for maritime adventure, and best enabled 
 to extend a helping arm, such as it was, to the enter- 
 prise of the great discoverer. But it w^as not from 
 the same quarter that the elements of liberty could 
 be introduced into the New World. Causes, upon 
 which I need not dwell, made it impossible that 
 the great political reform should go forth from Spain. 
 
128 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 For this object, a new train of incidents was preparing 
 in another quarter. 
 
 The only real advance which modern Europe had 
 made in freedom had been made in England. The 
 cause of constitutional liberty in that country was 
 persecuted, was subdued, but not annihilated, nor 
 trampled out of being. From the choicest of its 
 suffering champions were collected the brave band 
 of emigrants who first went out on the second, the 
 more precious voyage of discovery — the discovery 
 of a land where liberty and its consequent blessings 
 might be established. 
 
 A late English writer has permitted himself to say 
 that the original establishment of the United States, 
 and that of the colony of Botany Bay, were modeled 
 nearly on the same plan. The meaning of this 
 slanderous insinuation is, that the United States 
 was settled by deported convicts, as New South 
 Wales has been settled by transported felons. . . . 
 In one sense, indeed, we might doubt whether the 
 allegation were more of a reproach or a compliment. 
 During the time that the colonization of America 
 was going on most rapidly, some of the best citizens 
 of England, if it be any part of good citizenship to 
 resist oppression, were immured in her prisons of 
 state or lying at the mercy of the law. 
 
 Such were some of the convicts by whom America 
 v/as settled — men convicted of fearing God more 
 than they feared man; of sacrificing property, ease, 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 129 
 
 and all the comforts of life, to a sense of duty and 
 to the dictates of conscience ; men convicted of pure 
 lives, brave hearts, and simple manners. The enter- 
 prise was led by Raleigh, the chivalrous convict, 
 who unfortunately believed that his royal master 
 had the heart of a man, and would not let a sentence 
 of death, which had slumbered for sixteen years, 
 revive and take effect after so long an interval of 
 employment and favor. But nullum tempus occurrit 
 regi. The felons who followed next were the heroic 
 and long-suffering church of Robinson, at Leyden — 
 Carver, Brewster, Bradford, Winslow, and their 
 pious associates, convicted of worshiping God 
 according to the dictates of their consciences, and 
 of giving up all — country, property, and the tombs 
 of their fathers — that they might do it unmolested. 
 Not content with having driven the Puritans from 
 her soil, England next enacted or put in force the 
 oppressive laws which colonized Maryland with 
 Catholics, and Pennsylvania with Quakers. Nor 
 was it long before the American plantations were 
 recruited by the Germans, convicted of inhabiting 
 the Palatinate, when the merciless armies of Louis 
 XIV were turned into that devoted region, and by 
 the Huguenots, convicted of holding what they 
 deemed the simple truth of Christianity, when it 
 pleased the mistress of Louis XIV to be very zealous 
 for the Catholic faith. These were followed, in the 
 next century, by the Highlanders, convicted of the 
 
T30 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 enormous crime, under a monarchical government, 
 of loyalty to their hereditary prince on the plains 
 of CuUoden, and the Irish, convicted of supporting 
 the rights of their country against what they deemed 
 an oppressive external power. Such are the convicts 
 by whom America was settled. 
 
 In this way, a fair representation of whatsoever 
 was most valuable in European character — the 
 resolute industry of one nation, the inventive skill 
 and curious arts of another, the courage, conscience, 
 principle, self-denial of all — was winnowed out, 
 by the policy of the prevaiUng governments, as a 
 precious seed wherewith to plant the American soil. 
 By this singular coincidence of events, our country 
 was constituted the great asylum of suffering virtue 
 and oppressed humanity. . . . Had we been the 
 unmixed descendants of any one nation of Europe, 
 we should have retained a moral and intellectual 
 dependence on that nation, even after the dissolution 
 of our political connection had taken place. It was 
 sufficient for the great purpose in view that the 
 earliest settlements were made by men who had 
 fought the battles of liberty in England, and who 
 brought with them the rudiments of constitutional 
 freedom to a region where no deep-rooted pro- 
 scriptions would prevent their development. In- 
 stead of marring the symmetry of our social system, 
 it is one of the most attractive and beautiful peculiari- 
 ties, that, with the prominent qualities of the Anglo- 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 131 
 
 Saxon character inherited from our English fathers, 
 we have an admixture of almost everything that is 
 valuable in the character of most of the other states 
 of Europe. 
 
 Such was the first preparation for the great polit- 
 ical reform, of which America was to be the theater. 
 The colonies of England — of a country where the 
 supremacy of laws and the constitution is best 
 recognized — the North American colonies — were 
 protected from the first against the introduction of 
 the unmitigated despotism which prevailed in the 
 Spanish settlements. . . . 
 
 On the other hand, by what I had almost called an 
 accidental circumstance, but one which ought rather 
 to be considered as a leading incident in the great 
 train of events connected with the estabhshment 
 of constitutional freedom in this country, it came 
 to pass that nearly all the colonies (founded as they 
 were on the charters granted to corporate institutions 
 in England, which had for their object the pursuit 
 of the branches of industry and trade pertinent to a 
 new plantation) adopted a regular representative 
 system, by which, as in ordinary civil corporations, 
 the affairs of the community are decided by the will 
 and the voices of its members, or those authorized by 
 them. It was no device of the parent government 
 which gave us our colonial assem.blies. It was no 
 refinement of philosophical statesmen to which we 
 are indebted for our republican institutions of gov- 
 
132 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 ernment. They grew up, as it were, by accident, 
 on the simple foundation I have named. "A House 
 of Burgesses," says Hutchinson, "broke out in 
 Virginia, in 1620;" and, ''although there was no 
 color for it in the charter of Massachusetts, a House 
 of Deputies appeared suddenly in 1634." "Lord 
 Say," observes the same historian, "tempted the 
 principal men of Massachusetts to make themselves 
 and their heirs nobles and absolute governors of a 
 new colony, but, under this plan, they could find no 
 people to follow them." 
 
 At this early period, and in this simple, unpretend- 
 ing manner, was introduced to the world that greatest 
 discovery in poHtical science, or poHtical practice, a 
 representative republican system. "The discovery 
 of the system of the representative republic," says 
 M. de Chateaubriand, "is one of the greatest political 
 events that ever occurred." But it is not one of 
 the greatest, it is the very greatest, and, combined 
 with another principle, to which I shall presently 
 advert, and which is also the invention of the United 
 States, it marks an era in human affairs — a discovery 
 in the great science of social life, compared with which 
 everything else that terminates in the temporal 
 interests of man sinks into insignificance. 
 
 Thus, then, was the foundation laid, and thus was 
 the preparation commenced, of the world's grand 
 political regeneration. . . . But at length this hope, 
 never adequately satisfied, began to turn into doubt 
 
EDWARD EVERETT I33 
 
 and despair. The Colonies had become too impor- 
 tant to be overlooked; their government was a pre- 
 rogative too important to be left in their own hands; 
 and the legislation of the mother-country decidedly 
 assumed a form which announced to the patriots 
 that the hour at length had come when the chains 
 of the great discoverer were to be avenged, the suf- 
 ferings of the first settlers to be compensated, and 
 the long-deferred hopes of humanity to be fulfilled. 
 You need not, friends and fellow-citizens, that I 
 should dwell upon the incidents of the last great acts 
 in the colonial drama. . . . The Revolution was 
 at length accomphshed. The poHtical separation of 
 the country from Great Britain was effected, and it 
 now remained to organize the liberty which had been 
 reaped on bloody fields — to establish, in the place 
 of the government whose yoke had been thrown off, 
 a government at home, which should fulfill the great 
 design of the Revolution and satisfy the demands 
 of the friends of liberty at large. What manifold 
 perils awaited the step! The danger was great 
 that too Uttle or too much would be done. Smart- 
 ing under the oppressions of a distant government, 
 whose spirit was alien to their feelings, there was 
 great danger that the Colonies, in the act of declaring 
 themselves sovereign and independent States, would 
 push to an extreme the prerogative of their separate 
 independence, and refuse to admit any authority 
 beyond the Hmits of each particular commonwealth. 
 
134 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 On the other hand, achieving their independence 
 under the banners of the Continental Army, ascrib- 
 ing, and justly, a large portion of their success to 
 the personal qualities of the beloved Father of his 
 Country, there was danger not less imminent, that 
 those who perceived the evils of the opposite extreme, 
 would be disposed to confer too much strength on one 
 general government, and would, perhaps, even fancy 
 the necessity of investing the hero of the Revolution, 
 in form, with that sovereign power which his personal 
 ascendency gave him in the hearts of his country- 
 men. Such and so critical was the alternative which 
 the organization of the new government presented, 
 and on the successful issue of which the entire bene- 
 fit of this great movement in human affairs was to 
 depend. . . . Such was the task that devolved 
 on the statesmen who convened at Philadelphia on 
 May 2, 1787, in the assembly of which General 
 Washington was elected president, and over whose 
 debates your townsman, Mr. Gorham, presided 
 for two or three months as chairman of the committee 
 of the whole, during the discussion of the plan of the 
 Federal Constitution. . . . 
 
 The members of that convention, in going about 
 the great work before them, deliberately laid aside 
 the means by which all preceding legislators had 
 aimed to accomplish a like work. In founding a 
 strong and efficient government, adequate to the 
 raising up of a powerful and prosperous people, their 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 135 
 
 first step was to reject the institutions in which other 
 governments traced their strength and prosperity, 
 or had, at least, regarded as the necessary conditions 
 of stability and order. The world had settled down 
 into the belief that an hereditary monarch was 
 necessary to give strength to the executive power. 
 The framers of our Constitution provided for an 
 elective chief magistrate, chosen every four years. 
 Every other country had been betrayed into the 
 admission of a distinction of ranks in society, under 
 the absurd impression that privileged orders are 
 necessary to the permanence of the social system. 
 The framers of our Constitution established every- 
 thing on the purely natural basis of a uniform equality 
 of the elective franchise, to be exercised by all the 
 citizens at fixed and short intervals. In other 
 countries it had been thought necessary to constitute 
 some one political center, towards which all political 
 power should tend, and at which, in the last resort, 
 it should be exercised. The framers of the Constitu- 
 tion devised a scheme of confederate and representa- 
 tive sovereign republics, united in a happy distribution 
 of powers, which, reserving to the separate States 
 all the political functions essential to local ad- 
 ministrations and private justice, bestowed upon 
 the general government those, and those only, re 
 quired for the service of the whole. 
 
 Thus was completed the great revolutionary 
 movement; thus was perfected that mature organiza- 
 
136 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tion of a free system, destined, as we trust, to stand 
 forever, as the exemplar of popular government. 
 Thus was discharged the duty of our fathers to 
 themselves, to the country, and to the world. 
 
 The power of the example thus set up, in the eyes 
 of the nations, was instantly and widely felt. It was 
 immediately made visible to sagacious observers 
 that a constitutional age had begun. It was in 
 the nature of things, that, where the former evil 
 existed in its most inveterate form, the reaction 
 should also be the most violent. Hence the dreadful 
 excesses that marked the progress of the French 
 Revolution, and, for a while, almost made the name 
 of liberty odious. But it is not less in the nature 
 of things, that, when the most indisputable and 
 enviable political blessings stand illustrated before 
 the world — not merely in speculation and in theory, 
 but in hving practice and bright example — the 
 nations of the earth, in proportion as they have eyes 
 to see, and ears to hear, and hands to grasp, should 
 insist on imitating the example. France clung to 
 the hope of constitutional liberty through thirty 
 years of appaUing tribulation, and now enjoys the 
 freest constitution in Europe. Spain, Portugal, 
 the two Italian kingdoms, and several of the German 
 states have entered on the same path.' Their prog- 
 ress has been and must be various, modified by 
 circumstances, by the interests and passions of 
 governments and men, and, in some cases, seemingly 
 
EDWARD EVERETT 137 
 
 arrested. But their march is as sure as fate. . . . 
 A public opinion of a new kind has risen among men 
 — the opinion of the civilized world. Springing 
 into existence on the shores of our own continent, it 
 has grown with our growth and strengthened with 
 our strength, till now, this moral giant, Hke that of 
 the ancient poet, marches along the earth and across 
 the ocean, but his front is among the stars. The 
 course of the day does not weary, nor the darkness 
 of the night arrest him. He grasps the pillars of 
 the temple where Oppression sits enthroned, not 
 groping and benighted, hke the strong man of old, 
 to be crushed, himself, beneath the fall, but tram- 
 pling, in his strength, on the massy ruins. . . . 
 
 In that unceasing march of things, which calls 
 forward the successive generations of men to per- 
 form their part on the stage of life, we at length 
 are summoned to appear. Our fathers have passed 
 their hour of visitation — how worthily, let the 
 growth and prosperity of our happy land and the 
 security of our firesides attest. Or, if this appeal 
 be too weak to move us, let the eloquent silence 
 of yonder famous heights — let the column which 
 is there rising in simple majesty ^ — recall their 
 venerable forms, as they toiled in the hasty trenches 
 through the dreary watches of that night of ex- 
 pectation, heaving up the sods, where many of them 
 
 * The Bunker Hill monument. 
 
138 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 lay in peace and honor before the following sun had 
 set. The turn has come to us. The trial of ad- 
 versity was theirs; the trial of prosperity is ours. 
 Let us meet it as men who know their duty and 
 prize their blessings. Our position is the most envi- 
 able, the most responsible, which men can fill. If 
 this generation does its duty, the cause of con- 
 stitutional freedom is safe. If we fail — if we fail — 
 not only do we defraud our children of the inheritance 
 which we received from our fathers, but we blast the 
 hopes of the friends of liberty throughout our con- 
 tinent, throughout Europe, throughout the world, 
 to the end of time. 
 
 History is not without her examples of hard-fought 
 fields, where the banner of liberty has floated trium- 
 phantly on the wildest storm of battle. She is 
 without her examples of a people by whom the 
 dear-bought treasure has been wisely employed 
 and safely handed down. The eyes of the world 
 are turned for that example to us. . . . 
 
 Let us, then, as we assemble on the birthday of 
 the nation, as we gather upon the green turf, once wet 
 with precious blood — let us devote ourselves to the 
 sacred cause of constitutional liberty! Let us abjure 
 the interests and passions w^hich divide the great 
 family of American freemen ! Let the range of party 
 spirit sleep to-day ! Let us resolve that our children 
 shall have cause to bless the memory of their fathers, 
 as we have cause to bless the memory of ours! 
 
ROBERT YOUI^G HAYNE 
 
 I 791-1840 
 
Senator Hayxe was one of whom no one had anything to 
 say but words of high, cordial praise. Benton in his "Thirty 
 Years' View" wrote: "Nature had lavished upon him all the 
 gifts which lead to eminence in public and happiness in private 
 life. ... I can truly say that in ten years' association with 
 him [in the Senate] I never saw him actuated by a sinister 
 motive, a selfish calculation, or an unbecoming aspiration." 
 
 Born of a South Carolina family of small means, his educa- 
 tion was confined to a Charleston grammar school and the 
 reading of law. Before practising his profession, however, he 
 served in the army during the War of 1812 ; after which his ora- 
 torical gifts brought him quick success as a lawyer. He served 
 in the State legislature from 1 8 1 4 to 1 8 1 8, the last year as Speaker, 
 and then became Attorney-General until 1822, when he was 
 elected to the United States Senate. Here he had a brilliant 
 career, as one of the most industrious on committee, wise in 
 council, and eloquent on the floor, besides attracting many 
 friendships. In 1832 he became Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 As a strenuous States right man Mr. Hayne had, before 
 leaving the Senate, been a member of the South Carolina con? 
 vention that adopted the famous nullification ordinance, and as 
 Governor of the State he proclaimed it. The ordinance was 
 adopted November 24, 1832. On December 10 President 
 Jackson vigorously denounced it and Clay's Compromise 
 Tariff Act of March, 1833, quieted the agitation. 
 
 While in the Senate, Mr. Hayne was closely associated 
 with Calhoun and Benton, and in especial harmony with the 
 former he championed the rights of the States, and defended the 
 South and its "domestic institutions" [slavery]. It was in a 
 speech on Senator Foote's resolution concerning the sale of 
 public lands, which process he attacked as favoring the East 
 and North to the prejudice of the West and South, that Hayne 
 made a speech which Webster answered; from Hayne's 
 rejoinder to that (January 21, 1830), are here given the themes 
 he chiefly emphasized — the South, slavery, and the rights of the 
 States to nullify laws of the United States under the Constitution. 
 
 140 
 
THE SOUTH AND THE CONSTITU- 
 TION 
 
 The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts 
 [Mr. Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high 
 eulogium on the State of Ohio. ... In contrast- 
 ing the State of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose 
 of pointing out the superiority of the former, and 
 of attributing that superiority to the existence of 
 slavery in one State and its absence in the other, 
 I thought I could discern the very spirit of the 
 Missouri question, intruded into this debate for 
 objects best known to the gentleman himself. . . . 
 Mr. President, the impression which has gone abroad, 
 of the weakness of the South, as connected with the 
 slave question, exposes us to such constant attacks, 
 has done us so much injury, and is calculated to 
 produce such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the 
 occasion presented by the remarks of the gentleman 
 of Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to 
 meet the question promptly and fearlessly. It is 
 one from which we are not disposed to shrink, in 
 whatever form or under whatever circumstances it 
 may be pressed upon us. 
 
 We are ready to make up the issue with the gentle- 
 man, as to the influence of slavery on individual and 
 141 
 
142 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 national character — on the prosperity and great- 
 ness, either of the United States or of particular 
 States. Sir, when arraigned before the bar of pubUc 
 opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up 
 with conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put 
 ourselves upon God and our country. ... If 
 slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, 
 we of the present day found it ready made to our 
 hands. Finding our lot cast among a people whom 
 God had manifestly committed to our care, we did 
 not sit down to speculate on abstract questions of 
 theoretical liberty. We met it as a practical ques- 
 tion of obligation and duty. We resolved to make 
 the best of the situation in which Providence had 
 placed us, and to fulfill the high trusts which had 
 devolved upon us as the owners of slaves in the only 
 way in which such a trust could be fulfilled, without 
 spreading misery and ruin throughout the land. 
 We found that we had to deal with a people whose 
 physical, moral, and intellectual habits and char- 
 acter totally disqualified them from the enjoyment 
 of the blessings of freedom. We could not send 
 them back to the shores from w^hence their fathers 
 had been taken; their numbers forbade the thought, 
 even if we did not know their condition here is in- 
 finitely preferable to what it possibly could be among 
 the barren sands and savages tribes of Africa; and 
 it was wholly irreconcilable with all our notions of 
 humanity to tear asunder the tender ties which they 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 
 
 143 
 
 had formed among us, to gratify the feelings of a 
 false philanthropy. . . . 
 
 Sir, I have had some opportunities of making com- 
 parison between the condition of the free negroes 
 of the North, and the slaves of the South, and the 
 comparison has left not only an indeUble impression 
 of the superior advantages of the latter, but has gone 
 far to reconcile me to slavery itself. Never have 
 I felt so forcibly that touching description, ''the 
 foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
 but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his 
 head," as when I have seen this unhappy race, naked 
 and houseless, almost starving in the streets, and 
 abandoned by all the world. Sir, I have seen, in 
 the neighborhood of one of the most moral, religious, 
 and refined cities of the North, a family of free 
 blacks driven to the caves of the rocks, and there 
 obtaining a precarious subsistence from charity and 
 plunder. 
 
 When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts 
 and reiterates the old charge of weakness as resulting 
 from slavery, I must be permitted to call for the proof 
 of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its 
 influence. I suspect that when the subject is closely 
 examined it will be found that there is not much 
 force even in the plausible objection of the want of 
 physical power in slaveholding States. The power 
 of a country is compounded of its population and 
 its wealth, and in modern times, where, from the 
 
144 ^EST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 very form and structure of society, by far the greater 
 portion of the people must, even during the con- 
 tinuance of the most desolating wars, be employed 
 in the cultivation of the soil and other peaceful 
 pursuits, it may be well doubted, whether slave- 
 holding States, by reason of the superior value of 
 their productions, are not able to maintain a number 
 of troops in the field, fully equal to what could be 
 supported by States, w4th a larger white population, 
 but not possessed of equal resources. 
 
 It is a popular error, to suppose that in any possible 
 state of things, the people of a country could ever 
 be called out en masse, or that a half, or a third, 
 or even a fifth part of the physical force of any 
 country, could ever be brought into the field. The 
 difficulty is not to procure men, but to provide the 
 means of maintaining them; and in this view of the 
 subject, it may be asked whether the Southern 
 States are not a source of strength and power, and 
 not of weakness to the country? — whether they 
 have not contributed, and are not now contributing, 
 largely to the wealth and prosperity of every State 
 in this Union? From a statement which I hold in 
 my hand, it appears that in ten years — from 1818 
 to 1827, inclusive — the whole amount of the domes- 
 tic exports of the United States was $521,811,045; 
 of which, three articles (the product of slave la- 
 bor), viz., cotton, rice, and tobacco, amounted to 
 $339,203,232 — equal to about two-thirds of the 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 
 
 145 
 
 whole. It is not true, as has been supposed, that 
 the advantages of this labor are confined almost 
 exclusively to the Southern States. Sir, I am 
 thoroughly convinced, that at this time, the States 
 north of the Potomac actually derive greater profits 
 from the labor of our slaves, than we do ourselves. 
 It appears from our public documents, that in seven 
 years, from 182 1 to 1827, inclusive, the six Southern 
 States exported $190,337,281, and imported only 
 $55,646,301. Now the difference between these 
 two sums (near $140,000,000) passed through the 
 hands of the Northern merchants, and enabled them 
 to carry on their commercial operations with all the 
 world. Such part of these goods as found its way 
 back to our hands came charged with the duties, as 
 well as the profits, of the merchant, the shipowner, 
 and a host of others, who found employment in carry- 
 ing on these immense exchanges; and for such part 
 as was consumed at the North, we received in ex- 
 change Northern manufactures, charged with an 
 increased price, to cover all the taxes which the 
 Northern consumer has been compelled to pay on 
 the imported article. It will be seen, therefore, at 
 a glance, how much slave labor has contributed to 
 the wealth and prosperity of the United States, and 
 how largely our Northern brethren have participated 
 in the profits of that labor. ... 
 
 But, Sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist 
 as to the effect of slavery on national wealth and 
 
146 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 prosperity, if we may trust to experience, there can 
 be no doubt that it has never yet produced any in- 
 jurious effect on individual or national character. 
 Look through the whole history of the country, from 
 the commencement of the Revolution down to the 
 present hour; where are there to be found brighter 
 examples of intellectual and moral greatness than 
 have been exhibited by the sons of the South? 
 From the Father of his Country, down to the dis- 
 tinguished chieftain who has been elevated by a 
 grateful people to the highest office in their gift, 
 the interval is filled up by a long line of orators, of 
 statesmen, and of heroes, justly entitled to rank 
 among the ornaments of their country, and the bene- 
 factors of mankind. Look at ''the Old Dominion," 
 great and magnanimous Virginia, "whose jewels 
 are her sons." Is there any State in this Union 
 which has contributed so much to the honor and 
 welfare of the country? Sir, I will yield the whole 
 question — I will acknowledge the fatal effects of 
 slavery upon character, if any one can say, that for 
 noble disinterestedness, ardent love of country, ex- 
 alted virtue, and a pure and holy devotion to liberty, 
 the people of the Southern States have ever been sur- 
 passed by any in the world. . . . 
 
 The senator from Massachusetts tells us that 
 the tariff is not an Eastern measure, and treats 
 it as if the East had no interest in it. The 
 senator from Missouri insists it is not a Western 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 
 
 147 
 
 measure, and that it has done no good to the 
 West. The South comes in, and, in the most 
 earnest manner, represents to you, that this meas- 
 ure, which we are told "is of no value to the 
 East or the West," is "utterly destructive of our 
 interests." We represent to you, that it has spread 
 ruin and devastation through the land, and prostrated 
 our hopes in the dust. We solemnly declare that we 
 believe the system to be wholly unconstitutional, 
 and a violation of the compact between the States 
 and the Union; and our brethren turn a deaf ear to 
 our complaints, and refuse to relieve us from a sys- 
 tem "w^hich not enriches them, but makes us poor 
 indeed." Good God! Mr. President, has it come to 
 this? Do gentlemen hold the feelings and wishes 
 of their brethren at so cheap a rate, that they refuse 
 to gratify them at so small a price ? Do gentlemen 
 value so lightly the peace and harmony of the 
 country, that they will not yield a measure of this 
 description to the affectionate entreaties and earnest 
 remonstrances of their friends? Do gentlemen 
 estimate the value of the Union at so low a price, 
 that they will not even make one effort to bind the 
 States together with the cords of affection? And 
 has it come to this ? Is this the spirit in which this 
 government is to be administered? If so, let me 
 tell gentlemen, the seeds of dissolution are already 
 sowm, and our children will reap the bitter fruit. . . . 
 The gentleman has made a great flourish about his 
 
148 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 fidelity to Massachusetts; I shall make no profes- 
 sions of zeal for the interests and honor of South 
 Carolina — of that, my constituents shall judge. 
 If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President 
 (and I say it not in a boastful spirit), that may chal- 
 lenge comparisons with any other, for an 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 pros- 
 perity; but in your adversity she has clung to you, 
 with more than filial affection. No matter what 
 was the condition of her domestic affairs, though 
 deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or sur- 
 rounded with difficulties, 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 together to the temple, bring- 
 ing their gifts to the altar of their common country. 
 What, Sir, was the conduct of the South during the 
 Revolution ? Sir, I honor New England for her con- 
 duct in that glorious struggle. But great as is the 
 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 suffer them to stop to calculate their interest 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 149 
 
 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 guaranty that their trade would be for- 
 ever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But 
 trampling on all considerations either of interest 
 or of safety, they rushed into the conflict, and 
 fighting for principle, periled all, in the sacred cause 
 of freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history 
 of the world higher examples of noble daring, dreadful 
 suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the Whigs 
 of Carolina, during the Revolution. The whole 
 State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun 
 by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The 
 fruits of industry perished on the spot where they 
 were produced, or w^re consumed by the foe. The 
 "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious 
 blood of her citizens! Black and smoking ruin 
 marked the places which had been the habitations 
 of her children! Driven from their homes, into the 
 gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there 
 the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carohna 
 (sustained by the example of her Sumters and her 
 Marions) proved, by her conduct, that though her 
 soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was 
 invincible. . . . 
 
 I come now to the War of 181 2 — a war which I 
 well remember was called in derision (while its event 
 was doubtful) the Southern war, and sometimes the 
 
T50 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Carolina war; but which is now universally acknowl- 
 edged to have done more for the honor and pros- 
 perity of the country, than all other events in our 
 history put together. What, Sir, were the objects 
 of that war? "Free trade and sailors' rights"! 
 It was for the protection of Northern shipping, and 
 New England seamen, that the country flew to arms. 
 . . . Sir, the whole South, animated as by a com- 
 mon impulse, cordially united in declaring and 
 promoting that war. South Carolina sent to your 
 councils, as the advocates and supporters of that war, 
 the noblest of her sons. How they fulfilled that trust, 
 let a grateful country tell. Not a measure was 
 adopted, not a battle fought, not a victory won, 
 which contributed in any degree, to the success of 
 that war, to which Southern counsels and Southern 
 valor did not largely contribute. Sir, since South 
 Carolina is assailed, I must be suffered to speak it 
 to her praise, that at the very moment when, in one 
 quarter, we heard it solemnly proclaimed, "that it 
 did not become a religious and moral people to rejoice 
 at the victories of our army or our navy," her legis- 
 lature unanimously "Resolved, That we will cor- 
 dially support the government in the vigorous prose- 
 cution of the war, until a peace can be obtained on 
 honorable terms, and we will cheerfully submit to 
 every privation that may be required of us, by 
 our government, for the accomplishment of this 
 object." 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HA YNE 151 
 
 South Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw 
 open her treasury to the government. She put at 
 the absolute disposal of the officers of the United 
 States all that she possessed — her men, her money, 
 and her arms. She appropriated half a million of 
 dollars, on her own account, in defense of her mari- 
 time frontier, ordered a brigade of State troops to be 
 raised, and when left to protect herself by her own 
 means, never suffered the enemy to touch her soil, 
 without being instantly driven off or captured. 
 
 Such, Sir, was the conduct of the South — such 
 the conduct of my own State in that dark hour 
 *' which tried men's souls." . . . 
 
 It will be recollected, Sir, that our great causes of 
 quarrel with Great Britain were her depredations 
 on Northern commerce, and the impressment of New 
 England seamen. From every quarter we were called 
 upon for protection. Importunate as the West is 
 now^ represented to be, on another subject, the 
 importunity of the East on that occasion w^as far 
 greater. I hold in my hands the evidence of the 
 fact. Here are petitions, mem.orials, and remion- 
 strances from all parts of New England, setting 
 forth the injustice, the oppression, the depredations, 
 the insults, the outrages, committed by Great Brit- 
 ain against the unoffending commerce and seamen 
 of New^ England, and calling upon Congress for 
 redress. . . . 
 
 Well, Sir, the war at length came, and what did 
 
152 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 we behold? The very men who had been for six 
 years clamorous for war, and for whose protection 
 it was waged, became at once equally clamorous 
 against it. They had received a miraculous visita- 
 tion; a new Hght suddenly beamed upon their minds, 
 the scales fell from their eyes, and it was discov- 
 ered that the war was declared from "subserviency 
 to France"; and that Congress, and the Executive, 
 "had sold themselves to Napoleon"; that Great 
 Britain had, in fact, "done us no essential injury"; 
 that she was "the bulwark of our religion"; that 
 where "she took one of our ships, she protected 
 twenty"; and, that if Great Britain had impressed 
 a few of our seamen it was because "she could not 
 distinguish them from her own." . . . Whatever 
 difference of opinion might have existed as to the 
 causes of the war, the country had a right to expect, 
 that when once involved in the contest, all America 
 would have cordially united in its support. Sir, the 
 war effected in its progress a union of all parties at 
 the South. But not so in New England; there, 
 great efforts were made to stir up the minds of the 
 people to oppose it. Nothing was left undone to 
 embarrass the financial operations of the government, 
 to prevent the enlistment of troops, to keep back 
 the men and money of New England from the service 
 of the Union — to force the President from his seat. 
 Sir, if I am asked for the proof of those things, 
 I fearlessly appeal to contemporary history, to the 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 1 53 
 
 public documents of the country, to the recorded 
 opinion and acts of pubHc assembhes, to the declara- 
 tion and acknowledgments, since made, of the execu- 
 tive and legislature of Massachusetts herself. . . . 
 
 Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of 
 the Union? Those who would confine the Federal 
 government strictly within the limits prescribed by 
 the Constitution; who would preserve to the States 
 and the people all powers not expressly delegated; 
 who would make this a federal and not a national 
 union, and who, administering the government in a 
 spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing and 
 not a curse. And who are its enemies? Those who 
 are in favor of consolidation — who are constantly 
 steaUng power from the States and adding strength 
 to the Federal government; who, assuming an un- 
 warrantable jurisdiction over the States and the 
 people, undertake to regulate the whole industry 
 and capital of the country. But, Sir, of all descrip- 
 tions of men, I consider those as the worst enemies 
 of the Union, who sacrifice the equal rights which 
 belong to every member of the confederacy, to com- 
 binations of interested majorities, for personal or 
 political objects. . . . 
 
