BY PERMISSION, FROM PORTRAIT PAINTED FOR THE LATE JOHN C. PHILLIPS, ESQ. BY FREDERIC P. VINTON. SPEECHES LECTURES, AND LETTERS BY WENDELL PHILLIPS SECOND SERIES BOSTON 1891 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 10 MILK STREET NEXT li THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE" YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 718 AXD 720 BROADWAY Copyright, 1891, BY LEE AND SHEPARD. All rights reserved. SPEECHES AND LECTURES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. SECOND SERIES. SJttttoctsttg JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. PREFATOKY NOTE. r pWENTY-EIGHT yews ago, in 1863, WENDELL PHILLIPS yielded to the solicitations of his friends, and revised for publication a selection of his Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. The moment was well chosen. On the one hand public interest in the Antislavery question, the constant burden of the orator's utterance, had widened and deep- ened with the progress of the war, and had reached its height when the Emancipation Proclamation appeared ; and on the other hand, the personal popularity of Mr. PHILLIPS was steadily rising throughout the North and the West. Both these changes account in part for the welcome the volume at once received. But its permanent place among the records of American eloquence is due to deeper and intrinsic reasons. The classic is always contemporary. If the immediate occasion and subject of the speaker pass, the truth and conviction which inspire his appeal are not lost ; and while the charm of voice and action may die with the moment, or survive only as a tradition, there is a deeper grace of form which makes the speech, as well as the poem, an eternal 929817 IV PREFATORY NOTE. possession. And the student of oratory will find no better or safer model than Mr. PHILLIPS, if he would seek direct, incisive speech, abundance and felicity of illustra- tion, skill in applying truth to present needs, and, above all, the union of the highest gifts of eloquence with lightness of touch, a conversational reality of tone, and language level to the understanding of every hearer. Such mastery of invective also, keen and graceful as a Damascus blade, it has well been said, lends new mean- ing to the term "philippic." Repeated calls have been made for other speeches of Mr. PHILLIPS. At the time of his death he not only had a further selection in mind, but had revised certain lectures, and had promised a second volume to the present publishers. This collection, therefore, is in- tended as a partial fulfilment of his own purpose, no less than as an answer to the popular demand. It illus- trates the wide range of time and topic covered by his interest and his eloquence. It begins with the earliest of his speeches, delivered nine months before the famous Lovejoy address which stands first in the other volume, and closes with his last public utterance, his tribute to the memory of Harriet Martinean. An interval of over forty-six years separates the two addresses. A glance at the table of contents shows how wide a variety of subjects has been treated. Beside his recog- nized leadership in the Antislavery movement, he stands forth as an early champion of other reforms, Woman's Suffrage, the Labor Agitation, Temperance, and Penal Legislation. The lighter play of his genius is seen in his " Letter from Naples " and his " Address to the Boston School Children." His literary lectures are PREFATORY NOTE. V given large prominence, and the book closes with six personal tributes from his lips. The present volume forms part of a larger plan. The history of Mr. PHILLIPS'S relation to the Antislavery movement, the growth of his views and sentiments, and the development of his power and fame as an orator are reserved for another work. It will be illustrated by a series of speeches and selections not included in either of the volumes already published. It will follow his steps through contumely and hatred to honor and tri- umph such as few orators have known. It will set in strong relief the pure and lofty ideal of conscience and citizenship which he maintained to the end, untouched by flattery and undaunted by threats. In connection with these earlier volumes, it will prove, it is hoped, a full and trustworthy record of the orator and agitator, and an enduring monument to his work and fame. The editor and publishers return their grateful ac- knowledgments to Mr. J. M. W. Yerrinton, the lifelong friend of Mr. PHILLIPS, to whose skilful pencil the abid- ing memory of his eloquence is so largely due. The likeness of Mr. PHILLIPS in this volume is taken from the portrait painted for the late John C. Phillips, Esq., by Mr. Frederic P. Vinton, whose kindness and courtesy in allowing its use will be^ appreciated by the readers as well as by the publishers. THEODORE C. PEASE. BOSTON, April, 1891. CONTENTS. / PAGE THE RIGHT OF PETITION (1837) Y. 1 LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON (1839) 7 COTTON, THE CORNERSTONE OF SLAVERY (1840) 13 IRISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT (1842) . . 19 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON (1850) 24 KOSSUTH (1851) . 40 CRISPUS ATTUCKS (1858) 69 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (1855) 77 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN (1861) /. .... 128 C- THE EIGHT-HOUR. MOVEMENT (1865) . 139 < THE CHINESE (1870) 145 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT (1871^>. . . 152 THE LABOR QUESTION (1872) ^ 168 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW (1865) 178 DR. CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE" (1881) . . 195 LETTER FROM NAPLES (1841) 219 ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN (1865) .... 225 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE (1876) 231 V11 1 CONTENTS. PAGE THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH (1850) 244 THE PULPIT (1860) 252 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM (1869) 276 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN (1859) .... 294 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE (1859VT 309 SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC (1881) 330 THE LOST ARTS (1838) 365 DANIEL O'CoNNELL (1875) . './'.' 384 TRIBUTES : THEODORE PARKER (1860) 421 FRANCIS JACKSON (1861) 440 ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1865) 446 HELEN ELIZA GARRISON (1876) 454 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON (1879) .... 459 HARRIET MARTINEAU (1883) . . , 473 Knight-errant of unfriended Truth, he blew His magic note that charmed the air to song Before grim castles, and to frowning Wrong Flung down his gauntlet. Giant Error flew. Full-armed, to crush him ; but his falchion true Smote the foul monster prone the earth along. Meat from the eater, honey from the strong, Not he, but others, through his conflict drew. Alert, unwearied, with his lance at rest, What wonder he should win where others fail '? Each high emprise led up to farther quest ; No selfish rust bedimmed his shining mail: Of all our Table Round the purest, best, Our Galahad beheld the Holy Grail! T. C. P. BOSTON, April, 1891. SPEECHES, LECTURES, AND LETTERS. SPEECHES, LECTURES, AND LEITO3. THE EIGHT OF PETITION. At the Quarterly Meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery So- ciety, held in Lynn, March 28, 1837, the following resolution was offered by Wendell Phillips, Esq., of Boston : - Resolved, That the exertions of the Hon. John Quincy Adams, and the rest of the Massachusetts Delegation who sustained him, in his defence of the right of petition, deserve the cordial approbation and the gratitude of every American citizen. This was the first speech of Mr. Phillips, and marked his entrance upon the Antislavery movement. Another speech delivered by him oil the same day and occasion will be found in a later volume. MR. PRESIDENT : One of the previous resolutions of this meeting refers to the success of the cause of abolition within the last few months, and the bright hopes with which we may enter on another year of la- bor. The petitions which have 'loaded the tables of our State and National Legislatures may certainly be con- sidered as one great cause of that success, and the pur- suing of the same course, the best ground of hope for the future. Such circumstances naturally fix every eye on that distinguished citizen to whom the resolution refers. His course during the last session deserves the gratitude of every American ; for in that contest, he was not the representative of any State or any party, Z THE RIGHT OF PETITION. but the champion of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. The right of petition we had thought as firmly fixfed -m -tSe/soil of America as the Saxon race vhjch; brought it here. It was the breath of life during our colonial; Jiistftry, ?md is recognized on every page of our history since as the bulwark of civil liberty. An- tiquity and the historical associations of our mother country had rendered it so sacred that we looked con- fidently to that for protection and redress, when all other means should fail. Upon the friends of abolition, of free discussion, of equal rights, throughout the land, insult had been heaped on insult, and outrage added to outrage, till we thought that malice had done its worst. All the out- works that guard the citadel of liberty had been in turn overthrown. The dearest rights of freemen had been, one by one, torn from us. We had heard, at a time of profound peace, in the midst of our most crowded cities, the voice of the multitude once and again overwhelm the voice of the laws, almost without the shadow of an attempt at resistance on the part of the civil magistrate. We had seen a price set by a Southern legislature on the head of a citizen of Massachusetts, for presuming to think as he pleased, and to speak what he thought, within the borders of the old Commonwealth ; and this insult had been answered only by a recommen- dation on the part of our own Executive that whoever dared to move the question of slavery should be pro- ceeded against at common law. We had long known that we held our lives and property at the will of the mob ; but now, as if by common consent, the North seems ready to yield to Southern threats the right to speak and to think. " The time had come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hood- winked." We had heard in old Faneuil, and from the THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 3 lips of those whose very names should have been a guaranty of their attachment to freedom, principles which would have blotted out every page of our past history. Borne down, but not dismayed, confident that the hearts of the people, could the truth but reach them, were sound at the core, we sought out the weapon which our fathers wielded ; we besieged the doors of our State legislatures with petitions and remonstrances. I need not tell the county of Essex how that appeal was an- swered. Of that answer they have already taken note. There was one refuge left, the government which our fathers established, " to promote justice, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity." There, at least, we might hope to find men able to look behind circumstances to principles. Who does not recollect the astonishment for the first feeling was rather astonishment than indignation with which we heard that the door of the capitol was closed to the voice of the people ? It seemed as if the nation had been pressing on blindfold, and we opened our eyes only to behold the precipice over which we were rushing ; as if the time-honored rights which had been fought for on British ground, and which our fathers had inherited, not won, were again to be struggled for. The car of Liberty had rolled back four centuries, and the contest whose history is written on the battlefields and scaffolds of England had been all in vain. Well might hope sicken, and the bravest despair. And who does not recollect the thrill of enthusiastic feeling with which we heard that Adams had thrown himself into the gap, and was contending, at first single- handed, for the right of the citizen to petition, no matter what his creed, his color, or his party ? The effort was the nobler in that he was not a member of the body of 4 THE RIGHT OF PETITION. men in whose persons this right had been invaded. No interest of his or of his friends had been touched. Against our efforts he had all along protested ; but, statesman-like, he saw the end from the beginning. When rights were invaded, he was willing to side with any who rallied to protect them. How much truer to the name he bore than many others who stood higher in our esteem, and were dearer to us, than himself ! We hail him as the champion of free principles. We accord to him the high merit of a pure attachment to civil liberty which would not permit her to be attacked, even when she appeared in the garb of a party which it was his interest, and he felt it to be his duty, to op- pose ; of a clear-sighted, far-reaching wisdom, which discovered the first approach of corruption and snuffed oppression in the tainted breeze ; of a noble disregard to party lines, when to have adhered to them would have compromised the fundamental principles of our government. The supineness of the North under the act of Southern aggression, and still more, the indifference with which Calhoun's bill was generally received, are the strongest arguments we can offer to our fellow-citizens to induce them to look at this subject. Why, such a proposition on any other occasion would have set the whole country in a blaze ! It would have sent an electric shock through the land, and called forth from its slumbering retreats all the spirit of olden time. What is it that thus pal- sies our strength and blinds our foresight?- We have become so familiar with slavery that we are no longer aware of its deadening influence on the body politic. Pinkney's words have become true : " The stream of general liberty cannot flow on unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage." And this is the reason we render to those who ask us why we are contending THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 5 against Southern slavery, that it may not result in Northern slavery ; because time has shown that it sends out its poisonous brandies over all our fair land, and corrupts the very air we breathe. Our fate is bound up with that of the South, so that they cannot be corrupt and we sound ; they cannot fall, and we stand. Disunion is coming, unless we discuss this subject ; for the spirit of freedom and the spirit of slavery are contending hera for the mastery. They cannot live together : as well,v like the robber of classic fable, chain the living and the/ dead together, as bind up such discordant materials, and think it will last. We must prosper, and a sound publi^ t ' opinion root out slavery from the land, or there musi* grow up a mighty slaveholding State to overshadow and) mildew our free institutions. I have said, Mr. President, that we owe gratitude to Mr. Adams for his defence of the right of petition. A little while ago it would have been absurd to talk of gratitude being due to any man for such a service. It would have been said, " Why, he only did his duty, what every other man would have done ; it was too simple and plain a case to need a thought." But it is true that, now, even for this we ought to be grateful. And this fact is another, a melancholy proof of the stride which the influence of slavery has made within a few years. It throws such dimness over the minds of freemen that what would once have been thought the alphabet of civil right, they hail as a discovery. But I will not wander from my subject to slavery ; it is our own rights which are at issue ; and the first cry that awakened the nation to the importance of that issue, was the voice of the Ex-President. On that " gray discrowned head " were fixed, in awful suspense, the eyes of the nation. Others came at length to his aid. I wish this resolution may pass, that, as far as in us lies, 6 THE RIGHT OF PETITION. he may feel that Massachusetts echoes back his cry to arms, is ready to sustain him and his colleagues in their noble course, is girding herself for the contest, and, come what may, will see to it that, however the lights of other States may flicker with the breeze, her torch shall burn bright and unchanging on the eminence which she has never deserted or betrayed. LETTEK TO GEOEGE THOMPSON. This letter was written in England in the summer of 1839, and read by Mr. Thompson at the Anniversary of the Glasgow Emanci- pation Society in that year. MY DEAR THOMPSON, I am very sorry to say no to your pressing request, but I cannot come to Glasgow ; duty takes me elsewhere. My heart will be with you though, on the 1st of August, and I need not say how much pleasure it would give me to meet, on that day especially, the men to whom my country owes so much, and on the spot dear to every American Aboli- tionist as the scene of your triumphant refutation and stern rebuke of Breckin ridge. I do not think any of you can conceive the feelings with which an American treads such scenes. You cannot realize the debt of gratitude he feels to be due, and is eager to pay to those who have spoken in behalf of humanity, and whose voices have come to him across the water. The vale of Leven, Exeter Hall, Glasgow, and Birmingham are consecrated spots, the land of Scoble and Sturge, of Wardlaw and Buxton, of Clarkson and O'Connell, is hallowed ground to us. Would I could be with you, to thank the English Abolitionists, in the slave's name, for the great experi- ment they have tried in behalf of humanity ; for proving in the face of the world the safety and expediency of immediate emancipation ; for writing out the demon- LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON. stration of the problem as if with letters of light on the blue vault of heaven ; to thank them, too, for the fidelity with which they have rebuked the apathy, and de- nounced the guilt of the American Church, in standing aloof from this great struggle for freedom in modern times. The appeals and exhortations which have from time to time gone out from among you may seem to have fallen to the ground in vain ; but, far from it, they have awakened, in some degree at least, a slumbering Church to a great national sin, and they have strength- ened greatly hands that were almost ready to faint in the struggle with a giant evil. We need them still; spare us not a moment from your Christian rebukes ; give us line upon line and precept upon precept. Our enterprise is eminently a religious one, dependent for success entirely on the religious sentiment of the people. It is on hearts that wait not for the results of West India experiments, that look to duty and not to consequences, that disdain to make the fears of one class of men the measure of the rights of another, that fear no evil in the doing of God's commands, it is on such that the weight .of our cause mainly rests, and on the conversion of those whose characters will make them such that its future progress must depend. It is upon just such minds that your appeals have most effect. I hardly exaggerate when I say that the sympathy and brotherly appeals of British Christians are the sheet- anchor of our cause. Did they realize that slavery is now most frequently defended in America from the Bible, that when Abolitionists rebuke the Church for upholding it, they are charged with hostility to Christianity itself, they would feel this. If we construe a text in favor of liberty, it is set down to partiality and prejudice. A Eu- ropean construction is decisive. Our rebukes lose much of their force when they are represented, though falsely, LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 9 to spring from personal hostility, from a zeal which undue attention to a single subject has made to outrun discretion. Your appeals sink deep, they can neither be avoided nor blunted by any such pretence, and their first result must be conviction. Distance lends them something of the awful weight of the verdict of poster- ity. May they never cease ! Let the light of your ex- ample shine constantly upon us, till our Church, beneath its rays, like Egypt's statue, shall break forth into the music of consistent action. England, too, is the fountain-head of our literature. The slightest censure, every argument, every rebuke on the pages of your reviews, strikes on the ear of the remotest dweller in our country. Thank God, that in this the sceptre has not yet departed from Judah, that it dwells still in the land of Vane and Milton, of Pym and Hampden, of Sharp and Cowper and Wilberforce : " The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." May those upon whom rests their mantle be true to the realms they sway ! You have influence where we are not even heard. The prejudice which treads under foot the vulgar Abolitionist dares not proscribe the literature of the world. In the name of the slave, I beseech you, let literature speak out, in deep, stern, and indignant tones, for the press, " like the air, Is seldom heard but when it speaks in thunder." I am rejoiced to hear of your new movement in regard to India. It seals the fate of the slave system in Amer- ica. The industry of the pagan shall yet wring from Christian hands the prey they would not yield to the com- mands of conscience or the claims of religion. Hasten 10 LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON. the day, for it lies with you, when the prophecy of our Randolph (himself a slave-holder) shall be fulfilled, that the time would come when masters would fly their slaves, instead of slaves their masters, so valueless would be a slave's labor in comparison with his support. To you, to the sunny plains of Hindostan, we shall owe it, that our beautiful prairies are unpolluted by the foot- steps of a slave-holder; that the march of civilization westward will be changed from the progress of the man- acled slave coffle, at the bidding of the lash, to the quiet step of families, carrying peace, intelligence, and religion as their household gods. Mr. Clay has coolly calculated the value of sinews and muscles, of the bodies and souls of men, and then asked us whether we could reasonably expect the South to surrender 1,200,000,000 dollars at the bidding of abstract .principles. Be just to India ; waken that industry along her coast which oppression has kept landlocked and idle, break the spell which binds the genius of her fertile plains, and we shall see this property in man become like the gold in India's fairy tales, dust in the slave-holder's grasp. You cannot imagine, my dear brother, the impulse this new development of England's power will give the Antislavery cause in America. It is just what we need to touch a class of men who seem almost out of the pale of religious influence. Much as our efforts have been blessed, much as they have accomplished, though truth has often floated further on the shouts of a mob than our feeble voices could have carried it, still our pro- gress has served but to show us more clearly the Alps which lie beyond. The evil is so deep-rooted, the weight of interest and prejudice on its side so vast, ambi- tion clinging to political power, wealth to the means of further gain, that we have sometimes feared they would be able to put off emancipation till the charter of LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 11 the slaves' freedom would be sealed with blood, that our day of freedom would be like Egypt's, when " God came forth from his place, his right hand clothed in thunder," and the jubilee of Israel was echoed by Egypt's wailing for her first-born. It is not the thoughtful, the sober-minded, the consci- entious, for whom we fear. With them truth will finally prevail. It is not that we want eloquence or Christian zeal enough to sustain the conflict with such, and with your aid to come off conquerors. We know, as your Whately says of Galileo, that if Garrison could have been answered, he had never been mobbed ; that May's Christian firmness, Smith's world-wide philanthropy, Chapman's daring energy, and Weld's soul of fire can never be quelled, and will finally kindle a public feeling before which opposition must melt away. But how hard to reach the callous heart of selfishness, the blinded conscience, over which a corrupt Church has thrown its shield lest any ray of truth pierce its dark chambers. How shall we address that large class of men with whom dollars are always a weightier consideration than duties, prices current stronger argument than proofs of holy writ ? But India can speak in tones which will command a hearing. Our appeal has been entreaty, for the times in America are those party times, when " Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good." But from India a voice comes clothed with the omnipo- tence of self-interest, and the wisdom which might have been slighted from the pulpit, will be to such men oracu- lar from the market-place. Gladly will we make a pil- grimage and bow with more than Eastern devotion on the banks of the Ganges, if his holy waters shall be able to wear away the fetters of the slave. 12 LETTER TO GEORGE THOMPSON. God speed the progress of your society ! may it soon find in its ranks the whole phalanx of sacred and veteran Abolitionists ! No single divided effort, but a united one to grapple with the wealth, influence, and power em- battled against you. Is it not Schiller who says, " Divide the thunder into single notes, and it becomes a lullaby for children; but pour it forth in one quick peal, and the royal sound shall shake the heavens " ? So may it be with you ! and God grant that without waiting for the United States to be consistent, before our ears are dust, the jubilee of emancipated millions may reach us from Mexico to the Potomac, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Yours truly and most affectionately, WENDELL PHILLIPS. COTTON, THE CORNER-STONE OF SLAVERY. Speech delivered at the First Annual Meeting of the British India Society, held at Freemason's Hall, London, July 6, 1840. In pre- senting a resolution relating to the effect of the cultivation of cotton in British India upon slavery in the United States, Mr. Phillips said : IT is now ten years since the friends of the negro in America first put forth the demand for the uncondi- tional abolition of slavery. They thought they would have nothing more to do than to show that emancipa- tion would be safe, that it would be just ; and having proved that, that it would, in such a liberty-loving coun- try, at once be cordially and willingly acceded to in every State from Maine to Georgia ; but at the end of the long period of ten years they have done almost nothing. Had it not been for their perseverance and zeal, the more devoted because of the difficulties they had met with, long, long ago they would have been put down, they must have folded their arms in despair, and have given up all hope of bloodless emancipation. When they heard of the British India Society and its objects, the news burst upon their ear, and was as startling and as grateful as must have been the first cry of land to Co- lumbus when he was plunged almost in despair. [Cheers.] They through it saw again a peaceful hope for the slave, and then every friend of abolition rallied round it, and 14 COTTON, THE CORNER-STONE OF SLAVERY. placed their plan prominently before the country. Many at first doubted : they deemed it but one more of the many fables to which India had given rise; they deemed it a very fiction, but I trust through the exer- tions of the society they will find it " Truth severe, in fairy fiction dressed." [Cheers.] If it is a fact that there are 24,000,000 acres within reach of the Ganges, upon which cotton can be grown, now lying waste ; if it is true that there are 54,000,000 men anxious for labor, and that their services can be had for a penny or twopence a day ; if they can bring their cotton to Liverpool at fourpence per pound, how can slavery stand against it at a cost of a shilling a day ? Commerce is incompatible with slavery : in Eng- land it has put down the system of villeinage ; in France it put an end to vassalage ; it has done more than Christianity, of which it is a good forerunner. It is one of the most immutable of truths, that the moment a free hand touches an article, that moment it falls from the hand of the slave. Witness the beet sugar of France ; the moment it was made, her West India colonists applied for protection against the eternal principles of commerce and freedom. [Hear, hear !] So it was with indigo. Formerly it was all slave produce ; now, not an ounce of it is. I need not give further examples, for the principle is as immutable as the laws of Nature. No article can be grown and manufactured at the same time by both free and slave labor. The fathers of this coun- try thought in the settlement of their independence they had put down slavery : but, unfortunately, in 1786, when it was about to cease, a small bag of cotton-seed was found in Carolina ; it was almost by accident put in the ground, and it was found that cotton could be grown, and so slavery was perpetuated. Slavery can COTTON, THE CORNER-STONE OF SLAVERY. 