 The senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing 
 what he is pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has 
 attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea that a 
 State has any constitutional remedy, by the exercise 
 of its sovereign authority, against "sl gross, palpable. 
 
154 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 and deliberate violation of the Constitution." He 
 
 J) 
 
 thing to that effect, and added, that it would make 
 the Union "a mere rope of sand." Now, Sir, as the 
 gentleman has not condescended to enter into any 
 examination of the question, and has been satisfied 
 with throwing the weight of his authority into the 
 scale, I do not deem it necessary to do more than to 
 throw into the opposite scale, the authority on which 
 South Carolina relies; and there, for the present, 
 I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy. 
 
 [Here Mr. Hayne cited resolutions from various State 
 legislatures.] 
 
 Thus, it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South 
 Carolina doctrine is the RepubUcan doctrine of '98: 
 that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith 
 — that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky 
 in the worst of times — that it constituted the very 
 pivot on which the political revolution of that day 
 turned — that it embraces the very principles, the 
 triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitu- 
 tion at its last gasp, and which New England states- 
 men were not unwilling to adopt, when they believed 
 themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional 
 legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the Federal 
 government is the exclusive judge of the extent as 
 well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to me 
 to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and inde- 
 
ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 155 
 
 pendence of the States. It makes but little differ- 
 ence, in my estimation, whether Congress or the 
 Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the 
 Federal government, in all, or any of its departments, 
 is to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and 
 the States are bound to submit to the decision, and 
 are not to be allowed to examine and decide for them- 
 selves when the barriers of the Constitution shall be 
 overleaped, this is practically "a, government with- 
 out Hmitation of powers." The States are at once 
 reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people 
 are entirely at your mercy. 
 
 I have but one w^ord more to add. In all the 
 efforts that have been made by South Carolina to 
 resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has 
 extended over them, she has kept steadily in view 
 the preservation of the Union, by the only means by 
 which she believes it can be long preserved — a firm, 
 manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. 
 The measures of the Federal government have, it is 
 true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve 
 the whole South in irretrievable ruin. But even this 
 evil, great as it is, is not the chief ground of our 
 complaints. It is the principle involved in the con- 
 test — a principle which, substituting the discretion 
 of Congress for the limitations of the Constitution, 
 brings the States and the people to the feet of the 
 Federal government, and leaves them nothing they 
 can call their own. Sir, if the measures of the Federal 
 
T56 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 government were less oppressive, we should still 
 strive against this usurpation. The South is acting 
 on a principle she has always held sacred — resist- 
 ance to unauthorized taxation. These, Sir, are the 
 principles which induced the immortal Hampden 
 to resist the payment of a tax of twenty shillings. 
 Would twenty shiUings have ruined his fortune? 
 No! but the payment of half twenty shilKngs, on 
 the principle on which it w^as demanded, would have 
 made him a slave. Sir, if in acting on these high 
 motives — if animated by that ardent love of liberty 
 which has always been the most prominent trait in 
 the Southern character — we should be hurried be- 
 yond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence, 
 who is there, with one noble and generous sentiment 
 in his bosom, that would not be disposed, in the 
 language of Burke, to exclaim, "You must pardon 
 something to the spirit of liberty!" 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 1782-1852 
 
Through pinching family economy Daniel Webster 
 graduated at Dartmouth (1801), and in 1805, at the age of 
 twenty-three, began legal practice in Boscawen and Portsmouth 
 in New Hampshire, his native State. In 1813 he became Con- 
 gressman from that State, and thereafter spent his active life 
 chiefly in Washington, although often called away for important 
 legal arguments, or addresses on great occasions, — laying the 
 corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument (1825) and its dedication 
 (1843), commemorating the deaths of Jefferson and Adams 
 (1836), etc. He removed his residence to Boston in 1816, and 
 from 1823 represented Massachusetts in the House of Represent- 
 atives till 1827, and in the Senate till 1841, and 1845 to 1850. 
 
 Webster was a wonderful lawyer, with vast legal knowledge 
 and colossal oratorical power, which also made him a leader 
 in Congress, especially as to construction of the Constitution, 
 the relations of which to the people and the States had been 
 his profound study. Webster's dominance in oratory arose 
 from his majestic personality, his mastery of every subject 
 discussed, his lucid method of statement, his fund of historical 
 and literary illustration, and his power of raising his theme to 
 the regions of emotion and by his grand voice and presence 
 transporting his hearers thither also. 
 
 This appeared signally in his reply to Senator Hayne's 
 second speech on the Foote resolution concerning sales of 
 public lands. Hayne spoke; Webster replied; Hayne re- 
 joined (see pp. 141-156), covering many matters, but especially 
 "The South and the Union." Then (January 26, 1830) 
 Webster made that fundamental speech on which thereafter 
 stood the defenders of Constitution and Union. Portions 
 referring to the South, State sovereignty, and the Constitution 
 are herewith given. 
 
 Webster was twice Secretary of State, achieving notable 
 service. He was twice Whig Presidential candidate — never 
 reaching his highest ambition. Yet the presidency would 
 have added nothing to the fame of this great lawyer, councilor, 
 Ir-gislator, philosopher, statesman, and orator. 
 
 158 
 
THE STATES AND THE CONSTITU- 
 TION 
 
 Mr. President: When the mariner has been 
 tossed for many days, in thick weather, and on an 
 unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first 
 pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, 
 to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the ele- 
 ments have driven him from his true course. Let 
 us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther 
 on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from 
 which we departed, that we may at least be able to 
 conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading 
 of the resolution. 
 
 [The secretary read the resolution relating to the sales 
 of public lands.] 
 
 We have thus heard, Sir, what the resolution is, 
 which is actually before us for consideration ; and it 
 will readily occur to every one that it is almost the 
 only subject about which something has not been 
 said in the speech, running through two days, by 
 which the Senate has been now entertained by the 
 gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in 
 the wide range of our pubHc affairs, whether past 
 or present — everything, general or local, whether 
 159 
 
l6o BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 belonging to national politics, or party politics, 
 seems to have attracted more or less of the hon- 
 orable member's attention, save only the resolution 
 before the Senate. He has spoken of everything 
 but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. 
 To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid 
 even the cold respect of a passing glance. . . . 
 
 I spoke. Sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which pro- 
 hibited slavery in all future times northwest of the 
 Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and foresight; 
 and one w^hich had been attended with highly bene- 
 ficial and permanent consequences. I supposed that 
 on this point no two gentlemen in the Senate could 
 entertain different opinions. But the simple expres- 
 tion of this sentiment has led the gentleman not only 
 into a labored defense of slavery, in the abstract, 
 and on principle, but, also, into a warm accusation 
 against me, as having attacked the system of domes- 
 tic slavery now^ existing in the Southern States. 
 For all this there was not the slightest foundation in 
 anything said or intimated by me. I did not utter 
 a single word which any ingenuity could torture into 
 an attack on the slavery of the South. I said only 
 that it was highly wise and useful in legislating for 
 the northwestern country, while it was yet a wilder- 
 ness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and 
 added, that I presumed, in the neighboring State of 
 Kentucky, there was no reflecting and intelligent 
 gentleman, who would doubt, that if the same pro- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER l6l 
 
 hibition had been extended at the same early period 
 over that commonwealth, her strength and popula- 
 tion would, at this day, have been far greater than 
 they are. . . . The slavery of the South has always 
 been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left 
 with the States themselves, and with which the Fed- 
 eral government had nothing to do. Certainly, Sir, 
 I am, and ever have been of that opinion. The 
 gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the ab- 
 stract, is no evil. Most assuredly I need not say I 
 differ w^ith him, altogether and most widely, on that 
 point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the great- 
 est of evils, both moral and poHtical. But though 
 it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, 
 by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be 
 the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I leave 
 it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and 
 to decide. And this I beUeve, Sir, is, and uniformly 
 has been, the sentiment of the North. . . . 
 
 Let me observe, that the eulogium pronounced on 
 the character of the State of South CaroHna, by the 
 honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other 
 merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not 
 acknowledge that the honorable member goes before 
 me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or 
 distinguished character. South Carolina has pro- 
 duced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the 
 pride, of her great names. I claim them for country- 
 men, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, 
 
1 62 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions — Ameri- 
 cans, all — whose fame is no more to be hemmed in 
 by State hnes than their talents and patriotism were 
 capable of being circumscribed within the same nar- 
 row limits. In their day and generation they served 
 and honored the country, and the whole country; and 
 their renowm is of the treasures of the whole country. 
 Him, whose honored name the gentleman himself 
 bears — does he esteem me less capable of gratitude 
 for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, 
 than if his eyes had first opened upon the light 
 of Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? Sir, 
 does he suppose it in his powxr to exhibit a Carolina 
 name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? 
 No, Sir, increased gratification and delight, rather. 
 I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the 
 spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I 
 have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which 
 would drag angels down. When I shall be found. Sir, 
 in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer 
 at public merit, because it happens to spring up be- 
 yond the httle Umits of my own State, or neighbor- 
 hood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any 
 cause, the homage due to American talent, to ele- 
 vated 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 \drtue in any son of the South — and if, moved 
 by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 163 
 
 get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from just 
 character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to 
 the roof of my mouth! 
 
 Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections — let 
 me indulge in refreshing remembrances 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 Revolu- 
 tion — hand in hand they stood round the adminis- 
 tration of Washington, and felt his own great arm 
 lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it 
 exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, un- 
 natural to such soils, of false principles since sown. 
 They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great 
 arm never scattered. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
 Massachusetts — she needs none. There she is — 
 behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her 
 history; the world knows it by heart. The past, 
 at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, 
 and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — and there they 
 will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling 
 in the great struggle for independence, now lie 
 mingled with the soil of every State, from New Eng- 
 land to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. 
 And, Sir, where American liberty raised its first voice 
 and where its youth was nurtured and sustained 
 
164 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and 
 full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion 
 shall wound it — if party strife and bhnd ambition 
 shall hawk at and tear it — if folly and madness — if 
 uneasiness, under salutary and necessary restraint 
 — 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 of vigor it may still retain, over the 
 friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, 
 if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of 
 its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 
 
 There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, 
 by far the most grave and important duty, which I 
 feel to be devolved on me, by this occasion. It is 
 to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the 
 true principles of the Constitution under which we 
 are here assembled. I might well have desired that 
 so weighty a task should have fallen into other and 
 abler hands. I could have wished that it should have 
 been executed by those, whose character and expe- 
 rience give weight and influence to their opinions 
 such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But, 
 Sir, I have met the occasion, not sought it; and I 
 shall proceed to state my own sentiments, without 
 challenging for them any particular regard, with 
 studied plainness, and as much precision as possible. 
 
 I understand the honorable gentleman from South 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 1 65 
 
 Carolina to maintain that it is a right of the State 
 legislatures to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, 
 this Government transcends its constitutional limits, 
 and to arrest the operation of its laws. 
 
 I understand him to maintain this right; as a 
 right existing under the Constitution, not as a right 
 to overthrow it, on the ground of extreme necessity, 
 such as would justify violent revolution. 
 
 I understand him to maintain an authority, on 
 the part of the States, thus to interfere, for the pur- 
 pose of correcting the exercise of power by the general 
 Government, of checking it, and of compelling it to 
 conform to their opinion of the extent of its powers. 
 
 I understand him to maintain, that the ultimate 
 power of judging of the constitutional extent of its 
 own authority, is not lodged exclusively in the general 
 Government, or any branch of it; but that, on the 
 contrary, the States may law^fully decide for them- 
 selves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given 
 case, the act of the general Government transcends 
 it power. 
 
 I understand him to insist, that if the exigency of 
 the case, in the opinion of any State government, 
 require it, such State government may, by its own 
 sovereign authority, annul an act of the general 
 Government, which it deems plainly and palpably 
 unconstitutional. 
 
 This is the sum of what I understood from him, to 
 be the South Carolina doctrine; and the doctrine 
 
1 66 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 which he maintains. I propose to consider it, and 
 compare it with the Constitution. Allow me to say, 
 as a preliminary remark, that I call this the South 
 Carolina doctrine, only because the gentleman him- 
 self has so denominated it. . . . 
 
 We, Sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do not 
 deny that the people may, if they choose, throw off 
 any government, when it becomes oppressive and 
 intolerable, and erect a better in its stead. We all 
 know that civil institutions are established for the 
 public benefit, and that when they cease to answer 
 the ends of their existence, they may be changed. 
 But I do not understand the doctrine now contended 
 for to be that, which, for the sake of distinctness, 
 we may call the right of revolution. I understand 
 the gentleman to maintain, that, without revolution, 
 without civil commotion, without rebellion, a remedy 
 for supposed abuse and transgression of the powers 
 of the general Government lies in a direct appeal to 
 the interference of the State governments. What 
 he contends for is, that it is constitutional to inter- 
 rupt the administration of the Constitution itself, in 
 the hands of those who are chosen and sworn to 
 administer it, by the direct interference, in form of 
 law, of the States, in virtue of their sovereign capac- 
 ity. The inherent right in the people to reform their 
 government I do not deny; and they have another 
 right, and that is, to resist unconstitutional laws 
 without overturning the government. It is no doc- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 167 
 
 trine of mine, that unconstitutional laws bind the 
 people. The great question is, whose prerogative is 
 it to decide on the constitutionality, or unconstitu- 
 tionality of the laws? On that the main debate 
 liinges. 
 
 The proposition, that, in case of a supposed viola- 
 tion of the Constitution by Congress, the States have 
 a constitutional right to interfere, and annul the law 
 of Congress, is the proposition of the gentleman: 
 I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended 
 no more than to assert the right of revolution, for 
 justifiable cause, he would have said only what all 
 agree to. But I cannot conceive that there can be 
 a middle course, between submission to the laws, 
 when regularly pronounced constitutional, on the one 
 hand, and open resistance, which is revolution, or 
 rebellion, on the other. . . . 
 
 It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which 
 the honorable gentleman contends, leads him to the 
 necessity of maintaining, not only that this general 
 Government is the creature of the States, but that it 
 is the creature of each of the States severally; so 
 that each may assert the power, for itself, of deter- 
 mining whether it acts within the limits of its au- 
 thority. It is the servant of f our-and-twenty masters, 
 of different wills and different purposes, and yet 
 bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no 
 less) arises from a misconception as to the origin 
 of this Government and its true character. It is, Sir, 
 
l68 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the people's Constitution, the people's government; 
 made for the people; made by the people; and an- 
 swerable to the people. The people of the United 
 States have declared that this Constitution shall be 
 the supreme law. We must either admit the propo- 
 sition, or dispute their authority. ... 
 
 The national Government possesses those powers 
 which it can be shown the people have conferred on 
 it, and no more. All the rest belongs to the State 
 governments or to the people themselves. So far as 
 the people have restrained State sovereignty, by the 
 expression of their will in the Constitution of the 
 United States, so far, it must be admitted. State 
 sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not con- . 
 tend that it is, or ought to be, controlled farther. 
 
 The sentiment to w^hich I have referred, propounds 
 that State sovereignty is only to be controlled by its 
 own " feeling of justice " ; that is to say, it is not to be 
 controlled at all; for one who is to follow his own 
 feelings is under no legal control. Now, however 
 men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that 
 the people of the United States have chosen to im- 
 pose control on State sovereignties. There are those, 
 doubtless, who wish they had been left without 
 restraint; but the Constitution has ordered the 
 matter differently. To make war, for instance, is an 
 exercise of sovereignty ; but the Constitution declares 
 that no State shall make war. To coin money is 
 another exercise of sovereign power; but no State is 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 169 
 
 at liberty to coin money. Again, the Constitution 
 says that no sovereign State shall be so sovereign 
 as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be 
 confessed, are a control on the State sovereignty of 
 South Carolina, as well as of the other States, which 
 does not arise "from her own feelings of honorable 
 justice." Such an opinion, therefore, is in defiance 
 of the plainest provisions of the Constitution. . . . 
 
 Is the voice of one State conclusive ? It so hap- 
 pens that at the very moment when South Carolina 
 resolves that the tariff laws are unconstitutional, 
 Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve exactly the 
 reverse. They hold those laws to be both highly 
 proper and strictly constitutional. And now. Sir, 
 how does the honorable member propose to deal with 
 this case ? How does he relieve us from this diffi- 
 culty upon any principle of his ? His construction 
 gets us into it; how does he propose to get us out ? 
 
 In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate 
 usurpation; Carolina, therefore, may nullify it, 
 and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania it 
 is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient; 
 and there the duties are to be paid. And yet we live 
 under a government of uniform laws, and under a 
 constitution, too, which contains an express provision, 
 as it happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the 
 States. Does not this approach absurdity ? 
 
 If there be no power to settle such questions, inde- 
 pendent of either of the States, is not the whole 
 
lyo BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Union a rope of sand ? Are we not thrown back 
 again precisely upon the old Confederation ? 
 
 It is too plain to be argued. Four-and-twenty 
 interpreters of constitutional law, each with a power 
 to decide for itself, and none with authority to bind 
 anybody else, and this constitutional law the only 
 bond of their union! What is such a state of things 
 but a mere connection during pleasure, or, to use the 
 phraseology of the times, during feeling ? And that 
 feeling, too, not the feeling of the people, who estab- 
 lished the Constitution, but the feeling of the State 
 governments. . . . 
 
 And now, Sir, what I have first to say on this sub- 
 ject is, that, at no time, and under no circumstances, 
 has New England, or any State in New England, or 
 any respectable body of persons in New England, 
 or any public man of standing in New England, put 
 forth such a doctrine as this Carohna doctrine. . . . 
 Let us follow up, sir, this New England opposition to 
 the embargo laws; let us trace it till we discern the 
 principle, which controlled and governed New Eng- 
 land, throughout the whole course of that opposition. 
 We shall then see what similarity there is between 
 the New England school of constitutional opinions, 
 and this modern Carolina school. The gentleman, 
 I think, read a petition from some single individual, 
 addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts, assert- 
 ing the Carolina doctrine — that is, the right of State 
 interference to arrest the laws of the Union. The 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 171 
 
 fate of that petition shows the sentiment of the legis- 
 lature. It met no favor. The opinions of Massa- 
 chusetts were otherwise. They had been expressed, 
 in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, and 
 she did not depart from them, nor bend them to the 
 times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed as she 
 felt herself to be, she still held fast her integrity to 
 the Union. The gentleman may find in her pro- 
 ceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the 
 measures of Government, and great and deep dislike 
 to the embargo; all this makes the case so much 
 the stronger for her; for notwithstanding all this 
 dissatisfaction and disUke, she claimed no right, still, 
 to sever asunder the bonds of the Union. There 
 was heat, and there was anger, in her political feeling. 
 Be it so; her heat or her anger did not, nevertheless 
 betray her into infidelity to the Government. The 
 gentleman labors to prove that she disliked the em- 
 bargo, as much as South Carohna disUkes the tariff, 
 and expressed her disUke as strongly. Be it so; but 
 did she propose the Carolina remedy? — did she 
 threaten to interfere, by State authority, to annul 
 the laws of the Union ? . . . 
 
 In such a case, under such circumstances, how 
 did Massachusetts demean herself? Sir, she re- 
 monstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself 
 to the general Government, not exactly "with the 
 concentrated energy of passion," but with her own 
 strong sense, and the energy of sober conviction. 
 
172 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 But she did not interpose the arm of her own power 
 to arrest the law, and break the embargo. Far 
 from it. Her principles bound her to two things; 
 and she followed her principles, lead where they 
 might. First, to submit to every constitutional 
 law of Congress, and, secondly, if the constitutional 
 vahdity of the law be doubted, to refer that ques- 
 tion to the decision of the proper tribunals. The 
 first principle is vain and ineffectual without the 
 second. . . . Before those tribunals, therefore, 
 they brought the question. . . . 
 
 This Government, Sir, is the independent offspring 
 of the popular will. It is not the creature of State 
 legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be 
 told, the people brought it into existence, estabUshed 
 it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very pur- 
 pose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary 
 restraints on State sovereignties. The States can- 
 not now make war; they cannot contract affiances; 
 they cannot make, each for itself, separate regula- 
 tions of commerce; they cannot lay imposts; they 
 cannot coin money. If this Constitution, Sir, be 
 the creature of State legislatures, it must be admitted 
 that it has obtained a strange control over the voli- 
 tions of its creators. . . . 
 
 But, Sir, the people have wisely provided, in the 
 Constitution itself, a proper, suitable mode and tri- 
 bunal for settling questions of constitutional law. 
 There are in the Constitution, grants of powers to 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 1 73 
 
 Congress; and restrictions on these powers. There 
 are, also, prohibitions on the States. Some authority 
 must, therefore, necessarily exist, having the ulti- 
 mate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpre- 
 tation of these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. 
 The Constitution has itself pointed out, ordained, 
 and established that authority. How has it accom- 
 phshed this great and essential end ? By declaring. 
 Sir, that ''the Constitution and the lav>s of the 
 United States, made in pursuance thereof, shall be 
 the supreme law of the land, anything in the 
 Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary 
 notwithstanding." 
 
 This, Sir, was the first great step. By this the 
 supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States is declared. The people so will it. No 
 State law is to be valid which comes in conflict with 
 the Constitution, or any law of the United States 
 passed in pursuance of it. But who shall decide this 
 question of interference ? To whom lies the last 
 appeal ? This, Sir, the Constitution itself decides, 
 also, by declaring, that "the judicial power shall 
 extend to all cases arising under the Constitution 
 and laws of the United States." These two pro- 
 visions, Sir, cover the whole ground. They are in 
 truth, the keystone of the arch. With these, it is 
 a Constitution; without them, it is a Confederacy. 
 
 Let it be remembered, that the Constitution of 
 the United States is not unalterable. It is to con- 
 
174 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tinue in its present form no longer than the people 
 who established it shall choose to continue it. If 
 they shall become convinced that they have made 
 an injudicious or inexpedient partition and distri- 
 bution of power, between the State governments 
 and the general Government, they can alter that 
 distribution at will. If anything be found in the 
 national Constitution, either by original provision, 
 or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be 
 in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any 
 construction be established, unacceptable to them, 
 so as to become, practically, a part of the Constitu- 
 tion, they will amend it, at their own sovereign 
 pleasure: but while the people choose to maintain 
 it, as it is; while they are satisfied with it, and refuse 
 to change it, who has given, or who can give, to the 
 State legislatures a right to alter it, either by inter- 
 ference, construction or otherwise ? . . . 
 
 I profess. Sir, in my career, hitherto, to have kept 
 steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the 
 whole country, and the preservation of our Federal 
 Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at 
 home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. 
 It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for 
 whatever makes us most proud of our country. 
 That Union we reached only by the discipline of our 
 virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had 
 its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, 
 prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 1 75 
 
 benign influences, these great interests immediately 
 awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with new- 
 ness of Ufe. Every year of its duration has teemed 
 with fresh proofs of its utihty and its blessings; 
 and, although our territory has stretched out wider 
 and wider, and our population spread farther and 
 farther, they have not outrun its protection or its 
 benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain 
 of national, social, and personal happiness. 
 
 I have not allowed myself. Sir, to look beyond the 
 Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark 
 recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances 
 of preserving hberty when the bonds that unite us 
 together shall be broken asunder. I have not accus- 
 tomed myself to hang over the precipice of Disunion, 
 to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom 
 the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard 
 him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this govern- 
 ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on 
 considering, not how the Union shall be best pre- 
 served, but how tolerable might be the condition of 
 the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. 
 While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratify- 
 ing prospects spread out before us, for us and our 
 children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate 
 the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that 
 curtain may not rise! God grant, that on my vision 
 never may be opened what Hes behind! 
 
 When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the 
 
176 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shin- 
 ing on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
 glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, 
 belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
 drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their 
 last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the 
 gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and 
 honored throughout the earth, still full high ad- 
 vanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their 
 original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a 
 single star obscured — bearing for its motto, no 
 such miserable interrogatory, as What is all this 
 worth ? Nor those other words of delusion and 
 folly, Liberty first, and union afterwards — but every- 
 where, spread all over in characters of living light, 
 blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the 
 sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the 
 whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every 
 true American heart — Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable ! 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 
 
 1782-1858 
 
"Old Bullion," as he was called from his adherence to the 
 theory of "hard money" instead of paper, was born in North 
 Carolina, and went with his parents to Tennessee, where he 
 grew up, was educated, and became a lawyer. But at the age 
 of twenty-eight he went into the army, and in the War of 1812 
 was aid on General Jackson's staff. He then went to St. 
 Louis, practiced law, and edited a newspaper, and in 1821, 
 so prominent had he become, he was sent to the United 
 States Senate from Missouri, Here he remained until 185 1, 
 and in 1853 was returned to Washington for two years as 
 Congressman. His great work, " Thirty Years' Viev/," is a 
 mine of historical and biographical record of the doings of 
 Congress (1821-1856), while his voluminous "Abridgment 
 of Debates in Congress" (i 789-1856), is a monument of care- 
 ful, skillful, valuable labor. 
 
 Benton was a forcible speaker, and, although not a man of 
 the highest grade of intellect, was influential by reason of his 
 usually sound views, his honesty, energy, and persistence. 
 He was intimately and vigorously interested in the opening up 
 of the West — Missouri, Oregon, and California — and was 
 a sturdy supporter of his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, in 
 his daring explorations of the continental interior and the 
 Pacific coast ; yet when Fremont was Republican candidate for 
 the presidency, Benton, as a Democrat, upheld Buchanan. 
 
 His friendship with Jackson, both as General and as Presi- 
 dent, was a great element in his career; and although there 
 intervened an alienation of years between them, Benton sup- 
 ported many of Jackson's acts, and in 1834 moved in the 
 Senate a resolution to expunge from the record the censure 
 passed upon the President for his veto of the United States 
 Bank bill in 1832. As he relates in the speech (here given) his 
 resolution was pending for three years; but, although opposed 
 by the Southern Calhoun and Clay and the Northern 
 Webster, Benton triumphed ; the censure was expunged. 
 
 178 
 
EXPUNGING THE JACKSON 
 CENSURE 
 
 Mr. President: It is now three years since the 
 resolve was adopted by the Senate, which it is my 
 present motion to expunge from the journal. At the 
 moment that this resolve was adopted, I gave notice 
 of my intention to move to expunge it ; and then 
 expressed my confident belief that the motion would 
 eventually prevail. That expression of confidence 
 was not an ebullition of vanity or a presumptuous 
 calculation, intended to accelerate the event it affected 
 to foretell. It was not a vain boast, or an idle assump- 
 tion, but was the result of a deep conviction of the 
 injustice done President Jackson, and a thorough 
 reliance upon the justice of the American people. I 
 felt that the President had been wronged ; and my 
 heart told me that this wrong would be redressed ! 
 The event proves that I was not mistaken. The 
 question of expunging this resolution has been car- 
 ried to the people, and their decision has been had 
 upon it. They decide in favor of the expurgation; 
 and their decision has been both made and mani- 
 fested, and communicated to us in a great variety of 
 ways. A great number of States have expressly 
 instructed their senators to vote for this expurgation. 
 179 
 
l8o BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 A very great majority of the States have elected 
 senators and representatives to Congress, upon the 
 express ground of favoring this expurgation. The 
 Bank of the United States, which took the initiative 
 in the accusation against the President, and furnished 
 the material, and worked the machinery which was 
 used against him, and which was then so powerful 
 on this floor, has become more and more odious to the 
 public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx 
 of friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late 
 Presidential election furnishes additional evidence of 
 public sentiment. The candidate, who was the friend 
 of President Jackson, the supporter of his adminis- 
 tration, and the avowed advocate for the expurga- 
 tion, has received a large majority of the suffrages 
 of the whole Union, and that after an express declara- 
 tion of his sentiments on this precise point. The 
 evidence of the public will, exhibited in all these 
 forms, is too manifest to be mistaken, too explicit 
 to require illustration, and too imperative to be dis- 
 regarded. . . . 
 
 Assuming, then, that we have ascertained the will 
 of the people on this great question, the inquiry 
 presents itself, how far the expression of that will 
 ought to be conclusive of our action here. I hold 
 that it ought to be binding and obligatory upon us. 
 ... I do not mean to reopen the case nor to recom- 
 mence the argument. I leave that work to others, 
 if any others choose to perform it. For myself, I 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON i8l 
 
 am content ; and, dispensing with further argument, 
 I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution 
 done, upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict 
 of millions of freemen finds guilty of bearing on its 
 face an untrue, illegal, and unconstitutional sentence 
 of condemnation against the approved President of 
 the republic. . . . 
 
 The political existence of this great man now 
 draws to a close. In little more than forty days he 
 ceases to be an object of political hope to any, and 
 should cease to be an object of political hate, or envy, 
 to all. Whatever of motive the servile and time- 
 serving might have found in his exalted station for 
 raising the altar of adulation, and burning the incense 
 of praise before him, that motive can no longer exist. 
 The dispenser of the patronage of an empire, the chief 
 of this great confederacy of States, is soon to be a 
 private individual, stripped of all power to reward, 
 or to punish. His own thoughts, as he has shown us 
 in the concluding paragraph of that message which 
 is to be the last of its kind that we shall ever receive 
 from him, are directed to that beloved retirement 
 from which he was drawn by the voice of millions of 
 freemen, and to which he now looks for that interval 
 of repose which age and infirmities require. Under 
 these circumstances, he ceases to be a subject for the 
 ebullition of the passions, and passes into a char- 
 acter for the contemplation of history. 
 
 Historically, then, shall I view him; and, limiting 
 
l82 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 this view to his civil administration, I demand, where 
 is there a chief magistrate of whom so much evil has 
 been predicted, and from whom so much good has 
 come ? Never has any man entered upon the chief 
 magistracy of a country under such appaUing pre- 
 dictions of ruin and woe ! never has any one been so 
 pursued with direful prognostications ! never has 
 any one been so beset and impeded by a powerful com- 
 bination of political and moneyed confederates ! 
 never has any one in any country where the admin- 
 istration of justice has risen above the knife or the 
 bowstring, been so lawlessly and shamelessly tried 
 and condemned by rivals and enemies, without hear- 
 ing, without defense, without the forms of law and 
 justice ! History has been ransacked to find exam- 
 ples of tyrants sufficiently odious to illustrate him by 
 comparison. Language has been tortured to find 
 epithets sufficiently strong to paint him in descrip- 
 tion. Imagination has been exhausted in her efforts 
 to deck him with revolting and inhuman attributes. 
 Tyrant, despot, usurper ; destroyer of the liberties 
 of his country ; rash, ignorant, imbecile ; endanger- 
 ing the public peace with all foreign nations; destroy- 
 ing domestic prosperity at home ; ruining all indus- 
 try, all commerce, all manufactures ; annihilating 
 confidence between man and man ; delivering up the 
 streets of populous cities to grass and weeds, and the 
 wharves of commercial towns to the encumbrance 
 of decaying vessels ; depriving labor of all reward ; 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 183 
 
 depriving industry of all employment ; destroying 
 the currency ; plunging an innocent and happy 
 people from the summit of felicity to the depths of 
 misery, want, and despair. Such is the faint outline 
 followed up by actual condemnation of the appalling 
 denunciations daily uttered against this one man, 
 from the moment he became an object of political 
 competition, down to the conclucUng moment of his 
 political existence. 
 
 The sacred voice of inspiration has told us that 
 there is a time for all things. There certainly has 
 been a time for every e\dl that human nature admits 
 of to be vaticinated of President Jackson's adminis- 
 tration ; equally certain the time has now come for 
 all rational and well-disposed people to compare the 
 predictions with the facts, and to ask themselves if 
 these calamitous prognostications have been verified 
 by events? Have we peace, or war, with foreign 
 nations? Certainly, we have peace with all the 
 world ! peace with all its benign, and felicitous, and 
 beneficent influences ! Are we respected, or despised 
 abroad? Certainly the American name never was 
 more honored throughout the four quarters of the 
 globe than in this very moment. Do we hear of 
 indignity or outrage in any quarter ? of merchants 
 robbed in foreign ports ? of vessels searched on the 
 high seas? of American citizens impressed into 
 foreign service ? of the national flag insulted any- 
 where ? On the contrary, we see former wrongs 
 
184 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 repaired ; no new ones inflicted. France pays 
 twenty-five millions of francs for spoliations com- 
 mitted thirty years ago ; Naples pays two millions 
 one hundred thousand ducats for wTongs of the same 
 date ; Denmark pays six hundred and fifty thousand 
 rix-dollars f or wrongs done a quarter of a century ago; 
 Spain engages to pay twelve millions of reals vellon 
 for injuries of fifteen years' date ; and Portugal, 
 the last in the list of former aggressors, admits her 
 liability and only waits the adjustment of details 
 to close her account by adequate indemnity. So 
 far from war, insult, contempt, and spoUation from 
 abroad, this denounced administration has been the 
 season of peace and good-will and the auspicious 
 era of universal reparation. So far from suffering 
 injury at the hands of foreign powers, our merchants 
 have received indemnities for all former injuries. 
 It has been the day of accounting, of settlement, and 
 of retribution. The total list of arrearages, extend- 
 ing through four successive previous administrations, 
 has been closed and settled up. The wrongs done 
 to commerce for thirty years back, and under so 
 many different Presidents, and indemnities withheld 
 from all, have been repaired and paid over under 
 the beneficent and glorious administration of Presi- 
 dent Jackson. . . . 
 
 At home the most gratifying picture presents itself 
 to the view: The pubhc debt paid off; taxes reduced 
 one-half; the completion of the public defense sys- 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 1S5 
 
 tematically commenced; the compact with Georgia, 
 uncomplied with since 1802, now carried into effect, 
 and her soil ready to be freed, as her jurisdiction has 
 been deHvered, from the presence and incumbrance 
 of an Indian population. Mississippi and Alabama, 
 Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, Ohio, In- 
 diana, IlHnois, Missouri and Arkansas, in a word, all 
 the States encumbered with an Indian population 
 have been reHeved from that incumbrance; and the 
 Indians themselves have been transferred to new and 
 permanent homes, every way better adapted to 
 the enjoyment of their existence, the preservation of 
 their rights, and the improvement of their condition. 
 The currency is not ruined ! On the contrary, 
 seventy-five milKons of specie in the country is a 
 spectacle never seen before, and is the barrier of the 
 people against the designs of any banks which may 
 attempt to suspend payments, and to force a dis- 
 honored paper currency upon the community. . . . 
 Domestic industry is not paralyzed, confidence is 
 not destroyed, factories are not stopped, workmen are 
 not mendicants for bread, and employment credit is 
 not extinguished, prices have not sunk, grass is not 
 growing in the streets of populous cities, the wharves 
 are not lumbered with decaying vessels, columns of 
 curses rising from the bosoms of a ruined and ago- 
 nized people, are not ascending to heaven against 
 the destroyer of a nation's felicity and prosperity. 
 On the contrary, the reverse of all this is true ! and 
 
l86 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 true to a degree that astonishes and bewilders the 
 senses. . . . 
 
 From President Jackson the country has first 
 learned the true theory and practical intent of the 
 Constitution, in giving to the Executive a quaUfied 
 negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far 
 from being an odious, dangerous, or kingly preroga- 
 tive, this power, as vested in the President, is nothing 
 but a qualified copy of the famous veto power vested 
 in the Tribunes of the People among the Romans, 
 and intended to suspend the passage of a law until 
 the people themselves should have time to consider it. 
 The qualified veto of the President destroys nothing ; 
 it only delays the passage of a law, and refers it to 
 the people for their consideration and decision. It is 
 the reference of a law, not to a committee of the 
 House, or of the whole House, but to the committee 
 of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the 
 bill to the people, for them to examine and consider; 
 and if, upon this examination, they are content to 
 pass it, it will pass at the next session. The delay of 
 a few months is the only effect of a veto, in a case 
 where the people shall ultimately approve a law; 
 where they do not approve it, the interposition of the 
 veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption 
 of a law, the repeal of which might afterwards be 
 almost impossible. The qualified negative is, there- 
 fore, a beneficent power, intended as General Hamil- 
 ton expressly declares in the "Federalist," to protect, 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 187 
 
 first, the executive department from the encroach- 
 ments of the legislative department; and, secondly, 
 to preserve the people from hasty, dangerous, or 
 criminal legislation on the part of their representa- 
 tives. This is the design and intention of the veto 
 power; and the fear expressed by General Hamilton 
 was, that Presidents, so far from exercising it too 
 often, would not exercise it as often as the safety of 
 the people required; that they might lack the moral 
 courage to stake themselves in opposition to a favorite 
 measure of the majority of the two Houses of Con- 
 gress; and thus deprive the people, in many instances, 
 of their right to pass upon a bill before it becomes a 
 final law. The cases in which President Jackson has 
 exercised the veto power have shown the soundness of 
 these observations. No ordinary President would 
 have staked himself against the Bank of the United 
 States and the two Houses of Congress in 1832. It 
 required President Jackson to confront that power — 
 to stem that torrent — to stay the progress of that 
 charter, and to refer it to the people for their decision. 
 His moral courage was equal to the crisis. He 
 arrested the charter until it could be got to the 
 people, and they have arrested it forever. . . . 
 
 To detail specific acts which adorn the adminis- 
 tration of President Jackson, and illustrate the in- 
 tuitive sagacity of his intellect, the firmness of his 
 mind, his disregard of personal popularity, and his 
 entire devotion to the public good, would be incon- 
 
l88 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 sistent with this rapid sketch, intended merely to 
 present general views, and not to detail single actions, 
 howsoever worthy they may be of a splendid page in 
 the volume of history. But how^ can we pass over the 
 great measure of the removal of the public moneys 
 from the Bank of the United States in the autumn 
 of 1833 — that wise, heroic, and masterly measure of 
 prevention which has rescued an empire from the 
 fangs of a merciless, revengeful, greedy, insatiate, 
 implacable, moneyed power ? . . . 
 
 The Treasury order for excluding paper money 
 from the land offices is another wise measure, origi- 
 nating in an enlightened forecast, and preventing 
 great mischiefs. The President foresaw the evils 
 of suffering a thousand streams of paper money, 
 issuing from a thousand different banks, to discharge 
 themselves on the national domain. He foresaw 
 that, if these currents were allowed to run their 
 course, the public lands would be sw^pt away, the 
 Treasury would be filled with irredeemable paper, a 
 vast number of banks must be broken by their folly, 
 and the cry set up that nothing but a national bank 
 could regulate the currency. He stopped the course 
 of these streams of paper; and in so doing, has saved 
 the country from a great calamity, and excited anew 
 the machinations of those whose schemes of gain and 
 mischief have been disappointed, and who had 
 counted on a new edition of panic and pressure. . . . 
 
 The difi&culty with France: What an instance it 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 189 
 
 presents of the superior sagacity of President Jack- 
 son over all the commonplace politicians who beset 
 and impede his administration at home ! That 
 difficulty, inflamed and aggravated by domestic 
 faction, wore, at one time, a portentous aspect; the 
 skill, firmness, elevation of purpose, and manly 
 frankness of the President avoided the danger, 
 accompUshed the object, commanded the admiration 
 of Europe, and retained the friendship of France. 
 He conducted the deUcate affair to a successful and 
 mutually honorable issue. All is amicably and 
 happily terminated, leaving not a wound, nor even a 
 scar, behind, — leaving the Frenchman and American 
 on the ground on which they have stood for fifty 
 years, and should forever stand — the ground of 
 friendship, respect, good-will, and mutual wishes for 
 the honor, happiness, and prosperity of each other. 
 
 But why this specification? So beneficent and so 
 glorious has been the administration of this Presi- 
 dent, that where to begin, and where to end, in the 
 enumeration of great measures, would be the em- 
 barrassment of him who has his eulogy to make. 
 He came into office the first of generals ; he goes out 
 the first of statesmen. His civil competitors have 
 shared the fate of his miUtary opponents; and Wash- 
 ington city has been to the American poHticians who 
 have assailed him, what Orleans was to the British 
 generals who attacked his lines. Repulsed ! driven 
 back ! discomfited ! crushed ! has been the fate of all 
 
I go BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 assailants, foreign and domestic, civil and military. 
 At home and abroad, the impress of his genius and 
 of his character is felt. He has impressed upon the 
 age in which he lives the stamp of his arms, of his 
 diplomacy, and of his domestic policy. In a word, 
 so transcendent have been the merits of his adminis- 
 tration that they have operated a miracle upon the 
 minds of his most inveterate opponents. He has 
 expunged their objections to military chieftains ! He 
 has shown them that they were mistaken; that 
 miUtary men were not the dangerous rulers they had 
 imagined, but safe and prosperous conductors of the 
 vessel of state. He has changed their fear into 
 love. With visible signs they admit their error, and 
 instead of deprecating they now invoke the reign of 
 chieftains. They labored hard to procure a military 
 successor to the present incumbent, and if their love 
 goes on increasing at the same rate, the republic 
 may be put to the expense of periodical w^ars, to 
 breed a perpetual succession of these chieftains to 
 rule over them and their posterity forever. 
 
 To drop this irony, which the inconsistency of mad 
 opponents has provoked, and to return to the plain 
 delineations of historical painting, the mind instinc- 
 tively dwells on the vast and unprecedented popular- 
 ity of this President. Great is the influence, great 
 the powTr, greater than any man ever before pos- 
 sessed in our America, which he has acquired over 
 the public mind. And how has he acquired it? 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 191 
 
 Not by the arts of intrigue, or the juggHng tricks of 
 diplomacy; not by undermining rivals or sacrific- 
 ing public interests for the gratification of classes or 
 individuals. But he has acquired it, first, by the 
 exercise of an intuitive sagacity which, leaving all 
 book learning at an immeasurable distance behind, 
 has always enabled him to adopt the right remedy 
 at the right time, and to conquer soonest when the 
 men of forms and office thought him most near to 
 ruin and despair. Next, by a moral courage, which 
 knew no fear when the pubHc good beckoned him to 
 go on. Last, and chiefest, he has acquired it by an 
 open honesty of purpose, which knew no conceal- 
 ments; by a straightforwardness of action, which 
 disdained the forms of office, and the arts of intrigue; 
 by a disinterestedness of motive, which knew no 
 selfish or sordid calculation; a devotedness of pa- 
 triotism, which staked everything personal on the 
 issue of every measure which the public welfare re- 
 quired him to adopt. By these qualities, and these 
 means, he has acquired his prodigious popularity 
 and his transcendent influence over the pubhc mind; 
 and if there are any who envy that influence and popu- 
 larity, let them envy also, and emulate, if they can, 
 the qualities and means by which they were ac- 
 quired. . . . 
 
 Sir, I think it right, in approaching the termina- 
 tion of his great question, to present this faint and 
 rapid sketch of the brilHant, beneficent, and glorious 
 
192 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 administration of President Jackson. It is not for 
 me to attempt to do it justice; it is not for ordinary 
 men to attempt its history. . . . The contempo- 
 raries of such events are not the hands to describe 
 them. Time must first do its office — must silence 
 the passions, remove the actors, develop consequences, 
 and canonize all that is sacred to honor, patriotism, 
 and glory. In after ages the historic genius of our 
 America shall produce the writers which the subject 
 demands — men far removed from the contests of 
 this day, who will know how to estimate this great 
 epoch, and how to acquire an immortality for their 
 own names by painting, with a master's hand, the 
 immortal events of the patriot President's life. 
 V And now. Sir, I finish the task which, three years 
 ago, I imposed on myself. Solitary and alone, and 
 amidst the jeers and taunts of my opponents, I put 
 this ball in motion. The people have taken it up, 
 and rolled it forward, and I am no longer anything 
 but a unit in the vast mass which now propels it. 
 In the name of that mass I speak. I demand the 
 execution of the edict of the people; I demand the 
 expurgation of that sentence which the voice of a 
 few senators, and the power of their confederate, the 
 Bank of the United States, have caused to be placed 
 on the journal of the Senate; and which the voice 
 of millions of freemen has ordered to be expunged 
 from it. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 1811-1874 
 
Here was an accomplished orator. Sumner's Harvard 
 graduation, admission to the bar at twenty-three, and three 
 years ' pursuance of legal science in Europe gave him — with his 
 classical and historical lore and oratorical power — a grand 
 foundation. But he liked practicing law less than expounding 
 it, lecturing to Harvard law-students, editing and contributing 
 to legal periodicals, etc., and he was sought for public orations. 
 
 His most famous early address was on " The True Gran- 
 deur of Nations" (July 4, 1845), when our government was in 
 contention both with Mexico and Great Britain, and the war- 
 spirit was abroad. He declared war against war, showing a 
 higher plane for the nations. This spirited and scholarly ad- 
 dress made great impression, both here and abroad. It was 
 published several times, notably in 1870, enlarged by Sumner 
 with further illustrations, notes, etc. In this form it is well 
 worth study in our "strenuous" day, and may be found in 
 Sumner's "Life and Works" and in a separate issue, both 
 published by Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Co., Boston. 
 
 Such appeal to the ethical was characteristic. It led to 
 Sumner's reluctantly entering politics, in advocacy of the anti- 
 slavery sentiment. In 1848 defeated as Free-soil candidate 
 for Congress, his high character, learning, and eloquence made 
 him Webster's successor as senator from Massachusetts in 
 1851. Here he remained until his death in 1874. 
 
 Sumner's confidence in his own uprightness and opinions 
 made him intolerant ; his passionate hatred of slavery incited 
 him to exasperating vehemence. During the Kansas agitation 
 in 1856, after one of his invectives, he was assaulted, sitting 
 in the Senate Chamber, by Preston S. Brooks of South Caro- 
 lina, and was three years recovering from it — if, indeed, he 
 ever did. This aroused indignation throughout the North, 
 and doubtless served Sumner's causes effectively. 
 
 After the war and emancipation, Sumner's peculiarities in- 
 creased, in disagreements with the Republican leaders and with 
 nearly everybody. His advocacy of Greeley's Democratic 
 Presidential candidacy in 1872 severed him from his old asso- 
 ciates. But he was a great man — scholar, thinker, legislator, 
 orator, of sterling integrity and noble ideals ; a potential ele- 
 ment in that era of turbulent conflict and majestic outcome. 
 
 194 
 
THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS 
 
 In accordance with uninterrupted usage, on this 
 Sabbath of the Nation, we have put aside our daily 
 cares, and seized a respite from the never-ending 
 toils of life, to meet in gladness and congratulation, 
 mindful of the blessings transmitted from the Past, 
 mindful also, I trust, of our duties to the Present and 
 the Future. 
 
 All hearts turn first to the Fathers of the Repub- 
 lic. Their venerable forms rise before us, in the 
 procession of successive generations. They come 
 from the frozen rock of Plymouth, from the wasted 
 bands of Raleigh, from the heavenly companion- 
 ship of Penn, from the anxious councils of the Revo- 
 lution, — from all those fields of sacrifice, where, in 
 obedience to the spirit of their age, they sealed their 
 devotion to duty with their blood. . . . Honor 
 to the memory of our fathers! May the turf lie 
 lightly on their sacred graves! Not in words only, 
 but in deeds also, let us testify our reverence for 
 their name, imitating what in them was lofty, pure, 
 and good, learning from them to bear hardship and 
 privation. May we, who now reap in strength 
 what they sowed in weakness, augment the inheri- 
 195 
 
196 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tance we have received! To this end, we must not 
 fold our hands in slumber, nor abide content with 
 the past. To each generation is appointed its pe- 
 culiar task ; nor does the heart which responds to the 
 call of duty find rest except in the grave. . . . 
 Avoiding, then, all exultation in the abounding 
 prosperity of the land, and in that freedom whose 
 influence is widening to the uttermost circles of the 
 earth, I would turn attention to the character of our 
 country, and humbly endeavor to learn what must 
 be done that the Republic may best secure the wel- 
 fare of the people committed to its care, — that it 
 may perform its part in the world's history, — that it 
 may fulfill the aspirations of generous hearts, — and, 
 practicing that righteousness which exalteth a nation, 
 attain to the elevation of True Grandeur. 
 
 With tliis aim, and believing that I can in no other 
 way so fitly fulfill the trust reposed in me to-day, I 
 purpose to consider what, in our age, are the true ob- 
 jects of national ambition, — what is truly National 
 Honor, National Glory, — what is the true gran- 
 deur OF NATIONS. . . . The subject may be novel 
 on an occasion Hke the present; but it is compre- 
 hensive, and of transcendent importance. It raises 
 us to the contemplation of things not temporary or 
 local, but belonging to all ages and countries, — things 
 lofty as Truth, universal as Humanity. Nay, more; 
 it practically concerns the general welfare, not only 
 of our own cherislied Republic, but of the whole 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 197 
 
 Federation of Nations. It has an urgent interest 
 from transactions in which we are now unhappily 
 involved. By an act of unjust legislation, extending 
 our power over Texas, peace with Mexico is endan- 
 gered, — while, by petulant assertion of a disputed 
 claim to a remote territory beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains, ancient fires of hostile strife are kindled 
 anew on the hearth of our mother country. Mexico 
 and England both avow the determination to vindi- 
 cate what is called the National Honor; and our 
 Government calmly contemplates the dread Arbit- 
 rament of War, provided it cannot obtain what is 
 called an honorable peace. . . . 
 
 A war with Mexico would be mean and cowardly; 
 with England it would be bold at least, though 
 parricidal. The heart sickens at the murderous 
 attack upon an enemy distracted by civil feud, weak 
 at home, impotent abroad; but it recoils in horror 
 from the deadly shock between children of a common 
 ancestry, speaking the same language, soothed in 
 infancy by the same words of love and tenderness, 
 and hardened into vigorous manhood under the 
 bracing influence of institutions instinct with the 
 same vital breath of freedom. . . . 
 
 It is true that in us are impulses unhappily tend- 
 ing to strife. Propensities possessed in common 
 with the beast, if not subordinated to what in man is 
 human, almost divine, will break forth in outrage. 
 This is the predominance of the animal. Hence 
 
198 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 wars and fightings, with the false glory which crowns 
 such barbarism. But the true civiHzation of na- 
 tions, as of individuals, is determined by the extent 
 to which these evil dispositions are restrained. Nor 
 does the teacher ever more truly perform his high 
 office than when, recognizing the supremacy of the 
 moral and intellectual, he calls upon nations, as 
 upon individuals, to declare independence of the 
 bestial, to abandon practices founded on this part 
 of our nature, and in every way to beat down that 
 brutal spirit which is the Genius of War. In making 
 this appeal, he will be startled as he learns, that, 
 while the municipal law of each Christian nation, 
 discarding the Arbitrament of Force, provides a 
 judicial tribunal for the determination of controver- 
 sies between individuals. International Law expressly 
 establishes the Arbitrament of War for the determi- 
 nation of controversies between nations. . . . 
 
 I would now define the evil which I arraign. War 
 is a public armed contest between nations, under the 
 sanction of International Law, to establish justice 
 between them: as, for instance, to determine a dis- 
 puted boundary, the title to territory, or a claim for 
 damages. 
 
 This definition is confined to contests between 
 nations. ... It is unreasonable to suppose that 
 war can arise in the present age, under the sanctions 
 of International Law, except to determine an asserted 
 right. Whatever its character in periods of barbar- 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 199 
 
 ism, or when invoked to repel an incursion of robbers 
 or pirates, ''enemies of the human race," war be- 
 comes in our day, among all the nations parties to 
 existing International Law, simply a mode of litiga- 
 tion, or of deciding a lis pendens. It is a mere trial 
 of right, an appeal for justice to force. . . . 
 
 After considering, in succession, first, the character 
 of war, secondly, the miseries it produces, and, thirdly, 
 its utter and pitiful insufficiency, as a mode of de- 
 termining justice, we shall be able to decide, strictly 
 and logically, whether it must not be ranked as 
 crime, from which no true honor can spring to 
 individuals or nations. To appreciate this evil, 
 and the necessity for its overthrow, it will be our 
 duty, fourthly, to consider in succession the various 
 prejudices by which it is sustained, ending with that 
 prejudice, so gigantic and all-embracing, at whose 
 command uncounted sums are madly diverted from 
 purposes of peace to preparations for war. The whole 
 subject is infinitely practical, while the concluding 
 division shows how the public treasury may be re- 
 lieved, and new means secured for human advance- 
 ment. 
 
 I. First, as to the essential character and root of 
 war, or that part of our nature whence it proceeds. 
 . . . The idea rises to the mind at once, that war is 
 a resort to brute force, where nations strive to over- 
 power each other. Reason, and the divine part of 
 our nature, where alone we differ from the beast, 
 
200 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 where alone we approach the Divinity, where alone 
 are the elements of tha.t justice which is the professed 
 object of war, are rudely dethroned. For the time 
 men adopt the nature of beasts, emulating their 
 ferocity, like them rejoicing in blood, and with lion's 
 paw clutching an asserted right. Though in more 
 recent days this character is somewhat disguised by 
 the skill and knowledge employed, war is still the 
 same, only more destructive from the genius and 
 intellect which have become its servants. The 
 primitive poets, in the unconscious simplicity of the 
 world's childhood, make tliis boldly apparent. The 
 heroes of Homer are likened to animals in ungovern- 
 able fury, or to things devoid of reason or affection. 
 Menelaus presses his way through the crowd ''like 
 a wild beast." Sarpedon is aroused against the 
 Argives, "as a lion against the crooked-horned 
 oxen," and afterwards rushes forward ''like a lion 
 nurtured on the mountains, for a long time famished 
 for want of flesh, but whose courage impels him to 
 attack even the well-guarded sheepf old." . . . 
 
 From early fields of modern hterature, as from 
 those of antiquity, might be gathered similar illus- 
 trations, showing the unconscious degradation of the 
 soldier, in vain pursuit of justice, renouncing the 
 human character, to assume that of brute. Bayard, 
 the exemplar of chivalry, with a name always on the 
 lips of its votaries, was described by the qualities 
 of beasts, being, according to his admirers, raw in 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 20I 
 
 attack, wild-hoar in defense, and wolf in flight. Henry 
 the Fifth, as represented by our own Shakespeare, 
 in the spirit-stirring appeal to his troops, exclaims: — 
 
 "When the blast of war blows in our ears, 
 Then imitate the action of the tiger. ^^ 
 
 This is plain and frank, revealing the true character 
 of war. 
 
 I need not dwell on the moral debasement that must 
 ensue. Passions, Hke so many bloodhounds, are 
 unleashed and suffered to rage. Crimes filHng our 
 prisons stalk abroad in the soldier's garb, unwhipped 
 of justice. Murder, robbery, rape, arson, are the 
 sports of this fiendish Saturnalia, when 
 
 "The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, 
 And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, 
 In liberty of bloody hand shall range 
 With conscience wide as hell.'" . . . 
 
 II. The immediate effect of war is to sever all 
 relations of friendship and commerce between the 
 belligerent nations, and every individual thereof, 
 impressing upon each citizen or subject the character 
 of enemy. . . . 
 
 This is Httle compared with what must follow. It 
 is but the first portentous shadow of disastrous eclipse, 
 twilight usher of thick darkness, covering the whole 
 heavens with a pall, broken only by the lightnings of 
 battle and siege. 
 
202 BEST AMERIC.\N ORATIONS 
 
 Such horrors redden the historic page, while, to 
 the scandal of humanity, they never want liistorians 
 with feelings kindred to those by which they are 
 inspired. The demon that draws the sword also 
 guides the pen. The favorite chronicler of modern 
 Europe, Froissart, discovers his sympathies in his 
 Prologue, where, with something of apostleship, he 
 announces his purpose, "that the honorable enter- 
 prises and noble adventures and feats of arms which 
 happened in the wars of France and England be 
 notably registered and put in perpetual memory," 
 and then proceeds to bestow his equal admiration 
 upon bravery and cunning, upon the courtesy which 
 pardoned as upon the rage which caused the flow of 
 blood in torrents, dwelling with especial delight on 
 "beautiful incursions, beautiful rescues, beautiful 
 feats of arms, and beautiful prowesses " ; and wanton- 
 ing in pictures of cities assaulted, "which, being soon 
 gained by force, were robbed, and men and women 
 and children put to the sword without mercy, while 
 the churches were burnt and violated." This was 
 in a barbarous age. But popular writers in our own 
 day, dazzled by false ideas of greatness, at which 
 reason and humanity blush, do not hesitate to dwell 
 on similar scenes even with rapture and eulogy. 
 The humane soul of Wilberforce, which sighed that 
 England's "bloody laws sent many unprepared into 
 another world," could hail the slaughter of Water- 
 loo, by which thousands were hurried into eternity 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 203 
 
 on the Sabbath he held so holy, as a "splendid 
 victory." . . . 
 
 But wasted lands, famished cities, and slaughtered 
 armies are not all that is contained in ''the purple 
 testament of bleeding war." Every soldier is 
 connected with others, as all of you, by dear ties of 
 kindred, love, and friendship. He has been sternly 
 summoned from the embrace of family. To him 
 there is perhaps an aged mother, who fondly hoped 
 to lean her bending years on his more youthful form; 
 perhaps a wife, whose life is just entwined insepar- 
 ably with his, now condemned to wasting despair; 
 perhaps sisters, brothers. As he falls on the field 
 of war, must not all these rush with his blood? 
 But who can measure the distress that radiates as 
 from a bloody sun, penetrating innumerable homes? 
 Who can give the gauge and dimensions of this 
 infinite sorrow? . . . 
 
 III. But all these miseries are to no purpose. War 
 is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance its pro- 
 fessed object. The wretchedness it entails con- 
 tributes to no end, helps to estabhsh no right, and 
 therefore in no respect determines justice between 
 the contending nations. 
 
 The fruitlessness and vanity of war appear in the 
 great conflicts by which the w^orld has been lacer- 
 ated. After long struggle, where each nation inflicts 
 and receives incalculable injury, peace is gladly ob- 
 tained on the basis of the condition before the war, 
 
204 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 known as the status ante helium. I cannot illus- 
 trate this futility better than by the famiUar example 
 — humiliating to both countries — of our last war 
 with Great Britain, where the professed object was 
 to obtain a renunciation of the British claim, so 
 defiantly asserted, to impress our seamen. . . . 
 The National Government appointed commissioners 
 to treat for peace, with these specific instructions: 
 ''Your first duty will be to conclude a peace with 
 Great Britain; and you are authorized to do it, in 
 case you obtain a satisfactory stipulation against 
 impressment, one w^hich shall secure under our flag 
 protection to the crew. ... If this encroachment 
 of Great Britain is not provided against, the United 
 States have appealed to arms in vain.'' . . . Yet the 
 treaty that restored to us once more the blessings of 
 peace, so rashly cast away, but now hailed with 
 intoxication of joy, contained no allusion to impress- 
 ment, nor did it provide for the surrender of a single 
 American sailor detained in the British navy. Thus, 
 by the confession of our own Government, ''the 
 United States had appealed to arms in vain.'' These 
 important words are not mine; they are words of 
 the country. 
 
 All this is the natural result of an appeal to war 
 for the determination of justice. Justice implies 
 the exercise of the judgment. Now war not only 
 supersedes the judgment, but delivers over the pend- 
 ing question to superiority oi force, or to chance. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 205 
 
 Superior force may end in conquest; this is the 
 natural consequence; but it cannot adjudicate any 
 right. . . . But the battle is not always to the strong. 
 Superiority of force is often checked by the prover- 
 bial contingencies of war. Especially are such con- 
 tingencies revealed in rankest absurdity, where 
 nations, as is the acknowledged custom, without 
 regard to their respective forces, whether weaker or 
 stronger, voluntarily appeal to this mad umpirage. 
 Who beforehand can measure the currents of the 
 heady fight? In common language, we confess the 
 '' chances" of battle; and soldiers devoted to this 
 harsh vocation yet call it a "game." . . . 
 
 Remember, fellow-citizens, that this criminal and 
 impious custom [illustrated by the medieval Private 
 Wars, the Trial by Combat, and the Duel — all now 
 generally abohshed], which all condemn in the case 
 of individuals, is openly avowed by our own country, 
 and by other countries of the great Christian Federa- 
 tion, nay, that it is expressly established by Inter- 
 national Law, as the proper rnode of determining 
 justice between nations, — while the feats of hardi- 
 hood by which it is waged, and the triumphs of its 
 fields, are exalted beyond all other labors, whether 
 of learning, industry, or benevolence, as the well- 
 spring of Glory. Alas! upon our own heads be the 
 judgment of barbarism which we pronounce upon 
 those that have gone before ! . . . 
 
 What has taught you, O man ! thus to find glory 
 
2o6 BEST AMERICAxN ORATIONS 
 
 in an act, performed by a nation, which you condemn 
 as a crime or a barbarism, when committed by an 
 individual? In what vain conceit of wisdom and 
 virtue do you find this incongruous morahty ? Where 
 is it declared that God, who is no respecter of per- 
 sons, is a respecter of multitudes ? Whence do you 
 draw these partial laws of an impartial God ? Man is 
 immortal; but Nations are mortal. Man has a 
 higher destiny than Nations. Can Nations be less 
 amenable to the supreme moral law ? . . . 
 
 IV. I am now brought to review the obstacles 
 encountered by those who, according to the injunction 
 of St. Augustine, would make war on War, and slay 
 it with the word. . . . 
 
 One of the most important is the prejudice from 
 belief in its necessity. When War is called a neces- 
 sity, it is meant, of course, that its object can be 
 attained in no other way. Now I think it has al- 
 ready appeared, with distinctness approaching demon- 
 stration, that the professed object of War, which is 
 justice between nations, is in no respect promoted 
 by War, — that force is not justice, nor in any way 
 conducive to justice, — that the eagles of victory 
 are the emblems of successful force only, and not of 
 established right. Justice is obtained solely by the 
 exercise of reason and judgment; but these are 
 silent in the din of arms. ... If nations can agree 
 in solemn provisions of International Law to estab- 
 lish War as Arbiter of Justice, they can also agree 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 207 
 
 to abolish this arbitrament, and to estabhsh peaceful 
 substitutes, — precisely as similar substitutes are 
 established by Municipal Law to determine con- 
 troversies among individuals. A system of Arbi- 
 tration may be instituted, or a Congress of Nations, 
 charged with the high duty of organizing an Ulti- 
 mate Tribunal, instead of ''these battles." To do 
 this, the will only is required. Let it not be said, 
 then, that war is a necessity. . . . 
 