15 only be maintained by monopoly; the moment she comes/ into competition with free labor, she dies. Cotton is( the corner-stone of slavery in America ; remove it, and \ slavery receives its mortal blow. [Hear, hear !] I am glad to see such a society grow up in the land of Clarkson and of Wilberforce, the great fathers of Anti- slavery. I am glad that England is awakening to a sense of her power, and I pray God she may arouse herself as one man, and exert that power for the sake of humanity all over the world. It is not the fault of America that slavery exists ; it is) the fault of England that bribed her with 14,000,000 si year, and it is the price of cotton in the Liverpool mar-\ ket that signs the death warrant of the poor slaves. [Cheers.] There are a class of men in America that would not listen to the voice of an angel, or to one risen from v the dead. The denunciations of O'Connell are nothing to them, while the balance is on the right side of the ledger ; they must have Antislavery preached in their counting-houses, or it will never be preached at all. [Cheers.] The only voice they will listen to is the Gazette that publishes them bankrupts, and the auc- tioneer who knocks down their houses to the highest bidder. It is England that delays that day by paying them 14,000,000 annually for their support. [Hear, hear !] One hundred per cent profit is better than the most eloquent lips that ever spoke. You may think ifr) strange for an American to speak thus of a system thatj is to make bankrupt one half of his country, and par-S alyze the other ; but though I love my country, I love \ my countrymen more, and these countrymen are the col- ' ored men of America. [Cheers.] For their sakes l\ say, welcome the bolt that smites our commerce to the (^ dust, if with it, by the blessing of God, it will strike off ) the fetters of the slave. [Cheers.] But I do not fear 16 COTTON, THE CORNER-STONE OF SLAVERY. British India. Deliver America from the incubus of slavery, and her beautiful prairies will beat the banks of x-tjie Ganges. Free America from the incubus of slavery, \and Yankee skill in the fruitful valleys of the South will /beat England and British India in any market in the world. I beg permission to read to the meeting the mes- sage of one who may justly be considered a far higher authority than any who have spoken from this platform ; and observe, this is not an after-thought. It is not a new project, for years back it had the devoted advocacy of Cropper, and fifteen years ago, Clarkson, in a private letter to a friend, suggested it as the only remedy for slavery in the transatlantic world. You will pardon me for reading a portion of the speech the venerable Clark- son prepared in writing, and intended to deliver at the opening of the General Antislavery Convention : - " My dear friends, }*ou have a most difficult task to per- form ; it is neither more nor less than tho extirpation of slavery from the whole world. Your opponents who appear the most formidable are the cotton and other planters in the southern parts of the United States ; who, I am grieved to sa} r , hold more than two million of their fellow-creatures in the most cruel bondage. Now we know of these men, that they are living in the daily habits of injustice, cruelty, and oppression, and may be therefore said to have no true fear of God, nor any just sense of religion. You cannot, therefore, expect to have the same hold upon the consciences of these that you have upon the consciences of others. How then can you get at these so as to influence their conduct? There is but one way ; you must endeavor to make them feel their guilt in its consequences. You must endeavor, b}- all justifi- able means, to affect their temporal interests. You must endeavor, among other things, to have the produce of free tropical labor brought into the markets of Europe, and under- sell them there ; and if you can do this, your victory is sure. 17 * k Now that this is possible, that this may be done, there is no question. The East India Company alone can do it of them- selves, and the}' can do it by means that are perfectly moral and pacific, according to your own principles, namely, by the cultivation of the earth, and by the employment of free labor. They ma}*, if they please, not only have the high honor of abolishing slavery and the slave trade, but the advantage of increasing their revenue beyond all calculation : for, in the first place, they have land in their possession twenty times more than equal to the supply of all Europe with tropical produce ; in the second place, they can procure, not tens of thousands, but tens of millions of free laborers to work ; in the third, what is of the greatest consequence in this case, the price of labor with these is only from a penny to three half- pence a day. What slavery can stand against these prices? " I learn, too, from letters which I have seen from India, and from the Company's own reports, that they have long been engaged shall I say providentially engaged? in preparing seeds for the cultivation of cotton there. Now, if we take into considerations all these previous preparations (by which it appears that they are ready to start) , and add to this the consideration that they could procure, not tens of thousands, but tens of millions of free laborers to work, 1 speak from authority, I believe that if they would fol- low up their plans heartily and with spirit, according to their means, in the course of six years they would materially affect the price of this article at market, and in twelve that they would be able to turn the tide completely against the growers of it in the United States. " And here I would observe that this is not a visionary or fanciful statement. Look at the American newspapers ; look at the American pamphlets which have come out upon this subject ; look at the opinion of the celebrated Judge Jay on this subject also : all, all confess, and the planters too con- fess but the latter with fear and trembling that if the East India Company should resolve upon the cultivation of tropical products in India, and carry it to the extent to which 2 18 COTTON, THE CORNER-STONE OF SLAVERY. they would be capable of carrying it, it is all over with American slavery. " Gentlemen, I have mentioned these circumstances, not with a view of dictating to you any particular plan of opera- tions, but only to show you the possibility of having your great object accomplished, and this to its fullest extent ; for what I have said relatively to the United States is equally applicable to Cuba, Brazil, and other parts of the South American continent, and besides, the East India Company have twenty times more land than is sufficient to enable them to compete with them all." The proprietors and conductors of the American news- papers, to which Mr. Clarkson refers, are the agents of the banks, and the agents of the slave-holders. It is not their policy to endeavor to raise and secure a high price in the market of Liverpool, for fear the eyes of Great Britain should be turned to her possessions in the East, where, as they express it, there are no doubt exhaustless resources for the cultivation of cotton ; for they see that if the attention of Great Britain were directed to that quarter, America would lose the market and slavery to- gether. [Hear, hear !] Twice they thought the death- blow was given to the system in America, and twice have they been disappointed. But take care, in carrying out this plan, that the protection thrown over India does not bring forth into life weeds as well as flowers. Take care that slavery does not gather strength with the rest of your institutions which will be strengthened in India ; and that it does not, as it has done in America, monopo- lize the resources of another world in the East. This is the only danger that can be anticipated in the progress of this society. Take care that in driving our cotton from your shores, you do not admit a single pound that is equally blood-stained with our own. IKISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT. At a meeting in favor of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Friday evening, Janu- ary 28, 1842, the chairman presented an Irish address to the Irish residents of the United States signed by Daniel O'Connell, Father Mathew, and sixty thousand other Irishmen, calling upon all Irish men in America to espouse the Antislavery cause. Mr. Phillips then offered the following resolutions, which after his advocacy were adopted by acclamation : Resolved, That we rejoice that the voice of O'Connell, which now shakes the three kingdoms, has poured across the waters a thunder- peal for the cause of liberty in our own land; and that Father Mathew, having lifted with one hand five millions of his own countrymen into moral life, has stretched forth the other which may Heaven make equally potent to smite off the fetters of the American slave. Resolved, That we receive with the deepest gratitude the names of the sixty thousand Irishmen who, in the trial-hour of their own struggle for liberty, have not forgotten the slave on this side the water ; that we accept with triumphant exultation the address they have forwarded to us, and pledge ourselves to circulate it through the length and breadth of our land, till the pulse of every man who claims Irish parentage beats true to the claims of patriotism and humanity. Mr. Phillips said : I HOLD in my hand, Mr. Chairman, a resolution ex- pressive of our thanks to the sixty thousand Irish- men who have sent us that token of their sympathy and interest, and specially to those high and gallant spirits who lead the noble list. I must say that never have I 20 IRISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT. stood in the presence of an audience with higher hopes of the rapid progress and success of our cause than now. I remember witli what devoted earnestness, with what unfaltering zeal, Ireland has carried on so many years the struggle for her own freedom. It is from such men, whose hearts lost no jot of their faith in the grave of Emmett ; over whose zeal the loss of Curran and Grattan could throw no damp ; who are now turning the trophies of one field into weapons for new conquest ; whom a hireling press and prejudiced public could never sever a moment from O'Connell's side, it is from the sympathy of such men that we have a right to hope much. The image of the generous Isle not only comes to us " crowned with the spoil of every science, and decked with the wreath of every muse," but we cannot forget that she lent to Waterloo the sword which cut the despot's " shattered sceptre through ; " and to American ears, the crumbled walls of St. Stephen's yet stand to echo the eloquence of her Burke, when at the foot of the British throne he took his place side by side with that immortal rebel [pointing to the picture of Washington]. From a priest of the Catholic Church we might expect superiority to that prejudice against color which freezes the sympathies of our churches, when Humanity points to the slave. I remember that African lips may join in the chants of the Church, unrebuked even under the proud dome of St. Peter's ; and I have seen the colored man in the sacred dress pass with priest and student beneath the frowning portals of the College of the Pro- paganda at Rome, with none to sneer at his complexion, or repulse him from society. I remember that a long line of Popes, from Leo to Gregory, have denounced the sin of making merchandise of men ; that the voice of Rome was the first to be heard against the slave-trade ; IRISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT. 21 and that the bull of Gregory XVI., forbidding every true Catholic to touch the accursed thing, is yet hardly a year old. Ireland is the land of agitation and agitators. We . may well learn a lesson from her in the battle for human i rights. Her philosophy is no recluse ; she doffs the cowl, and quits the cloister, to grasp in friendly effort the hands of the people. No pulses beat truer to liberty and humanity than those which in Dublin quicken at every good word from abolition on this side the ocean ; there can be no warmer words of welcome than those which greet the American Abolitionists on their thresholds. Let not any persuade us, Mr. Chairman, that the question of slavery is no business of ours, but belongs entirely to the South. Northern opinion, the weight of Northern power, is the real slave-holder of America. Their presence in the Union is the Carolinians' charter of safety, the dread of the Northern bayonet is their real police. Without it the whole South were but the deck of a larger " Creole," 1 and the physical strength of the bond- man, as on board that vessel, would sweep the oppressor from his presence. This very fact, that our hands rivet the fetters of the slave, binds us to raise our voice the more earnestly on his side. That Union which takes from him the power of physical resistance is bound to exert for him all the weight of a correct public opinion, to stir in his behalf all the depths of the heart of 1 The brig " Creole," of Richmond, Va., left Norfolk for New Orleans, October 30, 1841, with a cargo of tobacco and 135 slaves on board. No- vember 7, the slaves took possession of the boat, killed the second mate in the struggle, and wounded some others who resisted, but otherwise in- flicted no personal injury. They then turned the boat toward Nassau, New Providence. The ring-leaders were there arrested and held for mutiny and murder, and the rest of the slaves were set free. The British government refused to extradite the prisoners, or restore the slaves to their masters. 22 IRISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT. humanity. Every lover of peace, every one who hates bloodshed, must rejoice that it is in the power of Northern opinion to say to slavery, cease, and it ceases ; that the Northern Church can break every yoke and bid the oppressed go free, at her pleasure. I trust in that love of liberty which every Irishman brings to the country of his adoption, to make him true to her cause at the ballot-box, till he throws no vote with- out asking if the hand to which he is about to trust political power will use it for the slave. When an American was introduced to O'Connell in the lobby of the House of Commons, he asked, without putting out his hand, u Are you from the South?" " Yes, sir." " A slave-holder, I presume ? " " Yes, sir." " Then," said the great liberator, " I have no hand for you ! " and stalked away. Shall his countrymen trust that hand with political power which O'Connell deemed it pollution to touch? [Cheers.] We remember, Mr. Chairman, that when a jealous disposition tore from the walls of the city hall of Dublin the picture of Henry Grattan,the act did but endear him the more to Ireland. The slavocracy of our land thinks to expel that " old man eloquent," with the dignity of seventy winters on his brow [pointing to the picture of John Quincy Adams], from the halls of Congress. They will find him only the more lastingly fixed in the hearts of his countrymen. [Tremendous and continued cheers.] Mr. Chairman, we stand in the presence of at least the name of Father Mathew ; we remember the millions who pledge themselves to temperance from his lips. I hope his countrymen will join me in pledging here eter- nal hostility to slavery. Will you ever return to his mas- ter the slave who once sets foot on the soil of Massa- chusetts ? [No, no, no ! ] Will you ever raise to office IRISH SYMPATHY WITH THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT. 23 or power the man who will not pledge his utmost effort against slavery ? [No, no, no ! ] Then may not we hope well for freedom ? Thanks to those noble men who battle in her cause the world over, the " ocean of their philanthropy knows no shore." Humanity has no country ; and I am proud, here in Faneuil Hall, fit place to receive their message, to learn of O'Connell fidelity to freedom, and of Father Mathew love to the real interests of man. [Great applause.] WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. A reception to George Thompson, in Faneuil Hall, November 15, 1850, was broken up by an angry mob. The meeting was therefore adjourned to Worcester, and supplemented by other meetings in several cities. At the reception in Lynn, November 26, 1850, Mr. Phillips delivered the following speech : THIS is certainly, fellow-citizens, a glad sight for my eloquent friend to look upon ; these enthusiastic crowds, pressing to extend to him a welcome, and do their part in atonement for the scenes of 1835, and to convince him that even now, NOT as Boston speaks so speaks the State [cheers] ; and yet, it is not in our power, my friends, with all our numbers or zeal, to tender to our guest so real, so impressive a compliment as that with which Faneuil Hall flattered him, the 15th day of this month. " Indignation," it has been well said, " is itself flavored with a season of compliment." How potent has a man a right to consider his voice, when a whole nation rises to gag him ! No sooner does our friend announce his intention of visiting these shores, no sooner does he set his face hitherward, than the whole press howls in concert, and alarm encamps all along our sea- board. One would imagine his brow must be like that of the archangel Byron describes, and that " Where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space." No sooner does he land, than mob law is triumphant to silence him. Certainly the humblest man must be puffed WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 25 up by such unequivocal attestations to his importance. [Cheers.] To suppose Faneuil Hall roused to such a pitch by the advent of any insignificant person, to sup- pose the Daily Advertiser awakened to knowledge of any so recent event by a trifling matter, would be "ocean into tempest tossed, To waft a feather or to drown a fly." [Laughter and cheers.] Daniel Webster once said, in this country, that in the case of a suspected murderer, " suicide is confession." In the same way, mob law now is confession [cheers], confession that the land knows itself guilty, cannot abide the gaze of honest men, and dreads the testimony against itself of a voice whose trumpet notes have rung out over so many well-fought fields of reform, and at whose sum- mons the best spirits of our father-land are still glad to gather. [Loud cheers.] It was an Irish character in one of Lever's novels, I believe, who first proclaimed that " he had rather, at any time, knock a man down, than argue with him ; " but the preference seems to have found now admirers off of the Green Isle. [Cheers.] I arn not sure, Mr. Chairman, that we are correct, after all, in ascribing all this indignation in the city to the fear of national rebuke at the hands of Mr. Thompson. I am afraid it was no such honorable sen- timent as the dread of being held up to the gaze of other nations, u a mildewed ear blasting our wholesome brothers ; " of having painted to us "... the exulting tyrant's sneer Borne to us from the old world's thrones, And all their grief, who, pining, hear, In sunless mines and dungeons drear, How Freedom's land her faith disowns ! " I fear we must trace it to a baser origin. These are the hurricane months of American politics. Every day 26 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. seems to have a storm of its own ; and the Whig party, especially, is just now scudding under the bare poles of despair ! [Cheers.] For the first time within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, Boston has been hurled from its supremacy over the State. Cushioned in the luxurious seclusion of city life, party leaders began to believe the mass of the people as heartless as themselves. Willing themselves to be slave-catchers, they vainly thought there were many others like them, forgetting that God made the country, while man made the town. [Loud cheers.] The unwelcome discovery that there were men outside the city, who existed for other purposes than merely to register the edicts of State Street, came with stunning suddenness upon them ; and their cup was both so bitter and so full that it was perhaps cruel on our part to add a drop to its waters of penance, and especially so big and bitter a drop as George Thompson. [Cheers.] We should have chosen our time better. The child, robbed for the first time of its rattle, should have been allowed time to win over its petulance. I look upon the scene in Faneuil Hall as made up full as much of the last spasms of defeated Whiggery, Webster Whiggery, I mean, as of hatred for George Thompson. [Cheers.] And it is in connection, partly, with this point, that I hail these tokens of welcome extended to him here, and at Worcester, as of especial value. It is of great im- portance, just now, that the South and the nation should understand Massachusetts. Mr. Webster has been try- ing to persuade everybody that he is the State. Some leading presses have labored to show that Webster, Whigdom, and Massachusetts were identical. While things remained as they were, it was impossible to offer conclusive testimony to the contrary. Public meetings are here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Protests, the most WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 27 emphatic, from leading individuals are easily doffed aside as mere outbreaks of individual enthusiasm. Men judge the Commonwealth by the ballot-box. When she launches her crusade, say they, we shall see her drop anchor in the legislature. [Cheers.] Thank God, November has ripened this evidence for us. We have set up a mile-stone of progress which the blindest can feel, if he cannot see. [Cheers.] That a large party should follow Mr. Webster anywhere is not surprising. You know, Mr. Chairman, I was once among that crowd who are said to be " bred to the bar," and very kind of them surely, since the bar is never bread to them. Well, sir, I remember an insurance case which illustrates my meaning. You recollect that when an insured article is lost from any defect of its own, the insurers are not liable. Now in carrying some sheep from one port to another, the ram, getting frightened, leaped overboard, and the whole flock followed. [Cheers.] The insurers pleaded, in defence of a suit brought against them, that it was an inherent defect in the article. [Cheers.] Now when Mr. Webster, standing on that majestic height whence the hopes of the North, " with airy tongues that syllable men's names," summon him to the noblest task ever given to man, when such an one plunged into the Secretary of Stateship and nowhere [cheers], it was to be expected that a large portion of the old Whig party should follow him. It is an inherent defect of the article. [Loud laughter.] Thank Heaven, however, that when even he shouldered the Fugitive Slave Bill, there were so many fugitives from his own party that hardly enough were left to count them. [Cheers.] Now, at least, the question is settled where Massachu- setts stands ; so unequivocally, that even the Daily Advertiser, which never announced the nomination of 28 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. Horace Mann until after he was elected [cheers and laughter], even that late riser may be considered posted on this point. 1 remember Mr. Webster once said, in reply to some taunt of Hay lie's, " There is Massachu- setts ! Behold her, and judge for yourselves ! There is Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain forever." Let us borrow the formula, and when anybody in the United States Senate doubts our position, let us cry, " There is Massachusetts ! Be- hold her, and judge for yourselves ! There is George Thompson, welcomed by the ' heart,' if he could not be by the pocket of the Commonwealth. [Cheers.] There is Horace Mann in, and Charles W. Upham out, and there they will remain forever. {Cheers.] There is George S. Boutwell in, and George N. Briggs out, and there may they remain forever." [Enthusiastic cheers.] I cannot however quite consent to say that our friend could not be heard in Faneuil Hall. That glorious old name does not belong to bricks and mortar. As the Scottish chief boasted that " where McGregor sits is the head of the table," so where Freedom dwells, where all lips are free, wherever the foe of slavery is welcome, no matter whether an English or an African sun may have looked upon him, there is Faneuil Hall. [Cheers.] Ubi Libertas, ibi patria was Franklin's motto, which Bancroft's lines render well enough, " Where dwell the brave, the generous, and the free, Oh, there is Rome no other Rome for me." [Cheers.] Our welcome to George Thompson to-night is only the joy we have in grasping his hand, and seeing him with our own eyes. But we do not feel that, for the last fif- teen years, he has been absent from us, much less from the battle to whose New England phalanx we welcome him to-night. Every blow struck for the right in Eng- WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 29 land is felt wherever English is spoken. We may have declared political independence, but while we speak our mother-tongue, the sceptre of intellect can never depart from Judah, the mind of America must ever be, to a great extent, the vassal of England. ' Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere," and whoever hangs with rapture over Shakspeare, kin- dles with Sidney and Milton, or prays in the idiom of the English Bible, London legislates for him. [Cheers. J When, therefore, Great Britain abolished slavery in the West Indies, she settled the policy of every land which the Saxon race rules ; for all such, the question is now only one of time. Every word, therefore, that our friend has spoken for the slave at home, instead of losing power has gained it from the position he occupied, since he was pouring the waters of life into the very fountain- head of our literature. Neither have his labors in behalf of other reforms been so much lost to the slave. The cause of tyrants is one the world over [cheers], and the cause of resistance to tyranny is one also. [Cheers.] Whoever, anywhere, loves truth and hates error, frowns on injustice and holds out his hand to the oppressed, that man helps the slave. An Hungarian triumph lightens the chains of Carolina ; and an infamous vote in the United States Senate adds darkness to the dungeon where German patriots lie entombed. [Cheers.] All oppressions under the sun are linked together, and each feels the Devil's pulse keep time in it to the life-blood of every other. Of this brotherhood, it matters not what member you assail, since " Whichever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike." [Cheers.] The cause of reform, too, is one, " distinct like the billows, but one like the sea." It matters not, therefore, 30 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. in what part of the Lord's harvest-field our friend has been toiling : whether his voice cheered the starving Hindoo crushed beneath British selfishness, or Hungary battling against treason and the Czar; whether he pleaded at home for bread and the ballot, or held up with his sympathy the ever-hopeful enthusiasm of Ire- land, every true word spoken for suffering man, is so much done for the negro bending beneath the weight of American bondage. [Cheers.] It is said that the earth- quake of Lisbon tossed the sea in billows on the coast of Cuba ; so no indignant heart is beating anywhere whose pulses are not felt on the walls of our American Bastile. [Cheers.] When, therefore, we recount to Mr. Thomp- son our success and marvellous progress, we are but returning to him the talent he committed to our trust ; not only in that for many of us his eloquence breathed into our souls the breath of Antislavery life, but inas- much, also, as we have been aware, with the Roman consul whom the gods aided, that, at all times and in all trials, " he rode at our right hand." Our friend has dwelt long and most impressively on the objection brought against him, as a foreigner, for tak- ing sides on American questions. 