 Another prejudice is founded on the practice of 
 nations, past and present. There is no crime or 
 enormity in morals which may not find the support 
 of human example, often on an extended scale. But 
 it will not be urged in our day that we are to look 
 for a standard of duty in the conduct of vain, fal- 
 lible, mistaken man. Not by any subtile alchemy 
 can man transmute Wrong into Right. Because 
 War is according to the practice of the world, it 
 does not follow that it is right. . . . 
 
 Often is it said that we need not be wiser than our 
 fathers. Rather strive to excel our fathers. What 
 in them was good imitate; but do not bind ourselves, 
 as in chains of Fate, by their imperfect example. In 
 all modesty be it said, we have lived to little purpose, 
 if we are not wiser than the generations that have 
 gone before. . . . 
 
 There is a topic which I approach with diffidence, 
 but in the spirit of frankness. It is the influence 
 which War, though condemned by Christ, has de- 
 rived from the Christian Church. . , . 
 
2o8 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 The Christian Church, after the early centuries, 
 failed to discern the peculiar spiritual beauty of the 
 faith it professed. Like Constantine, it found new 
 incentive to War in the religion of Peace; and such 
 is its character, even in our own day. . . . Well 
 may we marvel that now, in an age of civilization, 
 the God of Battles should be invoked. . . . Mars 
 is not the God of Christians; he is not Our Father in 
 Heaven; to him can ascend no prayers of Christian 
 thanksgiving, no words of Christian worship, no 
 pealing anthem to swell the note of praise. And yet 
 Christ and Mars are still brought into fellowship, 
 even interchanging pulpits. . . . 
 
 It will not be doubted that this strange and un- 
 blessed conjunction of the Church with War has no 
 little influence in blinding the world to the truth, too 
 slowly recognized, that the whole custom of war is 
 contrary to Christianity. . . . 
 
 From prejudices engendered by the Church I pass 
 to prejudices engendered by the army itself, having 
 their immediate origin in military life, but unfor- 
 tunately diffusing themselves throughout the com- 
 munity, in widening though less apparent circles. I 
 allude directly to what is called the Point of Honor, 
 early child of Chivalry, living representative of its 
 barbarism. It is difficult to define what is so evanes- 
 cent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal, and yet 
 which exercises such fiendish power over many men, 
 and controls the intercourse of nations. . . . 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 209 
 
 And when is honor at stake? This inquiry opens 
 again the argument with which I commenced, and 
 with which I hope to close. Honor can be at stake 
 only where justice and beneficence are at stake; it 
 can never depend on any hasty word of anger or 
 folly, not even if followed by vulgar violence. True 
 honor appears in the dignity of the human soul, in 
 that highest moral and intellectual excellence which 
 is the nearest approach to quahties we reverence as 
 attributes of God. Our community frowns with in- 
 dignation upon the prof anen ess of the duel, having 
 its rise in this irrational point of honor. Are you 
 aware that you indulge the same sentiment on a 
 gigantic scale, when you recognize this very point of 
 honor as a proper apology for War? We have 
 already seen that justice is in no respect promoted 
 by War. Is True Honor promoted where justice 
 is not? . . . The rule of honor is founded in the 
 imagined necessity of resenting by force a supposed 
 injury, whether of word or act. Admit the injury 
 received, seeming to sully the character; is it wiped 
 away by any force, and descent to the brutal level 
 of its author? "Could I wipe your blood from my 
 conscience as easily as this insult from my face," 
 said a marshal of France, greater on this occasion 
 than on any field of fame, ''I would lay you dead at 
 my feet." ... 
 
 Thank God ! the age of chivalry is gone; but it 
 cannot be allowed to prolong its fanaticism of honor 
 
2IO BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 into our day. This must remain with the lances, 
 swords, and daggers by which it was guarded, or 
 appear, if it insists, only with its inseparable American 
 companions, bowie-knife, pistol, and rifle. . . . 
 
 There is one other consideration, yielding to none 
 in importance, — perhaps more important than all, 
 being at once cause and effect, — the cause of strong 
 prejudice in favor of War, and the effect of this 
 prejudice. I refer to Preparations for War in time 
 of Peace. Here is an immense practical evil. . . . 
 
 I shall not dwell upon the fearful cost of War itself. 
 That is present in the mountainous accumulations of 
 debt, piled like Ossa upon Pelion, with which civili- 
 zation is pressed to earth. . . . The public debt of 
 Great Britain in 1842 reached to $3,827,833,102, the 
 growth of War since 1688. This amount is equal to 
 two-thirds of all the harvest of gold and silver yielded 
 by Spanish America, including Mexico and Peru, 
 from the discovery of our hemisphere by Christo- 
 pher Columbus to the beginning of the present 
 century, as calculated by Humboldt. For the six 
 years preceding 1842, the average payment for 
 interest on this debt was $141,645,157 annually. 
 If we add to this sum the further annual outlay of 
 $66,780,817 for the army, navy, and ordnance, we 
 shall have $208,425,974 as the annual tax of the 
 English people, to pay for former wars and prepare 
 for new. During this same period, an annual 
 appropriation of $24,858,442 was sufficient for the 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 211 
 
 entire civil service. Thus War consumed ninety 
 cents of every dollar pressed by heavy taxation from 
 the EngHsh people. What fabulous monster, what 
 chimera dire, ever raged with a maw so ravenous? 
 The remaining ten cents sufficed to maintain the 
 splendor of the throne, the administration of justice, 
 and diplomatic relations with foreign powers, — in 
 short, all the more legitimate objects of a nation. 
 
 Thus much for the general cost of War. Let us 
 now look exclusively at the Preparations for War in 
 time of Peace. It is one of the miseries of War, that 
 even in Peace its evils continue to be felt beyond any 
 other by which suffering humanity is oppressed. . . . 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any exact 
 estimate of these Preparations, ranging under four 
 different heads, — Standing Army, Navy, Fortifica- 
 tions, and MiUtia, or irregular troops. . . . 
 
 Colossal as are European expenditures for these 
 purposes, they are still greater among us in proportion 
 to other expenses of the National Government. 
 
 It appears that the average annual expenses of 
 the National Government, for the six years ending 
 1840, exclusive of payments on account of debt, were 
 $26,474,892. Of this sum, the average appropriation 
 each year for military and naval purposes amounted 
 to $21,328,903, being eighty per cent. Yes, — of all 
 the annual appropriations by the National Govern- 
 ment, eighty cents in every dollar were applied in this 
 unproductive manner, The remaining twenty cents 
 
212 BEST AMERICAM ORATIONS 
 
 sufficed to maintain the Government in all its 
 branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, — 
 the administration of justice, our relations with 
 foreign nations, the post-office, and all the light- 
 houses, which, in happy, useful contrast with the 
 forts, shed their cheerful signals over the rough 
 waves beating upon our long and indented coast, 
 from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi. The relative expenditures of nations for 
 MiUtary Preparations in time of Peace, exclusive 
 of payments on account of debts, when accurately 
 understood, must surprise the advocates of economy 
 in our country. In proportion to the whole expendi- 
 ture of Government, they are, in Austria, as t^t, per 
 cent; in France, as 38 per cent; in Prussia, as 4 
 per cent; in Great Britain, as 74 per cent; in the 
 United States, as 80 per cent! 
 
 To this stupendous waste may be added the still 
 larger and equally superfluous expenses of the Mihtia 
 throughout the country, placed recently by a candid 
 and able writer at $50,000,000 a year ! . . . 
 
 [Here the orator by elaborate figures showed the enor- 
 mous cost of the various warlike establishments as beside 
 the comparatively insignificant sums expended upon all 
 the institutions of learning and beneficence — schools, 
 colleges, hospitals, asylums, etc. — the National and State 
 judiciary and all other civil purposes, — preparations for 
 war from the foundation of the Government to 1843 con- 
 suming nearly twelve times as much as the National Gov- 
 ernment expended on all other purposes whatsoever.] 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 213 
 
 Such are illustrations of that tax which nations 
 constituting the great Federation of Civilization, 
 including our own country, impose on the people, in 
 time of profound peace, for no permanent productive 
 work, for no institution of learning, for no gentle 
 charity, for no purpose of good. Wearily climbing 
 from expenditure to expenditure, from waste to 
 waste, we seem to pass beyond the region of ordinary 
 measurement; Alps on Alps arise, on whose crown- 
 ing heights of everlasting cold, far above the habita- 
 tions of man, where no green thing Uves, where no 
 creature draws breath, we behold the sharp, icy, 
 flashing glacier of War. . . . 
 
 The maxim. In ti?ne of Peace prepare for War, is 
 transmitted from distant ages, when brute force was 
 the general law. It is the terrible inheritance which 
 painfully reminds present generations of their con- 
 nection with the Past. It belongs to the dogmas of 
 barbarism. It is the companion of harsh, tyranni- 
 cal rules by which the happiness of the many is 
 offered up to the few. It is the child of suspicion, 
 and the forerunner of violence. . . . Dismissing 
 the actual usage on the one side, and considerations 
 of economy on the other, I would regard these 
 Preparations in the simple light of reason, in a just 
 appreciation of the nature of man, and in the in- 
 junctions of the highest truth. Our conclusion will 
 be very easy. They are twice pernicious, and whoso 
 would vindicate them must satisfactorily answer 
 
214 ^^^^ AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 these two objections: Jirsl, that they inflame the 
 people, exciting to deeds of violence, otherwise aUen 
 to the mind; and, secondly, that, having their origin 
 in the low motives of distrust and hate, inevitably, 
 by a sure law of the human mind, they excite to 
 corresponding action in other nations. Thus, in 
 fact, are they promoters of War, rather than pre- 
 servers of Peace. . . . 
 
 War Preparations in a period of professed Peace 
 must naturally prompt adverse Preparations, and 
 everywhere within the circle of their influence quicken 
 the Spirit of War. So are we all knit together that 
 the feelings in our own bosoms awaken correspond- 
 ing feelings in the bosoms of others, — as harp 
 answers to harp in its softest vibration, as deep re- 
 sponds to deep in the might of its power. What in 
 us is good invites the good in our brother; generosity 
 begets generosity; love wins love; Peace secures 
 Peace ; — while all in us that is bad challenges the 
 bad in our brother; distrust engenders distrust; 
 hate provokes hate; War arouses War. Therefore 
 are we admonished to avoid such appeal, and this 
 is the voice of Nature itself. . . , 
 
 From the past and the present auspicious omens 
 cheer us for the future. The terrible wars of the 
 French Revolution were the violent rending of the 
 body preceding the exorcism of the fiend. Since the 
 morning stars first sang together, the world has not 
 witnessed a peace so harmonious and enduring as that 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 21 5 
 
 which now blesses the Christian nations. Great 
 questions, fraught with strife, and in another age 
 heralds of War, are now determined by Mediation or 
 Arbitration. Great poUtical movements, which a few 
 short years ago must have led to bloody encounter, 
 are now conducted by peaceful discussion. Litera- 
 ture, the press, and innumerable societies, all join 
 in the work of inculcating good- will to man. The 
 Spirit of Humanity pervades the best writings, 
 nor can the breathing thought and burning word of 
 poet or orator have a higher inspiration. Genius is 
 never so Promethean as when it bears the heavenly 
 fire to the hearths of men. . . . 
 
 Recognizing those two transcendent ordinances of 
 God, the Law of Right and the Law of Love, — twin 
 suns which illumine the moral universe, — why not 
 aspire to the true glory, and, what is higher than 
 glory, the great good, of taking the lead in the dis- 
 arming of the nations ? Let us abandon the system of 
 Preparations for War in time of Peace, as irrational, 
 unchristian, vainly prodigal of expense, and having a 
 direct tendency to excite the evil against which it 
 professes to guard. Let the enormous means thus 
 released from iron hands be devoted to labors of 
 beneficence. Our battlements shall be schools, 
 hospitals, colleges, and churches; our arsenals shall 
 be libraries; our navy shall be peaceful ships, on 
 errands of perpetual commerce; our army shall be 
 the teachers of youth and the ministers of religion. 
 
2l6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 This is the cheap defense of nations. In such in- 
 trenchments what Christian soul can be touched 
 with fear? Angels of the Lord will throw over the 
 land an invisible, but impenetrable panoply: — 
 
 " Or if Virtue feeble were, 
 Heaven itself would stoop to her." 
 
 At the thought of such a change, the imagination 
 loses itself in vain effort to follow the multitudinous 
 streams of happiness which gush forth from a thou- 
 sand hills. Then shall the naked be clothed and the 
 hungry fed; institutions of science and learning shall 
 crown every hilltop; hospitals for the sick, and other 
 retreats for the unfortunate children of the world, 
 for all who suffer in any way, in mind, body, or es- 
 tate, shall nestle in every valley; while the spires of 
 new churches leap exulting to the skies. The whole 
 land shall testify to the change. Art shall confess 
 it in the new inspiration of the canvas and the marble. 
 The harp of the poet shall proclaim it in a loftier 
 rhyme. Above all, the heart of man shall bear wit- 
 ness to it, in the elevation of his sentiments, in the 
 expansion of his affections, in his devotion to the 
 highest truth, in his appreciation of true greatness. 
 The eagle of our country without the terror of his 
 beak, and dropping the forceful thunderbolt from 
 his pounces, shall soar, with the oHve of Peace, into 
 untried realms of ether, nearer to the sun. 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 1777-1852 
 
Virginian-born, a penniless orphan, with meager schooling, 
 young Clay entered an eminent Richmond law office as clerk, 
 and became a lawyer. He settled in Lexington, Kentucky, at 
 the age of twenty-one. Rather superficial than thorough, his 
 alert intelligence, manifest sincerity, and charm of language, 
 voice, and manner gave him rapid success. In 1803 he was 
 sent to the State legislature, and in 1806, at the age of twenty- 
 nine, to the United States Senate. 
 
 He went again to the State legislature, being Speaker of its 
 House; was Congressman from Kentucky, and Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives for ten years ; Senator in varying 
 terms for thirteen years; Peace Commissioner with England 
 after the War of 181 2 ; Secretary of State eight years ; and thrice 
 Whig candidate for the presidency. He was perhaps the most 
 popular and widely beloved American of any time. 
 
 A very significant part of his life was in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, where he advocated tariff protection for "infant 
 industries," and where his career as Speaker was exceptionally 
 brilliant. He promoted the War of 181 2. In 1820 in the 
 Senate he quieted the discussion of slavery in the new Terri- 
 tories by the famous Missouri Compromise. With Webster 
 he often opposed President Jackson, but, when South Caro- 
 lina threatened nullification or secession, he devised the Com- 
 promise tariff of 1833, postponing the dreaded issue. In 1846, 
 following Texas annexation and the Mexican War, violent 
 agitation arose over the question of slavery or free labor in the 
 territory acquired from Mexico. Clay was always opposed 
 to slavery, but loved the Union, and in 1850, he offered a Com- 
 promise bill, admitting California with its adopted constitution 
 as a free State, and abolishing the slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia, but enacting a stringent fugitive slave law. Por- 
 tions of Clay's speech on it (May 13, 1850) are here given. 
 The propositions were enacted separately, and once more 
 "the great pacificator" had postponed the inevitable crisis. 
 
 Clay died in 1852, a year marked also by the decease of his 
 great compeer, Webster. 
 
 218 
 
THE COMPROMISE MEASURES 
 
 I HAVE risen, Mr. President, for the purpose of 
 making some further explanation, and an additional 
 exposition to that contained in the report of the 
 Committee of Thirteen,^ which has recently been in 
 consultation upon the important subjects referred 
 to them. When the report of the Committee was 
 presented to the Senate last week, various members 
 of the Committee rose in their places, and stated 
 that certain parts of the report did not meet with 
 their concurrence. It might have been stated with 
 perfect truth that no one member of the Committee 
 concurred in all that was done by the Committee. 
 There w^as a majority upon most, and even upon all 
 the subjects reported by them; and each member, 
 perhaps, if left to himself separately, would have 
 presented the various matters which were reported 
 to the Senate in a form somewhat different from 
 that in which they were presented in the re- 
 port. . . . 
 
 I have believed from the first, and I yet firmly 
 believe, that if these unhappy subjects which have 
 
 ^ Appointed to consider the proposed measures, Mr. Clay 
 being chairman. 
 
 219 
 
220 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 divided the country shall be accommodated by an 
 amicable adjustment, it must be done upon some 
 such basis as that which the Committee has reported. 
 And can there be a doubt on this subject? The 
 crisis of the crisis, I repeat, has arrived, and the fate 
 of the measures which have been reported by the 
 Committee, in my humble judgment, determines 
 the fate of the harmony or distraction of this 
 country. . . . 
 
 The first measure upon which they reported was 
 that of the true exposition of the compact between 
 the United States and Texas, upon the occasion of 
 the admission of that State into the Union. Upon 
 that subject, as already announced in the report, 
 I am happy to say, there was an undivided 
 opinion. . . . 
 
 But I will not dwell longer upon that part of the 
 subject. I will now approach that which, in the 
 Committee, and perhaps in the two Houses, has 
 given the most trouble and created the most anxiety, 
 amongst all the measures upon which the Committee 
 have reported — I mean the admission of CaHfornia 
 into the Union. Against that measure there were 
 various objections. . . . 
 
 [After disposing of objections involving the population 
 and the boundaries of California, Mr. Clay proceeded.] 
 
 It is mentioned in the report that there are other 
 cases of States which have been admitted without 
 
HENRY CLAY 221 
 
 the previous authority of Congress.* The honorable 
 gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Clemens) stated 
 that in all the other instances of States admitted into 
 the Union, they had served an apprenticeship of 
 so many years. But the statement in the re- 
 port stands uncontradicted. Michigan, Arkansas, 
 Florida, if no other States, came into the Union 
 without any previous act of Congress, according 
 to the usage which prevailed in the early admission 
 of States, authorizing them to meet in convention 
 and form a constitution. But it is said that they 
 were under the government of the United States. 
 So much the better for them ; they had a good govern- 
 ment — a territorial government. But how was 
 it with CaHfornia? She had no government. You 
 abandoned and deserted her — violated the engage- 
 ment of the treaty of Hidalgo — left her to shift 
 for herself as well as she could. In this state of 
 abandonment, she has formed a constitution and 
 come here. I ask again, as I had occasion to ask 
 some three months ago, if she does not present 
 stronger claims upon our consideration than any of 
 those States which had territorial governments, but 
 which, not satisfied with them, chose to form for 
 themselves State constitutions, and come here to be 
 admitted into the Union ? 
 
 * The Californians had met in Convention, framed, and by 
 popular vote adopted, a Constitution excluding slavery, and 
 thereupon applied for admission as a State. 
 
222 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 I think, then, Mr. President, that with respect to 
 the population of Cahfornia, with respect to the 
 limits of Cahfornia, and with respect to the circum- 
 stances under which she presents herself to Con- 
 gress for admission as a State into the Union, all 
 are favorable to the grant of what she solicits, and 
 that we can find neither in the one nor the other 
 a sufficient motive to reject or to throw her back 
 into the state of lawless confusion and disorder from 
 which she has emerged. . . . 
 
 [Mr. Clay here discussed territorial government for 
 Utah and New Mexico, and settlement of the Texan 
 boundaries.] 
 
 The next subject upon which the Committee 
 acted was that of fugitive slaves. The Committee 
 have proposed two amendments to be offered to 
 the bill introduced by the Senator from Virginia, 
 (Mr. Mason,) whenever the bill is taken up. The 
 first of these amendments provides that the owner 
 of a fugitive slave, when leaving his own State, and 
 whenever it is practicable, — for sometimes, in the 
 hot pursuit of an immediate runaway, it may not 
 be in the power of the master to wait to get such 
 record, and he will always do it if it is possible, — 
 shall carry with him a record from the State from 
 which the fugitive has fled; which record shall 
 contain an adjudication of two facts: first the fact 
 of slavery, and secondly, the fact of elopement; 
 
HENRY CLAY 223 
 
 and in the third place, such a general description ' 
 of the slave as the court shall be enabled to give upon 
 such testimony as shall be brought before it. It 
 also provides that this record, taken from the county 
 court, or from the court of record in the slaveholding 
 State, shall be taken to the free State, and shall be 
 there held to be competent and sufficient evidence 
 of the facts which it avows. Now, Sir, I heard ob- 
 jection made to this that it would be an inconven- 
 ience and an expense to the slaveholder. I think 
 the expense will be very trifling compared to the 
 advantages which will result. . . . 
 
 Mr. President, in all subjects of this kind we must 
 deal fairly and honestly by all. We must recollect 
 that there are feelings, and interests, and sympathies 
 on both sides of the question; and no man who has 
 ever brought his mind seriously to the consideration 
 of a suitable measure for the recapture of runaway 
 slaves, can fail to admit that the question is sur- 
 rounded with great difficulties. On the one hand, 
 if the owner of the slave could go into this non- 
 slaveholding State, and seize the negro, put his 
 hands upon him, and the whole world would recognize 
 the truth of his ownership of property, and the fact 
 of the escape of that property, there would be no 
 difficulty then in those States where prejudice against 
 slavery exists in the highest degree. But he goes 
 to a State which does not recognize slavery. Rec- 
 ollect how different the state of fact is now from 
 
224 ^^S'T AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 what it was in 1793, nearly sixty years ago. There 
 were, then, comparatively few free persons of color — 
 few, compared to the numbers which exist at present. 
 By the progress of emancipation in the slaveholding 
 States, and the multiplication of them by natural 
 causes, vast numbers of them have rushed to the 
 free States. There are in the cities of Philadelphia, 
 New York, and Boston — I have not looked into the 
 precise number — some eight or ten to one in pro- 
 portion to the number there were in 1793 when the 
 Act passed. 
 
 In proportion to the number of free blacks, 
 multiplied in the free States, does the difficulty 
 increase of recovering a fugitive from a slaveholding 
 State. 
 
 Recollect, Mr. President, that the rule of law is 
 reversed in the two classes of States. In the slave- 
 holding States, color implies slavery, and the onus 
 probandi of freedom is thrown on the persons claim- 
 ing it, as every [colored] person in the slave-holding 
 States is regarded prima facie as a slave. On 
 the contrary, when you go to the non-slaveholding 
 States, color implies freedom and not slavery. 
 Every man who is seen in the free States, though he 
 be a man of color, is regarded as free. And when 
 a stranger from Virginia or Kentucky goes to re- 
 mote parts of Pennsylvania, and sees a black person, 
 who perhaps has been living there for years, and 
 claims him to be his slave, the feelings and sympathy 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 225 
 
 of the neighborhood are naturally and necessarily 
 excited in favor of the colored person. We all 
 respect these feelings, where they are honestly 
 entertained. 
 
 Well, Sir, what are you to do in a case of that 
 kind ? You will give every satisfaction that can be 
 given that the person whom you propose to arrest 
 is your property, and is a fugitive from your service 
 or labor. That is the extent of one amendment 
 which we propose to offer, but there is also another. 
 The amendment upon which I have been commenting 
 provides for the production of a record. Now% what 
 is the inconvenience of that ? It provides that when 
 the owner of the slave shall arrest his property in a 
 non-slaveholding State, and shall take him before 
 the proper functionary to obtain a certificate to 
 authorize the return of that property to the State 
 from which he fled, and if he declares to that func- 
 tionary at the time that he is a free man and not a 
 slave, what does the pro\nsion require the ofi&cer 
 to do ? Why, to take a bond from the agent or owner 
 that he will carry the black person back to the 
 county of the State from which he fled; and that 
 at the first court which may sit after his return, 
 he shall be carried there, if he again assert the right 
 to his freedom; the court shall afford and the owner 
 shall afford to him all the facilities which are req- 
 uisite to enable him to establish his right to freedom. 
 Now, no surety is even required of the master. 
 
226 BEST AMERICAxM ORATIONS 
 
 The Committee thought, and in that I beHeve they 
 all concurred, that it would be wrong to demand 
 of a stranger, hundreds of miles from his home, 
 surety to take back the slave to the State from which 
 he fled. The trial by jury is what is demanded 
 by the non-slaveholding States. Well, we put the 
 party claimed to be a fugitive back to the State 
 from which he fled, and give him trial by jury in 
 that State. 
 
 Well, Sir, ought we not to make this concession ? 
 It is but very httle inconvenience. I will tell you. 
 Sir, what will be the practical operation of this. 
 It will be this: When a slave has escaped from the 
 master, and taken a refuge in a free State, and that 
 master comes to recapture him and take him back 
 to the State from which he fled, the slave will cry out, 
 "I do not know the man; I never saw him in my 
 life; I am a free man." He will say anything and 
 do anything to preserve to himself that freedom of 
 which he is for a moment in possession. He will 
 assert most confidently before the judge that he is 
 a free man. But take him back to the State from 
 which he fled, to his comrades, and he will state the 
 truth, and will relinquish all claim to freedom. The 
 practical operation, therefore, of the amendment 
 which we have proposed, will be attended with not 
 the least earthly inconvenience to the party claim- 
 ing the fugitive. The case is bond without surety. 
 The bond is transmitted by the oflicer taking it to 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 227 
 
 the district attorney of the State from which he has 
 fled. That officer sees that the bond is executed, 
 and that the slave is taken before the court. Per- 
 haps, before the slave reaches home, he will acknowl- 
 edge that he is a slave ; there is an end of the bond 
 and an end of the trouble about the master. Is 
 this unreasonable ? Is it not a proper and rational 
 concession to the prejudices, if you please, which 
 exist in the non-slaveholding States? Sir, our 
 rights are to be asserted; our rights are to be main- 
 tained. They will be asserted and maintained in 
 a manner not to wound unnecessarily the sensibihties 
 of others. And, in requiring such a bond as this 
 amendment proposes to exact from the owner, I 
 do not think there is the slightest inconvenience 
 imposed upon him, of which he ought to complain. 
 Sir, there is one opinion prevailing — I hope not 
 extensively — in some of the non-slaveholding States, 
 which nothing we can do will conciliate. I allude 
 to that opinion that asserts that there is a higher 
 law — a divine law — a natural law — which entitles 
 a man, under whose roof a runaway has come, to 
 give him assistance, and succor, and hospitality. 
 A divine law, a natural law! and who are they that 
 venture to tell us what is divine and what is natural 
 law? Where are their credentials of prophecy? 
 Why, Sir, we are told that the other day at a meet- 
 ing of some of these people at New York, Moses 
 and all the prophets were rejected, and that the 
 
228 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 name even of our blessed Saviour was treated with 
 sacrilege and contempt by these propagators of a 
 divine law, of a natural law which they have discovered 
 above all human laws and constitutions. If Moses 
 and the prophets, and our Saviour and all others, are to 
 be rejected, will they condescend to show us their au- 
 thority for propagating this new law, this new divine 
 law of which they speak? The law of Nature, Sir! 
 Look at it as it is promulgated, and even admitted 
 or threatened to be enforced, in some quarters of 
 the world. . . . 
 
 But there are persons in this age of enlightenment 
 and progress and civilization, who will rise up in 
 public assemblages, and, denouncing the Church 
 and all that is sacred that belongs to it, — denouncing 
 the founders of the religion which all profess and 
 revere, — will tell you that notwithstanding the 
 solemn oath which they have taken by kissing the 
 Book to carry out into full effect all the provisions 
 of the Constitution of our country, there is a law 
 of their God — a divine law, which they have found 
 out and nobody else has — superior and paramount 
 to all human law; and that they do not mean to 
 obey this human law, but the divine law, of which, 
 by some inspiration, by some means undisclosed, 
 they have obtained a knowledge. That is the class 
 of persons we do not propose to conciliate by any 
 amendment, by any concession which we can make. 
 
 But the Committee, in considering this delicate 
 
HENRY CLAY 229 
 
 subject, and looking at the feelings and interests 
 on both sides of the question, thought it best to 
 offer these two provisions, — that which requires 
 the production of a record in the non-slaveholding 
 States, and that which requires a bond to grant to 
 the real claimant of his freedom a trial by jury, 
 in the place where that trial ought to take place 
 according to the interpretation of the Constitution 
 of the United States, if it take place anywhere. 
 Therefore, in order to obviate the difhculties which 
 have been presented, and to satisfy the prejudices 
 in the non-slaveholding States, w^e propose to give 
 the fugitive the right of trial by jury in the State 
 from which he fled. . . . 
 
 Mr. President, the only measure remaining upon 
 which I shall say a word now, is the abolition of the 
 slave-trade in the District of Columbia. There is, 
 I believe, precious little of it. I believe the first 
 man in my Hfe that I ever heard denounce that trade 
 was a Southern man, — John Randolph of Roanoke. 
 I believe there has been no time within the last forty 
 years when, if earnestly pressed upon Congress, there 
 would not have been found a majority, perhaps a 
 majority from the slaveholding States themselves, 
 in favor of the abolition of the slave-trade in this 
 District. . . . 
 
 At the beginning of this session, as you know, that 
 offensive proviso, called the " Wilmot proviso," was 
 what was most apprehended, and what all the slave- 
 
230 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 holding States were most desirlous to get rid of.* 
 Well, Sir, by the operation of causes upon the Northern 
 mind friendly to the Union, hopes are inspired, which 
 I trust will not be frustrated in the progress of this 
 measure, that the North, or at least a sufficient 
 portion of the North, are now willing to dispense 
 with the proviso. ... But I fear there are some 
 of our Southern brethren who are not satisfied. 
 There are some who say that there is yet the Wil- 
 mot proviso, under another form, lurking in the 
 mountains of Mexico, in that natural fact to which 
 my honorable friend from Massachusetts adverted, 
 as I myself did when I hinted that the law of Nature 
 was adverse to the introduction of slavery there. 
 Now, as you find that just desire is to be obtained, 
 there is something further, there are other difficulties 
 in the way of the adjustment of these unhappy 
 subjects of difference, and of obtaining that which 
 is most to be desired, the cementing of the bonds 
 of this Union. 
 
 Mr. President, I do not despair, I will not despair, 
 that the measure will be carried. And I would al- 
 most stake my existence, if I dared, that if these meas- 
 ures which have been reported by the Committee of 
 Thirteen were submitted to the people of the United 
 States to-morrow, and their votes were taken upon 
 
 * Bill introduced in 1846 by David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, 
 for purchasing territory from Mexico, provided that slavery 
 be excluded from it. 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 231 
 
 them, there would be nine-tenths of them in favor 
 of the pacification which is embodied in that report- 
 Mr. President, what have we been looking at? — 
 What are we looking at ? The " proviso"; an ab- 
 straction always; thrust upon the South by the 
 North against all the necessities of the case, against 
 all the warnings which the North ought to have lis- 
 tened to coming from the South ; pressed unnecessa- 
 rily for any Northern object; opposed, I admit, by 
 the South, with a degree of earnestness uncalled for, 
 I think, by the nature of the provision, but with 
 a degree of earnestness natural to the South, and 
 which the North itself perhaps w^ould have displayed 
 if a reversal of the conditions of the two sections 
 of the Union could have taken place. Why do you 
 of the North press it? You say because it is in 
 obedience to certain sentiments in behalf of human 
 freedom and human rights which you entertain. 
 You are likely to accomplish those objects at once 
 by the progress of events, without pressing this 
 obnoxious measure. — You may retort, why is it 
 opposed at the South? — It is opposed at the South 
 because the South feels that, when once legislation 
 on the subject of slavery begins, there is no seeing 
 where it is to end. Begin it in the District of Colum- 
 bia; begin it in the territories of Utah and New 
 Mexico and California; assert your power there 
 to-day, and in spite of all the protestations — and 
 you are not wanting in making protestations — 
 
232 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 that you have no purpose of extending it to the 
 Southern States, what security can you give them 
 that a new sect will not arise with a new version of 
 the Constitution, or with something above or below 
 the Constitution, which shall authorize them to 
 carry their notions into the bosoms of the slave- 
 holding States, and endeavor to emancipate from 
 bondage all the slaves there? . . . 
 
 The cases, then, gentlemen of the North and gen- 
 tlemen of the South, do not stand upon an equal foot- 
 ing. When you, on the one hand, unnecessarily press 
 an offensive and unnecessary measure on the South, 
 the South repels it from the highest of all human 
 motives of action, the security of property and life, and 
 everything else interesting and valuable in hfe. . . . 
 
 Mr. President, I trust that the feelings of attach- 
 ment to the Union, of love for its past glory, of anti- 
 cipation of its future benefits and happiness; a 
 fraternal feehng which, I trust, will be common 
 throughout all parts of the country; the desire to 
 hve together in peace and harmony, to prosper as we 
 have prospered heretofore, to hold up to the civiUzed 
 world the example of one great and glorious republic, 
 fulfilUng the high destiny that belongs to it, demon- 
 strating beyond all doubt man's capacity for self- 
 government; these motives and these considerations 
 will, I trust, animate us all, bringing us together to 
 dismiss aUke questions of abstraction and form, and 
 consummating the act in such a manner as to heal 
 not one only, but all the wounds of the country. 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 
 
 1782-1850 
 
In the second period of our national existence, when the 
 Government was laboring at the adjustment of great interests 
 — internal improvements, territorial expansion, troubles with 
 England resulting in war, the tariff, the United States Bank 
 and monetary question, the mutual relations of the States to 
 the Union under the Constitution (a troublesome theme, un- 
 derlying all the others), etc. — Calhoun, Clay, and Webster 
 were the immortal trio of Senators that drew the chief national 
 attention, — Webster the Northern Federalist, Calhoun the 
 Southern defender of State rights, and Clay the harmonizer. 
 
 Calhoun was a very able, noble, upright, intensely earnest 
 man, whose sympathies grew more narrowly concentered 
 upon his own State and its interests as he grew older, thus 
 somewhat limiting his large usefulness. A South Carolina 
 Presbyterian of Scotch-Irish blood, born in poverty, but 
 working his way through Yale College and law studies, he 
 entered poHtics early in his native State, and was first in its 
 legislature, then its representative in Congress ; and his forty 
 years in Washington — as Congressman, Secretary of War, 
 Vice-President through two terms, almost President (although 
 he disclaimed any wish for the post). Senator, again Secretary 
 of War, and finally Senator to the end — were spent in con- 
 scientious and generally admirable service to the country. 
 
 His greatness appeared in his congressional career in both 
 Houses, during which he took prominent part in all important 
 questions, but he was at his greatest in the Senate, where the 
 notable debates between him and his two great compeers took 
 place. His last speech, during the discussion of the Clay 
 Compromises of 1850, was read for him by another (on March 
 4), owing to his extreme weakness. But he was present, 
 and his pallid face and intense eyes added solemnity to his 
 words. He died on the 23d of that month. The address 
 follows, somewhat abridged. 
 
 234 
 
SLAVERY AND THE UNION 
 
 I HAVE, Senators, believed from the first that 
 the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if 
 not prevented by some timely and effective measure, 
 end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, 
 on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the at- 
 tention of both the two great parties which divide 
 the country to adopt some measure to prevent so 
 great a disaster, but v/ithout success. The agita- 
 tion has been permitted to proceed with almost 
 no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point 
 when it can no longer be disguised or denied that 
 the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced 
 upon you the greatest and gravest question that can 
 ever come under your consideration — How can 
 the Union be preserved? 
 
 To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty 
 question, it is indispensable to have an accurate 
 and thorough knowledge of the nature and the 
 character of the cause by which the Union is en- 
 dangered. Without such knowledge it is impossible 
 to pronounce with any certainty, by what measure 
 it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for 
 a physician to pronounce in the case of some dan- 
 235 
 
236 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 gerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy 
 the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge 
 of the nature and character of the cause which 
 produce it. The first question, then, presented 
 for consideration in the investigation I propose to 
 make in order to obtain such knowledge is — What 
 is it that has endangered the Union? 
 
 To this question there can be but one answer, 
 — that the immediate cause is the almost universal 
 discontent which pervades all the States composing 
 the Southern section of the Union. This widely 
 extended discontent is not of recent origin. It 
 commenced with the agitation of the slavery question, 
 and has been increasing ever since. The next 
 question, going one step further back, is — What 
 has caused this widely diffused and almost universal 
 discontent ? 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, 
 that it originated with demagogues who excited the 
 discontent with the intention of aiding their personal 
 advancement, or with the disappointed ambition of 
 certain politicians who resorted to it as the means 
 of retrieving their fortunes. On the contrary, all 
 the great political influences of the section were 
 arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the ut- 
 most to keep the people quiet. The great mass of 
 the people of the South were divided, as in the other 
 section, into Whigs and Democrats. The leaders 
 and the presses of both parties in the South were 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 237 
 
 very solicitous to prevent excitement and to pre- 
 serve quiet; because it was seen that the effects 
 of the former would necessarily tend to weaken, if 
 not destroy, the political ties which united them 
 with their respective parties in the other section. 
 
 Those who know the strength of party ties will 
 readily appreciate the immense force which this 
 cause exerted against agitation and in favor of 
 preserving quiet. But, great as it was, it was not 
 sufficient to prevent the widespread discontent 
 which now pervades the section. No: some cause 
 far deeper and more powerful than the one sup- 
 posed, must exist, to account for discontent so wide 
 and deep. 
 
 The question then recurs — What is the cause of 
 this discontent? It will be found in the belief of 
 the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as the 
 discontent itself, that they cannot remain, as things 
 now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the 
 Union. The next question to be considered is — 
 What has caused this behef? 
 
 One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced 
 to the long-continued agitation of the slave question 
 on the part of the North, and the many aggressions 
 which they have made on the rights of the South 
 during the time. I will not enumerate them at 
 present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place. 
 
 There is another lying back of it — with which 
 this is intimately connected — that may be re- 
 
238 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 garded as the great and primary cause. This is 
 to be found in the fact that the equiUbrium between 
 the two sections in the Government as it stood when 
 the Constitution was ratified and the Government put 
 in action has been destroyed. At that time there was 
 nearly a perfect equihbrium between the two, which 
 afforded ample means to each to protect itself 
 against the aggression of the other; but, as it now 
 stands, one section has the exclusive power of con- 
 trolling the government, which leaves the other 
 without any adequate means of protecting itself 
 against its encroachment and oppression. To place 
 this subject distinctly before you, I have. Senators, 
 prepared a brief statistical statement, showing the 
 relative weight of the two sections in the Govern- 
 ment under the first census of 1790 and the last 
 census of 1840. . . . 
 
 The result of the whole is to give the North- 
 ern section a predominance in every department of 
 the Government, and thereby concentrate in it the 
 two elements which constitute the Federal Govern- 
 ment, — a majority of States, and a majority of 
 their population, estimated in Federal numbers. 
 Whatever section concentrates the two in itself 
 possesses the control of the entire Government. 
 
 But we are just at the close of the sixth dec- 
 ade and the commencement of the seventh. The 
 census is to be taken this year, which must add 
 greatly to the decided preponderance of the North 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 239 
 
 in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral 
 College. The prospect is, also, that a great increase 
 will be added to its present preponderance in the 
 Senate, during the period of the decade, by the ad- 
 dition of new States. Two Territories, Oregon and 
 Minnesota, are already in progress, and strenuous 
 efforts are making to bring in three additional States 
 from the Territory recently conquered from Mexico; 
 which, if successful, will add three other States in 
 a short time to the Northern section, making five 
 States, and increasing the present number of its 
 States from fifteen to twenty, and of its senators 
 from thirty to forty. On the contrary, there is 
 not a single Territory in progress in the Southern 
 section, and no certainty that any additional State 
 will be added to it during the decade. The prospect 
 then is, that the two sections in the Senate, should 
 the efforts now made to exclude the South from the 
 newly acquired Territories succeed, will stand, 
 before the end of the decade, twenty Northern 
 States to fourteen Southern (considering Delaware 
 as neutral), and forty Northern senators to twenty- 
 eight Southern. This great increase of senators, 
 added to the great increase of members of the House 
 of Representatives and the Electoral College on the 
 part of the North, which must take place under the 
 next decade, will effectually and irretrievably destroy 
 the equilibrium which existed when the Govern- 
 ment commenced. 
 
240 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Had this destruction been the operation of time 
 without the interference of government, the South 
 would have had no reason to complain; but such 
 was not the fact. It was caused by the legislation 
 of this Government, which was appointed as the 
 common agent of all and charged with the protection 
 of the interests and security of all. 
 
 The legislation by which it has been effected, 
 may be classed under three heads. The first is, 
 that series of acts by which the South has been 
 excluded from the common territory belonging to 
 all the States as members of the Federal Union — 
 which have had the effect of extending vastly the 
 portion allotted to the Northern section, and re- 
 stricting within narrow limits the portion left the 
 South. The next consists in adopting a system of 
 revenue and disbursements, by which an undue 
 proportion of the burden of taxation has been im- 
 posed upon the South, and an undue proportion of 
 its proceeds appropriated to the North; and the last 
 is a system of political measures by which the orig- 
 inal character of the Government has been radically 
 changed. 
 
 The first of the series of acts by which the South 
 was deprived of its due share of the Territories, 
 originated with the confederacy which preceded the 
 existence of this Government. It is to be found in 
 the provision of the ordinance of 1787. Its effect 
 was to exclude the South [i.e. slavery] entirely from 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 24I 
 
 that vast and fertile region which lies between the 
 Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, now embracing 
 five States and one Territory. The next of the series 
 is the Missouri Compromise, which excluded the 
 South from that large portion of Louisiana which 
 hes north of 36° 30', excepting what is included in 
 the State of Missouri. The last of the series ex- 
 cluded the South from the whole of the Oregon 
 Territory. All these, in the slang of the day, were 
 what are called slave Territories, and not free soil; 
 that is. Territories belonging to slaveholding powers 
 and open to the emigration of masters with their 
 slaves. By these several acts, the South was ex- 
 cluded from 1,238,025 square miles — an extent of 
 country considerably exceeding the entire valley 
 of the Mississippi. . . . 
 
 I have not included the territory recently acquired 
 by the treaty with Mexico. ... To sum up the 
 whole, the United States, since they declared their 
 independence, have acquired 2,373,046 square miles 
 of territory, from which the North will have ex- 
 cluded the South, if she should succeed in monopoliz- 
 ing the newly acquired Territories, about three- 
 fourths of the whole, leaving to the South but about 
 one-fourth. 
 
 Such is the first and great cause that has destroyed 
 the equilibrium between the two sections in the 
 Government. 
 
 The next is the system of revenue and disburse- 
 
242 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 ments which has been adopted by the Government. 
 It is well known that the Government has derived 
 its revenue mainly from duties on imports. I shall 
 not undertake to show that such duties must neces- 
 sarily fall mainly on the exporting States, and that 
 the South, as the great exporting portion of the 
 Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due 
 proportion of the revenue; because I deem it un- 
 necessary, as the subject has on so many occasions 
 been fully discussed. Nor shall I, for the same reason, 
 undertake to show that a far greater portion of the 
 revenue has been disbursed in the North, than its 
 due share; and that the joint effect of these causes 
 has been to transfer a vast amount from South to 
 North, which, under an equal system of revenue and 
 disbursements, would not have been lost to her. 
 If to this be added that many of the duties were 
 imposed, not for revenue but for protection, — that 
 is, intended to put money, not in the Treasury, but 
 directly into the pocket of the manufacturers, — 
 some conception may be formed of the immense 
 amount which in the long course of sixty years has 
 been transferred from South to North. There are 
 no data by which it can be estimated with any cer- 
 tainty; but it is safe to say that it amounts to hun- 
 dreds of millions of dollars. Under the most moder- 
 ate estimate it would be sufl&cient to add greatly to 
 the wealth of the North, and thus greatly increase 
 her population by attracting immigration from all 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 243 
 
 quarters to that section. This, combined with the 
 great primary cause, amply explains why the North 
 has acquired a preponderance in every department 
 of the Government by its disproportionate increase 
 of population and States. . . . 
 
 But while these measures were destroying the 
 equihbrium between the two sections, the action 
 of the Government was leading to a radical change 
 in its character, by concentrating all the power of 
 the system in itself. The occasion will not permit 
 me to trace the measures by which this great change 
 has been consummated. If it did, it would not be 
 difficult to show the process commenced at an early 
 period of the Government; and that it proceeded, 
 almost without interruption, step by step, until 
 it absorbed virtually its entire powers. . . . 
 
 The result of the whole of these causes combined 
 is — that the North has acquired a decided ascen- 
 dency over every department of this Government, 
 and through it a control over all the powers of the 
 system. A single section governed by the will of the 
 numerical majority, has now, in fact, the control 
 of the Government and the entire powers of the 
 system. What was once a constitutional federal 
 republic, is now converted, in reality, into one as 
 absolute as that of the Autocrat of Russia, and as 
 despotic in its tendency as any absolute government 
 that ever existed. . . . 
 
 But if ^here was no question of vital importance 
 
244 ^^^^ AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 to the South, in reference to which there was a 
 diversity of views between the two sections, this state 
 of things might be endured, without the hazard of 
 destruction to the South. But such is not the fact. 
 There is a question of vital importance to the South- 
 ern section, in reference to which the views and feel- 
 ings of the two sections are as opposite and hostile 
 as they can possibly be. 
 
 I refer to the relation between the two races in 
 the Southern section, which constitutes a vital por- 
 tion of her social organization. Every portion of 
 the North entertains views and feelings more or less 
 hostile to it. Those most opposed and hostile regard 
 it as a sin, and consider themselves under the most 
 sacred obligation to use every effort to destroy it. . . . 
 
 On the contrary, the Southern section regards the 
 relation as one which cannot be destroyed without 
 subjecting the two races to the greatest calamity, 
 and the section to poverty, desolation, and wretched- 
 ness; and accordingly they feel bound by every 
 consideration of interest and safety to defend it. . . . 
 
 Such is a brief history of the agitation, as far as it 
 has yet advanced. Now I ask. Senators, what is 
 there to prevent its further progress, until it fulfills 
 the ultimate end proposed, unless some decisive 
 measure should be adopted to prevent it ? Has any 
 one of the causes, which has added to its increase 
 from its original small and contemptible beginning 
 until it has attained its present magnitude, di- 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 245 
 
 minished in force ? . . . No — no — no ! The very 
 reverse is true. Instead of being weaker, all the 
 elements in favor of agitation are stronger now than 
 they were in 1835, when it first commenced, while 
 all the elements of influence on the part of the 
 South are weaker. . . . 
 
 Unless something decisive is done, I again ask, 
 What is to stop this agitation before the great and 
 final object at which it aims — the abolition of 
 slavery in the States — is consummated ? Is it, 
 then, not certain that if something is not done to 
 arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between 
 abolition and secession? Indeed, as events are 
 now moving, it will not require the South to secede 
 in order to dissolve the Union. Agitation will of 
 itself effect it, of which its past history furnishes 
 abundant proof — as I shall next proceed to show. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that disunion can 
 be effected by a single blow. The cords which bind 
 these States together in one common Union are far 
 too numerous and powerful for that. Disunion must 
 be the work of time. It is only through a long pro- 
 cess, and successively, that the cords can be snapped 
 until the whole fabric falls asunder. Already the 
 agitation of the slavery question has snapped some 
 of the most important, and has greatly weakened all 
 the others, as I shall proceed to show. . . . 
 
 If the agitation goes on, the same force, acting 
 with increased intensity, as has been shown, will 
 
246 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 finally snap every cord, when nothing will be left 
 to hold the States together except force. But surely 
 that can with no propriety of language be called a 
 Union when the only means by which the weaker is 
 held connected with the stronger portion is force. 
 It may, indeed, keep them connected; but the con- 
 nection will partake much more of the character of 
 subjugation on the part of the weaker to the stronger 
 than the union of free, independent, and sovereign 
 States in one confederation, as they stood in the 
 early stages of the Government, and which only is 
 worthy of the sacred name of Union. 
 
 Having now. Senators, explained what it is that 
 endangers the Union, and traced it to its cause, and 
 explained its nature and character, the question again 
 recurs, How can the Union be saved? To this I 
 answer, there is but one way by which it can be — 
 and that is, by adopting such measures as will 
 satisfy the States belonging to the Southern section 
 that they can remain in the Union consistently with 
 their honor and their safety. There is, again, only 
 one way by which this can be effected, and that is by 
 removing the causes by which this belief has been 
 produced. Do this, and discontent will cease, 
 harmony and kind feelings between the sections be 
 restored, and every apprehension of danger to the 
 Union removed. The question, then, is, How can 
 this be done? 
 
 But before I undertake to answer this question, 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 247 
 
 I propose to show by what the Union cannot be 
 saved. 
 
 [Mr. Calhoun here discussed insincere eulogies and cries 
 of "The Union!", Senator Clay's proposed Compromise 
 bill, the Administration's plan of allowing territorial in- 
 habitants instead of Congress to legislate for the Terri- 
 tories (''squatter sovereignty"), and particularly the 
 proposed admission of California as a State, its constitu- 
 tion (excluding slavery) having been formed by its inhab- 
 itants without an enabling act from Congress.] 
 
 Having now shown what cannot save the Union, 
 I return to the question with which I commenced, 
 How can the Union be saved ? . . . 
 
 There is but one way by which it can with any 
 certainty; and that is, by a full and final settlement, 
 on the principle of justice, of all the questions at 
 issue between the two sections. The South asks 
 for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to 
 take. She has no compromise to offer but the Con- 
 stitution, and no concession or surrender to make. 
 She has already surrendered so much that she has little 
 left to surrender. Such a settlement would go to the 
 root of the evil, and remove all cause of discontent, 
 by satisfying the South that she could remain hon- 
 orably and safely in the Union, and thereby restore 
 the harmony and fraternal feelings between the 
 sections which existed anterior to the Missouri 
 agitation. Nothing else can, with any certainty. 
 
248 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 finally and forever settle the question at issue, termi- 
 nate agitation, and save the Union. 
 
 But can this be done? Yes, easily; not by the 
 weaker party, for it can of itself do nothing — not 
 even protect itself — but by the stronger. The 
 North has only to will it to accomplish it: to do 
 justice by conceding to the South an equal right 
 in the acquired territory, and to do her duty by 
 causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves 
 to be faithfully fulfilled ; to cease the agitation of the 
 slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a 
 provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, 
 which will restore to the South, in substance, the 
 power she possessed of protecting herself before the 
 equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by 
 the action of this Government. There will be no 
 difiiculty in devising such a provision — one that will 
 protect the South, and which at the same time will 
 improve and strengthen the Government instead of 
 impairing and weakening it. 
 
 But will the North agree to this? It is for her to 
 answer the question. But, I will say, she cannot 
 refuse if she has half the love of the Union which 
 she professes to have, or without justly exposing 
 herself to the charge that her love of power and 
 aggrandizement is far greater than her love of the 
 Union. At all events, the responsibility of saving 
 the Union rests on the North, and not on the South. 
 The South cannot save it by any act of hers, and the 
 
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 249 
 
 North may save it without any sacrifice whatever, 
 unless to do justice and to perform her duties under 
 the Constitution should be regarded by her as a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 It is time, Senators, that there should be an open 
 and manly avowal on all sides as to what is intended 
 to be done. If the question is not now settled, it is 
 uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be; and we, 
 as the representatives of the States of this Union 
 regarded as governments, should come to a distinct 
 understanding as to our respective views, in order 
 to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can 
 be settled or not. If you who represent the stronger 
 portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad 
 principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the 
 States we both represent agree to separate and part 
 in peace. 
 
 If you are unwilling we should part in peace, 
 tell us so; and we shall know what to do when you 
 reduce the question to submission or resistance. 
 If you remain silent, you mil compel us to infer by 
 your acts w^hat you intend. In that case California 
 will become the test question. If you admit her 
 under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, 
 you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude 
 us from the whole of the acquired territories, with 
 the intention of destroying irretrievably the equi- 
 hbrium between the two sections. We would be 
 bhnd not to perceive in that case that your real 
 
250 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 objects are power and aggrandizement, and in- 
 fatuated not to act accordingly. 
 
 I have now, Senators, done my duty in expressing 
 my opinions fully, freely, and candidly on this solemn 
 occasion. In doing so I have been governed by the 
 motives which have governed me in all the stages 
 of the agitation of the slavery question since its 
 commencement. I have exerted myself during the 
 whole period to arrest it, wdth the intention of saving 
 the Union if it could be done; and if it could not, to 
 save the section where it has pleased Providence to 
 cast my lot, and which I sincerely believe has justice 
 and the Constitution on its side. Having faithfully 
 done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the 
 Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I 
 shall have the consolation, let what will come, that 
 I am free from all responsibility. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 I 809-1 865 
 
The Southern "poor white" is the type of lazy thriftlessness, 
 yet from that class arose Abraham Lincoln. Born in Ken- 
 tucky, migrating with his father, he grew up in Indiana and 
 Illinois. He had practically no schooling, was physically tall, 
 tough, and strong, had a tender heart, a clear head, a boundless 
 fund of humor, and an indomitable persistence in reading and 
 mastering the few books he could get. 
 
 In 1832 Lincoln went to the Black Hawk War. After 
 doing what he could in various country callings — meantime 
 learning men, trade, and politics, and gaining a name for 
 honesty and good judgment — he was in 1834 elected to the 
 Illinois legislature. Remaining there till 1842, he read law, in 
 1837 beginning practice in Springfield, Illinois. As a lawyer 
 Lincoln succeeded, because he was sensible, careful, honor- 
 able, refusing cases that he did not trust, knowing what to say 
 and how to say it. His assiduous study of a few great authors 
 and his own lucid thinking gave him a rare mastery of ex- 
 pression. In 1847 ^6 ^^^s elected to Congress for two years. 
 In 1858, already known in the West, he encountered in public 
 debate the able Senator Stephen A. Douglas — both seeking 
 the United States senatorship from Illinois. He lost that 
 prize, but achieved a reputation that, with other notable 
 addresses, made him President-elect in i860, and heir to the 
 awful burdens of the Civil War. 
 
 Lincoln's wise, kind, steady administration, his Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation of 1862, his reelection in 1864, the Union 
 triumph in 1865, and his assassination shortly after, are known 
 of all. The examples of his simple, cogent oratory given are 
 his brave speech on "The Divided House," at the Republican 
 Convention, nominating him for the Senate against Douglas 
 (June 16, 1858), — premonitory of Seward on "The Irrepress- 
 ible Conflict," in the following October, — and his immortal 
 address at the Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication (November 
 19, 1863). 
 
 352 
 
THE DIVIDED HOUSE 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Conven- 
 tion: If we could first know where we are, and 
 whither we are tending, we could better judge what 
 to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the 
 fifth year since a pohcy was initiated with the 
 avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an 
 end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of 
 that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, 
 but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it 
 will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached 
 and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand." I believe this government cannot endure 
 permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
 expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect 
 the house to fall ; but I do expect that it will cease 
 to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all 
 the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
 arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the behef that it is in the 
 course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will 
 push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in 
 all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
 South. Have we no tendency to the latter condi- 
 253 
 
254 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tion ? Let any one who doubts carefully contem- 
 plate that now almost complete legal combination- 
 piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the 
 Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. 
 Let him consider not only what work the machinery 
 is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let 
 him study the history of its construction, and trace, 
 if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences 
 of design and concert of action among its chief archi- 
 tects from the beginning. 
 
 The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from 
 more than half the States by State constitutions, 
 and from most of the national territory by Congres- 
 sional prohibition. Four days later commenced the 
 struggle which ended in repeahng that Congressional 
 prohibition. This opened all the national territory 
 to slavery, and was the first point gained. But, 
 so far, Congress only had acted, and an indorsement, 
 by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, 
 to save the point already gained and give chance for 
 more. This necessity had not been overlooked, 
 but had been provided for, as well as might be, 
 in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," 
 otherwise called ''sacred right of self-government"; 
 which latter phrase, though expressive of the only 
 rightful basis of any government, was so perverted 
 in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: 
 that, if any one man choose to enslave another, 
 no third man shall be allowed to object. That argu- 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 255 
 
 ment was incorporated with the Nebraska bill itself, 
 in the language which follows: "It being the true 
 intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate slav- 
 ery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it 
 therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
 free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
 their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
 United States." Then opened the roar of loose 
 declamation in favor of ''squatter sovereignty," 
 and "sacred right of self-government." "But," 
 said opposition members, "let us amend the bill so 
 as to expressly declare that the people of the Terri- 
 tory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the 
 friends of the measure; and down they voted the 
 amendment. 
 
 While the Nebraska bill was passing through 
 Congress, a law case, involving the question of a 
 negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having volun- 
 tarily taken him first into a free State, and then into 
 a Territory covered by the Congressional prohibi- 
 tion, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, 
 was passing through the United States Circuit Court 
 for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska 
 bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the 
 same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was 
 Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision 
 finally made in the case. Before the then next presi- 
 dential election, the law case came to, and was 
 argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; 
 
256 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 but the decision of it was deferred until after the 
 election. Still, before the election, Senator Trum- 
 bull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading 
 advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion 
 whether the people of a Territory can constitution- 
 ally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter 
 answers: ''That is a question for the Supreme 
 Court." 
 
 The election came, Mr. Buchanan was elected, 
 and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That 
 was the second point gained. The indorsement, 
 however, fell short of a clear popular majority by 
 nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, 
 was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. 
 The outgoing President, in his last annual message, 
 as impressively as possible, echoed back upon the 
 people the weight and authority of the indorsement. 
 The Supreme Court met again, did not announce 
 their decision, but ordered a reargument. The presi- 
 dential inauguration came, and still no decision of the 
 court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural 
 address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by 
 the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. 
 Then, in a few days, came the decision. The reputed 
 author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to 
 make a speech at this capital [Douglas, at Spring- 
 field, Illinois], indorsing the Dred Scott decision, 
 and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. 
 The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 257 
 
 the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe 
 that decision, and to express his astonishment that 
 any different view had ever been entertained. 
 
 At length a squabble springs up between the 
 President and the author of the Nebraska bill, 
 on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton 
 constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, made 
 by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the 
 latter declares that all he w^ants is a fair vote for the 
 people, and that he cares not whether slavery be 
 voted down or voted up. I do not understand his 
 declaration, that he cares not whether slavery be 
 voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other 
 than as an apt definition of the policy he would im- 
 press upon the public mind — the .principle for which 
 he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready 
 to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that 
 principle. If he has any parental feeUng, well may 
 he cHng to it. That principle is the only shred left 
 of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred 
 Scott decision sc[uatter sovereignty squattered out 
 of existence — tumbled down like temporary scaf- 
 folding — like the mold at the foundry, served 
 through one blast, and fell back into loose sand — 
 helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to 
 the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republi- 
 cans against the Lecompton constitution involves 
 nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That 
 struggle was made on a point — the right of a people 
 
258 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 to make their own constitution — upon which he 
 and the RepubUcans have never differed. 
 
 The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in 
 connection with Senator Douglas's "care-not" 
 policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its pres- 
 ent state of advancement. This was the third point 
 gained. The working points of that machinery are: 
 (i) That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, 
 and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen 
 of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the 
 Constitution of the United States. This point is 
 made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible 
 event, of the benefit of that provision of the United 
 States Constitution, which declares that "the citi- 
 zens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
 and immunities of citizens in the several States." 
 (2) That, "subject to the Constitution of the United 
 States," neither Congress nor a Territorial legisla- 
 ture can exclude slavery from any United States 
 territory. This point is made in order that individ- 
 ual men may fill up the territories with slaves, with- 
 out danger of losing them as property, and thus to 
 enhance the chances of permanency to the institu- 
 tion through all the future. (3) That whether the 
 holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State makes 
 him free, as against the holder, the United States 
 courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided 
 by the courts of any slave State the negro may be 
 forced into by the master. This point is made, 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 259 
 
 not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in 
 for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people 
 at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion 
 that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do 
 with Dred Scott, in the State of Illinois, every other 
 master may lawfully do with any other one or one 
 thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free 
 State. 
 
 AuxiHary to all this, and working hand in hand 
 with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, 
 is to educate and mold public opinion, at least 
 Northern public opinion, not to '' care whether 
 slavery is voted down or voted up." This shows 
 exactly where we now are, and partially, also, 
 whither we are tending. 
 
 It will throw additional light on the latter to go 
 back, and run the mind over the string of historical 
 facts already stated. Several things will now appear 
 less dark and mysterious than they did when they 
 were transpiring. The people were to be left * per- 
 fectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." 
 What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders 
 could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an 
 exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to 
 come in afterward, and declare the perfect freedom 
 of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why 
 was the amendment expressly declaring the right of 
 the people voted down? Plainly enough now: 
 the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for 
 
26o BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court deci- 
 sion held up ? Why even a Senator's individual 
 opinion withheld till after the presidential election ? 
 Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would 
 have damaged the "perfectly free" argument upon 
 which the election was to be carried. Why the out- 
 going President's feUcitation on the indorsement ? 
 Why the delay of a reargument ? Why the incoming 
 President's advance exhortation in favor of the 
 decision ? These things look like the cautious patting 
 and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mount- 
 ing him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider 
 a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the 
 decision by the President and others ? 
 
 We cannot absolutely know that all these exact 
 adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when 
 we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of 
 which we know have been gotten out at different 
 times and places, and by different workmen, — 
 Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, 
 — and when we see these timbers joined together, 
 and see that they exactly make the frame of a house 
 or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, 
 and all the lengths and proportions of the different 
 pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, 
 and not a piece too many or too few — not omitting 
 even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, 
 we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and pre- 
 pared yet to bring such piece in — in such a case, 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 261 
 
 we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen, 
 Franklin and Roger and James all understood one 
 another from the beginning, and all worked upon a 
 common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow 
 was struck. 
 
 It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska 
 bill, the people of a State, as well as Territory, were 
 to be left ''perfectly free," ''subject only to the Con- 
 stitution." Why mention a State? They were 
 legislating for Territories, and not for or about 
 States. Certainly, the people of a State are and 
 ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United 
 States; but why is mention of this lugged into this 
 merely Territorial law? Why are the people of a 
 Territory and the people of a State therein lumped 
 together, and their relation to the Constitution 
 therein treated as being precisely the same ? While 
 the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, 
 in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of 
 all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the 
 Constitution of the United States permits neither 
 Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude 
 slavery from any United States territory, they all 
 omit to declare whether or not the same Constitu- 
 tion permits a State, or the people of a State, to 
 exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but 
 who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had 
 sought to get into the opinion a declaration of un- 
 limited power in the people of a State to exclude 
 
262 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace 
 sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people 
 of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill — I ask, who 
 can be quite sure that it would not have been voted 
 down in the one case as it had been in the other ? 
 
 The nearest approach to the point of declaring 
 the power of a State over slavery is made by Judge 
 Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using 
 the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the 
 Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact language 
 is: '' Except in cases when the power is restrained by 
 the Constitution of the United States, the law of the 
 State is supreme over the subjects of slavery within 
 its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the 
 States is so restrained by the United States Constitu- 
 tion is left an open question, precisely as the same 
 question, as to the restraint on the power of the 
 Territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. 
 Put this and that together, and we have another nice 
 little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with 
 another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the 
 Constitution of the United States does not permit 
 a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this 
 may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care 
 not whether slavery be voted down or voted up," 
 shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give 
 promise that such a decision can be maintained when 
 made. 
 
 Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 263 
 
 being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or 
 unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and 
 will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present 
 political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We 
 shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people 
 of Missouri are on the verge of making their State 
 free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that 
 the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. 
 To meet and overthrow that dynasty is the work 
 before all those who would prevent that consumma- 
 tion. That is what we have to do. How can we 
 best do it ? 
 
 There are those who denounce us openly to their 
 own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator 
 Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which 
 to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, 
 from the fact that he now has a httle quarrel w^ith the 
 present head of the dynasty; and that he has regu- 
 larly voted with us on a single point, upon which 
 he and we have never differed. They remind us 
 that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are 
 very small ones. Let this be granted. "But a 
 living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Doug- 
 las, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a 
 caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the 
 advances of slavery? He don't care anything about 
 it. His avowed mission is impressing the ''pubHc 
 heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 
 Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior 
 
264 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 talent will be needed to resist the revival of the 
 African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort 
 to revive that trade is approaching ? He has not said 
 so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, how can 
 he resist it ? For years he has labored to prove it a 
 sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into 
 the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it 
 is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be 
 bought cheapest ? And unquestionably they can be 
 bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He 
 has done all in his power to reduce the whole question 
 of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as 
 such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade ? 
 How can he refuse that trade in that "property" 
 shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it as a pro- 
 tection to the home production ? And as the home 
 producers will probably ask the protection, he will 
 be wholly without a ground of opposition. 
 
 Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
 rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday 
 — that he may rightfully change when he finds him- 
 self wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, 
 and infer that he will make any particular change, 
 of which he himself has given no intimation ? Can 
 we safely base our action upon any such vague 
 inference ? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepre- 
 sent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, 
 or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. 
 Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 265 
 
 principle, so that our cause may have assistance from 
 his great abihty, I hope to have interposed no 
 adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now 
 with us — he does not pretend to be, he does not 
 promise ever to be. 
 
 Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con- 
 ducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose 
 hands are free, whose hearts are in the work — who 
 do care for the result. Two years ago the Republi- 
 cans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred 
 thousand strong. We did this under the single 
 impulse of resistance to a common danger. With 
 every external circumstance against us, of strange, 
 discordant, and even hostile elements, w^e gathered 
 from the four winds, and formed and fought the 
 ])attle through, under the constant hot fire of a 
 disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we 
 brave all then, to falter now ? — now, when that 
 same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent ! 
 The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if 
 we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels 
 may accelerate, or mistakes delay it; but, sooner or 
 later, the victory is sure to come. 
 
 THE GETTYSBURG CEMETERY 
 
 Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
 brought forth upon this continent a new nation, con- 
 ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
 
266 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged 
 in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
 nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 
 We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We 
 have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final 
 resting-place for those who here gave their fives 
 that that nation might five. It is altogether fitting 
 and proper that we should do this. But in a larger 
 sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we 
 cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
 and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it 
 far above our power to add or detract. The world 
 will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, 
 but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
 for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the 
 unfinished work which they who fought here have 
 thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be 
 here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, 
 that from these honored dead we take increased 
 devotion to that cause for which they gave the last 
 full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve 
 that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this 
 nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
 and that the government of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 
 
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD 
 
 1801-1872 
 
Country born and bred, in western New York State, Seward 
 graduated at Union College, studied law, and practiced it in 
 Auburn until 1830, when he was elected to the State Senate. 
 He was a man of excellent sense and judgment, cool and clear- 
 headed, gifted with a persuasive logic in speech, and wisely 
 pursuant of ethical aims in legislation. He was also a shrewd 
 reader of men and political conditions, and, both as a Whig 
 party man and a promoter of statesmanlike views, he was soon 
 a recognized leader. An unsuccessful candidacy for Governor 
 of New York in 1834 was succeeded by a success in 1838, and 
 a reelection in 1840, while in 1843 he was sent to the United 
 States Senate. He remained there through all the turbulent 
 excitement of the ante-war period until 1861, and was, both in 
 the Senate and in many addresses throughout the North, one 
 of the most noted men of the new Republican party which he 
 had helped organize in 1856. 
 
 Seward was generally expected to be the Republican candi- 
 date in i860, but Providence had for that place a simpler yet 
 a stronger man in Lincoln. He became, however, head of 
 Lincoln's cabinet as Secretary of State, and was of signal ser- 
 vice in various matters, especially in the Trent complication 
 with England, in persuading France to withdraw her troops 
 from Mexico, and in the purchase of Alaska from Russia. 
 
 On the night of Lincoln's assassination Seward was bru- 
 tally attacked, but he recovered, and aided Johnson during 
 the reconstruction tangle. He made several trips to Europe, 
 in 1870-187 1 going around the world. One of Seward's 
 most famous speeches — that on the "Irrepressible Conflict" 
 (October 25, 1858) — is here given. Possibly suggested by 
 Lincoln's speech on " The Divided House," it was yet a land- 
 mark in a time of political drifting, and showed the country 
 its true position. 
 
 268 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 
 
 The unmistakable outbreaks of zeal which occur 
 all around me show that you are earnest men — and 
 such a man am I. Let us, therefore, at least for a 
 time, pass all secondary and collateral questions, 
 whether of a personal or of a general nature, and 
 consider the main subject of the present canvass. 
 The Democratic party, or, to speak more accurately, 
 the party which wears that attractive name — is in 
 possession of the Federal government. The Repub- 
 licans propose to dislodge that party, and dismiss 
 it from its high trust. 
 
 The main subject, then, is whether the Demo- 
 cratic party deserves to retain the confidence of the 
 American people. In attempting to prove it un- 
 worthy, I think that I am not actuated by prejudices 
 against that party, or by prepossessions in favor 
 of its adversary; for I have learned, by some expe- 
 rience, that virtue and patriotism, \dce and selfish- 
 ness, are found in all parties, a:nd that they differ 
 less in their motives than in the policies they pursue. 
 
 Our country is a theater, which exhibits, in full 
 operation, two radically different poHtical systems; 
 269 
 
270 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, 
 the other on voluntary labor of freemen. The 
 laborers who are enslaved are all negroes, or persons 
 more or less purely of African derivation. But this 
 is only accidental. The principle of the system is, 
 that labor in every society, by whomsoever per- 
 formed, is necessarily unintellectual, groveling, and 
 base; and that the laborer, equally for his own 
 good and for the welfare of the State, ought to be 
 enslaved. The white laboring man, whether native 
 or foreigner, is not enslaved, only because he cannot, 
 as yet, be reduced to bondage. 
 
 You need not be told now that the slave system 
 is the older of the two, and that once it was universal. 
 The emancipation of our own ancestors, Caucasians 
 and Europeans as they were, hardly dates beyond 
 a period of five hundred years. The great meUora- 
 tion of human society which modern times exhibit 
 is mainly due to the incomplete substitution of the 
 system of voluntary labor for the one of servile labor, 
 which has already taken place. This African slave 
 system is one which, in its origin and in its growth, 
 has been altogether foreign from the habits of the 
 races which colonized these States, and established 
 civiUzation here. It was introduced on this conti- 
 nent as an engine of conquest, and for the establish- 
 ment of monarchical power, by the Portuguese and 
 the Spaniards, and was rapidly extended by them 
 all over South America, Central America, Louisiana, 
 
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD 27 1 
 
 and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits are seen in the 
 poverty, imbecility, and anarchy which now pervade 
 all Portuguese and Spanish America. The free- 
 labor system is of German extraction, and it was 
 established in our country by emigrants from Sweden, 
 Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. 
 We justly ascribe to its influences the strength, 
 wealth, greatness, intelligence, and freedom, which 
 the whole American people now enjoy. One of the 
 chief elements of the value of human life is freedom 
 in the pursuit of happiness. The slave system is 
 not only intolerable, unjust, and inhuman, toward 
 the laborer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it 
 loads down with chains and converts into mer- 
 chandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the free- 
 man, to whom, only because he is a laborer from 
 necessity, it denies faciHties for employment, and 
 whom it expels from the community because it can- 
 not enslave and convert into merchandise also. 
 It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, 
 as a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, 
 or droop and decUne, in just the degree that they 
 practice or neglect to practice the primary duties of 
 justice and humanity. The free-labor system con- 
 forms to the divine law of equality, which is wTitten 
 in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore 
 is always and everywhere beneficent. 
 
 The slave system is one of constant danger, dis- 
 trust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those 
 
272 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources 
 for defense, to the lowest degree of which human 
 nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and in- 
 surrection, and thus wastes energies which other- 
 wise might be employed in national development 
 and aggrandizement. 
 
 The free-labor system educates all alike, and by 
 opening all the fields of industrial employment and 
 all the departments of authority, to the unchecked 
 and ec^ual rivalry of all classes of men, at once 
 secures universal contentment, and brings into the 
 highest possible acti\dty all the physical, moral, and 
 social energies of the whole state. In states where 
 the slave system prevails, the masters, directly or 
 indirectly, secure all political power, and constitute 
 a ruling aristocracy. In states where the free-labor 
 system prevails, universal suffrage necessarily obtains, 
 and the state inevitably becomes, sooner or later, a 
 republic or democracy. . . . [European instances.] 
 
 In the United States, slavery came into collision 
 with free labor at the close of the last century, and 
 fell before it in New England, New York, New 
 Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but triumphed over it 
 effectually, and excluded it for a period yet unde- 
 termined, from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. 
 Indeed, so incompatible are the two systems, that 
 every new State which is organized wathin our ever 
 extending domain makes its first political act a choice 
 of the one and the exclusion of the other, even at the 
 
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD 273 
 
 cost of civil war, if necessary. The slave States, 
 without law, at the last national election, successfully 
 forbade, within their own limits, even the casting of 
 votes for a candidate for President of the United 
 States supposed to be favorable to the estabhshment 
 of the free-labor system in new States. 
 
 Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different 
 States, but side by side within the American Union. 
 This has happened because the Union is a confedera- 
 tion of States. But in another aspect the United 
 States constitute only one nation. Increase of popu- 
 lation, which is filling the States out to their very 
 borders, together with a new and extended network 
 of railroads and other avenues, and an internal com- 
 merce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly 
 bringing the States into a higher and more perfect 
 social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antago- 
 nistic systems are continually coming into closer con- 
 tact, and colhsion results. 
 
 Shall I tell you what this colhsion means ? They 
 who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the 
 work of interested or fanatical agitators, and there- 
 fore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an 
 irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring 
 forces, and it means that the United States must 
 and will, sooner or later, become either entirely 
 a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. 
 Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina 
 and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately 
 
274 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New 
 Orleans become marts of legitimate merchandise 
 alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massa- 
 chusetts and New York must again be surrendered 
 by their farmers to slave culture and to the produc- 
 tion of slaves, and Boston and New York become 
 once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls 
 of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great 
 truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts 
 at final compromises between the slave and free 
 States, and it is the existence of this great fact that 
 renders all such pretended compromises, when made, 
 vain and ephemeral. 
 
 Startling as this saying may appear to you, fellow- 
 citizens, it is by no means an original or even a 
 modern one. Our forefathers knew it to be true, 
 and unanimously acted upon it w^hen they framed 
 the Constitution of the United States. They re- 
 garded the existence of the servile system in so 
 many of the States with sorrow and shame, which 
 they openly confessed, and they looked upon the 
 collision between them, which was then just reveal- 
 ing itself, and which we are now accustomed to de- 
 plore, with favor and hope. They knew that one 
 or the other system must exclusively prevail. 
 
 Unlike too many of those who in modern time 
 invoke their authority, they had a choice between the 
 two. They preferred the system of free labor, and 
 they determined to organize the government, and 
 
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD 275 
 
 SO direct its activity, that that system should surely 
 and certainly prevail. ... It is true that they 
 necessarily and wisely modified this policy of free- 
 dom by leaving it to the several States, affected as 
 they were by different circumstances, to abolish 
 slavery in their own way and at their own pleasure, 
 instead of confiding that duty to Congress; and that 
 they secured to the slave States, while yet retaining 
 the system of slavery, a three-fifths representation 
 of slaves in the Federal government, until they should 
 find themselves able to relinquish it with safety. 
 But the very nature of these modifications fortifies my 
 position, that the fathers knew that the two systems 
 could not endure within the Union, and expected 
 within a short period slavery would disappear for- 
 ever. Moreover, in order that these modifications 
 might not altogether defeat their grand design of 
 a republic maintaining universal equality, they 
 provided that two-thirds of the States might amend 
 the Constitution. . . . 
 
 It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the 
 course of that contest has not been according to 
 their humane anticipations and wishes. In the 
 field of Federal politics, slavery, deriving unlooked- 
 for advantages from commercial changes, and energies 
 unforeseen from the faciUties of combination between 
 members of the slaveholding class and between that 
 class and other property classes, early rallied, and 
 has at length made a stand, not merely to retain 
 
276 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 its original defensive position, but to extend its sway 
 throughout the whole Union. . . . 
 
 The very constitution of the Democratic party 
 commits it to execute all the designs of the slave- 
 holders, whatever they may be. It is not a party 
 of the whole Union, of all the free States and of all 
 the slave States; nor yet is it a party of the free 
 States in the North and in the Northwest; but it is 
 a sectional and local party, having practically its 
 seat within the slave States, and counting its con- 
 stituency chiefly and almost exclusively there. 
 Of all its representatives in Congress and in the 
 electoral colleges, two- thirds uniformly come from 
 these States. Its great element of strength lies in 
 the vote of the slaveholders, augmented by the 
 representation of three-fifths of the slaves. Deprive 
 the Democratic party of this strength, and it would 
 be a helpless and hopeless minority, incapable of 
 continued organization. The Democratic party, be- 
 ing thus local and sectional, acquires new strength 
 from the admission of every new slave State, and 
 loses relatively by the admission of every new free 
 State into the Union. . . . 
 
 To expect the Democratic party to resist slavery 
 and favor freedom is as unreasonable as to look for 
 Protestant missionaries to the CathoHc propaganda 
 of Rome. The history of the Democratic party 
 commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been 
 the Democratic party, and no other agency, which 
 
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD 277 
 
 has carried that policy up to its present alarming 
 culmination. . . . 
 
 [Here Air. Seward gave a historical sketch of the trans- 
 actions by which the Democratic party had fostered the 
 interests of slavery.] 
 
 Such is the Democratic party. It has no policy, 
 State or Federal, for finance, or trade, or manufac- 
 ture, or commerce, or education, or internal improve- 
 ments, or for the protection or even the security of 
 civil or religious liberty. It is positive and uncom- 
 promising in the interest of slavery — negative, 
 compromising, and vacillating in regard to every- 
 thing else. It boasts its love of equahty, and 
 wastes its strength, and even its life, in fortifying 
 the only aristocracy known in the land. . . . 
 
 This dark record shows you, fellow-citizens, what 
 I was unw^illing to announce at an earher stage of 
 this argument, that of the whole nefarious schedule 
 of slaveholding designs which I have submitted to 
 you, the Democratic party has left only one yet to 
 be consummated — the abrogation of the law which 
 forbids the African slave-trade. . . . 
 
 At last, the RepubUcan party has appeared. It 
 avows, now, as the Repubhcan party of 1800 did, 
 in one word, its faith and its works, ''Equal and 
 exact justice to all men." Even when it first entered 
 the field, only half organized, it struck a blow which 
 only just failed to secure complete and triumphant 
 
278 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 victory. In this, its second campaign, it has already 
 won advantages which render that triumph now 
 both easy and certain. The secret of its assured 
 success Hes in that very characteristic which, in 
 the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its great and last- 
 ing imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact 
 that it is a party of one idea; but- that is a noble 
 one — an idea that fills and expands all generous 
 souls; the idea of equality — the equality of all 
 men before human tribunals and human laws, as 
 they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and 
 Divine law^s. 
 
 I know, and you know, that a revolution has 
 begun. I know, and all the world knows, that 
 revolutions never go backward. Twenty senators 
 and a hundred representatives proclaim boldly in 
 Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and 
 principles of freedom which hardly so many men, 
 even in this free State, dared to utter in their own 
 homes twenty years ago. While the government 
 of the United States, under the conduct of the Demo- 
 cratic party, has been all that time surrendering 
 one plain and castle after another to slavery, the 
 people of the United States have been no less steadily 
 and perseveringly gathering together the forces with 
 which to recover back again all the fields and all 
 the castles which have been lost, and to confound 
 and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers 
 of the Constitution and freedom forever. 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 1811-1884 
 
Of an old and wealthy family in Boston, young Phillips 
 was graduated at Harvard, and in 1834 began the practice of 
 law. Becoming more and more dissatisfied with the constitu- 
 tional limitations that prevented interference with slavery in 
 the South, he deserted the law and its binding oath of allegiance 
 to the Constitution, and from 1839 threw his lot in with the 
 extreme Abolitionists, becoming their chief spokesman. 
 
 His aristocratic appearance, cultured phrases, and refined 
 rhetoric gave polish and point to the rapier-like thrusts of his 
 argument. Seemingly calm and well-poised, he aroused his 
 audiences to intense feeling, and was one of the most effective 
 of the early agitators who incited the antislavery sentiment in 
 the North. 
 
 But Phillips was also a noted lyceum lecturer. His ad- 
 dresses on "The Lost Arts," "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and 
 others, always attracted thronged houses. Whether one agreed 
 with Phillips or not, the orator's charm was upon him, and 
 the voice, the manner, the deliverance itself, were delightful. 
 
 After the emancipation of the slaves, Phillips turned his at- 
 tention more specifically to woman suffrage, temperance, labor 
 and penal reforms, although he had from the first advocated 
 these causes, and was in 1870 the unsuccessful candidate for 
 Governor of Massachusetts on a Labor and Prohibition ticket. 
 In these matters, however, he made no such effect as in his 
 earlier antislavery days. His address on Toussaint L'Ouver- 
 ture, which follows, is selected as showing at once his historical 
 and descriptive power and his devotion to the enslaved negro 
 race. First delivered in 1861, it was repeated on demand of 
 those to whom he was to lecture more than two thousand times. 
 
 Phillips was never a self-seeker, but was a rare example of 
 a man of wealth, culture, and high social position, devoting all 
 that he was and had to the uplifting of the unfortunate." 
 
 280 
 
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 
 
 There are three tests by which races love to be 
 tried. The first, the basis of all, is courage, — the 
 element which says, here and to-day, "This con- 
 tinent is mine, from the Lakes to the Gulf: let him 
 beware who seeks to divide it!" And the second 
 is the recognition that force is doubled by purpose; 
 liberty regulated by law is the secret of Saxon prog- 
 ress. And the third element is persistency, endur- 
 ance; first a purpose, then death or success. Of 
 these three elements is made that Saxon pluck which 
 has placed our race in the van of modern civilization. 
 
 In the hour you lend me to-night, I attempt the 
 quixotic effort to convince you that the negro blood, 
 instead of standing at the bottom of the list, is en- 
 titled, if judged either by its great men or its masses, 
 either by its courage, its purpose, or its endurance, 
 to a place as near ours as any other blood known in 
 history. And, for the purpose of my argument, 
 I take an island, St. Domingo, about the size of 
 South Carolina, the third spot in America upon 
 which Columbus placed his foot. Charmed by the 
 magnificence of its scenery and fertility of its soil, 
 he gave it the fondest of all names, Hispaniola, 
 281 
 
282 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Little Spain. His successor, more pious, rebaptized 
 it from St. Dominic, St. Domingo; and when the 
 blacks, in 1803, drove our white blood from its 
 surface, they drove our names with us, and began 
 the year 1804 under the old name, Hayti, the land 
 of mountains. 
 
 It was originally tenanted by filibusters, French 
 and Spanish, of the early commercial epochs, the 
 pirates of that day as of ours. The Spanish took the 
 eastern two-thirds, the French the western third 
 of the island, and they gradually settled into colonies. 
 The French, to whom my story belongs, became the 
 pet colony of the mother land. Guarded by peculiar 
 privileges, enriched by the scions of wealthy houses, 
 aided by the unmatched fertility of the soil, it soon 
 was the richest gem in the Bourbon crown; and at 
 the period to which I call your attention, about the 
 era of our Constitution, 1789, its wealth was almost 
 incredible. The effeminacy of the white race 
 rivaled that of the Sybarite of antiquity, while 
 the splendor of their private life outshone Versailles, 
 and their luxury found no mate but in the mad 
 prodigaUty of the Caesars. At this time the island 
 held about thirty thousand whites, twenty or thirty 
 thousand mulattoes, and five hundred thousand 
 slaves. The slave-trade was active. About twenty- 
 five thousand slaves were imported annually; and 
 this only sufl&ced to fill the gap which the murderous 
 culture of sugar annually produced. The mulattoes, 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 283 
 
 as with us, were children of the slaveholders, but, 
 unlike us, the French slaveholder never forgot his 
 child by a bondwoman. He gave him everything 
 but his name, — wealth, rich plantations, gangs of 
 slaves ; sent him to Paris for his education, summoned 
 the best culture of France for the instruction of his 
 daughters, so that in 1790 the mulatto race held 
 one-third of the real estate and one-quarter of the 
 personal estate of the island. But though educated 
 and rich, he bowed under the same yoke as with us. 
 Subjected to special taxes, he could hold no public 
 ofhce, and, if convicted of any crime, was punished 
 with double severity. His son might not sit on the 
 same seat at school with a white boy; he might not 
 enter a church where a white man was worshiping; 
 if he reached a town on horseback, he must dismount 
 and lead his horse by the bridle; and when he died, 
 even his dust could not rest in the same soil with 
 a white body. Such was the white race and the 
 mulatto, — the thin film of a civilization beneath 
 which surged the dark mass of five hundred thousand 
 slaves. 
 
 It was over such a population, . . . that there 
 burst, in 1789, the thunderstorm of the French Rev- 
 olution. The first words which reached the island 
 were the motto of the Jacobin Club, — "Liberty, 
 Equality." The white man heard them aghast. 
 He had read of the streets of Paris running blood. 
 The slave heard them with indifference; it was a 
 
284 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 quarrel in the upper air, between other races, which 
 did not concern him. The mulatto heard them 
 with a welcome which no dread of other classes could 
 quell. Hastily gathered into conventions, they 
 sent to Paris a committee of the whole body, laid at 
 the feet of the National Convention the free gift 
 of six millions of francs, pledged one-fifth of their 
 annual rental toward the payment of the national 
 debt, and only asked in return that this yoke of civil 
 and social contempt should be Kfted from their 
 shoulders. . . . 
 
 The Convention hastened to express its gratitude, 
 and issued a decree which commences thus: "All 
 freeborn French citizens are equal before the law." 
 Oge was selected — the friend of Lafayette, a lieu- 
 tenant-colonel in the Dutch service, the son of a 
 wealthy mulatto woman, educated in Paris, the 
 comrade of all the leading French Republicans — 
 to carry the decree and the message of French 
 Democracy to the island. He landed. The decree 
 of the National Convention was laid on the table 
 of the General Assembly of the island. One old 
 planter seized it, tore it in fragments, and trampled 
 it under his feet, swearing by all the saints in the 
 calendar that the island might sink before they would 
 share their rights with bastards. They took an old 
 mulatto, worth a million, who had simply asked 
 for his rights under that decree, and hung him. 
 A white lawyer of seventy, who drafted the petition, 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 285 
 
 they hung at his side. They took Oge, broke him 
 on the wheel, ordered him to be drawn and quartered, 
 and one quarter of his body to be hung up in each 
 of the four principal cities of the island; and then 
 they adjourned. 
 
 You can conceive better than I can describe the 
 mood in which Mirabeau and Danton received the 
 news that their decree had been torn in pieces and 
 trampled under foot by the petty legislature of an 
 island colony, and their comrade drawn and quartered 
 by the orders of its Governor. Robespierre rushed 
 to the tribune and shouted, "Perish the colonies 
 rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles!" 
 The Convention reaffirmed their decree, and sent it 
 out a second time to be executed. 
 
 But it was not then as now, when steam has married 
 the continents. It took months to communicate; 
 and while this news of the death of Oge and the 
 defiance of the National Convention was going to 
 France, and the answer returning, great events 
 had taken place in the island itself. The Spanish 
 of the eastern section, perceiving these divisions, 
 invaded the towns of the western, and conquered 
 many of its cities. One-half of the slaveholders were 
 republicans, in love with the new constellation which 
 had just gone up in our Northern sky, seeking to be 
 admitted a State in this Republic, plotting for an- 
 nexation. The other half were loyalists, anxious, 
 deserted as they supposed themselves by the Bour- 
 
286 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 bons, to make alliance with George III. They sent 
 to Jamaica, and entreated its Governor to assist 
 them in their intrigue. At first, he lent them only 
 a few hundred soldiers. Some time later, General 
 Howe and Admiral Parker were sent with several 
 thousand men, and finally, the English government 
 entering more seriously into the plot, General Mait- 
 land landed with four thousand Englishmen on the 
 north side of the island, and gained many successes. 
 The mulattoes were in the mountains, awaiting 
 events. They distrusted the government, which 
 a few years before they had assisted to put down an 
 insurrection of the whites, and which had forfeited 
 its promise to grant them civil privileges. De- 
 serted by both sections, Blanchelande, the Governor, 
 had left the capital, and fled for refuge to a neigh- 
 boring city. . . . 
 
 Deserted now by the whites and by the mulattoes, 
 only one force was left him in the island, — that was 
 the blacks : they had always remembered with 
 gratitude the code noir, black code, of Louis XIV, 
 the first interference of any power in their behalf. 
 To the blacks Blanchelande appealed. He sent a 
 deputation to the slaves. He was aided by the agents 
 of Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X, who was 
 seeking to do in St. Domingo w^hat Charles II did 
 in Virginia (whence its name of Old Dominion), 
 institute a reaction against the rebellion at home. 
 The two joined forces, and sent first to Toussaint. . . . 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 287 
 
 He said, therefore, to the envoys, "Where are your 
 credentials?" "We have none." "I will have 
 nothing to do with you. " They then sought Francois 
 and Biassou, two other slaves of strong passions, 
 considerable intellect, and great influence over their 
 fellow-slaves, and said, "Arm, assist the government, 
 put down the English on the one hand, and the 
 Spanish on the other;" and on the 21st of August, 
 1 791, fifteen thousand blacks, led by Franfois and 
 Biassou, supplied with arms from the arsenal of 
 the government, appeared in the midst of the colony. 
 It is believed that Toussaint, unwilling himself to 
 head the movement, was still desirous that it should 
 go forward, trusting, as proved the case, that it would 
 result in benefit to his race. He is supposed to have 
 advised Francois in his course, — saving himself 
 for a more momentous hour. 
 
 This is what Edward Everett calls the Insurrection 
 of St. Domingo. It bore for its motto on one side 
 of its banner, "Long live the King," and on the 
 other, "We claim the Old Laws." Singular mottoes 
 for a rebellion! In fact, it was the posse comitatus; 
 it was the only French army on the island; it was 
 the only force that had a right to bear arms; and 
 what it undertook, it achieved. It put Blanchelande 
 in his seat ; it put the island beneath his rule. When 
 it was done, the blacks said to the Governor they 
 had created, "Now, grant us one day in seven; give 
 us one day's labor; we will buy another, and with 
 
288 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the two buy a third," — the favorite method of 
 emancipation at that time. Like the Blanchelande 
 of five years before, he refused. He said, "Disarm! 
 Disperse! " and the blacks answered, '"The right hand 
 that has saved you, the right hand that has saved 
 the island for the Bourbons, may perchance clutch 
 some of our ow^n rights;" and they stood still. 
 This is the first insurrection, if any such there were 
 in St. Domingo, — the first determined purpose on 
 the part of the negro, having saved the government, 
 to save himself. . . . 
 
 At this moment, then, the island stands thus: 
 The Spaniard is on the east triumphant ; the English- 
 man is on the northwest intrenched; the mulattoes 
 are in the mountains waiting; the blacks are in the 
 valleys \dctorious; one half the French slavehold- 
 ing element is republican, the other half royalist; 
 the white race against the mulatto and the black; 
 the black against both; the Frenchman against the 
 Enghsh and Spaniard; the Spaniard against both. 
 It is a war of races and a war of nations. At such 
 a moment Toussaint I'Ouverture appeared. 
 
 He had been born a slave on a plantation in the 
 north of the island, — an unmixed negro, — his 
 father stolen from Africa. If anything, therefore, 
 that I say of him to-night moves your admiration, 
 remember, the black race claims it all, — we have 
 no part nor lot in it. He was fifty years old at this 
 time. An old negro had taught him to read. His 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 289 
 
 favorite books were Epictetus, Raynal, Military 
 Memoirs, Plutarch. In the woods, he learned some 
 of the qualities of herbs, and was village doctor. 
 On the estate, the highest place he ever reached was 
 that of coachman. At fifty, he joined the army as 
 physician. Before he went, he placed his master 
 and mistress on shipboard, freighted the vessel with 
 a cargo of sugar and coffee, and sent them to Balti- 
 more, and never afterward did he forget to send them, 
 year by year, ample means of support. And I might 
 add, that, of all the leading negro generals, each 
 one saved the man under whose roof he was born, 
 and protected the family. 
 
 Let me add another thing. If I stood here to-night 
 to tell the story of Napoleon, I should take it from 
 the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich 
 enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth 
 century. Were I here to tell you the story of Wash- 
 ington, I should take it from your hearts, — you, 
 who think no marble white enough on which to carve 
 the name of the Father of his Country. I am about 
 to tell you the story of a negro who has left hardly 
 one written line. I am to glean it from the re- 
 luctant testimony of Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards, 
 — men who despised him as a negro and a slave, 
 and hated him because he had beaten them in many 
 a battle. All the materials for his biography are 
 from the lips of his enemies. . . . 
 
 I cannot stop to give in detail every one of his 
 
290 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 efforts. This was in 1793. Leap with me over seven 
 years; come to 1800; what has he achieved? He 
 has driven the Spaniard back into his own cities, 
 conquered him there, and put the French banner 
 over every Spanish town; and for the first time, 
 and almost the last, the island- obeys one law. He 
 has put the mulatto under his feet. He has attacked 
 Maitland, defeated him in pitched battles, and per- 
 mitted him to retreat to Jamaica; and when the 
 French army rose upon Laveaux, their general, 
 and put him in chains, Toussaint defeated them, 
 took Laveaux out of prison, and put him at the head 
 of his own troops. The grateful French in return 
 named him General-in-Chief. Cet Jiomme fait Vou- 
 verture partout, said one, — "This man makes an 
 opening everywhere," — hence his soldiers named 
 him L'Ouverture, the opening. 
 