1 Ah, the evil is not that he takes sides ; it is that he takes the wrong side ! [Cheers.] How much better Father Mathew played his 1 Mr. Choate said in his speech at Faneuil Hall, " If the philanthro- pist wishes to say anything about slavery, let him strike his blow in Cuba, let him strike it below the line, let him go where the stars and stripes do not wave over it." Is there not a story of one who listening to a sermon which asserted that all the world would be reformed, if every man would reform one sinner, cried out, " True, I '11 go right home and reform my brother Bill ! " and if there be such a story, is not the advice of the eloquent gentleman flat plagiarism ? Besides, George Thompson has come to his Cuba, come where his "stars and stripes [The Union Jack] do not wave," and yet the Choates of the island do not seem to agree with their Boston relative, that this is his " appropriate sphere ! " WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 31 cards ! Mr. Thompson comes here for the benefit of his health. In Italy invalids are always recommended to secure the southerly side of the house. Mistaken man ! how wild in him, an invalid, to take so Northerly a view of this great question ! [Cheers.] But for this, like the pliant Irishman, he might have moved in the best society ! Could he but have chanced to be born in Ire- land, and have early contracted the habit of kissing the l - Blarney Stone " of every nation, instead of shivering here beneath that North Star, which South Carolina, it is said, intends to forbid her pilots to steer by, it is so incendiary a twinkler ! [laughter and cheers] in- stead of this, he could " repose his wearied virtue " "Where the gentle south wind lingers, 'Mid Carolina's pines ; Or falls the careless sunbeam Down Georgia's golden mines." I come to-night from that little family party of the Curtises, the slave-catchers' meeting in Faneuil Hall, and am exceedingly glad to be able to inform you that our ever-active [!] Mayor has been able, quite contrary to his expectations, to keep the peace there to-night. [Laughter.] I was much pleased, even in that gather- ing, to witness the unconscious effect of our agitation. In the first place it is considered a settled thing that the Union is in danger ! Nothing less, it seems, would have induced Mr. Choate and all the Messrs. Curtises to come forth in its defence. Put that down as one evidence of success. It used to be said that characters which needed defence were not worth defending. Perhaps it will be found to be the case with laws. Add that to our trophies. Mr. B. R. Curtis the only one of the speakers enti- tled to much influence or consideration very palpably 32 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. evaded any expression of opinion on the propriety or necessity of the late Fugitive Slave Bill, another homage of vice to virtue. He also admitted the slave clause of the Constitution to be immoral. His only argument to justify our fathers in admitting it was, they were afraid to do otherwise ; feared poverty, England, anarchy, and all sorts of ills. The Sultan might well have pleaded, in the face of Mr. Webster's recent eloquence, that fear of dethronement, anarchy, Russia, and a thousand ills, justified him in surrendering Kossuth. Would the world, would humanity, would even Mr. Webster, have said Amen to such a plea from his mouth ? There may be times when States should say with the great Roman, " It is necessary to go ; it is not necessary to live!" Perhaps Mr. Curtis may yet find this to be one of those occasions. One tiling we know, the great sena- tor told the Sultan that if Kossuth were given up, he could not tell how or when, but verily, Turkey would somehow have to " look out for the consequences." " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." Once on a time Emperor Georgia sent after our William and Ellen Kossuth ; the Webster Whigs argued for their sur- render ; and Heaven has graciously permitted us to live and see both how and when they had to " look out for the consequences." [Laughter and cheers.] Mr. Curtis defended the right of Massachusetts to surrender the fugitive slave, on the ground that every sovereign State had authority to exclude foreigners from its soil. " Exclude foreigners from the soil " ! How delicate a phrase ! What a " commodity of good names " this trouble of ours has coined ! " Service and labor " was the Constitutional veil to hide the ugly face of slavery. Then, " Peculiar Institution " ! " Patriarchal Institution " ! ! " Domestic Institution " ! ! ! And now, " excluding foreigners from our soil " ! ! ! ! " Truly, the WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 33 epithets, Master Ilolof ernes, are sweetly varied ! " Throw in this trifle also, as deference to a sentiment which dares to do that which it dislikes to hear named. But let us, meantime, be careful to use all plainness of speech to call things rigorously by their right names. Whoever professes his readiness to obey this bill, call him " slave-catcher ; " let the title he chooses stick to him. Heed no cry of " harsh language." Yield not to any tenderness of nerves more sensitive than the (Conscience thej^cover ; remember, " There is more force in names Than most men dream of; and a lie may keep Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk Behind the shield of some iair-seerning name." Mr. Curtis forgot to finish his argument, and show us how, in present circumstances, it is moral in us to exercise this legal right. I may have, by law, the right to ex- clude the world from my house ; but surely there are circumstances, as in the case of a man dying on my threshold, where it would be gross inhumanity, utter sin before God, to exercise that right. Surely, the slave's claim on us is equal. How exactly level to the world's worst idea of a Yankee, this pocket argument that the Commonwealth would suffer by yielding to its noblest instincts; that Massachusetts cannot now afford to be humane, to open her arms, a refuge, in the words of her own statute of 1642, for all who "fly to her from the tyranny and oppression of their persecutors /" In 1850, our poor, old, heavy-laden mother must leave that lux- ury to Turks and other uncalculatincj barbarians ! We Christians " must take thought for the morrow," and count justice, humanity, and all that, mere fine words ! But is the slave a foreigner ? Not, surely, when we pledge our whole physical force to his master to keep 34 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. him in chains ! Were the surrender clause the only clause in our Constitution relating to slaves, Mr. Curtis's argument would have some shadow of claim to plausibil- ity. But Massachusetts has pledged her whole strength to the slave's injury. She, as a member of this Union, promises the slave-holder to keep peace on the planta- tion ; and if the slave rises to get his liberty, she will, as Edward Everett once offered, " buckle on her knap- sack '' to put him down. It is not for her now to turn round and treat him like a foreigner in whose wrong or welfare she has had no share. The slave may well cry to her, " Treat me always like a foreigner ; cease to enable my oppressor, by your aid, to keep me in chains ; take your heel off my neck ; and then I will not only not ask a place on your soil, but soon I will raise free arms to God, and thank him, not for Massachusetts' mercv, but for Massachusetts' justice and consistency." But, granting the whole of Mr. Curtis's argument, he did not touch, or even glance at, the popular objection to the Fugitive Slave Bill, which is not that fugitive slaves are to be given up according to its provisions, hut that its right name is, " A Bill for the more safe and speedy kidnapping of free colored people." The law- abiding citizens whom he addressed, complain that while every man found on Massachusetts soil has a right, until the contrary is shown, to be considered a free man, this bill recognizes the right, not in the remotest manner alluded to in the Constitution, of certain other persons to arrest and transport him elsewhere, without judge, war- rant, process, or reason rendered to anybody ; and even in cases of resistance to this, allows such a man to be carried hence on ex parte evidence, of whose manufac- ture he had no notice, gotten up nobody knows where and by whom nobody has authority to inquire ! And that we are called to put implicit confidence in the pecu- WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 35 liarly conscientious and striking reluctance of slave- holders to trespass on the rights of others, that this loose law, this wide-open gate for avarice and perjury, shall never be abused ! And, further still, we are told not to be anxious about the checks and safeguards of jury trial ; since, when such unfortunates reach Charles- ton or New Orleans, and, by the way, what bond is taken that they ever shall, and not be carried to Cuba or Brazil first? they, the mistakenly kidnapped citizens of the Commonwealth, shall have all the blessed privi- leges of a jury trial that the slaves of that paradise enjoy ! We ask bread, a freeman's jury trial (a matter of right, not of favor), by his peers in the neighbor- hood, with a witness-box open to all men, white or black, and the burden of proof on the claimant to show his title. Our statesmen (!) offer us a stone, the slave's jury trial (not a matter of right, but granted when he finds some one willing to run the risk of paying single, perhaps double, costs, and in some States, only if the Court pleases, even then), subject to lashes if the suit be held groundless, the jury-box filled probably with slave-holders, a witness-box closed against all men of his own race, and the burden of proof on him to show that the claimant does not own him according to Southern law ! Verily, gentlemen, our unprofessional eyes can see, or think they see, a difference worth " discussing " ! Mr. Clay says, in his letter to the Philadelphia Union Meeting, that the question now is, " Whether this agita- tion against slavery shall put down the Union, or the Union be preserved, and that agitation be put down. There is no other alternative." What does he mean by " agitation " ? He means meetings like this, of men and women gathered together to do honor to an honest man, to encourage each other in resisting infamous and cruel 36 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. laws, and to join in ridding the land of the fetter and the chain. Yes; it is the fetter and the chain, the un- speakable blessings of slavery, for whose sake reason is to be hoodwinked, and eloquence to be gagged ! The fetter and the chain, which, on the other side of the ocean, trade has worn away by the beneficent action of her waters, or Christianity melted in the fervor of her indignant rebuke ! These, in Mr. Clay's opinion, it is our appropriate work to forge anew ! We have not so read the scroll of our country's destiny. To the anointed eye, the planting of this continent is the exodus of the race out of the bondage of old and corrupt institutions. The serene and beautiful spirit that leads it, laughs with pitying scorn at the efforts of the mightiest Pharaoh to stay this constant and gradual advance of humanity. Every blow falls on the head of the assailants, they consume nothing but themselves. Put the Union into one scale and free speech into the other ; it needs no ghost to tell which will kick the beam. It was the love of free thought and free speech, burning in this same Saxon blood of ours, that, two hun- dred years ago, translated the Bible out of dead tongues into living speech. That work cost the upsetting of one or two kingdoms, and the downfall of a great church. Here and now the same love of freedom and the same Saxon blood are engaged in translating liberty out of dead professions into living practice. It will be no mat- ter of surprise, if so great a work cost a Union or two ; but what is that to us ? See thou, creature of Union, knowing no " higher law " than the parchment of 1789, to that! No man of full age and sound mind really believes that any thing can be maintained in this country which requires for its existence the stifling of free discussion. This Yankee right to ask all sorts of questions, on all WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 37 sorts of subjects, of all sorts of persons, is no accidental matter, it is part of the organic structure of the Yan- kee constitution. Freedom in thought and word is the genius of our language, the soul of our literature, the undertone of all our history, the groundwork of our habits. It gives the form to our faith, since Saxons are plainly Protestants by nature. It is only to secure this that the uneasy race submits to the necessary evil of law and government, habeas corpus and jury trial; that a comma in the wrong place shall save even a murderer's neck ; that the State shall take no cent till it has been seven times voted, these are the gilding and sugar that soothe the restive child into being ruled at all. Our liberty is no superficial structure like the Capitol at Washington, which man put up and man can pull down again. It is an oak, striking its roots through the strata of a thousand customs ; to uproot it would shake the continent. It is the granite of the New England for- mation, basing itself in the central depths, peering to heaven through the tops of our mountains, and bearing on its ample sides the laughing prosperity of the land. The wind of the blow that shall be aimed at free speech will strike the Union to the dust. Let us always rejoice when the frenzy of our opponents leads them to wed the cause of the slave with the cause of free speech. Union meetings and loud cheers may stand for the " Dearly Beloved " with which the old English ceremony of mar- riage began ; but the result, like the last word of that prayer-book formula, will verily be, " amazement." Woe to the statesman who waves his bit of red cloth in the face of that mad bull, a full-blooded Saxon roused to the suspicion, however unfounded, that somebody is plotting to prevent his tongue from wagging as it lists ! It was the weight of the hand of Charles I. on English tongues the attempted arrest of the five members 38 WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. that settled the question whether he should sit upon a throne or stand upon a scaffold. It was the Alien and Sedition Acts provisions against foreigners, and for- bidding to " print, publish, and utter anything to bring government and laws into disrepute " that contributed so much to send the Federal party to the tomb of the Capulets. When old men, and men high in the land's confidence, like those who meet in Philadelphia, New York, and at Faneuil Hall to-night, talk with such thoughtless impudence, of " putting down discussion," remember that whom God would destroy, he first makes mad. Were it not so, Mr. Choate would be the first man to laugh at the spectacle of himself, a very respectable lawyer and somewhat eloquent declaimer of the Suffolk bar, coolly asserting with a threatening brow, meant to be like that of Jove, to the swarming millions of the free States, that " this discussion must stop ! " To such nonsense, whether from him, or the angry lips of his wire-puller in front of the Revere House, the only fitting answer is Sam Weller's repetition to Pickwick, "It can't be done." [Cheers and laughter.] The like was never attempted but once before, when Xerxes flung chains at the Hellespont " And o'er that foolish deed has pealed The long laugh of a world ! " Oh, no ! this chasm in the forum all the Clay in the land cannot fill. [Cheers.] This rent in the mantle all the Websters in the mill cannot weave up. [Cheers.] Per- petuate slavery amid such a race as ours ! Impossible ! Re-annex the rest of the continent, if you will ; pile fugitive slave bills till they rival the Andes ; dissolve, were it possible, the union God has made between well- doing and well-being, even then you could not keep slavery in peace till you got a new race to people these WELCOME TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 39 shores. The blood which has cleared the forest, tor- tured the earth of its secrets, made the ocean its vassal, and subjected every other race it has met, will never volunteer its own industry to forge gags for its own lips. You, therefore, who look forward to slavery and peace, make ready to sweep clean the continent, and see that Webster, Foot, and Dickinson be the Shem, Ham, and Japhet of the Ark you shall prepare. [Cheers.] The Carpathian Mountains may serve to shelter tyrants ; the slope of Germany may bear up a race more familiar with the Greek text than the Greek phalanx ; the wave of Russian rule may sweep so far westward, for aught I know, as to fill with miniature tyrants again the robber castles of the Rhine, but this I do know : God has piled our Rocky Mountains as ramparts for freedom ; He has scooped the valley of the Mississippi as the cradle of free States, and poured Niagara as the anthem of free men. [Loud cheers.] KOSSUTH. v Speech delivered at the Antislavery Bazaar, Saturday evening, December 27, 1851. I HAVE been requested to consider this evening, the position which Kossuth occupies in relation to the Antislavery cause in America. I need not say to those who have traced the course of this illustrious man, that it must be with the profoundest regret that any one who loves liberty can utter the first word of criticism in re- gard to him. His life has been, up to the time of his land- ing on our shores, one continued sacrifice on the altar of his country's independence. He has never forgotten her. He gave her the bloom of his youth. He has given her the first fruits of his genius. He has been true to her amid the temptations of ambitious life. He has been her martyr in the horrible dungeons of the despots of Europe. He stood by her equally under temptations of success. His name has become synonymous with pa- triotism and devotion to the rights of his race. He came to us heralded by the sympathies of every one who had a heart either for the sufferers by the oppressions of Europe, or for those who lie under the weight of the far greater oppressions of our own country. Not only this, but he came to us indebted to the government of the United States. Words of gratitude from his lips were both natural and fitting. He could not do otherwise than be grateful. He had a right to pour out, with KOSSUTH. 41 Oriental profuseness, the overflowing thanks of one who had been rescued from the heavy yoke of Russia, and allowed to plead his cause face to face with the millions of the west of Europe, and of our own land. It was something to be thankful for. No one can find fault with him for any grateful words which he has uttered, on touching the land under whose flag he first raised his head, no longer a prisoner, hardly an exile. He might well, as in classic story, have fallen down and kissed the deck of that national frigate which was to be his ros- trum, with the world for an audience. You will not un- derstand me, therefore, as endeavoring to disparage the momentous service which he has rendered to the Sla- vonic races of Europe, the purity of his purpose, his gallant daring, the energy which he has displayed, no, nor to find fault with the gratitude which he has expressed to America. All this it was his duty to do. But there was something more expected of him. That expectation has been disappointed. I shall not attempt, for it is not in the mood either of the speaker or of any one who listens to him, to indulge in any epithets which shall characterize his course. I want to state a few simple principles, and then a few pregnant facts, and ask you whether the Abolitionists of this coun- try have not a fair charge to make against the great Hungarian ; whether those men who wait always with patient expectation the coming of those great and noble spirits who are to drag forward the cause of human progress, at least a hand's breadth, have not a right to be disappointed, and withdraw themselves from the crowd of idolaters around him who has been designated as the man of the nineteenth century, as the van leader of the reform spirit of the age, as one whose boundless capacity, purity of purpose, and the universality of whose sympathies, almost merited that we should take the -42 KOSSUTH. statue of Washington from its pedestal, and replace it with the form of the great Hungarian. This, then, is my purpose, to look at Kossuth as the slave would look at him. Let me preface what I have to say with a single remark about America. You will recollect the old story of the African chief, seated naked under his palm-tree to receive the captain of an English frigate, and the first question he asked was, " What do they say of me in England ? " We laugh at this van- ity of a naked savage, canopied by a palm-tree, on an unknown river somewhere in the desert of a barbarous continent ; but the same spirit pervades our twenty millions of Americans. The heart of every man is con- stantly asking the question, " What do they say of us in England ? " Europe is the great tribunal for whose decision American sensitiveness always stands waiting in awe. We declared our independence, in '76, of the British Crown, but we are vassals, to-day, of British opinion. So far as concerns American literature or American thought, the sceptre has never departed from Judah ; it dwells yet with the elder branch on the other side of the water. The American still looks with too servile admiration to the institutions which his fathers reluctantly quitted, and which he still regards with overmuch fondness. Our literature is but a pale reflec- tion of the English mind ; and one reason why we have never become more thoroughly democratic is because, while our institutions have been so in form, the whole literature upon which we lived was impregnated with English ideas, and every student and every thinker breathed the atmosphere of London. London is yet the great fount of ideas for all the Saxon race. Not until the principles of democracy shall enter Temple Bar, will the Saxon race be fully democratic, whether planted on the steppes of the Cordilleras or on the shores of the KOSSUTH. 43 Pacific. What is thus true of England, is true in a less degree of the rest of Europe. Now, it is to such a nation as this that Kossuth comes, a nation sensitive to a fault, servile to the last degree ; catching, with a watchful interest, the first breath of foreign criticism ; hugging to its bosom with delight any eulogy that falls from the lips of noted men on the other side of the water. Is there anything peculiar and to be remarked in the state of public affairs at the time of his visit ? Yes ; he comes precisely at the moment when one absorbing question has banished all others from the nation's mind. The great classes and interests of society crash and jostle against each other like mighty vessels in a storm. The slave question having, like Aaron's rod, devoured all other political issues, claims and keeps the undivided attention of excited millions. The lips of every public man are anxiously watched, and his lightest word scanned with relentless scrutiny. Pulpit and forum are both busy in the discussion of the profoundest questions as to the relations of the citizen to the law, and the real value and strength of our institutions. For the first time, some men have begun to doubt whether they are compatible with free speech and Christianity ; while men, called statesmen, either emboldened by suc- cess, or hardened by desperate ambition, have been found ready openly to declare that the Union is possible only on condition that the sons of the Pilgrims consent to hunt the slaves, and smother those instincts which have made the poets of all ages love to linger round the dungeon of the patriot and the stake of the martyr, with Tell and Wallace, with Lafayette and Silvio Pel- lico, with Charles Stuart hunted by the soldiery of Cromwell, and the Covenanter shot by that same Charles Stuart at his cottage door. Kossuth lands on a shore where humanity is illegal, 44 KOSSUTH. and obedience to the Golden Rule of Christianity has just been declared treason. He was not ignorant of this state of things. Private individuals and public societies in England had placed in his hands ample evidence of the real character of American institutions, and the critical state of public opinion on the momen- tous question of enslaving every sixth man, woman, and child in the land. Some besought him to pause ere he set foot on a land cursed with such a mon- strous system of oppression, and all bade him beware of the temptation to which his position subjected him, of strengthening by his silence or approbation the hands of the oppressor. At such a time, and in the midst of such a people, we have a right to claim that he should walk carefully. He knew that he must throw the weight of his mighty name in the scale of one party or another that was waging war for principle on this side of the Atlantic. Senator Foofe spoke truly when he said, from his seat in the Senate chamber, " There is a great struggle going on through the world. It is be- tween despotism and liberty. There is no neutrality in this struggle. No man can fail to be on one side or the other. He that is not with us is against us." To which John P. Hale replied with such readiness, " Exactly.'* We have now that condition of affairs which George Canning prophesied when he said, " The next war that passes over Europe is to be a war of ideas." Now, wherever there is the war of ideas, every tongue takes a side. There is no neutrality. Even silence is not neu- trality ; but he who speaks a word of sympathy to his brother-man is on the side of humanity and progress. [Loud cheers.] Now I have brought three facts before you. A man whose simple name is an argument, whose opinion is a fact potent throughout the world in sustaining institu- KOSSUTH. 45 tions of government, I have placed him in the midst of a people with every eye fixed upon him to note his coarse and learn his opinion : I have shown that he is not ignorant of this his critical position. What has he done ? No man expected that he should come into this hall ; that he should go into Antislavery meetings ; that he should take ground against the Fugitive Slave Bill. No. But you remember when Alexander went to see Diogenes, and asked what he could do for him, the reply of the cynic was, " Stand out of my light ! " Now the slave had at least the right to say to Kossuth, " Stand out of my light ! " Let the glowing sun of the human- ity of the nineteenth century strike full upon me. Let the light and heat of those generous ideas with which God has inspired some of the white race, fall upon me, to melt these chains of mine ; and let not your lavish praise be the spell that shall lull to sleep the half-awak- ened conscience of a people who have just begun to at- tend to the neglected, and to remember the forgotten. Throw not the weight of your great name into the scale of those, my enemies, who glory in a national prosper- ity fed out of my veins, and worship a Union cemented with my blood. Take his speeches. Do they differ from those of the most pro-slavery American ? Does he qualify his eulogy, does he limit his praise ? Has he a word of sympathy for the oppressed, a hint, even, at any blot on our na- tional escutcheon ? Could he have spoken without tak- ing a side, unless he had used the most guarded and qualified language ? Take his speeches relating to the Constitution of the United States. Place them side by side with the speeches of Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate, with those of any of the men recognized as sup- porters of this Union for its very quality of being an added ligament to hold the slave to his master. Is not 46 KOSSUTH. the tone the same ? Is not the eulogy of our Constitu- tion as unqualified and as glowing ? Do you ever find the slightest allusion to the fact that one-sixth part of the inhabitants under it are denied those personal rights which make the sufferings of the Magyar peasant tame in comparison Throughout this flood of sublime elo- quence which he has poured forth with such lavish genius to applauding crowds, when has he been heard to speak a word for three millions of people in this land, outraged and trampled under foot, to intimate that he sympathized with them, to hint that he knew of their existence ? Our country is " great, glorious, and free ; the land of protection for the persecuted sons of freedom among the great brotherhood of nations." This is his language. As I am speaking of one so much praised and trusted, let me read to you two or three lines, to show the tone in which he speaks of the Union whose President and courts have been occupied more fully, the last twelve months, with the recapture of fugitive slaves, and with the trial of men who had nobly aided them, than with any other cases whatever, a Union of which Daniel Webster says the Fugitive Slave Bill is the very bond and corner-stone, that it cannot exist without it ; a Union pledged to pursue and recapture every man who has the heroism to escape from Southern bondage. " Oppressed men will look to your memory as a token of God that there is hope for freedom on earth," this of a Union that returned Sims and Long to their chains, and by which fugitives have been returned by dozens from Ohio and Pennsylvania! "because there is a people like you to feel its worth and support its cause. Europe has many things to learn from America. It has to learn the value of free institutions, and the expansive power of freedom." And this is a fair type of his gen- eral language. You know it. KOSSUTH. 47 We have just closed a war for the perpetuity of slav- ery (every man, North or South, acknowledges it), a war which even the Senate of the United States pro- nounced wicked and unnecessary ; which the noblest in- tellects of the land have reprobated ; which all parties have justified on the ground of its necessity to preserve the Union by aiding slavery, and not on the ground of justice, of humanity, or of liberty. What does he say of it ? " Take, for instance, the glorious," we sent out a party from a slave State across to Mexican territories : we, Protestants, set up slavery on the soil which Cath- olics had purged from the stain, " Take, for instance, the glorious struggle you had not long ago with Mexico, in which General Scott drove the President of that Republic from his capital." Mark you that language ! I shall have occasion to refer to it again. " I know how to read your people's heart. It is so easy to read it, because it is open like Nature, and un- polluted (!) like a virgin's heart (! !). Many others shut their ears to the cry of oppressed humanity, because they regard duties but through the glass of petty interests. Your people has that instinct of justice and generosity (!) which is the stamp of mankind's heavenly origin ; and it is conscious of your country's power ; it is jealous of its own dignity ; it knows that it has the power to restore the law of nations to the principles of justice arid right ; and knowing itself to have the power, it is willing to be as good as it is powerful." These are the twenty millions of people whom George Thompson, with such striking truth, has described as engaged in one great slave hunt, with their President at their head, pursuing a poor, trembling fugitive, flying for refuge to the flag of Great Britain, on the other side of the lakes. " Your people have that instinct of justice 48 KOSSUTH. and generosity which is the stamp of mankind's heavenly origin" (!!!). " May your kind anticipations of me be not disap- pointed ! I am but a plain man. I have nothing in me but honest fidelity to those principles which have made you great, and my most ardent wish is, that my own country may be, if not great as yours, at least as free and as happy, which it will be in the establishment of the same great principles. The sounds that I now hear seem to me the trumpet of resurrection for down-trodden humanity throughout the world." What ! free as the land where the Bible is refused to every sixth person ! Free as the land where it is a crime to teach every sixth person to read ! Free as the land where, by statute, every sixth woman may be whipped at the public whipping-post ! Free as the land where the murderer of the black man, if the deed is per- petrated only in the presence of blacks, is secure from legal punishment ! Free as the land, the banks of whose Mississippi were lit up with the horrid sight, not seen even in Europe for two centuries, of a man torn from the hands of justice and burned in his own blood by a mob, of whom the highest legal authority proclaimed, afterward, that their act was the act of the people, and above the notice of the judiciary ! Free as the land, the beautiful surface of whose Ohio was polluted by the frag- ments of three presses, the emblems of free speech, and no tribunal has taken notice of these deeds ! Free as the land, whose prairie has drunk in the first Saxon blood shed for the right of free speech for a century and a half, I mean the blood of Lovejoy ! Free as the land where the fugitive dares not proclaim his name in the cities of New England, and skulks in hiding-places until he can conceal himself on board a vessel, and make his way to the kind shelter of Liverpool and London ! KOSSUTH. 49 Free as the land where a hero worthy to stand by the side of Louis Kossuth I mean Ellen Crafts [great cheering] has pistols lying by her bedside for weeks, as protection against your marshals and your sheriffs, your chief-justices and divines, and finds no safe refuge until she finds it in the tender mercies of the wife of that poet who did his service to the cause of freedom at Missolonghi ! But what does Kossuth wish for Hungary ? "My most ardent wish is, that my own country may be, if not as great as yours, at least as free and as happy, w r hich it will be in the establishment of the same great principles." "As free and as happy"! Is that all that the loving son of Hungary can ask for his native land ? Would he thrust back to serfdom one-sixth part of her twelve mil- lions ? Would he not blush to stand so near even to Austria, who compels her peasantry to learn to read, and make the teaching of every sixth Hungarian a penal of- fence ? Would he legislate into existence a nation of Haynaus, and authorize them to whip Magyar women ? Would he fill Hungarian prisons with Draytons and Sayres, with Torreys and Fairbankses ? Hungarian graves with Crandalls and Lovcjoys ? Would he hang his courts in chains, that his brother nobles might drag back their serfs in peace ? Before he repeats such a wish, let him go and meditate one hour more in that dungeon whence one of his comrades went to his grave, and the other came out blind ; let him send his thoughts back again to that refuge which the Sultan gave him when he refused, at the hazard of his Crescent, to sur- render to his neighbor State the Hungarian Crafts, Sims, Long, etc., who had escaped and claimed his protection. He would, if he be the man the world believes him, learn there that he never could consent to make Hungary what these United States are, and that he begs aid for 4 50 KOSSUTH. his loved country too dear, if he begs it by words not truthful from the lips of Louis Kossuth. " Happy art thou, free nation of America, that thou hast founded thy house upon the only solid basis of a nation's liberty ! Thou hast no tyrants among thee to throw the apple of Eros into thy Union ! Thou hast no tyrants to raise the fury of hatred in thy national family ! " This he says, when he knows that the news- papers of one half the Union are full of the records of the atrocities perpetrated by the white man upon the blacks, guilty of nothing but a skin not colored like their own. I defy Kossuth to find in any German paper, at the very fount of Austrian despotism, such advertise- ments as daily fill our Southern presses. I defy him to match the crimes and wickedness of the press that leagues with despotism in this land. Mothers sold with their infants six weeks old, together or apart. 1 defy him to match the advertisements coming from our Southern States, calling for a man or his head : Fifty dollars reward for a man, dead or alive ! A land with three millions of slaves, and not a tyrant ! Free speech achieved on the floor of Congress only after a dozen years of struggle, and still a penal offence in one half the Union ; our jails filled with men guilty only of helping a brother-man to his liberty, yet the keen eyes of this great soul can see nothing but a " solid basis of Liberty " ! Southern Conventions to dissolve the Union ; the law executed in Boston at the point of the bayonet ; riot, as the government calls it, stalking through the streets of Detroit, Buffalo, Syracuse, Boston, Christiana, and New York ; Massachusetts denied by statute the right to bring an action in South Caro- lina ; Georgia setting a price on the head of a Boston printer; senators threatening to hang a brother sena- tor, should he set foot in a Southern State ; the very KOSSUTH. 51 tenants of the pulpit silenced, or subjected to a coat of tar and feathers; one State proposing to exclude the commerce of another ; demagogue statesmen perambu- lating the country to save the Union ; honest men ex- horted to stifle their consciences, for fear the Ship of State should sink amid the breakers ; the whole nation at last waking to Jefferson's conviction, that " we have the wolf by the ears ; we can neither hold him nor safely let him go," yet this man, whose " tempest-tossed life lias somewhat sharpened the eyes of his soul," can see only a "solid basis of Liberty"! " No tyrant to throw the apple of Eros in the Union ; " " to raise the fury of hatred in thy national family " ! What place has such fulsome and baseless eulogy on the lips of a truthful and honest man ? I have a great deal more of the same tenor, but I shall weary your patience. You will not deny that this has been the general tenor of his addresses in America. " Now," he says, " I do it because I love Hungary so much." Well, then, he is a patriotic and devoted Hungarian, grant him that ! He loves Hungary so much that his charity stops at the banks of the Danube. He is a lover of his mother-land. It is a great thing to suffer for one's mother-land ; but still, it is a local patriotism. Even Webster loves the whites. It is something to love one's race, and so much is patriotism ; but they claim for Kossuth that he represents the highest ideas of the nineteenth century. We do not dispute his title to this, that he has been devoted to Hungary. Grant him that. When Alexander had consecrated himself as a god, he sent word to the Lacedemonians that he had made him- self a god, and they sent him back word, " Be a god ! " So if men only claim for Kossuth that he is ready to do and dare all for Hungary, we are willing to reply 52 KOSSUTH. with the Lacedemonians, " Be to Hungary her Wash- ington!" The time was when even he claimed more, when he could proclaim that the cause of liberty was one the world over. That whoever struck a blow for justice and humanity anywhere, helped the oppressed the wide world through ; while he who gave comfort to tyrants was the foe of all peoples. We felt that that lightning which melted the chain of the Hungarian serf, flashed a glad light into every hovel of the Carolinas ; and that the blow which Garrison was striking on the gates of the American Bastile, lent strength to hosts that battled on the banks of the Danube. So thought Kossuth once ; but is it possible that his conviction was no manly faith, but only a fairy spell which legends tell us a running stream always dissolves, and that the waves of the Atlantic have washed it out, and flung him upon our shores a mere Hungarian exile, instead of one of those great spirits with which God at rare inter- vals blesses the ages, with hearts so large that for them the world is their country, and every man, especially every oppressed man, is a brother ? Men say, " Why criticise Kossuth, when you have every reason to believe that, in his heart, he sympa- thizes with you?" Just for' that reason we criticise him ; because he endorses the great American lie, that to save or benefit one class, a man may righteously sac- rifice the rights of another. Because, while the Ameri- can world knows him to be a hater of slavery, they see him silent on that question, hear him eulogize a na- tion of slave-holders, to carry his point. What greater wrong can he do the slave than thus to strengthen his foes in their own good opinion of themselves, and weaken, by his example, that public rebuke to which alone the negro can trust for ultimate redemption ? He whom tyrants hated on the other side the ocean, is the KOSSUTH. 53 favored guest of tyrants on this side. He eats salt with the Ilaynaus of Washington. It is high time that he explain to Europe the geographical morality "that en- ables him to do it, and be still the Louis Kossuth whose wandering steps Russian vengeance thought it worth while to follow. Could he have filed his tongue as cun- ningly at home, why should he ever have left Pesth ? Or shall we deem him a man hotly indignant at his own wrongs, and those of his own blood, but cold to those of men whose skin is some few shades darker than his own ? Kossuth has sacrificed the cause of liberty itself ; he has consented to praise a nation whose freedom is a sham ; he has consented to praise the nation which tramples Mexico under foot ; he has consented to praise them that he might save Hungary, then rate him at his right price. The freedom of twelve millions bought the silence of Louis Kossuth for a year. A world in the scale never bought the silence of O'Connell or Fayette for a moment. That is just the difference between him and them. O'Connell (I was t/6ld the anecdote by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxtoir), in 18^9, after his election to the House of Commons, was called upon by the West India interest some fifty or sixty strong who said, " O'Connell, you have been accustomed to act with Clark- son and Wilberforce, Lushington and Brougham, to speak on the platform of Freemasons' Hall, and advo- cate what is called the abolition cause. Mark this! If you will break loose from these associates, if you will close your mouth on the slave question, you may reckon on our undivided support on Irish matters. Whenever your country's claims come up, you shall be sure of fifty votes on your side." " No ! " said O'Connell ; u let God care for Ireland ; I will never shut my mouth on the slave question to save her ! " [Loud cheers,] He stood 54 KOSSUTH. with eight millions whom he loved ; he stood with a peasantry at his back meted out and trodden under foot as cruelly as the Magyar ; he stood with those behind him who had been trampled under the horses' feet of the British soldiery in 1782 and 1801 ; he knew the pov- erty and wretchedness, he knew the oppression under which the Irish groaned : but never for a moment, would he consent to lift Ireland, whose woes, we may well suppose, rested heavily on the heart of her greatest son, by the sacrifice of the interests or the freedom of any other portion of the race. u When," said the friend who told me this anecdote, in conclusion, "when there were no more than two or three of us in the House of Com- mons, O'Connell would leave any court or any meeting to be present at the division, and vote on our side." That is the type of a man who tries by its proper standard the claims of all classes upon his sympathy. He did for Ireland all that God had enabled him to do ; but there was one thing which God had not called upon him to do, and that was to speak a falsehood, or to belie his convictions. He did not undertake to serve his country by being silent when he knew he ought to speak, or by speaking in language that should convey a false impression to his hearer. Kossuth is filled with overflowing love for Hungary, which lies under the foot of the Czar. Now let us sup- pose a parallel case. Suppose that Lafayette were now living, and that the great Frenchman had seen his idea of liberty for France go down in blood. We will sup- pose that, despairing of doing anything at home, he had concluded to appeal to some foreign nation for aid ; that Fayette, with his European reputation, considered the great apostle of human liberty, and his voice the seal and stamp of republican principles, Fayette goes to Vienna for help. He goes to Austria for help on his KOSSUTH. 55 side in French politics, as Kossuth comes here for help on his side of Hungarian politics, to Austria, with Hungary bleeding at her feet, and Kossuth in exile. After all, it is national politics in which he asks us to interfere at whatever hazard. What is Hungary ? Twelve millions of people under the iron foot of the Russian Czar, by means of his puppet, the Emperor of Austria. What says he to America ? " I do not wish to be entangled with American politics." As one of our own citizens said to me the other day, " What comes this fellow here for ? I do not wish to meddle with Austrian politics." The question of the liberty of twelve millions in Hungary is as much a question of Austrian politics, as the question of the three millions of slaves under the United States Constitution, and the human beings sent back as chattels under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1851, is a question of American politics. Do not think either that I am so far out of the way in sending Fayette to Austria. Let me turn aside before I finish the illustration. What is Austria ? Who is Haynau ? The culminating star of Austrian atrocity, the general whose name recalls everything that is most monstrous in Austria's treatment of down-trodden Hungary. Haynau ! What was it that the European press charged upon him as his greatest atrocity ? Why, he whipped one woman, a countess; he whipped one woman at the public whipping-post. The press of Europe, from the banks of the Volga to the banks of the Seine, from the Times up to Punch, denounced him as a libel on the civilization of the nineteenth century, as a brute who had disgraced even the brutality of the camp, when he dared, in the face of Europe, in the nineteenth cen- tury, thus to outrage the common feeling of the world. That is Haynau ; but he followed the example of half the States of this Union. There, woman-whipping is 56 KOSSUTH. the law and custom of the land. There are a hundred thousand men and women in this nation who have a right by law to whip a million and a half of women in fifteen of the Southern States. " One murder makes a villain ; millions a hero." To whip one woman makes a monster; but to whip millions by statute is to make a country in regard to which it is the highest wish of Kossuth that Hungary may be like her. In view of this and similar facts, I say, there is not a word of the language which he applied to Austria that is not equally applicable to the laixd which imprisons Drayton and Sayres in the jails of its capital, that pur- sues Shadrach without mercy (a land where women are whipped by statute), and there is not a word of all this eloquent eulogy of ourselves which is not equally applicable to Austria. I send Fayette, therefore, to Austria. Kossuth, shel- tered by the Crescent, hears of the coming of Fayette to Vienna. How his heart beats ! Now, in that voice, venerable with its age, strong in the millions that wait its tones, I shall hear the voice of a deliverer. Now the heart of every down-trodden Hungarian is to leap for joy ; now a sunbeam shall light up the dungeons of my old comrades, for Fayette has entered Vienna. Listen ! The first note that is borne to him down the waters of the Danube is that of Fayette speaking to Haynau of his " glorious entry into the capital of Hungary," as Kossuth speaks of the entrance of the Americans into the capital of Mexico. He listens, and every word of the eloquent Frenchman is praise of the Austrian em- peror and Austrian institutions; and he says, words Kossuth has used to the Americans, " Cling to your Constitution and your institutions. Cling to them ! Let no misguided citizen ever dream of tearing down the house because there is discomfort in one of the KOSSUTH. 57 chambers." And suppose he heard him say, "Let no misguided Magyar ever dream of tearing asunder this beautiful empire of Austria, because there is discomfort in that one chamber of Hungary." What would have been his tone in answering Fayette ? He would have said, "Recreant! What right have you to purchase safety for France by sacrificing the people of Hungary, and by eulogizing tyrants ?" [Tremendous cheering.] Just such is the message that the American slaves send back to Kossuth, " Recreant ! If you could not speak a free word for liberty the wide world over, why came you to this land stained and polluted by our blood ? What right had you to purchase with your silence aid for Hungary, or throw the weight of your great name into the scale of our despair?" "Oh, no," said O'Con- nell, " I will never tread that American strand, until she removes the curse of American slavery from her statute-book." It was well he did not. Hardly any man can stand against the temptations of our great political iniquity. Kossuth has come here on the glorious mission of redeeming Hungary. God speed him in every step in every honest step that he takes to lift up the Magyar, that he may raise the nations of Europe ! But, oh, if he only lift her up by using for his fulcrum the chains of the slave ; if he only lift her up by using language which shall strengthen the hearts of the oppressor in this land, which shall make those who love this Union lay the flat- tering unction to their souls, " Kossuth is an experienced man, he understands our institutions, and sees nothing to blame in them,"- then perish Hungary before he succeed ! The very Congress that invited this man to our shores, and passed a resolution placing a national vessel at his ^service, is the very Congress that passed the Fugitive 58 KOSSUTH. Slave Bill. He knows it. The very man who sent for the Hungarian exile, condemned to hopeless bondage hundreds who, but for that law, might have been saved. Why, if you had stood, as some of us have done, by the domestic fireside of hundreds of fugitive slaves who had been happy at the North for ten, fifteen, aye, twenty years, and had seen the utter wretchedness of those persecuted men when they felt that father or mother or wife or child must be borne away to the Southern plantation, or must make themselves exiles by going to Canada, or even to England, and reflected that these scenes are wrought by the very men who have welcomed the great Hungarian to this country, and then, when he came, that he had no words but words of eulogy, how should you judge his spirit ? Bear with me in yet one illustration more. Men are known by the company they keep. It seems to me right to judge Kossuth so in this instance. Suppose a friend of liberty had gone across the water six months ago. Would he have sought the society of the illustrious free spirits that were the apostles of the great ideas of that country, or would he have gone to the court of the Caesar ? Would he have gone to the palace of Vienna, or to Metternich ? Would he have gone to the country- seat of Haynau, or to any other name recognized the world over as an apostate to principle, to humanity, to equal rights? Or would he have gone to that Kossuth, that Dembinski, to the men who are now exiles or imprisoned throughout the length of the Austrian empire, to the graves of those who have been murdered on battlefield or in Haynau's camp ? Would not their prisons have been the first scenes of his visit, that he might give his sympathy to the men who were suffering in a cause so dear to his heart? Certainly. We go where we are magnetically drawn; KOSSUTH. 59 we cannot resist rushing into the arms of those whose hearts beat responsive to our own. If a Socialist visits Paris, he goes to Prudhomme. If an Antislavery man goes to Paris, he goes to De Broglie. As Dr. Jackson said of his lamented son, who died recently in Boston, in whatever company he went he nailed his flag high, that all men might know his principles. [Cheers.] Now, I say, that Louis Kossuth did not nail the flag of his principles high to the mast ; if he had, Hangman Foote would never have invited him to Washington. The world-wide love of man, the burning enthusiasm, the hatred of all oppression, that gathered two hundred thousand living hearts in Hungary; melted them into one giant mass by the magnetism of his great nature ; and hurled them like an awful thunderbolt against the throne of the Caesars, all that has not crossed the Atlantic ; if it had, the pro-slavery divines of New York the men who say they dare not utter even a prayer for the three millions of blacks would never have gathered around it. He will go to Washington, and to whom ? To Daniel Webster and to Hangman Foote. Had he been the Kossuth of Pesth, the Kossuth whom Gorgei betrayed, he would have gone to the prison of Drayton and Sayres to see the men who have been made a sacrifice for the crime of loving their brother-man as they loved themselves. He would have said, "No matter what your laws are, I broke the laws of Aus- tria for the Magyar." The European who has rent parchments to rags when they stood in the way of lib- erty, who has trampled on laws a thousand years old when they stood in the way of humanity and justice ; that man, who comes to America and goes not to the prison of Drayton and Sayres, to the court-house where the men are being tried for the Christiana riots, as our press calls them, has lowered the tone of his spirit, 60 KOSSUTH. and compromised that great fame which came over before him. This is the indictment that the Abolitionists bring against him. It is not that he does not love Hungary. It is not that he is a coward and that his philanthrophy shrinks before the public opinion of America. No ! We do not know that he was ever afraid of anything below God. Though no coward, he is selfish, just as selfish as all patriotism is. He loves his own land, and to that land he is willing to sacrifice the duty he owes to truth. "An advocate," said Lord Brougham, defending Queen Caroline, " by the sacred duty which he owes his .client, knows in the discharge of that office but one person in the world, that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means ; to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties ; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other" Now that, in another form, is Kossuth's patriotism. " I love Hungary," says he ; " stand aside all ye other races ! I will so mould my language, I will so pour out my eulogy, I will so lavish my praise, that I will save her ; let other races take care of themselves." This, then, is the criticism of the Antislavery reformer : Whoever strengthens the American Union strengthens the chain of the American slave ; whoever praises the policy of this country since the Constitution began, whether in Florida or Mexico, strengthens the public opinion which supports it ; whoever strengthens that opinion is a foe to the slave. Louis Kossuth has thrown at the feet of the Union party the weight of his gigantic name, and every conscience that had begun to be troubled is put to sleep : " Kossuth is free from American preju- dices, unbiassed and disinterested. He tells me to love KOSSUTH. 