 This was the work of seven years. Let us pause 
 a moment, and find something to measure him by. 
 You remember Macaulay says, comparing Crom- 
 well with Napoleon, that Cromwell showed the greater 
 military genius, if we consider that he never saw an 
 army till he was forty; while Napoleon was educated 
 from a boy in the best military schools in Europe. 
 Cromwell manufactured his own army; Napoleon 
 at the age of twenty-seven was placed at the head 
 of the best troops Europe ever saw. They were 
 both successful; but, says Macaulay, with such 
 disadvantages, the Englishman showed the greater 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 291 
 
 genius. Whether you allow the inference or not, 
 you will at least grant that it is a fair mode of measure- 
 ment. Apply it to Toussaint. Cromwell never saw 
 an army until he was forty; this man never saw 
 a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured 
 his own army — out of what ? Englishmen, — the 
 best blood of Europe. Out of the middle class of 
 Englishmen, — the best blood of the island. And 
 with it he conquered what ? Englishmen, — their 
 equals. This man manufactured his army out of 
 what? Out of what you call the despicable race of 
 negroes, debased, demoraUzed by two hundred years 
 of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported 
 into the island within four years, unable to speak 
 a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out 
 of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass, he 
 forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At 
 the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and 
 sent him home conquered; at the most warlike 
 blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his 
 feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, 
 and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now if Crom- 
 well was a general, at least this man was a soldier. 
 I know it was a small territory; it was not as large 
 as the continent; but it was as large as that Attica, 
 which, with Athens for a capital, has filled the earth 
 with its fame for two thousand years. We measure 
 genius by quality, not by quantity. 
 
 Further, — Cromwell was only a soldier; his fame 
 
292 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 stops there. Not one line in the statute-book of 
 Britain can be traced to Cromwell; not one step in 
 the social life of England finds its motive power in 
 his brain. The state he founded went down with him 
 to his grave. But this man no sooner put his hand 
 on the helm of state, than the ship steadied with 
 an upright keel, and he began to evince a statesman- 
 ship as marvelous as his military genius. History 
 says that the most statesmanhke act of Napoleon 
 was his proclamation of 1802, at the Peace of Amiens, 
 when, believing that the indelible loyalty of a native- 
 born heart is always a sufficient basis on which to 
 found an empire, he said: ''Frenchmen, come home. 
 I pardon the crimes of the last twelve years; I blot 
 out its parties; I found my throne on the hearts of 
 all Frenchmen," — and twelve years of unclouded 
 success showed how wisely he judged. That was in 
 1802. In 1800 this negro made a proclamation; 
 it runs thus: "Sons of St. Domingo, come home. 
 We never meant to take your houses or your lands. 
 The negro only asked that liberty which God gave 
 him. Your houses wait for you; your lands are 
 ready; come and cultivate them;" — and from 
 Madrid and Paris, from Baltimore and New Orleans, 
 the emigrant planters crowded home to enjoy their 
 estates, under the pledged word, that was never 
 broken, of a victorious slave. 
 
 Again, Carlyle has said, "The natural king is one 
 who melts all wills into his o\\ti." At this moment 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS ^93 
 
 he turned to his armies, — poor, ill-clad, and half- 
 starved, — and said to them: Go back and work 
 on these estates you have conquered; for an empire 
 can be founded only on order and industry, and you 
 can learn these virtues only there. And they went. 
 The French admiral, who witnessed the scene, said 
 that in a week his army melted back into 
 peasants. 
 
 It was 1800. The world waited fifty years before, 
 in 1846, Robert Peel dared to venture, as a matter of 
 practical statesmanship, the theory of free trade. 
 . . . But in 1800 this black, with the instinct of 
 statesmanship, said to the committee who were 
 drafting for him a constitution: ''Put at the head of 
 the chapter of commerce that the ports of St. Do- 
 mingo are open to the trade of the world." . . . 
 
 Again, it was 1800, at a time when England was 
 poisoned on every page of her statute-book with 
 religious intolerance, when a man could not enter 
 the House of Commons without taking an Episcopal 
 communion, when every State in the Union, except 
 Rhode Island, was full of the intensest religious 
 bigotry. This man was a negro. You say that is 
 a superstitious blood. He was uneducated. You 
 say that makes a man narrow-minded. He was a 
 CathoUc. Many say that is but another name for 
 intolerance. And yet — negro, CathoHc, slave — 
 he took his place by the side of Roger WilUams, 
 and said to his committee: "Make it the first Une 
 
294 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 of my constitution that I know no difference between 
 religious beliefs." 
 
 Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back 
 with me to the commencement of the century, and 
 select what statesman you please. Let him be either 
 American or European; let him have a brain the 
 result of six generations of culture; let him have the 
 ripest training of university routine; let him add to 
 it the better education of practical life; crown his 
 temples with the silver of seventy years; and show 
 me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most 
 sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel rich as em- 
 bittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro, 
 — rare military skill, profound knowledge of human 
 nature, content to blot out all party distinctions and 
 trust a state to the blood of its sons, anticipating 
 Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station 
 by the side of Roger Williams before any Englishman 
 or American had won the right; — and yet this is 
 the record which the history of rival states makes 
 up for this inspired black of St. Domingo. 
 
 It was 1 80 1. The Frenchmen who lingered on the 
 island described its prosperity and order as almost 
 incredible. You might trust a child with a bag of 
 gold to go from Samana to Port-au-Prince without 
 risk. Peace was in every household; the valleys 
 laughed with fertility; culture climbed the moun- 
 tains; the commerce of the world was represented in 
 its harbors. At this time Europe concluded the 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 295 
 
 Peace of Amiens, and Napoleon took his seat on the 
 throne of France. He glanced his eyes across the 
 Atlantic, and, with a single stroke of his pen, reduced 
 Cayenne and Martinique back into chains. He then 
 said to his Council, "What shall I do with St. Do- 
 mingo?" The slaveholders said, "Give it to us." 
 Napoleon turned to the Abbe Gregoire, "What is 
 your opinion?" "I think those men would change 
 their opinions, if they changed their skins." 
 
 Colonel Vincent, who had been private secretary 
 to Toussaint, wrote a letter to Napoleon, in which 
 he said: "Sire, leave it alone; it is the happiest spot 
 in your dominions; God raised this man to govern; 
 races melt under his hand. He has saved you this 
 island; for I know of my own knowledge that, when 
 the Republic could not have lifted a finger to prevent 
 it, George III offered him any title and any revenue 
 if he would hold the island under the British crown. 
 He refused, and saved it for France." Napoleon 
 turned away from his Council, and is said to have 
 remarked, "I have sixty thousand idle troops; I 
 must find them something to do." He meant to 
 say, " I am about to seize the crown; I dare not do it 
 in the faces of sixty thousand republican soldiers: 
 I must give them work at a distance to do." 
 
 The gossip of Paris gives another reason for his 
 expedition against St. Domingo. It is said that the 
 satirists of Paris had christened Toussaint, the Black 
 Napoleon; and Bonaparte hated his black shadow. 
 
296 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 Toussaint had unfortunately once addressed him a 
 letter, "The first of the blacks to the first of the 
 whites." He did not like the comparison. . . . 
 So Napoleon resolved to crush Toussaint, from one 
 motive or another, from the prompting of ambition, 
 or dislike of this resemblance, — which was very 
 close. If either imitated the other, it must have 
 been the white, since the negro preceded him several 
 years. They were very much alike. . . . 
 
 Like Napoleon, he could fast many days; could 
 dictate to three secretaries at once; could wear out 
 four or five horses. Like Napoleon, no man ever 
 divined his purpose or penetrated his plan. He 
 was only a negro, and so, in him, they called it hy- 
 pocrisy. In Bonaparte we style it diplomacy. . . . 
 
 Then, again, h];e Napoleon, — Uke genius always, 
 — he had confidence in his power to rule men. You 
 remember when Bonaparte returned from Elba, and 
 Louis XVIII sent an army against him, Bonaparte 
 descended from his carriage, opened his coat, offering 
 his breast to their muskets, and saying, "Frenchmen, 
 it is the Emperor!" and they ranged themselves 
 behind him, his soldiers, shouting, " Vive VEm- 
 pereurf' That was in 18 15. Twelve years before, 
 Toussaint, finding that four of his regiments had 
 deserted and gone to Leclerc, drew his sword, flung 
 it on the grass, went across the field to them, folded 
 his arms, and said, " Children, can you point a bay- 
 onet at me? " The blacks fell on their knees, praying 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 297 
 
 his pardon. His bitterest enemies watched him, 
 and none of them charged him with love of money, 
 sensuaHty, or cruel use of power. . . . 
 
 Above the lust of gold, pure in private life, gener- 
 ous in the use of his power, it was against such a 
 man that Napoleon sent his army, giving to General 
 Leclerc, the husband of his beautiful sister Pauline, 
 thirty thousand of his best troops, with orders to 
 reintroduce slavery. Among these soldiers came 
 all of Toussaint's old mulatto rivals and foes. 
 
 Holland lent sixty ships. England promised by 
 special message to be neutral; and you know neu- 
 trality means sneering at freedom, and sending arms 
 to tyrants.^ England promised neutrality, and the 
 black looked out on the whole civilized world mar- 
 shaled against him. America, full of slaves, of course 
 was hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets 
 at a very high price. Mounting his horse, and riding 
 to the eastern end of the island, Samana, he looked 
 out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. 
 Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers 
 of Europe, rounded the point. They were soldiers 
 who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like 
 Cassar's, had shaken Europe, — soldiers who had 
 scaled the Pyramids, and planted the French banners 
 on the walls of Rome. He looked a moment, counted 
 the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, 
 
 ^ Allusion to English arms furnished the South early in 
 the Rebellion. 
 
298 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 and, turning to Christophe, exclaimed: "All France 
 is come to Hayti; they can only come to make us 
 slaves; and we are lost!" He then recognized the 
 only mistake of his life, — his confidence in Bona- 
 parte, which had led him to disband his army. 
 
 Returning to the hills, he issued the only procla- 
 mation which bears his name and breathes ven- 
 geance: ''My children, France comes to make us 
 slaves. God gave us liberty; France has no right 
 to take it away. Burn the cities, destroy the har- 
 vests, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells, 
 show the white man the hell he comes to make;" — ' 
 and he was obeyed. When the great William of 
 Orange saw Louis XIV cover Holland with troops, 
 he said, "Break down the dikes, give Holland back 
 to ocean;" and Europe said, "Sublime!" When 
 Alexander saw the armies of France descend upon 
 Russia, he said, "Burn Moscow, starve back the 
 invaders;" and Europe said, "Sublime!" This 
 black saw all Europe marshaled to crush him, and 
 gave to his people the same heroic example of 
 defiance. . . . 
 
 Leclerc sent word to Christophe that he was about 
 to land at Cape City. Christophe said, "Toussaint 
 is governor of the island. I will send to him for per- 
 mission. If without it a French soldier sets foot on 
 shore, I will burn the town, and fight over its ashes." 
 
 Leclerc landed. Christophe took two thousand 
 white men, women, and children, and carried them 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 299 
 
 to the mountains in safety, then with his own hands 
 set fire to the splendid palace which French architects 
 had just finished for him, and in forty hours the place 
 was in ashes. The battle was fought in its streets, 
 and the French driven back to their boats. Wher- 
 ever they went they were met with fire and sword. . . . 
 
 Beaten in the field, the French then took to Hes. 
 They issued proclamations, saying, "We do not come 
 to make you slaves; this man Toussaint tells you lies. 
 Join us, and you shall have the rights you claim." 
 They cheated every one of his ofiicers, except Chris- 
 tophe and Dessahnes, and his own brother Pierre, 
 and finally these also deserted him, and he was left 
 alone. He then sent word to Leclerc, " I will submit. 
 I could continue the struggle for years, — could pre- 
 vent a single Frenchman from safely quitting your 
 camp. But I hate bloodshed. I have fought only 
 for the liberty of my race. Guarantee that, I will 
 submit and come in." He took the oath to be a 
 faithful citizen; and on the same crucifix Leclerc 
 swore that he should be faithfully protected, and 
 that the island should be free. As the French gen- 
 eral glanced along the line of his splendidly equipped 
 troops, and saw, opposite, Toussaint's ragged, ill- 
 armed followers, he said to him, "L'Ouverture, had 
 you continued the war, where could you have got 
 arms ? " ''I would have taken yours," was the Spar- 
 tan reply. 
 
 He went down to his house in peace; it was sum- 
 
300 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 mer. Leclerc remembered that the fever months 
 were coming, when his army would be in hospitals, 
 and when one motion of that royal hand would 
 sweep his troops into the sea. He was too dangerous 
 to be left at large. So they summoned him to attend 
 a council; and here is the only charge made against 
 him, — the only charge. They say he was fool 
 enough to go. . . . The moment he entered the 
 room, the officers drew their swords, and told him 
 he was prisoner; and one young lieutenant who 
 was present says, "He was not at all surprised, but 
 seemed very sad." They put him on shipboard, 
 and weighed anchor for France. As the island faded 
 from his sight, he turned to the captain, and said, 
 "You think you have rooted up the tree of liberty, 
 but I am only a branch; I have planted the tree so 
 deep that all France can never root it up." 
 
 Arrived in Paris, he was flung into jail, and Na- 
 poleon sent his secretary, Caffarelli, to him, supposing 
 he had buried large treasures. He listened awhile, 
 then replied, "Young man, it is true I have lost 
 treasures, but they are not such as you come to seek." 
 He was then sent to the Castle of St. Joux, to a 
 dungeon twelve feet by twenty, built wholly of stone, 
 with a narrow window, high up on the side, looking 
 out on the snows of Switzerland. In winter, ice 
 covers the floor; in summer, it is damp and wet. 
 In this living tomb the child of the sunny tropic was 
 left to die. ... 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 301 
 
 The commandant allowed him five francs a day 
 for food and fuel. Napoleon heard of it, and reduced 
 the sum to three. The luxurious usurper, who com- 
 plained that the English government was stingy 
 because it allowed him only six thousand dollars 
 a month, stooped from his throne to cut down 
 a dollar to a half, and still Toussaint did not die 
 quick enough. . . . Finally, the commandant w^as 
 told to go into Switzerland, to carry the keys of the 
 dungeon with him, and to stay four days; when he 
 returned, Toussaint was found starved to death. . . . 
 God grant that when some future Plutarch shall 
 weigh the great men of our epoch, the whites against 
 the blacks, he do not put that whining child at St. 
 Helena into one scale, and into the other the negro 
 meeting death hke a Roman, without a murmur, 
 in the solitude of his icy dungeon! 
 
 From the moment he was betrayed, the negroes 
 began to doubt the French, and rushed to arms. 
 Soon every negro but Maurepas deserted the French. 
 Leclerc summoned Maurepas to his side. He came, 
 loyally bringing with him five hundred soldiers. 
 Leclerc spiked his epaulettes to his shoulders, shot 
 him, and flung him into the sea. He took his five 
 hundred soldiers on shore, shot them on the edge of 
 a pit, and tumbled them in. Dessalines from the 
 mountain saw it, and selecting five hundred French 
 ofiicers from his prisons, hung them on separate trees 
 in sight of Leclerc's camp; and born, as I was, not 
 
302 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 far from Bunker Hill, I have yet found no reason to 
 think he did wrong. They murdered Pierre Tous- 
 saint's wife at his own door, and after such treat- 
 ment that it w^as mercy when they killed her. The 
 maddened husband, who had but a year before saved 
 the lives of twelve hundred white men, carried his 
 next thousand prisoners and sacrificed them on her 
 grave. 
 
 The French exhausted every form of torture. 
 The negroes were bound together and thrown into 
 the sea; any one who floated was shot, — others 
 sunk with cannon-balls tied to their feet; some 
 smothered with sulphur fumes, — others strangled, 
 scourged to death, gibbeted; sixteen of Toussaint's 
 ofhcers were chained to rocks in desert islands, — 
 others in marshes, and left to be devoured by poi- 
 sonous reptiles and insects. Rochambeau sent to 
 Cuba for bloodhounds. When they arrived, the 
 young girls went down to the wharf, decked the 
 hounds with ribbons and flowers, kissed their necks, 
 and, seated in the amphitheater, the women clapped 
 their hands to see a negro throwm to these dogs, 
 previously starved to rage. But the negroes be- 
 sieged this very city so closely that these same girls, 
 in their misery, ate the very hounds they had wel- 
 comed. . . . 
 
 The war went on. Napoleon sent over thirty 
 thousand more soldiers. But disaster still followed 
 his efforts. What the sword did not devour, the fever 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 3^3 
 
 ate up. Leclerc died. Pauline carried his body back 
 to France. Napoleon met her, saying, "Sister, I 
 gave you an army, — you bring me back ashes. . . . 
 
 Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to 
 Playti, and stand on those fifty thousand graves of 
 the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them 
 what they think of the negro's sword. And if that 
 does not satisfy you, go to France, to the splendid 
 mausoleum of the Counts of Rochambeau, and to the 
 eight thousand graves of Frenchmen who skulked 
 home under the English flag, and ask them. And 
 if that does not satisfy you, come home, and if it had 
 been October, 1859,^ you might have come by way 
 of quaking Virginia, and asked her what she thought 
 of negro courage. . . . 
 
 Hayti, from the ruins of her colonial dependence, 
 is become a civilized state, the seventh nation in the 
 catalogue of commerce with this country, inferior 
 in morals and education to none of the West Indian 
 isles. . . . Toussaint made her what she is. In 
 this w^ork there was grouped around him a score of 
 men, mostly of pure negro blood, who ably seconded 
 his efforts. They were able in war and skillful in 
 civil affairs, but not, like him, remarkable for that 
 rare mingling of high qualities which alone makes 
 true greatness, and insures a man leadership among 
 those otherwise almost his equals. Toussaint was in- 
 disputably their chief. Courage, purpose, endurance, 
 
 ^ John Brown's raid. 
 
304 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 — these are the tests. He did plant a state so deep 
 that all the world has not been able to root it up. 
 
 I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his 
 way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea 
 of blood. This man never broke his word. No 
 Retaliation was his great motto and the rule of his 
 life; and the last words uttered to his son in France 
 were these: "My boy, you will one day go back 
 to St. Domingo; forget that France murdered your 
 father." I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell 
 was only a soldier, and the state he founded went 
 down with him into his grave. I would call him 
 Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. 
 This man risked his empire rather than permit 
 the slave-trade in the humblest village of his 
 dominions. 
 
 You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read his- 
 tory, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. 
 But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, 
 the Muse of History will put Phocion for the Greek, 
 and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, 
 Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, 
 consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and 
 John Brown the ripe fruit of our noonday, then, 
 dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear 
 blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the 
 statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 1813-1887 
 
In a book of memorial tributes to Henry Ward Beecher 
 written shortly after his death in 1887, occur these words in 
 the contribution of William E. Gladstone : "To his undying 
 fame the world and his memory stand in no need of witnesses." 
 Of Beecher's forty years of public service, centering at his 
 Plymouth Church pulpit, the venerable and conservatively 
 wise Mark Hopkins wrote: "No such instance of prolonged 
 steady power at one point, in connection with other labors so 
 extended and diversified, and magnificent in their results, has 
 ever been known." His grand work as an apostle of freedom 
 before and during the Civil War, his amazing oratorical con- 
 trol of turbulent audiences in England, where he changed the 
 feeling of a nation toward the Union cause, and his being the 
 chosen mouthpiece of the people and the leaders upon all great 
 occasions in his own land, caused President Lincoln to ap- 
 point him orator of the day for the raising anew of the flag on 
 Fort Sumter at the end of the war. 
 
 The day was over, with its noble oration and celebration, 
 and Mr. Beecher with the invited guests sailed back to New 
 York in joy, to be greeted with the stunning announcement 
 of the President's assassination. Mr. Beecher went to his 
 Peekskill home, and the next Sunday, April 23, 1865, de- 
 livered in his pulpit the discourse on Abraham Lincoln which 
 here follows. He did not trust himself to look at his audience; 
 the swollen stream of thought and feeling must flow to its ap- 
 pointed end without breaking its banks : he seemingly read 
 the whole — from a manuscript of a few sentences. And he 
 judged well : it was more impressive than any amount of emo- 
 tional rhetoric could have made it. 
 
 As an orator, who put his whole grand self into his speaking, 
 Beecher had no equal in that era of eloquent men, — nor has 
 any one approaching him arisen since he departed. 
 
 306 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 **And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto 
 the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over 
 against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land 
 of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of 
 Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto 
 the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley 
 of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the 
 Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto 
 Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give 
 it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine 
 eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the 
 servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, accord- 
 ing to the word of the Lord." — Deut. xxxiv. 1-5. 
 
 There is no historic figure more noble than that of 
 the Jewish lav^giver. After so many thousand years, 
 the figure of Moses is not diminished, but stands up 
 against the background of early days distinct and 
 individual as if he had lived but yesterday. There 
 is scarcely another event in history more touching 
 than his death. He had borne the great burdens 
 of state for forty years, shaped the Jews to a nation, 
 filled out their civil and religious polity, administered 
 their laws, guided their steps, or dealt with them 
 in all their journeyings in the wilderness; had 
 307 
 
3o8 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 mourned in their punishment, kept step with their 
 march, and led them in wars until the end of their 
 labors drew nigh. The last stage was reached. 
 Jordan, only, lay between them and "the promised 
 land." The Promised Land! O, what yearnings 
 had heaved his breast for that divinely foreshadowed 
 place! He had dreamed of it by night, and mused 
 by day; it was holy and endeared as God's favored 
 spot. It was to be the cradle of an illustrious his- 
 tory. All his long, laborious, and now weary life, 
 he had aimed at this as the consummation of every 
 desire, the reward of every toil and pain. Then came 
 the word of the Lord to him: "Thou mayest not go 
 over. Get thee up into the mountain; look upon it; 
 and die!" 
 
 From that silent summit the hoary leader gazed 
 to the north, to the south, to the west, with hungry 
 eyes. The dim outlines rose up. The hazy recesses 
 spoke of quiet valleys between hills. With eager 
 longing, with sad resignation, he looked upon the 
 promised land. It was now to him a forbidden land. 
 This was but a moment's anguish, he forgot all his 
 personal wants, and drank in the vision of his peo- 
 ple's home. His work was done. There lay God's 
 promise fulfilled. There was the seat of coming 
 Jerusalem ; there the city of Judah's King ; the sphere 
 of judges and prophets; the Mount of sorrow and 
 salvation; the nest whence were to fly blessings 
 innumerable to all mankind. Joy chased sadness 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 309 
 
 from every feature, and the prophet laid him down 
 and died. 
 
 Again a great leader of the people has passed 
 through toil, sorrow, battle, and war, and come near 
 to the promised land of peace, into which he might 
 not pass over. Who shall recount our martyr's 
 sufferings for this people! Since the November of 
 i860, his horizon has been black with storms. By 
 day and by night he trod a way of danger and dark- 
 ness. On his shoulders rested a government dearer 
 to him than his own life. At its integrity millions 
 of men at home were striking: upon it foreign eyes 
 lowered. It stood like a lone island in a sea full of 
 storms; and every tide and wave seemed eager to 
 devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great sorrows 
 and anxieties have rested, but not on one, such, and 
 in such measure, as upon that simple, truthful, 
 noble soul, our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never 
 rising to the enthusiasm of more impassioned natures 
 in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercurial 
 in hours of defeat to the depths of despondency, he 
 held on with unmovable patience and fortitude, put- 
 ting caution against hope that it might not be pre- 
 mature, and hope against caution that it might not 
 yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly, 
 through four black and dreadful purgatorial years, 
 wherein God was cleansing the sins of his people as' 
 by fire. 
 
 At last the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the 
 
3IO BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 country. The mountains began to give forth their 
 forms from out of the darkness: and the East came 
 rushing toward us with arms full of joy for all our 
 sorrows. Then it was for him to be glad exceed- 
 ingly, that had sorrowed immeasurably. Peace 
 could bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, 
 such honor, such trust, such gratitude. But he 
 looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised 
 land. 
 
 Then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had 
 gone from among us. 
 
 Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul! 
 Thou hast indeed entered into the promised land, 
 while we are yet on the march. To us remain the 
 rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, days 
 of duty and nights of watching ; but thou art sphered 
 high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow 
 and weariness. Rest, O weary heart! Rejoice ex- 
 ceedingly, thou that hast enough suffered! Thou 
 hast beheld Him who invisibly led thee in this great 
 wilderness. Thou standest among the elect. Around 
 thee are the royal men that have ennobled human 
 life in every age. Kingly art thou, with glory on thy 
 brow as a diadem. And joy is upon thee for ever- 
 more. Over all this land, over all the little cloud of 
 years that now from thine infinite horizon moves 
 back as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as a star 
 is above the clouds, that hide us but never reach it. 
 In the goodly company of Mount Zion thou shalt 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 311 
 
 find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought here 
 in vain; and thy name, an everlasting name in 
 heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty as 
 long as men shall last upon the earth, or hearts 
 remain, to revere truth, fidelity, and goodness. 
 
 Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one 
 hemisphere, as the joy and the sorrow of the same 
 week in this land. The joy of final victory was as 
 sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entranc- 
 ing as if it had fallen a sphere from heaven. It rose 
 up over sobriety, and swept business from its moor- 
 ings, and ran down through the land in irresistible 
 course. Men embraced each other in brotherhood 
 that were strangers in the flesh. They sang, or 
 prayed, or, deeper yet, many could only think 
 thanksgiving and weep gladness. That peace was 
 sure; that our government was firmer than ever; 
 that the land was cleansed of plague; that the ages 
 were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin 
 a march of blessings ; that blood was stanched, and 
 scowUng enmities were sinking Hke storms beneath 
 the horizon; that the dear fatherland, nothing lost, 
 much gained, was to rise up in unexampled honor 
 among the nations of the earth, — these thoughts, 
 and that undistinguishable throng of fancies, and 
 hopes, and desires, and yearnings, that filled the soul 
 with tremblings like the heated air of midsummer 
 days, — all these kindled up such a surge of joy 
 as no words may describe. 
 
312 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 In one hour, under the blow of a single bereave- 
 ment, joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam, or 
 breath. A sorrow came that swept through the land 
 as huge storms sweep through the forest and field, 
 rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling the 
 flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and 
 pouring blackness and darkness across the land and 
 upon the mountains. Did ever so many hearts, 
 in so brief a time, touch two such boundless feelings ? 
 It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost 
 of sorrow, — noon and midnight without a space 
 between! 
 
 The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so 
 terrible that at first it stunned sensibihty. Citizens 
 were like men awakened at midnight by an earth- 
 quake, and bewildered to find everything that they 
 were accustomed to trust wavering and falling. 
 The very earth was no longer soHd. The first feel- 
 ing was the least. Men waited to get straight to 
 feel. They w^andered in the streets as if groping 
 after some impending dread, or undeveloped sorrow, 
 or some one to tell them what ailed them. They 
 met each other as if each would ask the other, ''Am 
 I awake, or do I dream?" There was a piteous 
 helplessness. Strong men bowed down and wept. 
 Other and common griefs belonged to some one in 
 chief; this belonged to all. It was each and every 
 man's. Every virtuous household in the land felt 
 as if its firstborn were gone. Men were bereaved, 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 313 
 
 and walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in 
 their dwellings. There was nothing else to think of. 
 They could speak of nothing but that; and yet, 
 of that they could speak only falteringly. All busi- 
 ness was laid aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The 
 great city for nearly a week ceased to roar. The 
 huge Leviathan lay down and was still. Even 
 avarice stood still, and greed was strangely moved 
 to generous sympathy and universal sorrow. Rear 
 to his name monuments, found charitable institu- 
 tions, and write his name above their lintels; but 
 no monument will ever equal the universal, spon- 
 taneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment 
 swept down lines and parties, and covered up ani- 
 mosities, and in an hour brought a divided people into 
 unity of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish. 
 
 For myself, I cannot yet command that quietness of 
 spirit needed for a just and temperate delineation of a 
 man whom goodness has made great. Leaving that, 
 if it please God, to some other occasion, I pass to 
 some considerations aside from the martyr Presi- 
 dent's character which may be fit for this hour's 
 instruction. 
 
 And first, let us not mourn that his departure was 
 so sudden, nor fill our imagination with horror at its 
 method. Men, long eluding and evading sorrow, 
 when at last they are overtaken by it seem enchanted 
 and seek to make their sorrow sorrowful to the very 
 uttermost, and to bring out every drop of suffering 
 
314 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 which they possibly can. This is not Christian, 
 though it may be natural. When good men pray 
 for deliverance from sudden death, it is only that 
 they may not be plunged without preparation, all 
 disrobed, into the presence of their Judge. When 
 one is ready to depart, suddenness of death is a bless- 
 ing. It is a painful sight to see a tree overthrown 
 by a tornado, wrenched from its foundations, and 
 broken down Uke a weed ; but it is yet more painful 
 to see a vast and venerable tree Ungering with vain 
 strife against decay, which age and infirmity have 
 marked for destruction. The process by which 
 strength wastes, and the mind is obscured, and the 
 tabernacle is taken down, is humiliating and painful; 
 and it is good and grand when a man departs to his 
 rest from out of the midst of duty, full-armed and 
 strong, with pulse beating time. . . . 
 
 Not they that go in a stupor, but they that go with 
 all their powers about them, and wide-awake, to 
 meet their Master, as to a wedding, are blessed. He 
 died watching. He died mth his armor on. In the 
 midst of hours of labor, in the very heart of patriotic 
 consultations, just returned from camps and counsels, 
 he was stricken down. No fever dried his blood. 
 No slow waste consumed him. All at once, in full 
 strength and manhood, with his girdle tight about 
 him, he departed ; and walks with God. 
 
 Nor was the manner of his death more shocking, 
 if we divest it of the malignity of the motives which 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 315 
 
 caused it. The mere instrument itself is not one 
 that we should shrink from contemplating. Have 
 not thousands of soldiers fallen on the field of battle 
 by the bullets of the enemy ? Is being killed in battle 
 counted to be a dreadful mode of dying ? It was as 
 if he had died in battle. Do not all soldiers that 
 must fall ask to depart in the hour of battle and of 
 victory ? He went in the hour of victory. . . . 
 
 For myself, when any event is susceptible of a 
 higher and nobler garnishing, I know not what that 
 disposition is that should seek to drag it down to 
 the depths of gloom, and write it all over with the 
 scrawls of horror or fear. I let the light of nobler 
 thoughts fall upon his departure. . . . 
 
 Then, again, this blow was but the expiring rebel- 
 lion. As a miniature gives all the form and features 
 of its subject, so, epitomized in this foul act, we find 
 the whole nature and disposition of slavery. It 
 begins in a wanton destruction of all human rights, 
 and in a desecration of all the sanctities of heart and 
 home; and it is the universal enemy of mankind, 
 and of God, who made man. It can be maintained 
 only at the sacrifice of every right moral feeling in 
 its abettors and upholders. . . . Slavery is itself 
 barbarity. That nation which cherishes it is bar- 
 barous; and no outside tinsel or glitter can redeem 
 it from the charge of barbarism. And it was fit 
 that its expiring blow should be such as to take away 
 from men the last forbearance, the last pity, and fire 
 
31 6 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 the soul with an invincible determination that the 
 breeding ground of such mischiefs and monsters shall 
 be utterly and forever destroyed. 
 
 We needed not that he should put on paper that he 
 believed in slavery, who, with treason, with murder, 
 with cruelty infernal, hovered around that majestic 
 man to destroy his life. He was himself but the long 
 sting with which slavery struck at liberty; and he 
 carried the poison that belonged to slavery. As 
 long as this nation lasts, it will never be forgotten 
 that we have one martyred President — never! 
 Never, while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell 
 rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery, 
 by its minions, slew him, and in slaying him made 
 manifest its whole nature and tendency. 
 