61 the Union. So I will observe the laws ; so I will banish the slave from my thoughts, as Kossuth does. Kossuth saves Hungary by subserviency to the South ; I will save the Union in the same way." This is the same old prin- ciple the world round, How much truth may I sacrifice in order to save some little Zoar in which God has given me a being ? How much silencing of the truth is per- mitted us here by God, in order that we may help him govern the world ? How many noble instincts may we stifle, how many despot hearts may we comfort, to help God save America ? None ! [Great cheering.] No, he did not send us into the world to free the slave. He did not send Kossuth into the world to save Hungary. He sent him into the world to speak his whole truth, for the white man and for the black man ; to feel as a man for his brother-man ; and to speak what he felt , then, if Hungary is saved, to join in the jubilee with which all would celebrate her salvation. [Loud cheers.] Oh, men are so ready to take upon themselves the great responsibility of doing some great work in tlie world ! I have got to save the Union, and therefore I must return fugitive slaves. I have got to redeem Hungary, and therefore I may be an American dough-face, instead of a European patriot. This is the verdict that history shall bring. When, hereafter, the historian is telling the story of some great man who has done service to his kind, if he be one who loved only his own race or color or country, and stopped there, who loved a Frenchman because he was him- self born in Paris ; or, born in London, was ready to serve all Englishmen, if he were one who has ren- dered some great service to a single nation, or loved his own race and hated all others, he shall say, " This was a great man ; he was the Kossuth, the Webster of his day." But when he shall dip his pen in the sunlight, 62 KOSSUTH. to immortalize some greater spirit than that, one whose philanthrophy, like the ocean, knew no bounds ; the eagle of whose spirit, towering in its pride of place, looked down upon the earth, and saw blotted out from the mighty scene all the little lines with which man had narrowed it in, and took in every human being as a brother, and loved all races with an equal humanity ; who never silenced the truth that the white man might longer trample on the black, or thought the safety of his own land cheaply bought at the price of lavish eulogies laid on the footstool of petty tyrants, he shall dip his pen in the gorgeous hues of the sunlight and write, " This was a greater man yet ; he was a Garrison, an O'Connell, a Fayette." [Loud and continued cheers.] Now, this is the exact difference which the Antislavery world recognizes in Kossuth. He is the man who has been content to borrow his tone from the atmosphere in which he moved. He has offered American patriotism the incense of his eulogy, and has by that course con- sented to do service to the dark spirit of American slavery. We find no fault with any expression of his gratitude ; but gratitude to the administration of the country was not necessarily eulogy of all its institutions. A man may thank a benefactor without endorsing his character ! He came to a land where every sixth man is a slave, and where the national banner clings to the flag-staff heavy with blood, and the lips which proclaimed the freedom of the Hungarian serf have found no occa- sion but for eulogy ! He came to a land where the Bible is prohibited, by statute, to three millions of human be- ings ; to whom, also, the marriage institution is a forbid- den blessing, and the eminently religious Hungarian can find no occasion but for eulogy ! He came to a land where almost every village in the free States has more than one trembling fugitive who dare not tell his true KOSSUTH. 63 name, and the great martyr for personal liberty can find no occasion but for eulogy ! He came to a land, of the fundamental arrangement of whose government John Quincy Adams says : " It is not in the compass of human imagination to devise a more perfect exemplification of the art of committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf," and to " call whose government a democracy would be to insult the understanding of mankind," and the apostle of civil liberty sees only a " glorious republic, . . . great, glorious, and free, . . . the pillar of freedom ; " and all he prays for his own country is, that " she may be as free and as happy in the establish- ment of the same great principle " ! ! He comes to a land where, according to the same in- disputable authority, " a knot of slave-holders give the law and prescribe the policy of the country ; " and the indig- nant foe of Austrian rule, " his eyes sharpened by a tempest-tossed life," finds no occasion but for eulogy ! He comes to a land where, says the same venerable statesman, " the preservation, propagation, and perpetua- tion of slavery is the vital and animating spirit of the National Government" and where, since 1780, " slavery, slave-holding, slave-breeding, and slave-trading have formed the whole foundation of the policy of the Federal Government ; " and " the sharpened eyes " of the Euro- pean patriot, whose baptism of liberty was in the damps of an Austrian dungeon, sees only " a glorious country, . . . great, glorious, and free ; . . . a glorious republic ; " her " glorious flag the proud ensign of man's divine origin ; " " the asylum of oppressed humanity ; " her wel- come "the trumpet of resurrection for down-trodden humanity throughout the world ; " her language " the language of liberty, and therefore the language of the people of the United States." His confidence of ultimate success springs from the thought that " there is a God 64 KOSSUTH. in heaven and a people like the Americans on earth." He makes haste to declare how easy it is to read the heart of this slave-holding, slave-breeding, and slave- trading people, because " it is open like Nature and un- polluted like a virgin's heart;" that others may " shut their ears to the cry of oppressed humanity, because they regard duties but through the glass of petty inter- ests " / But this slave-holding and slave-trading people " has that instinct of justice and generosity which is the stamp of mankind's heavenly origin ; knows that it has the power to restore the law of nations to the principles of justice and right ; and is willing to be as good as its power is great " ! ! ! Does the great statesman-like heart of Kossuth believe all this ? If he does not, is the most devoted lover of liberty ever bound to lay on her altar the sacrifice of hypocrisy ? Or was any cause ever yet strengthened by lips that belied the heart ? In his last speech at Philadelphia, he goes, for the first time, further, explains his plan, and pledges himself distinctly to silence. There are two words which one would think Kossuth had never conquered, even in his marvellous mastery of the English tongue, " slavery " and " slave-holding ; " and even here, while necessarily alluding to them, he cannot frame his lips to speak their syllables. Some one had forged the following letter to him, warning him of his nearness to the slave-holding States : December 23, 1851. Hon. Louis KOSSUTII : RESPECTED SIR, It is my unpleasant duty to apprise you that the intervention or non-intervention sentiments that you have promulgated in 3*our speeches in the city of New York, are unsuitable to the region of Pennsyl- vania, situated as she is on the borders of several slave- holding States ; and after a conference with my distinguished KOSSUTH. 65 uncle the Hon. John Sargent, the Hon. Horace Binney, and other distinguished counsellors, who concur with me in the sentiment, I feel, most reluctantly I assure you, that such sentiments are incendiary in their character and effect ; and as the conservator of the public morals and peace of the country, having sworn to comply with the Constitution of the United States and the State of Pennsylvania, on taking upon myself the office of Attorney-General of the County of Philadelphia, I shall be obliged to bring any such sentiments to the notice of the Grand Inquest of the county for their action and consideration. Respectfully, W. B. REED, Attorney-General. Kossuth thus comments on this letter : "Now, such a letter, and yet a forgery, indeed, is a des- picable trick ; but though it is a forgery, still there is one thing which forces me to some humble remarks, precisely because I know not whence comes the blow. I am referring to these words : c Your intervention or non-intervention sen- timents are nnsuited to the region of Pennsylvania, situated as she is on the borders of several slave-holding States.' I avail myself of this opportunity to declare once more that I never did or will do anything which, in the remotest way, could interfere with the matter alluded to, nor with whatever other domestic question of 3~our united Republic, or of a sin- gle State of it. I have declared it openly several times, and on all and every opportunity I have proved to be as good as my word. I dare say that even the pledge of the word of honor of an honest man should not be considered a sufficient security in that respect. The publicly avowed basis of my human claims, and the unavoidable logic of it would prove to be a decisive authorit}'. u What is the ground upon which I stand before the mighty tribunal of the public opinion of the United States? It is the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of its own 5 68 KOSSUTH. domestic concerns. [Great applause.] What is it I humbly ask of the United States ? It is that they ma}' generous!} 7 be pleased to protect this sovereign right of every nation against the encroaching violence of Russia. It is, therefore, eminent!} 7 clear that, this being my ground, I cannot and will not meddle with any domestic question of this Republic. [Applause.] Indeed, I more and more perceive that, to speak with Hamlet, 4 there are more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in my philosophy.' [Laughter and applause.] But still, I will stand upright, on however slippery ground, by taking hold of that legitimate fence of not meddling in your domestic questions." What, then, is the shadowy line by which, while he claims our sympathy and aid for Hungary, he separates the slave's claim from his own ? Simply this, Hungary asks for rights which ancient charters secured to her ; the slave has no charters, no parchments to show, therefore, we ought to love and aid the Magyar ; there- fore, Douglass can claim nothing of Kossuth ! And can the soul of Kossuth rise no higher than the level of human parchments ? Or can he plead for liberty with such bated breath and whispered humbleness, that to serve his purpose he can remember always to forget the self-evident rights which God gave, to which the slave has as much right as the noblest Magyar of them all ? More than this, can he find it in his heart to strengthen by his silence, by his example, and his name, the hands of the ruthless violator of those rights ; cry " glorious " and " amen," while the black is robbed of his hard toil, of the Bible, of chastity, wife, husband, and child, only to persuade slave-holders to aid in securing for the Magyar peasant the right to vote, and for the Magyar noble the right to legislate ? The world thought his lips had been touched by a coal from the altar of the living God, and lo ! he has bargained away his very KOSSUTH. 67 utterance, and presents himself before us thus cheaply bought and gagged ! His parallel of the non-intervention of States is not a just one. No one asks England to interfere with our slave question. But, on the other hand, she pronounces no opinion on our government in general ; she does not expend herself in glowing, unqualified, and indiscrimi- nate eulogy of our institutions, or strengthen the hands of their friends by holding them up to the world as the first hope of redemption to oppressed nations, and the fairest model of republican perfection. The same is true of Kossuth. While at home, all the world asked of him was to stand in his lot, and do gallant battle for his land and people. When he comes here, and gives the listening world his judgment of our institutions, - mingling himself thus, whether he will or no, with our great national struggle, he owes it to truth, to liberty, and the slave, that such judgment should be a true, dis- criminating, and honest one. If the opinion he has pro- nounced be his honest judgment, what will men say of that heart whose halting sympathies allowed him to overlook a system of oppression which Wesley called the " vilest the sun ever saw," and which made Jeffer- son " tremble for his country, when he remembered that God was just " ? If it be not his honest judgment, but only fawning words, uttered to gain an end, what will men say of the v Jesuit who thought he owed it to Hun- gary to serve her, or, indeed, imagined that he could serve her, by lips that clung not to the truth ? When Rome's ransom was weighing out, the insolent con- queror flung his sword into the scale against it. So at the moment when the fate of the slave hangs trembling in the balance, and all he has wherewith to weigh down the brute strength of his oppressor is the sympathy of good men and the indignant protest of the world, Kos- 68 KOSSUTH. suth, with the eyes of all nations fixed upon him, throws the weight of his great name, of his lavish and un- qualified approbation into the scale of the slave-holder, crying out all the while, " Non-intervention ! " Truly these eyes that see no race but the Magyar, and no wrongs but those of Hungary, may be the eyes of a great Hungarian and a great patriot, but God forbid they should be the eyes of a man or a Christian ! Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Every heart responds to the classic patriot, and feels that it is indeed good and honorable to die for one's country ; but every true man feels likewise, with old Fletcher of Saltoun, that while he " would die to serve his country, he would not do a base act to save her." CRISPUS ATTUCKS. Speech delivered at the Festival commemorative of the Boston Massacre, in Faneuil Hall, March 5, 1858. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I am very glad to stand here in an hour when we come together to do honor to one of the first martyrs in our Revolution. I think we sometimes tell the story of what he did with too little appreciation of how much it takes to make the first move in the cold streets of a revolutionary epoch. It is a very easy thing to sit down and read the his- tory ; it is a very easy thing to imagine what we would have done, it is a very different thing to strike the first blow. It is a very hard thing to spring out of the ranks of common, every-day life submission to law, rec- ognition of established government and lift the first musket. The man or the dozen men who do it, deserve great, pre-eminent, indisputable places in the history of the Revolution. It is an easy thing to fight when the blood is hot ; but this man whose memory we commem- orate to-night stepped out of common life, every-day quiet, and lifted his arm among the very first against the government. It is only pre-eminent courage that can do this. To-day, in yonder capital of Paris, the whole government rests on a thin film of ice. A hun- dred men in arms in the streets would break it; that hundred men cannot be found, a hundred men willing to risk their lives, with a cold, unmoved populace behind 70 CRISPUS ATTUCKS. them. Those five men who were killed on that eventful night of the 5th of March, of whom Crispus Attucks was the leader, they never have had their fair share of fame. Our friend Theodore Parker said the Revolution was not born so early. I think him wrong there ; it was. Emerson said the first gun heard round the world was that of Lexington. Who set the example of guns ? Who taught the British soldier that he might he defeated ? Who dared first to look into his eyes ? Those five men ! The 5th of March was the baptism of blood. The 5th of March was what made the Revo- lution something beside talk. Revolution always begins with the populace, never with the leaders. They argue, they resolve, they organize ; it is the populace that, like the edge of the cloud, shows the lightning first. This was the lightning. I hail the 5th of March as the baptism of the Revolution into forcible resistance ; without that it would have been simply a discussion of rights. I place, therefore, this Crispus Attucks in the foremost rank of the men that dared. When we talk of courage, he rises, with his dark face, in his clothes of the laborer, his head uncovered, his arm raised above him defying bayonets, the emblem of Revolutionary violence in its dawn ; and when the proper symbols are placed around the base of the statue of Washington, one corner will be filled by the colored man defying the British muskets. [Applause.] I think it is right that we should come here and remember Crispus Attucks. It is right, because every colored man has but one thing to remember in life, and that is SLAVERY. All races are one they are a unit. The white race is a unit, the Caucasian race is a unit, the black race is a unit one. There is only one great, terrible fact in regard to the colored race CRISPUS ATTUCKS. rfl at the present moment, it is that millions of it wear e the chain ; there is nothing for the rest of the race decent to do but to devote themselves to the breaking of that chain. [Applause.] All literature, all wealth, all patriotism, all religion, should gravitate toward emancipation. I value the triumphs of the literary genius of Dumas solely as an argument thrown into the scale of the great balance, whether the colored man is worthy of liberty. Genius is worth nothing else now with the colored man, except as helping that argument. I would have you, as your friend Dr. Rock suggested, thrifty, eloquent, industrious, successful, rich, able, only 'S as an argument that the colored race has a right to a^ place side by side and equal with the white. I wish I could impress this truth on every colored man. His race to-day is on trial. The world says it merits only chains. The best thing he can do with his life, with his genius, with his wealth, with his character, is to throw them into the scale of the argument, and make pro-slavery prejudice kick the beam. I want to say another thing. I do not believe in the argument which my learned and eloquent friend Theo- dore Parker has stated in regard even to the courage of colored blood. It is a hazardous thing to dare to differ with so profound a scholar, with so careful a thinker as Theodore Parker ; but I cannot accept his argument and for this reason, he says the Caucasian race, each man of it, would kill twenty men and enslave twenty more rather than be a slave ; and thence he deduces that the colored race, which suffers slavery here, is not emphatically distinguished for courage. I take issue on that statement. There is no race in the world that has not been enslaved at one period. This very Saxon blood we boast, was enslaved for five centuries in Europe. We were slaves, we white 72 CRISPUS ATTUCKS. people. This very English blood of ours Saxon was the peculiar mark of slavery for five or six hundred years. The Slavonic race, of which we are a branch, is enslaved by millions to-day in Russia. The French race has been enslaved for centuries. Then add this fact, no race, not one, ever vindicated its freedom from slavery by the sword ; we did not win freedom by the sword ; we did not resist, we Saxons. If you go to the catalogue of races that have actually abol- ished slavery by the sword, the colored race is the only one that has ever yet afforded an instance, and that is St. Domingo. [Applause.] This white race of ours did not vindicate its title to liberty by the sword. The vil- leins of England, who were slaves, did not get their own liberty ; it was gotten for them. They did not even rise in insurrection, they were quiet; and if in 1200 or 1300 of the Christian era, a black man had landed on the soil of England and said : " This white race does n't deserve freedom ; don't you see the villeins scattered through Kent, Northumberland, and Sussex ? Why don't they rise and cut their masters' throats?" the Theodore Parkers of that age would have been like the Dr. Rocks of this, they could not have answered. The only race in history that ever took the sword into their hands, and cut their chains, is the black race of St. Domingo. Let that fact go for what it is worth. The villeinage of France and England wore out by the progress of commerce, by the growth of free cities, by the education of the people, by the advancement of Christianity. So I think the slavery of the blacks will wear out. I think, therefore, that the simple and lim- ited experiment of three centuries of black slavery is not basis enough for the argument. No ; the black man may well scorn it, and say, " I summon before the jury, Africa, with her savage millions, that has main- CRISPUS ATTUCKS. 73 taincd her independence for two or three thousand years ; i summon Egypt with the arts ; I summon St. Domingo with the sword, and I choose to be tried in the great company of the millions, not alone ! " And in that company, he may claim to have shown as much courage as any other race full as much. I, therefore, will never try the argument with the single illustration of American slavery. No ; and yet if 1 did, I should he proud to have the same color with Margaret Garner ; l for I know of no prouder name in the history of the nineteenth century than of that heroic mother, standing alone, defying the Democracy of thirty-one States, rising f in the instinctive love of a mother superior to the low Christianity of the present age, and writing her religion and her heroism in the bloody right hand that gave her infant back to God for safe keeping. [Loud applause.] Any man might well be proud to share the color of that mother whose grave some future Plutarch or Tacitus will find, when he calls up the heroism of the nineteenth century. My friend Mr. Nell has gathered together, in a small volume, instances enough of the heroism of col- ored blood, and the share it took in our Revolution, and yet he has not told half the story. I commend his book to the care and patronage of every man who loves the colored race. And not only to buy it, that is not enough. If there is any young man who has any literary ambition, let him fill up the sketch; let him complete the picture ; let him go sounding along the untrodden fields of Revolutionary anecdote, and gather up every fact- touching the share his race took in that struggle. Why, the wealthiest family in Boston, that of the Lawrences, in their own family history, 1 A colored woman who threw her child into the Ohio River rather than to have it carried into slavery. 74 CRTSPUS ATTUCKS. record the fact that the father of Abbot Lawrence was the captain of a company made up entirely of colored men ; and when once, in the fierce and hot valor of a forgetful moment, he rushed too far into the ranks of the enemy, and was alone, ready to be made a pris- oner, he looked back to his ranks of colored men, and they charged through two lines of the enemy, rescued their captain, and made it possible for the Lawrences to exist. [Applause.] They ought to be grateful - yes, that whole wealthy family ought to be grateful to colored courage that it saved their own father from a Jersey ship-of-war, and enabled him to take his share in the Revolutionary struggle, and to be buried in the old homestead at Groton. And doubtless, if your lit- erary zeal shall follow up the path your friend Nell has opened, yon will find scarcely any name on the whole roll of Revolutionary fame that does not owe more or less to colored courage and co-operation. I commend it to your care. Never forget the part your race took in the great struggle ; cherish, preserve, illustrate it. Compel the white man to write your names, not as they have written them in Connecticut, at the bottom of the rest, with a line between, negro- pew fashion, but make them write them on the same marble and in the same line. The time will yet come when we will, as Caleb Gushing says, drag this Massa- chusetts Legislature at our heels, and they shall pay for a monument to Attucks. [Loud cheers, and cries of " Good."] It will be but the magnanimous atone- ment for the injury and forgetfulness of so many years. They owe it to him, and they shall yet pay it. You and I, faithful to our trust, will see to it. Our fathers were honest and grateful enough to bury him from beneath these very walls. John Hancock did himself the honor, from his own balcony in Beacon Street, to give that CRISPUS ATTUCKS. 75 banner to colored men, recognizing them as citizens and as soldiers. The time shall come when the flavor of that good deed shall perfume Beacon Street, and make it worthier [cheers], I always thought that I had a pride in being born in it ; now I know the reason. [Renewed cheering.] Yes, like " Old Mortality," we come here to-night to make the monument plainer, to scrape off the moss that has gathered over it. It is only " the beginning of the end." The time shall come, if you, young men, do your duty, when the part your ancestors played, when the laurels they won, when the deeds they performed in our Revolutionary era, shall be raked up from forget- fulness. I will tell you how. Do you know how great- grandfathers get remembered ? I will tell you. The world is very forgetful, . Republics are proverbially ungrateful. You must not expect that the white men will wake up and do you justice. Oh, no ! I will tell you how it is to be done. We are very fond of finding reasons for things and explaining them away. If we see a boy very bright, with great genius, we are fond of saying, " Well, we knew his father and mother, and they were very bright people." Or, if we see a grand- son very famous, we say, " Well, he comes of a good stock ; we remember his grandfather, he could do this thing or the other ! " When Theodore Parker came into the city of Boston, and made the boldest pulpit in the city, men said, " It is all right. This is the blood that fired the first musket at Lexington, and it is only crop- ping out in a new place." Now, some of you colored men, Boston colored men, go you to-morrow and show your valor in the field, valor in life, valor in education, valor in making money, valor in making your mark in the world, and instantly the papers will begin to say, " Oh, yes ; they have always been a brave, gallant people ! 76 CRISPUS ATTUCKS. Was there not an Attucks in '70 ? By the by, let us build him a monument." You must remind us by instances. You must not come to us and argue ; that is not the way to convince us. The common people do not stop to argue. You must convince us by a life. We want another Attucks ; and I will conclude by showing you that you have another Attucks. 1 Here is a letter from Mr. Higginson, excusing himself for not coming ; and with this, which is a very excellent speech in itself, 1 will finish mine. 1 An allusion to the fact stated in Mr. Higginson's letter, " that the very first man to enter the court-house door, in the attempt to rescue Anthony Burns, was not, as has been commonly supposed, a white man, but a colored man." CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Plea before a Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, March 16, 1855. I HAVE not been able, Mr. Chairman, to attend any of the hearings of this Committee, and therefore I cannot be said to know accurately the ground taken by those who have supported the proposition that the gal- lows should be retained ; but I presume I know it in general, and therefore, a general reply will not wander far from the points which the committee would like to have treated. I have always found that before the House of Representatives this subject had, in fact, but two points of difficulty, and, indeed, one was of far more importance to the committee than the other. The first point is, the authority for capital punishment ; and the second, the necessity or expediency of preserving it. I will say a few words on both. In the first place, Mr. Chairman, what is the object of all punishment, in a civil community ? Of course, it is not to revenge any act committed. The idea of revenge is to be separated from the idea of punishment, when we speak of capital punishment, or any other punishment, in civil society. Neither can it be said that punishment is the penalty of sin, properly speaking; that is sin in the eye of God, where an individual a conscious, re- sponsible individual commits a wrong act, with a wrong motive. Society has nothing to do with motive ; society punishes acts, One man, for instance, may com- 78 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. mit murder, and in reality, and in the sight of God, may not commit as much sin as another person who has merely stolen; because we all know that sin, moral guilt, is made up of two elements, the light that the individual had, and the criminal wish that he had to vio- late that light. God alone can know what light a man has in his own conscience. Strictly speaking, therefore, the word punishment ought never to be used in this con- nection. Society does not, in fact, punish as we usually make use of that term. Punishment belongs only to that Being who can fathom the heart, and find out motives. This is a more important principle than it at first ap- pears from this consideration. Many men approach this subject with the idea that there is some peculiar reli- gious responsibility connected with it. Dr. Cheever, in his work on capital punishment, has a leading train of thought to the effect that " the land is stained with blood," in the phrase of the Old Testament, and that society has got something to do to free the nation from the guilt of blood ; but our ideas of civil government are entirely different from this. There are two objects that society has in inflicting penalties, that is the proper word, not " punishment." According to Lord Brougham in his letter to Lord Lyndhurst on this very topic, these objects are, firs^Jx) prevent the individual offender from ever repeating his offence; and jsecwicl, to deter others from imitating his offence. The primary object of all government is protection, pro- tection to persons and property. That protection is to be gained in two ways, by taking the individual mur- derer, or the individual thief, and by putting him to death, or shutting him up, to prevent his recommitting his offence ; and by so arranging the penalty on that man as to deter others from imitating his example. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. T ( -> In that definition, Mr. Chairman, have I not included the whole object of penalty in the eye of civil govern- ment ? You observe that this must be the whole object. For instance, a man who undertakes to commit mur- der, but does not do it, is guilty of murder in the eye of God. If I load^ajristol anoMireit ataman^^ndniss hiin,Iain,4*-Htt*dei^^ I a I am not a murderer in the eye of society. Society looks-i*p0Tf~~~ the act, not upon the intention or motive of the individ- ual ; and, therefore, only that Being who fathoms mo- tives, who lets down the plummet of His infinite knowl- edge into the complex machinery of the human heart, and learns how much good has been resisted, how much education has been smothered, only He can punish. If I am right in this, the only things left are restraint of the specific individual culprit, and restraint by deter- ring imitators. That is the object of penalties. Well, then, we come to the penalty of the gallows. the tak- ing away of life. In the first place, to look at it ab- stractly, is it necessary in order to restrain the mur- derer, or to deter others from imitating him ? It mani- festly is not necessary in order to restrain the murderer ; because society is now so settled in its arrangements, so perfectly stereotyped in its shape and form, that you can put a man between four walls and keep him there his whole life. Massachusetts can build prisons strong enough to keep a man, and enact statutes strong enough to prevent him from being pardoned out. No man will pretend before this Committee that that part of the object of penalty which would prevent the man from repeating his offence obliges you to take his life. You can shut him up just as securely in a prison as in a grave. It is not necessary, then, to restrain the criminal ; nobody pretends it. Is it necessary for the simple purpose of deterring 80 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. others from like offences ? Will the taking of the man's life deter others from following in his steps ? That is the only question that remains. When we look at the gallows what is it ? It is the taking of human life. There are three questions which present themselves in connection with this subject : 1. Have we a right to take it ? 2. Are we obliged to take it. 3. Does it do any good to take it ? In other words, the right, the obligation, and the necessity. With regard to the matter of right. If the Massachu- setts Declaration of Rights is of any authority in this hall, if the first page of your Constitution is of any au- thority here, then it would be hard to show where you get the power to take life. " The body politic," says the Preamble to the Constitution, " is formed by a volun- tary association of individuals ; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people." That is the re- publican theory of government ; it is the theory of this country, as you know, ever since the Declaration of In- dependence. It is a compact between individuals to be governed in a certain form. Society, therefore, can have no rights higher than those the individual has to give to it. If you will read the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, you will see that our form of government is a partnership of the individuals composing the body politic, and of course, a partner- ship cannot have any property except what the individ- ual members give to it. Now an individual man has no right over his own life, suicide is sin. If government is a compact, a partnership of rights which we individ- ually surrender, where do you get the right to take life ? The parties that make the compact have not got it, and therefore they cannot give it to the government. Your legislature, according to that Constitution, has no rights CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 81 except what the people have given them. The people have no right to take their own lives, and of course they cannot give you the right to take their lives. If your Constitution is correct, therefore, you have no right to take life. I do not say the Constitution is right. I know there are theories which repudiate the idea of compact, and claim that government derives its author- ity directly from God. Your Constitution says that government is a " compact " among the people ; and a government founded on that basis cannot have the right to take life, unless the individual has the right to take his own, unless suicide is justifiable. The reverend gentlemen who have appeared before you in opposition to the petitioners, would not allow for a moment that I have the right to commit suicide ; but if I have not the right to take my own life, how can I give that right to Governor Gardner, or to a jury of twelve men ? Beccaria, Dr. Rush, and all the most eminent writers on this subject deny the right of society to take life, on the ground that it conflicts with the republican form of government. These gentlemen escape from this by throwing overboard the whole theory of American so- ciety. They say society is not a compact. They upset the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts Constitution, and maintain that government is derived from God ; and in that way they get the idea of capital punishment from the Bible : for you cannot get it any where else, it must be got from the Bible, if got at all. Overthrowing the Massachusetts Constitution, they erect you into a government by the ordinance of God. It is in fact the old divine right to govern, and having introduced that theory into American society, they give you the right to take life. And when they give you this right, they give it to you in a Hebrew verse of the Old Testament, which, they say, not only 82 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. confers the right, but actually enjoins it as an obliga- tion, " blood for blood ! " They claim that this question lies entirely outside of the province of usual legislation. That is a very suspicious claim, to begin with. You are asked to give your support to a law which avowedly transcends your Constitution, on the ground that it belongs to the theory of Christian- ity. But who says this is a Christian government ? It recognizes the Jew, the Mohammedan, or anybody else, as a voter and entitled to an equality of right. I do not say, gentlemen, that the spirit of Christianity does not permeate its laws ; I simply say, this government does not recognize Christianity as an essential characteristic of its component parts. You come now to the Bible. You come now to this verse of the Old Testament ; and upon this verse hangs the whole theory of government, the whole theory of this legislation on capital punishment. I want you to bear in mind these observations, because it shows you that the thing claimed stands outside of the Constitution, outside of the whole theory of American government, it is peculiar, essential, unique. We come, then, to that verse. It is an obligation, they say : " Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Let us suppose, gentlemen, to begin with, that it is a command. We will not say that we are Christians and not Jews, and that this was addressed, in the first place, to Jews and not to Christians. Who can show that this is a command to Christians ? It is a command to the Jewish nation, so far as we know. But it is contended that this command stands behind the Jewish nation, and is addressed to the whole race, represented by Noah. Suppose we waive aside our objection, and consider it as a covenant with the race, through Noah. If this is a covenant, if it is a law of God, if it is ad- CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 83 dressed to us as the law of God, it must be obeyed, fully, entirely obeyed; no man lias a right to take excep- tions to it. If it is the law of God, Mr. Chairman, you and I, and this government, and every individual in it must obey it in its letter. We have no right to make changes in it. If we have a right to make changes inil the law of God, how much change may we make a Change it a half ; two thirds ? No ; the rule is, you cain not change it a tittle. It is to be obeyed ; and it is to be obeyed wholly; it is to be obeyed in its full spirit, to the extent of it. Is not that proper ? The opponents of capital punishment, gentlemen, are perfectly willing to obey this statute, with the gentlemen who support the gallows, if they will obey it to the letter, entirely. How long could any legislature that obeyed that command, in its full spirit, sit in any Christian country ? Let us see. In the first place, you will remark that this is but a single line of Hebrew text. If you will look into our friend Spear's book, or Dr. Cheever's book, or any book on this subject, on either side, you will find that there are as many as twelve different interpretations of it. No two of the great lights of Oriental learning and the Hebrew language have been able to agree upon an inter- pretation. One says that it means one thing, and another, another thing ; and from Calvin and Luther down to our own day, there has been no unanimous agreement among scholars as to the meaning of this sentence. Is it not rather singular, gentlemen, that you should be asked to upset the whole theory of the American Constitution, to support a law which it is confessed transcends the American idea of the power of government, that you should be asked to take a right one of the most doubt- ful ever exercised, even if it should appear to have ex- isted in any human government on the faith of a single line of a dead language, three thousand years old, about 84 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. the meaning of which no two scholars agree ? If God meant to issue a command to last for all time, a com- mand which was so imperative that all governments, in all circumstances, were to be obliged to obey it, would He not have stated it so that its meaning might be plainly understood ? Some say it means " whatsoever." Dr. Kraitsir, one of the most eminent living philologists in the world, undertook to show in his lectures, only two years ago, that it only forbids cannibalism, the eating of men ; and perhaps, on a question of language, there is no single name in all Christendom that has the weight of Dr. Kraitsir at the present moment. " Whosoever sheds man's blood, his blood shall be shed." That is the whole sentence ; " by man " is an interpolation. That is the whole literal interpretation of the words ; we have got to make out the rest. Some say it is a prophecy, " Whosoever taketli the sword, shall perish by the sword ; " and so of all the different meanings. I do not go into them, because it is utterly immaterial to my argument which is the best. The simple fact that the most eminent Oriental scholars have never been able to agree upon an interpretation, is enough for me. Is it not singular, I say, that so tran- scendent an act of legislation as "breaking into the bloody house of life," as Shakspeare writes, the taking of human life, should be left to hang on a doubtful sentence, in a dead language, more than three thousand years old ? Why, gentlemen, if a doctrine is of impor- tance in the Bible, it is spread over many pages ; it shines out in parable ; it is put prominently forward in exhortation ; it is given in one way and then in another ; first by one writer and then by another, but here is this single sentence, nothing else ; we have got to hang on this ; we cannot find it anywhere else. Our Saviour says, reiterating the great CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 85 command, " Thou shalt not kill ;" but here is an excep- tion, according to this theory. Get rid of this sentence, and there is no trouble anywhere else in the Bible. Now, I say, that if that was a command to control all governments, to trample under foot all circumstances, it would be natural to conclude that God would have expressed it more clearly. But, leaving this point, to whom is this command ad- dressed ? Is it to governments ? No, gentlemen, it is addressed to individuals. When God spoke to Noah, there was no government. The address was to individ- uals, and it was so interpreted for more than fifteen hun- dred years. It was addressed to each individual man ; and when the Jews were organized into a nation, they found this original command, according to this interpre- tation, resting on each man, to kill whoever had killed his nearest relative. You know that all through the Pentateuch you have frequent references to the old right, before government existed, of each man to kill the person who had taken the life of his nearest of kin. This command then is addressed to individuals^ it is a command to the nearest of kin to kill whoever slays his relative. If this is a command of God, it is addressed to you and to me. Suppose that Mr. Rufus Choate, or some other eminent lawyer, should procure the acquittal of a murderer, and that the brother of the person murdered should seek out and shoot down the murderer; and when he is brought before the court for sentence, suppose that he should say to the judge : " ' Whosoever shcddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Every pulpit in Massachusetts interprets that as a command of God. I believe that it is a command of God addressed to individuals. God has never taken it back. It is ad- dressed to me, then, just as much as to Noah ; there is no time with the Almighty. He is speaking that sen- 86 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. tence now just as much as in the time of Noah. You say the jury had acquitted the man; but what are the jury to me ? I know he was guilty. God's command to me is that I should kill him ; I have killed him. Take my life if you dare ! You are disobeying the divine commandment ! " Suppose he should say this, how would you meet it ? Where could you impeach his ar- gument upon the doctrine maintained here ? That is a command addressed to every individual. There was no sheriff then ; no county courts ; no gov- ernment ; no legislation. There were but six or seven men on the face of the earth, and God promulgated a law. It was addressed to every human being, and it was to be obeyed. It is universally recognized in the Old Testament in the sense I have stated, and it was ex- ercised in that sense for fifteen hundred years. Where is the exception, gentlemen, to that ? If the gentlemen who have appeared before you against the abolition of the death penalty will stand on that statute, so will we. Let us see what sort of a government you will produce. Whenever a man has taken life, the nearest of kin of the murdered person will avenge him, according to his own idea, and government has no right to interfere. " Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Not " whosoever means to shed ;" not " whosoever maliciously sheddeth ; " " sheddeth with malice aforethought, malice prepense ; " but " whosoever sheddeth." Now we make a distinction, we say the man who kills in hot blood, or unawares, is guilty only of manslaughter ; we must have malice aforethought to constitute the crime of murder. We draw the line ; in the time of Noah it was not drawn. Is this legislature ready to obey this statute, and annul the distinction be- tween murder and manslaughter ? Is it ready to make it the law of the Commonwealth, that whosoever takes CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 87 life, no matter how, shall be hanged by the neck until he is dead ? Do not say I am quibbling. I will show you I am not. Look in the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and you will observe that Moses makes a peculiar institution. He sets apart six " cities of refuge." What are they for ? Whoever commits murder with malice prepense, with design, is to be killed. Whoever smites a man unawares, that he die, he has a right to fly into a city of refuge, and stay there a year and a day, or until the death of the High Priest ; and provided he stays there during that period, the near- est of kin cannot kill him. " These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them ; that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither." (Num. xxxv. 15.) That was the only restraint which Moses dared to put upon the right of the nearest of kin to take the life of anybody who had killed his relative, whether he took it by design or not. The murderer, you will observe, by the fifth chapter of Numbers, is to be put to death, whether he gets to the city of refuge or not ; but the man who has committed manslaughter is not to be killed, provided he stay in the city of refuge a year and a day. Now, what does that show ? It shows two things, in the first place, that, prior to Moses' making that statute in Numbers, the nearest of kin took the life of anybody who killed his relative ; and in the second place, it shows, what I have stated to you, that there is no distinction in this passage between murder and manslaughter. Moses institutes a distinction, and says that if a man has committed homicide, has killed a man unawares, and shall go to a city of refuge, and shall stay in this city a year and a day, he is not to be punished. The two statutes interpret each other. That second statute, which makes a limitation on the first, 88 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. shows what the first meant, and shows that Moses thought that, according to this passage in Genesis, the blood of the murderer (whether the act were committed with malice aforethought or not) should be taken by the nearest of kin of the murdered person. Gentlemen, that is what a lawyer would call an interpretation from contemporaneous practice. Here is the practice of fif- teen hundred years under that statute, and the man who commits murder, with aforethought or unawares, is to be slain by the nearest of kin of the murdered man. If that was the original command, obey it. We have only the statute of Genesis ; we have no thirty-fifth chapter of Numbers, with its limitation, that was addressed to the Jews. We have no " cities of refuge." A man can- not go to Worcester or Salem, and stay there a year, by way of punishment, or atonement for his offence. We have not the exception ; we have only the statute. Now, gentlemen, are the reverend gentlemen willing to say that you shall annul the distinction between mur- der and manslaughter in the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts, that if a man kills another unintentionally, without malice, he shall be punished with death, under the covenant with Noah ? If they will not, what right have they to come here and tell you to obey that statute ? If that is a statute of God, what right have they to make exceptions ? Dr. Cheever avoids this dilemma, and how ? He allows that this command was addressed to individuals. He allows that it cannot be obeyed by individuals now, that it would derange all society, upset all govern- ment ; and what does he say ? He says, we cannot obey the statute as it was originally given ; because there is such an entire change of circumstances since the time of Noah. Indeed ! But Dr. Cheever can interpolate " cir- cumstances " into the law of God ; and if he can, cannot CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 89 we ? If you are going to open a door in the statute for the great procession of circumstances in a period of nineteen centuries to pass through, can you not open it wide enough to carry the gallows out ? If " circum- stances" have changed so much since this command was delivered, that it is not safe for an individual to kill the murderer, perhaps they have changed so much that you and I can get rid of the gallows altogether. Suppose you had made a statute for the Common- wealth of Massachusetts ; suppose you had passed the Maine Liquor Law, and six months afterwards the authorities in some town in the Commonwealth should refuse to execute it, should make exceptions to it, and when they were remonstrated with they should say, " Yes, certainly, those were the circumstances in March, but in November they have changed, and we are going to change the statute, the legislature would undoubtedly like to have it done," what would you think of their reasoning? If this is a statute at all, it is a statute until God alters it. If one man has a right to say that " circum- stances " have dispensed with one half of it, another indi- vidual has a right to say that " circumstances " have dispensed with it altogether. Mr. Jefferson, you know, cut out all the parts of the New Testament to which he objected, and said of the remainder, " This is my New Testament." There was no objection to it, except that different people might take out different parts, and there would be no New Testament left. Just so with Dr. Chcever. " Circumstances " have not dispensed with the statute, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God," " Thou shalt love thy neighbor ; " none of the ten com- mandments are dispensed with, how is it that u cir- cumstances" have dispensed with one half of this statute ? 90 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. In the third place, gentlemen, it is a singular fact, that if this be the law, " Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," it has never been obeyed. If this be the meaning of the statute, that every civil government that exists is bound to kill every human being who has taken life, it has never been obeyed. It is a strong argument against that interpre- tation, that practice has never conformed to it. Moses took the life of an Egyptian; God did not order him to be killed. According to this statute, Moses ought to have been killed. David killed Uriah ; David was not killed. So you can find in various parts of the Old Testament, accounts of several ancient worthies who took life, took it, too, in a way that in modern society would subject them to punishment; yet they were not punished, though, according to this statute, they ought to have been put to death. Then look at another point. Did you ever hear of a civil government that did not locate in some portion of its arrangements the pardoning power ? Did you ever hear of a government that did not give either the king, or the legislature, or the governor, or the council, or somebody, the pardoning power ? If a jury shall con- demn a man to death, the governor may interpose and save his life. Where does he get this power under this statute ? God does not say, " Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, provided the governor does not pardon him," that proviso is not there. If this is a statute of the most high God, you have got to obey it, obey it literally ; and every man who is convicted of homicide is to be punished capitally. No considerations of mercy, no pity for his family, no consideration of darkness of mind, his want of education, ought to make him a fit subject for pardon. There is no proviso for pardon in this statute ; what right, then, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 91 lias the Governor of Massachusetts to exercise such a power on the theory of these gentlemen? You perceive the force of my argument, gentlemen of the Committee. The upholders of capital punishment say that inside of this book there is a command to keep up the gallows. We respectfully reply : Take the statute in this book ; construe it as you would any other law, and obey it, and if you will obey it in that way, we are willing the government shall try the experiment. But we are not willing that anybody should take out as much as he pleases, and leave the rest as binding upon us. If this is a law of God, u Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," if that is the whole of it, you have no right to give Governor Gardner the pardoning power, because God does not recognize that power. There was an old lawyer who used to say that he could make a flaw in any statute large enough to drive a coach through. How large a flaw must you make in this statute before you can get modern government under it ? If it is a statute, it means all I have said ; if it is not a statute, it means nothing. You are to choose between one horn of the dilemma or another. If you want a government based on Noah, take it ; but don't throw it in our faces when we undertake to erect a government on the principles of modern experience, that we are disobeying a divine command in its full letter and spirit. Do not throw it in our faces for a single item, and then refuse to conform to it when it goes against yourselves. Then, again, if this verse is a binding statute, all the verses are. Here is the cove- nant with Noah, and this is one of the articles of that covenant, " But flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." (Gen. ix. 4.) This has always been interpreted to prescribe a certain 92 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. method of killing meat to be eaten. Even at this day, the Jews of the city of New York will not buy meat in the common markets of the city, because they think it transcends that command, that it is not properly blooded. They obey that law to the very letter. Did you ever hear of a Christian, who comes here with the sixth verse of this chapter written all over him, and maintains that God commands you to hang, did you ever know that he made any particular inquiries in the market as to whether he was obeying the fourth verse ? No, gentlemen, he is a Jew as "to the gallows; he is a Christian as to his pork. But that fourth verse is a more important one than the sixth, after all. If you turn over to that chapter in Acts, where the Apostles give their general directions to Christians, you will see that they reiterate the fourth verse : " For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these neces- sary things : that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled" etc. (Acts xv. 28, 29.) That command of the fourth verse has been reiterated, but not the sixth. The Apostle did not say, when they were making that general law for all Christendom, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to command you that you obey this statute : 4 Whosoever sheddeth man's blood,- by man shall his blood be shed.' " They were yet to be particular how their meat was killed ; that has been reiterated, but no Christian obeys it ; but this sixth verse has never been reiterated, yet it is so important, according to these gentlemen, that if you should dare to disobey it, the Commonwealth would go to pieces ! If this is a cove- nant, one part is just as obligatory as another ; yet you would obey the sixth verse, and set at nought the fourth! Suppose the Supreme Court should say of a CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 93 law passed by this legislature, " It is all Constitutional we admit ; but we shall obey one half of it, and not the other." Suppose an individual should say so, what should you think of it ? What results from these considerations ? Why, this results, that nobody can obey that statute at the present