 But another thing for us to remember is that this 
 blow was aimed at the life of the government and 
 of the nation. Lincoln was slain; America was 
 meant. The man was cast down; the government 
 was smitten at. It was the President who was 
 killed. It was national hfe, breathing freedom 
 and meaning beneficence, that was sought. He, the 
 man of IlHnois, the private man, divested of robes 
 and the insignia of authority, representing nothing 
 but his personal self, might have been hated ; but that 
 would not have called forth the murderer's blow. 
 It was because he stood in the place of government, 
 representing government and a government that rep- 
 resented right and liberty, that he was singled out. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 Z^l 
 
 This, then, is a crime against universal government. 
 It is not a blow at the foundations of our govern- 
 ment, more than at the foundations of the English 
 government, of the French government, of every 
 compacted and well-organized government. It was 
 a crime against mankind. The whole world will 
 repudiate and stigmatize it as a deed without a shade 
 of redeeming Ught. . . . 
 
 The blow, however, has signally failed. The cause 
 is not stricken ; it is strengthened. This nation has 
 dissolved, — but in tears only. It stands, four- 
 square, more solid, to-day, than any pyramid in 
 Egypt. This people are neither wasted, nor daunted, 
 nor disordered. Men hate slavery and love liberty 
 with stronger hate and love to-day than ever before. 
 The Government is not weakened, it is made stronger. 
 How naturally and easily were the ranks closed! 
 
 Where could the head of government in any mon- 
 archy be smittei) down by the hand of an assassin, 
 and the funds not quiver nor fall one-half of one per 
 cent? After a long period of national disturbance, 
 after four years of drastic war, after tremendous 
 drafts on the resources of the country, in the height 
 and top of our burdens, the heart of this people is 
 such that now, when the head of government is 
 stricken down, the pubUc funds do not waver, but 
 stand as the granite ribs in our mountains. . . . 
 
 Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been 
 clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men 
 
3i8 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 who now willingly hear what before they refused to 
 listen to. Now, his simple and weighty words will 
 be gathered like those of Washington, and your 
 children and your children's children shall be taught 
 to ponder the simpHcity and deep wisdom of utter- 
 ances which, in their time, passed, in the party heat, 
 as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of 
 patriotism for his sake, and will guard a new impulse 
 of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal 
 the whole country which he loved so well : I swear 
 you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful 
 to the country for which he has perished. Men will, 
 as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that 
 slavery against which he warred, and w^hich in van- 
 quishing him has made him a martyr and a conqueror : 
 I swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate 
 slavery with an unappeasable hatred. Men will 
 admire and imitate his unmoved firmness, his inflex- 
 ible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness, 
 as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, 
 which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all 
 the jars and disturbances of this country shake out 
 of its place: I swear you to an emulation of his 
 justice, his moderation, and his mercy. 
 
 You I can comfort; but how can I speak to that 
 twiUght milHon to whom his name was as the name 
 of an angel of God? There will be waiHng in places 
 which no ministers shall be able to reach. When, 
 in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 319 
 
 field throughout the South, the dusky children, who 
 looked upon him as that Moses whom God sent before 
 them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn 
 that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? Oh, 
 thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy 
 people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, 
 the long wronged, and grieved! 
 
 And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, ^ 
 .mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at 
 every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his 
 pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with 
 solemn progression. Dead — dead — dead — he yet 
 speaketh! Is Washington dead? Is Hampden 
 dead ? Is DaAdd dead ? Is any man dead that ever 
 was fit to five? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen 
 to the unobstructed sphere where passion never 
 comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life now 
 is grafted upon the Infinite, and will be fruitful as 
 no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast over- 
 come! Your sorrows, O people, are his peace! 
 Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound 
 triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here ; God makes 
 it echo joy and triumph there . Pass on, thou victor! 
 
 Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from your 
 midst an untried man, and from among the people; 
 we return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not 
 
 ^ The funeral journey, conveying Lincoln's body from 
 Washington to Illinois, was fourteen days in progress. He 
 was buried on May 4, 1865. 
 
320 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the 
 world's. Give him place, ye prairies! In the midst 
 of this great Continent his dust shall rest, a sacred 
 treasure to myriads who shall make pilgrimage to 
 that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. 
 Ye winds, that move over the mighty places of 
 the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, behold a 
 martyr, whose blood, as so many inarticulate words, 
 pleads for fideHty, for law, for liberty! 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 
 
 1851-1889 
 
This was a fine type of the man of the New South. Very 
 many able young men of the Southern States, discouraged by 
 the desolations of the War, the difficulties besetting life during 
 the Reconstruction period, and the slowness of general re- 
 covery, transferred their activities to Northern cities and there 
 prospered. Young Grady, however, after graduation at the 
 State University of Georgia, his native State, and post-graduate 
 studies at the University of Virginia, went into journalism in 
 Rome, Georgia, and by his intelligent industry there, and his 
 uncommonly reasonable and candid articles in Northern papers 
 upon Southern affairs, gained a strong position. By the help 
 of friends he bought into the Atlanta Constitution, one of the 
 best of the Southern journals, became its editor, and so con- 
 tinued as long as he lived. 
 
 In this influential position Grady was often called upon 
 for public addresses, and developed a remarkable oratorical 
 power. His two most significant orations were made at the 
 North, his subjects being the affairs of the South. At the New 
 England Society's annual banquet in New York, December 12, 
 1886, he made a great impression. "There was a South of 
 slavery and secession," he began; " that South is dead. There 
 is a South of union and freedom ; that South, thank God, is 
 living, breathing, growing every hour," and he proceeded to 
 depict it in glowing words that aroused the enthusiastic sym- 
 pathy of his hearers. The other address was made three years 
 later, before the banquet of the Boston Merchants' Associa- 
 tion, December 12, 1889, and such portions of it as are here 
 given show clearly the man of heart, of intellect, and of the 
 orator's power. He died, ten days later, regretted by the whole 
 country. 
 
 322 
 
THE NEW SOUTH 
 
 The stoutest apostle of the church, they say, is the 
 missionary, and the missionary, wherever he unfurls 
 his flag, will never find himself in deeper need of 
 unction and address than I, bidden to-night to plant 
 the standard of a Southern Democrat in Boston's 
 banquet hall, and to discuss the problem of the races 
 in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But, Mr. 
 President, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness 
 and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast 
 interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what 
 disaster must follow further misunderstanding and 
 estrangement — if all these may be counted on to 
 steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an 
 untried arm, then, Sir, I shall find the courage to 
 proceed. 
 
 Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet, 
 at last, to press New England's historic soil, and my 
 eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. 
 Here within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker 
 Hill — where Webster thundered and Longfellow 
 sung, Emerson thought, and Channing preached — 
 here in the cradle of American letters and almost of 
 American liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that 
 323 
 
324 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 every American owes New England when first he 
 stands uncovered in her mighty presence. Strange 
 apparition! This stern and unique figure, carved 
 from the ocean and the wilderness, its majesty kin- 
 dling and growing amid the storms of winter, and of 
 wars, until, at last, the gloom was broken, its beauty 
 disclosed in the tranquil sunshine, and the heroic 
 workers rested at its base, w^hile startled kings and 
 emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude 
 touch of this handful, cast on a bleak and unknown 
 shore, should have come the embodied genius of 
 human liberty! God bless the memory of those im- 
 mortal workers — and prosper the fortunes of their 
 living sons — and perpetuate the inspiration of their 
 handiwork! . . . 
 
 Far to the South, Mr. President, separated by a 
 line — once defined 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 is centered all that can 
 please or prosper humankind. A perfect climate 
 above a fertile soil yields to the husbandman every 
 product of the temperate zone. There, by night, 
 the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day 
 the wheat locks the sunshine in its bearded sheaf. 
 In the same field the clover steals the fragrance of the 
 wind, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of 
 the rains. There are mountains stored with exhaust- 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 325 
 
 less treasures; forests vast and primeval, and rivers 
 that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea. 
 Of the three essential items of all industries — cotton, 
 iron, and wood — that region has easy control. In 
 cotton, a fixed monopoly; in iron, proven supremacy; 
 in timber, the reserve supply of the republic. From 
 this assured and permanent advantage, against which 
 artificial conditions cannot long prevail, has grown 
 an amazing system of industries. Not maintained 
 by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar off 
 from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but 
 resting in Divine assurance, within touch of field and 
 mine and forest — not set amid bleak hills and costly 
 farms from which competition has driven the farmer 
 in despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands, rich 
 with agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has 
 set a limit — this system of industries is mounting to 
 a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine the world. 
 That, Sir, is the picture and the promise of my home 
 — a land better and fairer than I have told you, 
 and yet but a fit setting, in its material excellence, 
 for the loyal and gentle quality of its citizenship. 
 Against that. Sir, we have New England recruiting 
 the republic from its sturdy loins, shaking from its 
 overcrowded hives new swarms of workers, and touch- 
 ing this land all over with its energy and its courage. 
 And yet — while in the Eldorado, of which I have 
 told you, but fifteen per cent of lands are cultivated, 
 its mines scarcely touched, and its population so 
 
326 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 scant that, were it set equidistant, the sound of the 
 human voice could not be heard from Virginia to 
 Texas — while on the threshold of nearly every house 
 in New England stands a son, seeking with troubled 
 eyes some new^ land in which to carry his modest 
 patrimony, and the homely training that is better 
 than gold — the strange fact remains that in 1880 
 the South had fewer Northern-born citizens than she 
 had in 1870 — fewer in 1870 than in i860. Why is 
 this? . . . 
 
 There can be but one answer. It is the very 
 problem we are now to consider. The key that 
 opens that problem wdll unlock to the world the 
 fairest half of this repubUc, and free the halted feet 
 of thousands whose eyes are already kindling with 
 its beauty. . . . Nothing else stands between us 
 and such love as bound Georgia and Massachusetts 
 at Valley Forge and Yorktown, chastened by the 
 sacrifice of Manassas and Gettysburg, and illumined 
 with the coming of better work and a nobler destiny 
 than was ever wrought by the sword or sought at 
 the cannon's mouth. ... I thank God as heartily 
 as you do that human slavery is gone forever from 
 American soil. But the freedman remains, and with 
 him a problem without precedent or parallel. Note 
 its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar 
 races on the same soil — with equal political and civil 
 rights — almost equal in numbers, but terribly 
 unequal in intelligence and responsibility — each 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 327 
 
 pledged against fusion — one for a century in servi- 
 tude to the other, and freed at last by a desolating 
 war — the experiment sought by neither, but ap- 
 proached by both with doubt — these are the con- 
 ditions. Under these, adverse at every point, we 
 are required to carry these two races in peace and 
 honor to the end. . . . 
 
 The President of the United States, in his late 
 message to Congress, discussing the plea that the 
 South should be left to solve this problem, asks: 
 "Are they at work upon it ? What solution do they 
 offer ? When will the black man cast a free ballot ? 
 When will he have the civil right that is his ?" . . . 
 Backed by a record on every page of which is prog- 
 ress, I venture to make earnest and respectful answer 
 to the questions that are asked. I bespeak your 
 patience, while with righteous plainness of speech, 
 seeking your judgment rather than your applause, 
 I proceed step by step. 
 
 We give to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 
 bales of cotton, worth $450,000,000, and its cash 
 equivalent in grain, grasses, and fruit. This enor- 
 mous crop could not have come from the hands of 
 sullen and discontented labor. It comes from the 
 peaceful fields in which laughter and gossip rise above 
 the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the 
 singing plow. It is claimed that this ignorant 
 labor is defrauded of its just hire. I present the 
 tax-books of Georgia, which show that the negro, 
 
7,2S BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 twenty-five years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone 
 $10,000,000 of assessed property, worth twice that 
 much. Does not that record honor him and vindicate 
 his neighbors ? What other people, penniless and 
 illiterate, has done so wtII ? . . . 
 
 And the schoolhouse itself bears testimony. In 
 Georgia we added last year $250,000 to the school 
 fund, making a total of more than $1,000,000, and 
 yet forty-nine per cent of the beneficiaries are black 
 children. . . . The South, since 1865, has spent 
 $122,000,000 in education, and this year is pledged 
 $37,000,000 more for State and city schools — 
 although the blacks, paying one-thirtieth 'of the 
 taxes, get nearly one-half of the fund. Go into our 
 fields and see whites and blacks working side by side. 
 On our buildings in the same squad. In our shops 
 at the same forge. Often the blacks crowd the 
 whites from work, or lower wages by their greater 
 need or simpler habits, and yet are permitted to do 
 so because we want to bar them from no avenue in 
 which their feet are fitted to tread. . . . 
 
 In the South there are negro lawyers, teachers, 
 editors, dentists, doctors, preachers, working in peace 
 and multiplying with the increasing ability of their 
 race to support them. In villages and towns they 
 have their military companies equipped from the 
 armories of the State, their churches and societies 
 built and supported largely by their neighbors. 
 
 What is the testimony of the courts? In penal 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 329 
 
 legislation we have steadily reduced felonies to mis- 
 demeanors, and have led the world in mitigating 
 punishment for crime, that we might save, as far 
 as possible, this dependent race from its own weak- 
 ness. In our penitentiary record sixty per cent 
 of the prosecutors are negroes, and in every court the 
 negro criminal challenges the colored juror, that 
 white men may judge his case. In the North one 
 negro in every one hundred and eighty-five is in jail; 
 in the South only one in four hundred and forty-six. 
 In the North the percentage of negro prisoners is 
 six times as great as that of native whites; in the 
 South only four times as great. If prejudice wrong 
 him in Southern courts, the record shows it to be 
 deeper in Northern courts. . . . Now, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, can it be seriously maintained that we are 
 terrorizing the people from whose willing hands come 
 every year $1,000,000,000 of farm crops, or have 
 robbed a people, who in twenty-five years from un- 
 rewarded slavery, have amassed in one State 
 $20,000,000 of property ? Or that w^e intend to 
 oppress the people w^e are arming every day? 
 We "deceive" them, when we are educating 
 them to the utmost limit of our ability ? . . . 
 
 But it is claimed that under this fair-seeming there 
 is disorder and violence. This I admit. And there 
 will be until there is one ideal community on earth 
 after which we may pattern. But how widely is it 
 misjudged. It is hard to measure with exactness 
 
33^ 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 whatever touches the negro. His helplessness, his 
 isolation, his century of servitude, these dispose 
 us to emphasize and magnify his wrongs. This 
 disposition has been inflamed by prejudice and par- 
 tisanry until it has led to injustice and delusion. 
 Lawless men may ravage a county in Iowa, and it is 
 accepted as an incident. In the South a drunken 
 row is declared to be the fixed habit of the com- 
 munity. . . . 
 
 But admitting the right of the whites to unite 
 against this tremendous menace, we are challenged 
 with the smallness of our vote. This has long been 
 flippantly charged to be evidence, and has now been 
 solemnly and ofhcially declared to be proof of politi- 
 cal turpitude and baseness on our part. Let us see: 
 Virginia — a State now under fierce assault for this 
 alleged crime — cast in 1888, seventy-five per cent 
 of her vote. Massachusetts, the State in which I 
 speak, sixty per cent of her vote. Was it suppres- 
 sion in Virginia and natural causes in Massachusetts ? 
 
 The negro vote can never control in the South, 
 and it would be well if partisans at the North would 
 understand this. . . . You may pass force bills, 
 but they will not avail. . . . 
 
 Meantime, we treat the negro fairly, measuring 
 to him justice in the fullness the strong should give 
 to the weak, and leading him in the steadfast ways of 
 citizenship, that he may no longer be the prey of the 
 unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless. We 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 
 
 33^ 
 
 open to him every pursuit in which he can prosper, 
 and seek to broaden his training and capacity. We 
 seek to hold his confidence and friendship, and to pin 
 him to the soil with ownership, that he may catch 
 in the fire of his own hearthstone that sense of 
 responsibility the shiftless can never know. . . . 
 
 The love we feel for that race you cannot measure 
 nor comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of 
 my old "black mammy," from her home up there, 
 looks down on me to bless, and through the tumult 
 of this night, steals the sweet music of her croonings. 
 Thirty years ago she held me in her black arms 
 or 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 apprehensions, and in a big and homely room 
 I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands 
 — now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than 
 the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to 
 lead me than the hands of mortal man — as they 
 lay a mother's blessing there, while at her knees — 
 the truest altar I yet have found — I thank God 
 that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, 
 sentinel in the silent cabin, or on guard at her chamber 
 door, put a black man's loyalty between her and 
 danger. 
 
332 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 I catch another vision. The crisis of battle — a 
 soldier struck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, 
 struggling through the smoke, winding his black arms 
 about the fallen form, reckless of lurking death — 
 bending his trusty face to catch the words that 
 tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestUng meantime 
 with agony that he would lay down his Ufe in his 
 master's stead. I see him by the weary bedside, 
 ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying 
 with all his humble heart that God will Hft his master 
 up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still 
 the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see 
 him by the open grave, mute, 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 his life is closed, turn 
 away and, with downcast eyes and uncertain step, 
 start out into new and strange fields, faltering, strug- 
 gling, but moving on, until his shambhng figure is 
 lost in the light of a better and a brighter day. And 
 from the grave comes a voice saying: "Follow him! 
 Put your arms about him in his need, even as he put 
 his about me. Be his friend as he was mine." And 
 out into this new world — strange to me as to him, 
 dazzHng, bewildering both — I follow! And may 
 God forget my people — when they forget these ! 
 
 Whatever the future may hold for them . . . 
 we shall give them uttermost justice and abiding 
 friendship. And whatever we do, into whatever 
 
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY 
 
 333 
 
 seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing 
 shall disturb the love we bear this repubhc, or miti- 
 gate our consecration to its service. I stand here, 
 Mr. President, to profess no new loyalty. When 
 General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes 
 and whose arm was clothed with our strength, re- 
 newed his allegiance to this government at Appo- 
 mattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, 
 and he spoke for every honest man from Maryland to 
 Texas. From that day to this, Hamilcar has nowhere 
 in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and 
 vengeance — but everywhere to loyalty and love. 
 Witness the veteran standing at the base of a Con- 
 federate monument, above the graves of his com- 
 rades, his empty sleeve tossing in the April wind, 
 adjuring the young men about him to serve as hon- 
 est and loyal citizens the government against which 
 their fathers fought. This message, delivered from 
 that sacred presence, has gone home to the hearts of 
 my fellows! And, Sir, I declare here, if physical 
 courage be always equal to human aspiration, that 
 they would die, Sir, if need be, to restore this repubhc 
 their fathers fought to dissolve! 
 
 Such, Mr. President, is tliis problem as we see it, 
 such the temper in which we approach it, such the 
 progress made. What do we ask of you ? First, 
 patience; out of this alone can come perfect work. 
 Second, confidence; in this alone can you judge 
 fairly. Third, sympathy; in this you can help us 
 
334 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 best. Fourth, loyalty to the republic — for there 
 is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. This 
 hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one sec- 
 tion, and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion 
 and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect 
 loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with 
 Massachusetts — that "knows no South, no North, 
 no East, no West"; but endears with equal and pa- 
 triotic love every foot of our soil, every State of our 
 Union. . . . 
 
 Our history. Sir, has been a constant and expand- 
 ing miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown 
 all the way — aye, even from the hour, w^hen, 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 pleasures — let us resolve to 
 crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a 
 repubUc compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds 
 of love — loving from the Lakes to the Gulf — the 
 wounds of w^ar healed in every heart as on every hill 
 — serene and resplendent at the summit of human 
 achievement and earthly glory — blazing out the path 
 and making clear the w^ay up w^hich all the nations 
 of the earth must come in God's appointed time! 
 
WILLIAM McKINLEY 
 
 I 843-1 90 I 
 
A GRADUATE of Allegheny College in Ohio, his native State, 
 after a period of teaching in the public schools, in the beginning 
 of the Civil War, at the age of seventeen, William McKinley 
 enlisted as a private in the 23d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and 
 by gallant conduct was brevetted major before the end of the 
 vi^ar. His career as lawyer, politician, and statesman, as Gov- 
 ernor of Ohio, champion of high protection in the House of 
 Representatives, and President of the United States, together 
 with his pitiful but noble ending of life by assassination at 
 the Buffalo (New York) World's Fair in 1901, has been made 
 familiar to all since his untimely taking off. 
 
 President McKinley's last public address — terse, direct, 
 and convincing — made at Buffalo the day before his assassi- 
 nation, shows the expanding view of the statesman, who was 
 able to rise above the exclusion-theory of protection to Ameri- 
 can industries, to see the enlarging of American relations to 
 the commercial world, and to declare that " the period of ex- 
 clusiveness is past." With John Hay, his able Secretary of 
 State, he had arranged a treaty giving the United States free 
 hand in the Isthmus, and, as Mr. Hay said in his eloquent 
 memorial address before Congress, " he saw in the immense 
 evolution of American trade the fulfillment of all his dreams, 
 the reward of all his labors." Thus, his State Department 
 had negotiated various reciprocity treaties with foreign nations, 
 which would doubtless have benefited both American manu- 
 factures and American commerce ; but the popular feeling that 
 responded to this loosening of the bonds had not penetrated 
 Congress, and they failed of confirmation in the Senate. 
 
 Yet his utterances still ring true, and are increasingly in- 
 fluential. Our Chinese tarifi' wall must be lowered, and 
 pierced with gates for the inward and outward passage of 
 American and foreign wealth. McKinley's prophetic senti- 
 ments may well conclude this gathering of counsels from 
 American statesmen who have passed away, but who have 
 left us helpful words of soberness and truth. 
 
WORLD-RELATIONS OF AMERICA 
 
 I AM glad again to be in the city of Buffalo and 
 exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous 
 hospitality I am not a stranger, and with whose good 
 mil I have been repeatedly and signally honored. 
 To-day I have additional satisfaction in meeting and 
 giving welcome to the foreign representatives as- 
 sembled here, whose presence and participation in this 
 Exposition have contributed in so marked a degree 
 to its interest and success. To the commissioners of 
 the Dominion of Canada and the British Colonies, 
 the French Colonies, the Republics of Mexico and 
 of Central and South America, and the commis- 
 sioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us 
 in this undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship 
 and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, 
 science, education, and manufacture which the old 
 has bequeathed to the new century. 
 
 Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. 
 They record the world's advancement. They stimu- 
 late the energy, enterprise, and intellect of the people, 
 and quicken human genius. They go into the home. 
 They broaden and brighten the daily Ufe of the 
 people. They open mighty storehouses of informa- 
 337 
 
338 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 tion to the student. Every exposition, great or 
 small, has helped to some onward step. 
 
 Comparison of ideas is always educational and, as 
 such, instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly 
 rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial im- 
 provement, the inspiration to useful invention and to 
 high endeavor in all departments of human activity. 
 It exacts a study of the w-ants, comforts, and even 
 the whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy 
 of high quahty and low prices to win their favor. 
 The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business 
 to devise, invent, improve, and economize in the cost 
 of production. Business Ufe, whether among our- 
 selves or with other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle 
 for success. It will be none the less in the future. 
 Without competition we w^ould be clinging to the 
 clumsy and antiquated process of farming and manu- 
 facture and the methods of business of long ago, 
 and the twentieth would be no further advanced than 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 But though commercial competitors w^e are, com- 
 mercial enemies we must not be. The Pan-American 
 Exposition has done its work thoroughly, presenting 
 in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and illus- 
 trating the progress of the human family in the 
 Western Hemisphere. This portion of the earth has 
 no cause for humiliation for the part it has performed 
 in the march of civilization. It has not accom- 
 plished everything; far from it. It has simply done 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley 339 
 
 its best, and without vanity or boastfulness, and 
 recognizing the manifold achievements of others, 
 it invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the 
 peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, and will 
 cooperate with all in advancing the highest and best 
 interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy of 
 all the nations are none too great for the world work. 
 The success of art, science, industry, and invention 
 is an international asset and a common glory. 
 
 After all, how near one to the other is every part 
 of the world! Modern inventions have brought 
 into close relation widely separated peoples and 
 made them better acquainted. Geographic and 
 political divisions will continue to exist, but dis- 
 tances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast 
 trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade 
 fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. 
 The world's products are exchanged as never before, 
 and with increasing transportation facihties come 
 increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are 
 fixed with mathematical precision by supply and 
 demand. The world's selhng prices are regulated 
 by market and crop reports. We travel greater dis- 
 tances in a shorter space of time and with more ease 
 than was ever dreamed of by the fathers. Isolation 
 is no longer possible or desirable. The same impor- 
 tant news is read, though in different languages, 
 the same day in all Christendom. 
 
 The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occur- 
 
340 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 ring everywhere, and the Press foreshadows, with more 
 or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of the na- 
 tions. Market prices of products and of securities 
 are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the 
 investments of the people extend beyond their own 
 national boundaries into the remotest parts of the 
 earth. Vast transactions are conducted and inter- 
 national exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. 
 Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. 
 The quick gathering and transmission of news, like 
 rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made 
 possible by the genius of the inventor and the cour- 
 age of the investor. It took a special messenger of 
 the Government, wdth every facility known at the 
 time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the 
 City of Washington to New Orleans with a message 
 to General Jackson that the w^ar wdth England had 
 ceased and a treaty of peace had been signed. How 
 different now! We reached General Miles, in Porto 
 Rico, and he was able through the miUtary telegraph 
 to stop his army on the firing line with the message 
 that the United States and Spain had signed a 
 protocol suspending • hostilities. We knew almost 
 instanter of the first shots fired at Santiago, and the 
 subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was 
 known at Washington within less than an hour of 
 its consummation. The first ship of Cervera's fleet 
 had hardly emerged from that historic harbor when 
 the fact was flashed to our Capitol, and the swift 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley 341 
 
 destruction that followed was announced immediately 
 through the wonderful medium of telegraphy. 
 
 So accustomed are we to safe and easy communica- 
 tion with distant lands that its temporary interrup- 
 tion, even in ordinary times, results in loss and incon- 
 venience. We shall never forget the days of anxious 
 waiting and suspense when no information was per- 
 mitted to be sent from Pekin, and the diplomatic 
 representatives of the nations in China, cut off from 
 all communication, inside and outside of the walled 
 capital, were surrounded by an angry and misguided 
 mob that threatened their lives; nor the joy that 
 thrilled the w^orld when a single message from the 
 government of the United States brought through 
 our minister the first news of the safety of the be- 
 sieged diplomats. 
 
 At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century there 
 was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe; now 
 there are enough miles to make its circuit many times. 
 Then there was not a hne of electric telegraph; 
 now we have a vast mileage traversing all lands and 
 seas. God and man have linked the nations together. 
 No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. 
 And as we are brought more and more in touch with 
 each other, the less occasion is there for misunder- 
 standings, and the stronger the disposition, when 
 we have differences, to adjust them in the court of 
 arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settle- 
 ment of international disputes. 
 
34^ 
 
 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 My fellow-citizens, trade statistics indicate that 
 this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. 
 The figures are almost appaUing. They show that 
 we are utiUzing our fields and forests and mines, and 
 that we are furnishing profitable employment to the 
 miUions of workingmen throughout the United States, 
 bringing comfort and happiness to their homes, 
 and making it possible to lay by savings for old age 
 and disabihty. That all the people are participating 
 in this great prosperity is seen in every American 
 community and shown by the enormous and unprece- 
 dented deposits in our savings banks. Our duty in 
 the care and security of these deposits and their safe 
 investment demands the highest integrity and the 
 l^est business capacity of those in charge of these 
 depositories of the people's earnings. 
 
 We have a vast and intricate business, built up 
 through years of toil and struggle in which every 
 part of the country has its stake, which will not per- 
 mit of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No 
 narrow, sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest 
 skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and 
 producers will be required to hold and increase it. 
 Our industrial enterprises, which have grown to 
 such great proportions, affect the homes and occu- 
 pations of the people and the welfare of the country. 
 Our capacity to produce has developed so enor- 
 mously and our products have so multipHed that the 
 problem of more markets requires our urgent and 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley 343 
 
 immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened 
 policy will keep what we have. No other policy 
 will get more. In these times of marvelous business 
 energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, 
 strengthening the weak places in our industrial and 
 commercial systems, that we may be ready for any 
 storm or strain. 
 
 By sensible trade arrangements which will not 
 interrupt our home production we shall extend the 
 outlets for our increasing surplus. A system which 
 provides a mutual exchange of commodities is mani- 
 festly essential to the continued and healthful growth 
 of our export trade. We must not repose in the 
 fancied security that we can forever sell everything 
 and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were 
 possible it would not be best for us or for those with 
 whom we deal. We should take from our customers 
 such of their products as we can use without harm 
 to our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the 
 natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial 
 development under the domestic policy now firmly 
 established. 
 
 What we produce beyond our domestic consump- 
 tion must have a vent abroad. The excess must be 
 relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell 
 everywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will 
 enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make 
 a greater demand for home labor. 
 
 The period of exclusiveness is past. The expan- 
 
344 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 sion of our trade and commerce is the pressing prob- 
 lem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy 
 of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent 
 reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with 
 the spirit of the times; measures of retahation are not. 
 If, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed 
 for revenue or to encourage and protect our indus- 
 tries at home, why should they not be employed to 
 extend and promote our markets abroad ? 
 
 Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. 
 New lines of steamships have already been put in 
 commission between the Pacific coast ports of the 
 United States and those on the western coasts of 
 Mexico and Central and South America. These 
 should be followed up with direct steamship lines 
 between the western coast of the United States and 
 South American ports. One of the needs of the 
 times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields 
 of production to the fields of consumption that we 
 have but barely touched. Next in advantage to 
 having the thing to sell is to have the conveyance to 
 carry it to the buyer. We must encourage our mer- 
 chant marine. We must have more ships. They 
 must be under the American flag; built and manned 
 and owned by Americans. These will not only be 
 profitable in a commercial sense; they will be mes- 
 sengers of peace and amity wherever they go. 
 
 We must build the Isthmian canal, which will 
 unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley 
 
 345 
 
 communication with the western coasts of Central 
 and South America and Mexico. The construction 
 of a Pacific cable cannot be longer postponed. In 
 the furtherance of these objects of national interest 
 and concern you are performing an important part. 
 This Exposition would have touched the heart of that 
 American statesman whose mind was ever alert and 
 thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a 
 truer fraternity of the republics of the New World. 
 His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. 
 He needs no identification to an assemblage of Amer- 
 icans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably 
 associated with the Pan-American movement which 
 finds here practical and substantial expression, and 
 which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the 
 Pan-American Congress that assembles this autumn 
 in the capital of Mexico. The good work will go on. 
 It cannot be stopped. 
 
 These buildings will disappear; this creation of art 
 and beauty and industry will perish from sight, 
 but their influence will remain to '' make it live beyond 
 its too short living with praises and thanksgiving." 
 Who can tell the new thoughts that have been 
 awakened, the ambitions fired, and the high achieve- 
 ments that will be wrought through this Exposition? 
 
 Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest 
 is in concord, not conflict; and that our real eminence 
 rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We 
 hope that all who are represented here may be moved 
 
346 BEST AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 to higher and nobler efforts for their own and the 
 world's good, and that out of this city may come 
 not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, 
 more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, 
 confidence, and friendship, which will deepen and 
 endure. Our earnest prayer is that God will gra- 
 ciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness, and peace 
 to all our neighbors, and Uke blessings to all the 
 peoples and powers of earth. 
 
JUL 2S 
 
 i9I0 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div.