moment, and no civil government does ; and the govern- ment that should undertake to do it for one hour, would be hurled into oblivion the next, by the aroused indigna- tion of the nineteenth century. Constitute yourselves a government ; make no distinction between manslaughter and murder ; declare that the individual shall have the right to take the life of the person who kills his nearest relative ; give the governor no right to pardon, and see how long such a government would stand. And yet I contend that no man who interprets that statute by the common rules of evidence and con- temporary practice, can find any of the merciful provi- sions of modern government in it; I have shown you what that statute was, as practised for fifteen hundred years ; and Moses himself did not dare to say that the nearest of kin should not kill the man who had committed manslaughter. He instituted " cities of refuge," where the individual offender should be safe ; but if he left the city, he was liable to be killed. I contend, gentle- men, that in this issue between the parties, it is we who are upholding the Old Testament, riot those who defend the gallows. We say, God did not mean to prescribe a law for civil government in all time, that was not his object ; or, if he did, this was permissive merely, you may take life, if you wish to. This is my proposition, gentlemen : Grant that to be a statute ; if it is a statute, interpret it like any other statute ; and when you have done that, then we will say 94 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. these gentlemen are sincere and consistent, if they sup- port and obey it. But until they do, we are not willing to have them interpolate as much as they choose into it, and then require us to obey it. If you will show me a man who rigidly obeys the other verses of the covenant, then I will show you a man who really supports the gallows because he thinks the sixth verse commands it ; but until you do, I shall think the opponents of the abolition of the death penalty are influenced by other motives than those which appear. Now, gentlemen, I shall leave this subject in a moment ; but allow me to say to you, that this statute is represented as a warrant from Almighty God, com- manding all governments, for all time, to inflict the penalty of death upon every man who takes life. There is only this single verse, in language of an uncertain tenor, and it has all the difficulties about it 1 have named. I ask you, in all sincerity, if any county sheriff would hang one man on a writ as ambiguous as that ? You know he would not ; and yet govern- ments are to hang to all time, and thousands are to die, upon the authority of a statute so uncertain in its meaning that no sheriff would hang an individual man on a precept so equivocal, and so much surrounded with difficulties ! If men are to come here and propound it as a statute sounding down to us from Sinai, and before Sinai, then it is a statute that we must put our hands on our lips, and our lips in the dust, and obey to the letter. We have no right to reject one word and take the next ; there is no trifling to be done with it. Gentlemen, we have now dismissed the subject of obligation. It is unnecessary to say, after this, that I do not believe in the obligation. If society can get permis- sion to take life from this text, it is the most that it can CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 95 get ; it is no command, no continuing command. But, mark you, even that permission your Constitution does not allow you to use ! Your Constitution does not even recognize it as a permission ; because, if it is, it is a per- mission to commit suicide. You have got to upset the American idea of government before you can even exer- cise it as a permission. Mr. Rantoul, in one of his ex- ceedingly able reports on this subject, fourteen years ago, placed this before the legislature in the most un- answerable light. You must argue down the American idea of government before you can put down the argu- ment which forbids the taking of human life. There is great difficulty here. You have got to ignore the American theory and American history. You have got to say of that Declaration of Rights, " It is a lie ! There is something deeper than compact. We do not sit under a compact. We sit under an arrangement which God limits, the height and depth and breadth of which He has denned, not the Constitution." This is not the republican theory of government, gentlemen ; but I have no quarrel with it, it may be so. But you sit here under the Constitution of Massachusetts, and if that Constitution is right, you have got no powers except what the people give you. When, gentlemen, did the law recognize that I have the right to take my own life ? Never. Then, under your idea of compact, you have no right to take my life. If your Constitution is a sound, logical instrument, the very first statute that hung a man on the gallows was a violation of the Constitution of Massachusetts ; for it undertook to assume over that man's life a power which he did not himself possess, and which he could not, therefore, delegate to the State ; and the Constitution says that the government could have no right except what that man gave it, u The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of indivi- 96 , CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. duals ; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people." Now, will any man undertake to show me how any government founded upon that as its corner- stone can claim the right to take life, unless the individ- ual has a right to take his own life, unless suicide be justifiable ? The defenders of the gallows all feel the necessity of meeting this objection, and they uniformly do it by rejecting the idea of compact. They claim that government is something else, that you get your rights somewhere else than from a compact. Dr. Cheever and other writers on the same side undertake to say that this idea of compact is all a mistake ; that it was de- rived from the French infidelity of the eighteenth cen- tury. They ignore it entirely, and they have a right to, for they are only writing books. But you cannot ; for you are sitting here as a legislature, and must respect the Constitution you have sworn to support. Let us look at another argument of Dr. Cheever. He says society gets the right to take life as the individual gets the right of self-defence. What is the principle of the law ? The principle of the law is this : If a man is going to take your life, you have no right to take his immediately ; you must retreat to the wall. The rule of the common law says : You must retreat until you can retreat no farther ; and then, when you must either die or kill him, you may kill him ; but if you kill him at once, without retreating as far as you can, you are guilty of manslaughter. Now, if Dr. Cheever is going to get the right from this principle just alluded to, then society is bound to show, not that taking life is a good thing, but that it is an absolutely necessary thing. Society is bound to show that, in conformity with this rule, she has retreated to the wall, that is, done everything she could before taking the life of the murderer. Society has got CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 97 to show, if Dr. Cheever's theory is correct, that, like the individual, before she raised her hand, she retreated as far as she could, she ran and hid herself, got out of the way, and when she could do nothing else, then she took the life of the individual. But now, how is it ? Who are the men that are hung ? Are they the rich, the educated, the men that are cared for by society ? No, that is not the class that supplies the harvest for the gal- lows. The harvest of the gallows is reaped from the poor, the ignorant, the friendless, the men who, in the touching language of Charles Lamb, " are never brought up, but dragged up ; " who never knew what it was to have a mother, to have education, moral restraint. They have been left on the highways, vicious, drunken, neg- lected. Society cast them off. She never extended over them a single gentle care ; but the first time this crop of human passion, the growth of which she never checked, manifests itself, the first time that ill-regu- lated being puts forth his hand to do an act of violence, society puts forth her hand to his throat, and strangles him ! Has society done her duty ? Could the intelli- gence, the moral sense, and the religion of Massachu- setts go up and stand by the side of that poor unfortunate negro who was the last man executed in this Common- wealth, and say that they had done their duty by him ? He had passed his life in scenes of vice ; he had never known what it was to have a human being speak to him in a tone of sympathy. Had society done her duty ? Had she retreated to the wall ? He never landed in our city but the harpies of licentiousness and drink beset him, and the churches never rose up in their majesty to forbid it. Steeped to the lips in vice for thirty years, when society found him guilty of an act of vio- lence, the natural result of such a life, did society take him and say, " God gave this man to me an inno- 1 98 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. cent soul, and I have let him grow up into this monster, and now I will take him and restrain him ; I will throw around him moral influences, and see if I cannot make a human being of him ? " Did society retreat to the wall ? Did she try to save that man ? No ; she in- flicted on him the severest punishment, she took away his life. " Society is an instrument of good," said one of your members a few days ago. Then she is bound to educate the man thrown into her hands. This is a very broad theory, that society gets the right to hang, as the individual gets the right to defend him- self. Suppose she does ; there are certain principles which limit this right, to which she is bound. Besides, when society has got the man completely in her power, what is she to do with him ? Suppose a man attacks me to-day ; according to Dr. Cheever, I have the right to take his life. But the law says : " No ; if you can restrain him, you must do so, and not kill him." Society has got the murderer within four walls ; he never can do any more harm. You can put him in a jail from whence he can never escape ; where he can never see the face of his kind again. Has society any need to take that man's life to protect herself ? Has she retreated to the wall ? If society has only the right that the individual has, she has no right to inflict the penalty of death, because she can effectually restrain the individual from ever again committing his offence. Suppose a man should attempt to kill me in the street, and I should take his life, and when I was brought before Chief-Justice Shaw, and asked how I killed him, I should say : " I overcame him ; I threw him on the sidewalk ; I bound him hand and foot ; and then I killed him," would that be justifi- able ? No, I should be imprisoned for manslaughter. Society takes the murderer ; she shuts him up in jail ; she keeps him ninety days, or longer : she tries him be- CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 99 fore twelve men ; and then, having him utterly, irreme- diably in her power, she hangs him ; and then she turns, round and tells you, " I have only the right of the individ- ual ; " and the common law retorts upon her : " You had no right to take that man's life ; you might have re- strained him, if you would, and you had no right to kill him." As I said at the beginning, there are two objects of penalty, first, to restrain the offender from repeating his offence ; and second, to deter other people from imi- tating it. Now, if the object be simply to prevent the in- dividual from repeating the offence, he cannot repeat it if he is shut up in prison. You can keep him there ; you can deny to the governor the power to pardon such persons. You can declare, as O'Sullivan proposes, that such persons shall not be pardoned except by the two- thirds vote of three successive legislatures. You can keep them in prison, if you choose. Nobody can say that a million of men and women, with one poor, hapless man in chains, are so afraid of him that they are obliged to take his life in order to prevent the offence. No, gen- tlemen, nobody pretends it. The only claim now is, that it is necessary, in order to prevent other men from repeating it. Here is another point. If this idea of hanging men, for example, is correct, then why do you not make your executions as public as possible ? Why do you not hang men at the centre of the Common ? Our fathers did it. They hung their people under the great tree. They hung them for example, and of course they wished every- body to see it. They hung men upon the Neck, and crowds went out to see it. If example is the object, the sight of punishment would seem to be essential to its full effect. Why, Homer tells us, two thousand years ago, that a thing seen has double the weight of a thing heard. 100 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Everybody knows that a child will recollect what he sees ten times as well as what he hears. You know that in old times (not to make a laugh of it), in Connecticut, they used to take the children to the line of the town, and there give them a whipping, in order that they might remember the bounds of their township by that spot. Now, there are fourteen States in the Union that have made executions private, and in England they are private. Only a few men some twenty or thirty or fifty are allowed to witness them. Mark you, the whole claim of the value of executions now lies in their example ; yet it is found that out of one hundred and sixty-seven persons executed in England within a cer- tain limit of time, one hundred and sixty -four had wit- nessed executions ! All the crimes of the world have been found at the foot of the gallows. O'Sullivan has recorded six or eight cases of persons who left the gal- lows to go home and commit the same offence, in the same way. In consequence of these executions, a sort of mania for killing arises. You know how it has been in other cases, what a mania there was at one time for shooting Louis Phillippe, and at another for intruding on Queen Victoria. It takes possession of people. So- ciety has learned that to witness executions develops a certain instinct for blood which is dangerous ; and so, in many countries, the government does not permit it. There is another singular thing about this punish- ment. Here is an ordinance of God, of the sublimest authority in the universe (according to the upholders of capital punishment), commanding us to execute our fellow-men ; and yet, in all civilized society, Mr. Chair- man, the man who executes that law the hangman - is not esteemed fit for decent society. In Spain, the man who has hung another runs out of the city in disgrace, and if he were to appear again, the mob would tear him CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 101 in pieces. To call a man a hangman is the greatest insult you can cast upon him. DR. BEECHER (interrupting}. I suppose that is be- cause he has touched sin and been polluted. MR. PHILLIPS. But the mob doe's .not 1 pelt the clergy- man who takes the man's hand Only;thse m^nieafc -b^fdife,- he is executed ! [This retort excited great merriment, the audience loudly applauding.] No, Mr. Chairman, it is a very remarkable circum- stance that in all time the man who did his duty in obeying this statute has been infamous. Then here is another very important fact. That stat- ute one line of which, according to these gentlemen, has sufficient vitality to cover all space and time is so horrid you cannot permit the world to look at it. It de- moralizes society. The reason given for hiding the gallows was, that its influence was demoralizing ; it was found to be the universal testimony that executions were great promoters of crime. The London police never had so much to do as when there was an execu- tion. If example is the object, why certainly the ex- ample of the actual thing at the moment ought to have prevented people from committing the same offence. Yet you remember the very remarkable case of the widow of a forger in London, who begged her husband's body of the executioner and took it home ; and the po- lice, suspecting the parties, entered the house and found forged notes concealed in the very mouth of the corpse ! The wife and the other parties were engaged in the same crime, and to conceal it, put into the mouth of the corpse the evidence of their guilt ! And such cases are not at all uncommon, though this one may be most remarkable in its circumstances. This was the reason why executions were made private. Let me cite high authority on this point. Six or seven 102 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. years ago Lord Brougham addressed a letter to Lord Lyndhurst. Lord Lyndhurst had said that one of the principal reasons for resorting to capital punishment was. the necessity .of deterring others by punishing the criminal severely. . Lord Brougham replies : " You, sir, .tfd, myself,; have been well acquainted with criminal jurisprudence and the execution of criminal law in Eng- land. I appeal to you, and to every member of the pro- fession familiar with criminal law, whether the idea of deterring others from committing offences by pun- ishing the offender severely, is not found, in practice, to be utterly unsound. It has no sucli effect whatever." Lord Brougham goes on to say : " It may be that I am Quixotic, but if government has no other way of pro- tecting society against the repetition of offences except by punishing the offender severely, then government is a failure. ... In my opinion," he adds, " the only pro- tection government has is this : Take possession of the offender, and subject him to moral restraint. Make your jail a moral hospital ; make the man over again, if you can, and in that way you protect society from that man henceforth. Take the rest of the community and educate them, and in that way you protect society from them, and in no other." I am not quoting a morbid philanthropist or a mere sentimentalist, but a cool, hard lawyer, who, after many years of practice and ample op- portunities for observation, comes to the conclusion that the gallows, and penal legislation of all kinds, if it lias no other object than the example of punishment, is a failure, and that there is no remedy but education. As Bulwer has well said : " Society has erected the gallows at the end of the lane, instead of guide-posts and direc- tion-boards at the beginning." There is, therefore, gentlemen, no reason, either on the ground of keeping the offender from repeating his CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 103 offence, or in the influence of the example, for the gal- lows ; there is no necessity for it. Experience proves that there is not. Gentlemen, I would not weary you with details ; but take Rautoul's reports, and you will find my statement fully confirmed. It is proved by English history that just so fast as you take the death-penalty from a crime, the crime diminishes. Experience is all that way, and not the other. I hold that you cannot oblige us to show that taking away the gallows is better than to keep it. It is acknowledged that as regards the prevention of crime the gallows is a failure. You do not prevent crime by hanging the criminal, it increases. Attorney- General Austin asked the legislature, in a report made, I think, in 1843, to give up capital punishment, because it did not restrain murder. Remember, this is Attorney- General Austin, a man not suspected of any exceeding humanity, a man who did not look at this subject from any sentimental point of view, but simply as a lawyer. Here is what he said : " Whether the punishment of death should be abolished in any of the few cases to which it is now applied [the capital penalty of robbery and burglary had been done away with in 1839] has often been a subject of legislative inquiry. It does not belong to me to enter upon an argument that is nearly exhausted ; but I deem it within my province in this connection respectfully to submit to the legislature that, in the present state of society, it is no longer an abstract ques- tion, whether capital punishment is right, but whether it be practicable ; and that there is good reason to believe that punishment for crime would more certainly follow its commis- mission If the legislature should further abrogate the penalty of death. As the law now stands in this respect, its efficiency is mostly in its threatenings ; but the terror of a trial is diminishing, and the culprit finds his impunity in the seventy which it denounces." 104 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Now, gentlemen, if you cannot execute a law, it is manifest that it better not be on the statute-book. This is just what they found in England. For instance, the law used to be that a man should be hung for stealing a shilling. That was thought too hard, and the sum was raised to forty shillings ; but under this law, no jury could be found to convict, they would find some way to evade the statute. Thus, in one case, a man was taken up for stealing a watch which cost ten or fifteen pounds. The man had undoubtedly stolen it ; it was proved against him. The jury brought him in guilty of stealing the watch, and found that the watch was worth thirty-nine shillings, eleven pence. The watch-maker said, " Why, the very fashion of that watch was worth five pounds." " Perhaps it was," said the jury, " but we don't hang a man for five pounds." Afterwards they raised the amount to five pounds ; then the jury brought the accuse^ in guilty of stealing four pounds, nineteen shillings, eleven pence, always keeping one penny behind the hanging limit. Of course it was perjury, but the jury would not convict of the crimes of stealing and forgery, when the penalty was death. The legislature said, The man who forges shall be hung, but men forged every day, and every hour of the day ; and the bankers of London, with millions of pounds resting on the fidel- ity of an autograph, went before the legislature and said, " Be kind enough to pass a statute against forgery that shall not inflict the punishment of death." It was found that a man charged with forgery was certain to be acquitted ; the witnesses quibbled, the juries quibbled, the prosecuting officer quibbled, until no man was ever hung for forgery. Then the bankers of London (one thousand of them) went before the legislature, and said, " Your gallows is no protection to us ; be kind enough to take it away ! " CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 105 Gentlemen, for one hundred years, the progress of all legislation has been to throw away these extreme penal- ties ; and in proportion as it has done so, crime has diminished. That shows that society does not need the gallows for protection ; and if it does not need it for protection, it has no right to it. These gentlemen will not contend, of course, that society has a right to take life from caprice, from whim, from taste, but only from necessity. If we show you that when it has been with- drawn from a crime, that crime has diminished, then, I say, we show you a competent and sufficient argument why it should be abolished. We have got outside of the Bible now ; we have got the experience of two hundred years in England, that every crime from which the pen- alty of the gallows was taken off has diminished ; we have got the experience of Russia, of Tuscany, of Bel- gium, of Sir James Mackintosh in India, where they have given up the death penalty, yet murder did not increase. You say, these experiments were local, and for a short time ; true, but they were all one way. Society has never tried the gallows but to fail. Now, all we ask of Massachusetts is, that when she has tried the one and not succeeded, she shall now try the other. We used to punish highway robbery with death. Then that crime was frequent ; but things got to such a state that, as Robert Rantoul said, a man was more likely to be struck by lightning, sitting in his parlor in any town of the Commonwealth, than to be hung for highway robbery. We took off the penalty of death, and then highway robbery diminished ; there were more cases before than since. In the States that have abolished the death penalty, the result has been entirely satisfactory ; and every humane man must rejoice at it. Take Michigan, and those States that have rescinded the penalty ; they were 106 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. no worse off than Massachusetts. I say that this is a State pre-eminently fitted to try this experiment. We are the great Normal School of all civil government, Massachusetts. We have the most moral people on the face of the earth ; we have the best circumstances for an experiment in civil government ; we have a people with wealth equally divided ; we have common schools ; we are a people with a high moral tone ; we have a homogeneous population ; it is easy to get a living here, and poverty, therefore, does not drive to crime, as in some other places, our circumstances are all favorable to morality. We are in a better condi- tion to try such an experiment than Michigan, far better than Belgium, Tuscany, or Russia ; yet they tried it and were successful, and why will not we try it also ? All the great lights of jurisprudence are on our side, Franklin, Livingston, Rush, Lafayette, Beccaria, Grotius, I might mention forty eminent names, all throwing their testimony against the gallows. Lafayette said, " I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death, until you show me the infallibility of human testimony." He thought it was enough to discredit the gallows, that men might be hung by mistake. There have been two or three scores of such cases in the history of jurisprudence. Now, with all this experience on our side, with the fact that we are the very best government in the world to try the experiment, with the testimony of Lord Brougham a man not biassed by any peculiar circum- stances, by any religious fanaticism, by any sentimental enthusiasm that this idea of deterring from offences by example is a failure ; that education is the only thing ; that the prison ought to be a moral hospital ; that the man is to be taken possession of, and restrained by moral influences, shall we be behind such a man CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 107 as Lord Brougham ? It seems that we ought not to be. I will detain the Committee but a moment longer. I think I have thrown some remarks before you that go to show this : That this covenant with Noali is one not binding on this legislature ; or if it is, that it is binding in its whole. And yet you will not for an hour think of receiving it as a whole, and obeying it as a whole ; you would be the shame of Christendom if you attempted to obey it. If it is not a statute to be obeyed wholly, then it is nothing. If Dr. Cheever may shape it one way, like a piece of wax, we can shape it another ; if he can drive civil government through it, we can drive the abolition of the gallows through it. Then, gentlemen, as to the necessity of it. The whole current of legislation is to give it up. We have given it up in almost all cases, and we are safer than we were. No State that has abolished it has ever taken a backward step voluntarily. It was re-established in Tuscany by a foreign power, and is not executed even there. I understand that the Grand Duke of Tuscany promised his sister never to obey the law forced upon him by Napoleon, and you see murderers walking in their parti-colored dress along the streets of Leghorn and Florence ; yet Tuscany is the most moral and well-behaved country in Italy. So it is with our States. All experience points one way. The old bar- barous practices have gradually given place to others more humane and merciful. Once a prisoner was not allowed to swear his witnesses ; then they would not allow him counsel. Now he may swear his witnesses, and is entitled to counsel ; yet the government is safe. Men used to say, " We cannot get rid of the gallows. Why, murder is so rife in the land that if you don't have the very worst punishment man can devise, no man's life will be safe." If this was so, why did n't you impale 108 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. the criminal, as in Algiers ; or crucify him, as the Ro- mans did ? Why did n't you make the gallows as cruel as possible ? If you wanted the terror of example, if you wanted the blood to freeze in the hearts of men, why did you not make the punishment as cruel as you could ? That is not the spirit of the age. The question argued now is, what is the easiest mode of death ? A writer in the London Quarterly maintains that death by the guil- lotine is the easiest, and that government ought to adopt the guillotine instead of the gallows. The question is not now how we shall most frighten men, but how we shall take life the easiest. It has even been proposed to give chloroform to the man about to be executed, from motives of humanity. If you want to frighten people, adopt the cruelest punishment you can invent ; and yet, if you should do so, if you should take pains to make your punishments as severe and cruel as possible, the humanity of the nineteenth century would rebuke you. Unconsciously, without considering the logic hidden under it, without considering what inferences would be drawn from it, the efforts of physicians and of men of jurisprudence have been to find out the easiest mode of taking life. The French claim that the guillotine is the easiest, and therefore they adopt it. If you can come down one step, if you can give up the rack arid the wheel, impaling, tearing to death with wild horses, why cannot you come down two, and adopt imprisonment ? Why cannot you come down three, and instead of put- ting the man in a jail, make your prisons, as Brougham recommends, moral hospitals, and educate him ? Why cannot you come down four, and put him under the in- fluence of some community of individuals who will labor to waken again the moral feelings and sympathies of his nature ? Who knows how many steps you can come down ? CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 109 We came down one when we gave up burning at the stake ; we came down another when we gave up the tearing of the body to pieces with red-hot pincers ; we came down another when we gave up the torture of the wheel. You cannot tolerate these things now. Society has been forced, by the instinct of humanity, against its logic, to put away these cruel penalties. Men have been crying out continually against this instinct of mercy which sought to make the dungeon less terrible ; they feared to remove a cobweb from that dungeon's cruelty, lest the world should go to pieces. Yet the world swept it down, and is safer to-day than ever before. Now we ask you to abolish the gallows. It is only one step further in the same direction. Massachusetts has got up to the wall. She has thrown it away for almost all offences ; she only retains it for one or two. We ask you to take one more step in the same direction. Take it, because the civilized world is taking it in many quarters ! Take it, because the circumstances of the time prove you may take it safely ! Take it, because it is well to try experiments for humanity, and this is a favorable community to try them in. These are the arguments, gentlemen of the Com- mittee, on which we ask you to abolish the punishment of death in this Commonwealth. SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. Addresses made at the Tenth Woman's Eights Convention at Cooper Institute, New York, May 10 and 11, 1861. MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN : I wish I could carry on the same strain of remark which has just been addressed to you, for that touches the very heart of the question which brings us together this morning. We are seeking to change certain laws, laws based on sex. Now, as he has suggested, there is another realm beside that of law, there is another arena beside the civil, and that is the social state. We arrange certain matters of the statute-book ; we let other mat- ters arrange themselves, according to what we call fashion and unfettered public opinion, that is, society. We may gather a very distinct idea of what would be the natural result in civil affairs, if we look for a mo- ment at what has been the result of the conflict of powers in the social state, for there power works out untrammelled its natural result. Majorities do not rule there, but real power, the agreeable, the fit, the useful, that which commends itself to the best sense. Social life began centuries ago, just where legal life stands to-day. It began with the recognition of man only. Woman was nothing ; she was a drudge ; she was a toy ; she was a chattel ; she was a connecting link between man and the brute. That is Oriental civiliza- tion. We drift westward, into the sunlight of Chris- SUFFRAGE FOB WOMAN. Ill tianity and European civilization, and as Milton paints animal life freeing itself from the clod, and tells us, you recollect, of the tawny lion, with his mane and fore-feet liberated, pawing to get free his hinder parts, so the mental has gradually freed itself from the incumbrance of the animal, and we come round to a society based on thought, based on soul. What is the result ? Why, it would be idle to say that there woman is man's equal ; she is his superior. In social life she has taken the lead ; she dictates. Hers is this realm, and from her judgment there is no appeal. Her intellect summoned literature into being, almost ; as a reader she has de- manded that it shall be decent ; and now she takes her pen as a writer, and controls the world, as the sceptre of genius always controls it, no matter what lips, male or female, God's living coal has touched. That, I say, is the counterpart, the picture, that repre- sents to us what law and the civil state are to undergo in their successive changes. We are here to-day only to endeavor to enforce on the consideration of the civil state those elements of power which have already made a social state. You do not find it necessary to-day to say to a husband : " Your wife has a right to read ; " or necessary to say to Dickens, " You have as many women over your pages as men." You do not find it necessary to say to the male members of a church that the women members have a right to change their creed. All that is settled ; nobody contests it. If a man stood up here and said, " I am a Calvinist, and therefore my wife is bound to be one," - - you would send him to a lunatic asylum. You would say, " Poor man ! don't judge him by what he says ; he does n't mean it." But law is halt- ing back just where that old civilization was ; we want to change it. We are not doing anything new. There is no fanati- 112 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. cism about it. We are merely extending the area of liberty, nothing else. We have made great progress. The law passed in your State at the last session of the legislature grants, in fact, the whole question. The moment you grant us anything, we have gained the whole. You cannot stop with an inconsistent statute- book. A man is uneasy who is inconsistent. As old Fuller says, " You cannot make one side of the face laugh, and the other cry ! " You cannot have one half your statute-book Jewish, and the other Christian ; one half the statute-book Oriental, the other Saxon. You have granted that women may be hung, therefore you must grant that women may vote. You have granted that she may be taxed ; therefore, on republican princi- ples, you must grant that she ought to have a voice in fixing 'the** laws of taxation, and this is, in fact, all that we claim the whole of it. Now I want to consider some of the objections that a^ made to this claim. Men say : " Woman is not fit to vote ; she does not know enough ; she has not sense enough to vote." I take this idea of the ballot as the Gibraltar of our claim for this reason, because I arn speaking in a democracy ; I am speaking under republi- can institutions. The rule of despotism is that one class is made to protect the other ; that the rich, the noble, the educated, are a sort of Probate Court, to take care of the poor, the ignorant, and the common classes. Our fathers got rid of all that. They knocked it in the head by the simple principle that no class is safe, unless government is so arranged that each class has in its own hands the means of protecting itself. That is the idea of republics. The Briton says to the poor man : 4< Be content ! I am worth five millions and I will pro- tect you ; " America says : " Thank you, sir ; I had rather take care of mvself ! " and that is the essence SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 113 of democracy. [Applause.] It is the corner-stone of progress also, because, the moment you have admitted that poor, ignorant heart as an element of the govern- ment, ahle to mould your institutions, those five millions of dollars feel that their cradle is not safe and their life is in peril, unless that heart is bulwarked with edu- cation and informed with morality ; selfishness dictates that wealth and education should do its utmost to edu- cate poverty and hold up weakness, and that is the philosophy of democratic institutions. [Applause.] I am speaking in a republic which admits the principle that the poor are not to be protected by the rich, but to have the means of protecting themselves. So, too, with the ignorant ; so, too, with races. The Irish are not to trust to the sense of justice in the Saxon ; the German is not to trust to the native-born citizen ; the Catholic is not to trust to the Protestant : but all sects, all classes, are to hold in their own hands the sceptre the Ameri- can sceptre of the ballot, which protects each class. We claim it, therefore, for woman. The reply is that woman has not sense enough. If she has not, so much the more shame for your public schools, educate her ! If God did not give her mind enough, then you are brutes ; for you say to her " Madam, you have sense enough to earn your own living, don't come to us ! " You make her earn her own bread, and if she has sense enougli to do that, she has enough to say whether Fernando Wood or Governor Morgan shall take one cent out of every hundred to pay for fire-works. When you hold her up in both hands and say : " Let me work for you ! Don't move one of your dainty fingers ! We will pour wealth into your lap, and be ye clothed in satin and velvet, all ye daughters of Eve ! " then you will be consistent in saying that woman lias not sense enough to vote ; but if she has sense enough to work, to depend 8 114 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. for her bread on her work, she has sense enough to vote. Then, again, men say, " She is so different from man that God did not mean she should vote." Is she ? Then I do not know how to vote for her. [Applause.] One of two things is true : She is either exactly like man, exactly like him, teetotally like him, and if she is, then a ballot-box based upon brains belongs to her as well as him ; or she is different, and then 1 do not know how to vote for her. If she is like me, so much like me, that I know just as well how to vote for her as she knows how to vote for herself, then, the very basis of the bal- lot-box being capacity, she, being the same as I, has the same right to vote ; and if she is so different that she has a different range of avocations and powers and capacities, then it is necessary she should go into the legislature, and with her own voice say what she wants, and write her wishes into statute-books, because nobody is able to interpret her. Choose which horn of the dilemma you please, for on the one or the other, the question of the right of woman to vote must hang. It is exactly the question of races. You might as well say that the Irishman is not like the Saxon ; that the Hindoo is not like the Englishman, the world ad- mits that they are not. Races are different ; therefore, the German may well say, " You are a Yankee, with a soul curbed in a sixpence ; you are not capable of voting for me. Your whole past and present are dif- ferent from mine, and when I come to be an element in your civilization, I must shoot up my peaks into the highest land of legislative and civil life, because I want to be represented there as well as you." I do not think woman is identical with man. I think if she was, marriage would be a very stupid state. God made the races and sexes the complement one of the SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 115 other, and not the identical copy. I think the world, and literature itself, would be barren and insipid, if it was not for this exquisite variety of capacities and en- dowments with which God has variegated the human race. I think woman is different from man, and by reason of that very difference, she should be in legis- lative halls, and everywhere else, in order to protect herself. But men say it would be very indelicate for woman to go to the ballot-box or sit in the legislature. Well, what would she see there ? Why, she would see men. [Laughter.] She sees men now. In " Cranford Vil- lage," that sweet little sketch by Mrs. Gaskell, one of the characters says, " I know these men, my father was a man." [Laughter.] I think every woman can say the same. She meets men now, she could meet nothing but men at the ballot-box ; or, if she meets brutes, they ought not to be there. [Applause.] In- delicate for her to go to the ballot-box ! but you may walk up and down Broadway any time from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at night, and you will find about equal numbers of men and women crowding that thoroughfare, which is never still. You may get into an omnibus, women are there, crowding us out some- times. [Laughter.] You cannot go into a theatre without being crowded to death by two women to one man. If you go to the Lyceum, woman is there. I have stood on this very platform, and seen as many women as men before me, and one time, at least, when they could not have met any worse men at the ballot- box than they met in this hall. [Laughter and ap- plause.] You may go to church, and you will find her facing men of all classes, ignorant and wise, saints and sinners. I do not know anywhere that woman is not. It is too late now to say that she cannot go to the 116 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. ballot-box. Go back to Turkey, and shut her up in a harem ; go back to Greece, and shut her up in the pri- vate apartments of women ; go back to the old Oriental phases of civilization, that never allowed woman's eyes to light a man's pathway, unless he owned her, and you are consistent ; but you see, we have broken down that bulwark centuries ago. You know they used to let a man be hung in public, and said that it was for the sake of the example. They got ashamed of it, and banished the gallows to the jail-yard, and allowed only twelve men to witness an execution. It is too late to say that you hang men for the example, because the example you are ashamed to have public cannot be a wholesome example. So it is with this question of woman ; you have granted so much, that you have left yourself no ground to stand on. My dear, delicate friend, you are out of your sphere ; you ought to be in Turkey. My dear, religiously, scrupulously fashionable, exquisitely anxious hearer, fearful lest your wife or daughter or sister shall be sullied by looking into your neighbors' faces at the ballot-box, you do not belong to the century that has ballot-boxes. You belong to the century of Tamerlane and Timour the Tartar ; you belong to China, where the women have no feet, because it is not meant that they shall walk. You belong anywhere but in America ; and if you want an answer, walk down Broad- way and meet a hundred thousand petticoats, and they are a hundred thousand answers. For if woman can walk the streets, she can go to the ballot-box, and any reason of indelicacy that forbids the one, covers the other. Woman will meet at the ballot-box the same men she sees in the lecture-room, the church, the theatre, the railroad cars, and the public streets. Long used SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 117 to respect woman's presence in those places, the vast majority of men obey there the laws of decency and good manners ; and no husband or father thinks it necessary to prohibit entirely his wife or daughter's en- trance to a theatre, church, car, or street, because some rare individual may chance to insult or offend her. Indeed, I may go further. The bully who knocks your hat over your eyes at the polling-booth would turn you out of his own house if you uttered a word disrespectful to his wife, mother, or daughter. He knows what is due to woman. Let; woman go to the ballot-box, and the rudest man will in time be ashamed not to carry there his good manners. The keenest insult you can offer even to a rowdy, the one he will resent the quick- est, is to hint that he does not know what is due to woman. In his own parlor he puts on his decency, and claims it of others. I will extend that parlor until it includes the polling-booth, when I give to both alike the restraining influence of the presence of woman. All we ask is, that our civilization shall be made com- plete and consistent. We base our civilization on ideas. We say that representation and taxation go hand in hand. We say that Daniel Webster, no matter though his gifts be godlike, is entitled to no more ballots than the Irishman who pays nine shillings' poll-tax, and can just write his own name. We do not base our institu- tions on mental discipline, on culture ; we base them on enough brains to be responsible to penal statutes. The man who is not enough of an idiot to be excused from the gallows, has sanity enough to be entitled to vote. That is the principle of Republicanism. Now, I claim, and always shall claim, that as long as woman has brains enough to be hung, she has brains enough to go to the ballot-box ; and not until you strike her name off the tax-list, and excuse her from penal legislation, will 118 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. you be justified in keeping her name off the list of voters. Men say, u Why do you come here ? What good are you going to do ? You do nothing hut talk." Oh, yes, we have done a good deal beside talk ! But suppose we had done nothing but talk ? I saw a poor man the other day, and said he (speaking of a certain period in his life), " I felt very friendless and alone, I had only God with me ; " and he seemed to think that was not much. And so thirty millions of thinking, reading peo- ple are constantly throwing it in the teeth of Reformers that they rely upon talk! What is talk ? Why, it is the representative of brains. And what is the charac- teristic glory of the nineteenth century ? That it is -uled by brains, and not by muscle ; that rifles are gone by, and ideas have come in ; and, of course, in such an era, talk is the fountain-head of all things. But we have done a great deal. In the first place, you will meet dozens of men who say, " Oh, woman's right to property, the right of the wife to her own earnings, we grant that; we always thought that; we have had that idea for a dozen years." I met a man the other day in the cars, and we read the statute of your New York Legislature. " Why," said he ; " that is nothing ; I have assented to that for these fifteen years." All I could say to that was this, " This agitation has either given you the idea, or it has given you the courage to utter it, for nobody ever heard it from you until to- day." These new-comers on our platform very wel- come they are ! must come under one guise or the other. This agitation, of which Mrs. Rose has sketched the history, has either given them their principles, or given them their lips. It has given them the thoughts, or the courage to utter the thoughts ; and in either sense, it is a useful method, it is a beneficial result. SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 119 It has helped them, and it is beginning to help the community. What do we toil for ? Why, my friends, I do not care much whether a woman actually goes to the baliot-box and votes that is a slight matter ; and I shall not wait, either, to know whether every woman in this au- dience wants to vote. Some of you were saying to-day, in these very seats, coming here out of mere curiosity, to see what certain fanatics could find to say, " Why, I don't want any more rights; I have rights enough." Many a lady whose husband is what he ought to be, feeling no want unsupplied, is ready to say, " I have all the rights I want." So the daughter of Louis XVI., in the troublous times of 1791, when somebody told her that the people were starving in the streets of Paris, ex- claimed, " What fools ! I would eat bread first! " Thus, wealth, comfort, and ease say, " I have rights enough." Nobody doubted it, Madam ! But the question is not of you ; the question is of some houseless wife of a drunk- ard ; the question is of some ground-down daughter of toil, whose earnings are filched from her by the rum- debts of a selfishness wl\ich the law makes to have a right over her, in the person of a husband. The ques- tion is not of you, it is of some friendless woman of twenty, standing at the door of the world, educated, capable, desirous of serving her time and her race, and saying, " Where shall I use these talents ? How shall I earn bread?" And Orthodox society, cabined and cribbed in Saint Paul, cries out, "Go sew, jade! We have no other channel for you. Go to the needle, or wear yourself to death as a school-mistress." We come here to endeavor to convince you, and so to shape our insti- tutions that public opinion, following in the wake, shall be willing to open channels for the agreeable and profit- able occupation of women as much as for men. 120 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. People blame the shirt-makers and tailors because they pay two cents where they ought to pay fifty. It is not their fault ; they are nothing but the weather-cocks, and society is the wind. Trade does not grow out of the Ser- mon on the Mount ; merchants never have any hearts, they have only ledgers ; two per cent a month is their Sermon on the Mount, and a balance on the wrong side of the ledger is their demonstration. [Laughter.] No- body finds fault with them for it ; everything accord- ing to the law of its life. A man pays as much for making shirts or coats as it is necessary to pay, and he would be a fool and a bankrupt if he paid any more. He needs only a hundred work- women ; there are a thousand women standing at his door saying, " Give us work ; and if it is worth ten cents to do it, we will do it for two ; " and a hundred get the work, and nine hun- dred are turned into the street, to drag down this city into the pit that it deserves. [Loud applause.] Now, what is the remedy ? To take that tailor by the throat and gibbet him in the New York Tribune ? Not at all; it does the women no good, and he does not deserve it. I will tell you what is to be done. Let pub- lic opinion only grant that, like their thousand brothers, those thousand women may go out, and wherever they find work to do, do it without a stigma being set upon them. Let the educated girl of twenty have the same liberty to use the pen, to practise law, to write books, to serve in a library, to tend in a gallery of art, to do anything that her brother can do. This is all we claim ; and we claim the ballot for this reason : the moment you give woman power, that mo- ment men will see to it that she has the way cleared for her. There are two sources of power, one is civil, the ballot ; the other is physical, the rifle. I do not believe SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 121 that the upper classes, education, wealth, aristocracy, conservatism, the men that are in, ever yielded ex- cept to fear. I think the history of the race shows that the upper classes never granted a privilege to the 1 lower out of love. As Jeremy Bentham says, " the upper : classes never yielded a privilege without being bullied out of it." When man rises in revolution, with the sword in his right hand, trembling wealth and conser- vatism say, " What do you want ? Take it ; but grant me my life." The Duke of Tuscany, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has told us, swore to a dozen constitutions when the Tuscans stood armed in the streets of Flor- ence, and he forgot them when the Austrians came in and took the rifles out of the Tuscan's hands. You must force the upper classes to do justice by physical or some other power. The age of physical power is gone, and we want to put ballots into the hands of women. We do not wait for women to ask for them. When 1 argue the Temperance Question, I do not go down to the drunkard and ask, " Do you want a pro- hibitory law ? " I know what is good for him a great deal better than he does. [Applause.] When I meet an ignorant set of boys in the street, I don't say, " My poor little ignoramuses, would you like to have a sys- tem of public schools ? " I know a great deal better what is good for them than they do. Our fathers es- tablished public schools before dunces asked for them. What proves the clearest woman's need of the ballot ? Why, the very inertness and ignorance which the lack of it has caused her. Like all other injustice and slav- ery, its worst effect is that it weakens, degrades, and darkens its victims, till they no longer realize the harm done them. Wasted on trifles, cramped by routine, lack- ing the stir and breadth which interest in great ques- tions gives, many women grope or flutter on, ignorant of 122 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. the real cause that saddens their life, burdens their toil, starves their nature, and sows their path with thorns. Those whom circumstances have lifted to broader views must not wait for her request before they open to woman the advantages by which they have profited so much. Besides, we lose half our resources when we shut women out from beneath the influence of these elements ' of growth. God gives us the whole race with its varied "endowments, man and woman, one the complement of (J;he other, on which to base civilization. We starve our- selves by using in civil affairs only half only one sex. I spoke a year ago of the stride literature made when women began to write and read. Politics will reap as great a gain when she enters its field. I mean to get the ballot for women why ? Because *'. Republicanism demands it; because the theory of our institutions demands it ; because the moral health of the country demands it. What is our Western civiliza- tion in this State of New York, in this city of New York ? A failure ! As Humboldt well said, as Earl Gray has said in the House of Lords, u The experiment of Amer- ican government is a failure to-day." It cannot be denied. If this is the best that free institutions can do, then just as good, and a great deal better, can be done by despotism. The city of Paris to-day, with but one will in it, that of Napoleon, spends less, probably, than the city of New York spends, and the results are, com- fort, safety, health, quiet, peace, beauty, civilization. New York, governed by brothels and grog-shops, spends twenty-five per cent more, and the results are, murder, drunkenness, rowdyism, unsafety, dirt, and disgrace ! I think there is something to be said for despotism in that point of view. I weigh Paris, the representative of despotism, against New York, the representative of " Young America," and New York kicks the beam. No SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 12o man can deny it. It is a failure on two grounds, it is a failure, because the law of political economy has given to man good wages, and science has invented for him drink cheap as water, and held it to his lips, and said, " Make a brute of yourself ! " Intemperance, that gigantic foe of modern civiliza- tion, is the chasm in the forum which seems destined to swallow up the capacity of self-government. In the olden times, wine was dear, and only the upper classes could afford to get drunk. Around the shores of the Mediterranean, the stimulus of the stomach was no temptation ; their climate tempted men on a different side. We are Saxons, our blood aches for a stimulus, by way of the stomach appetite ! Our idea of heaven is the skulls of our enemies, flowing over with rich wine. That is the blood that courses in our veins. In our streets, science pours out her drink like water. Politi- cal economy puts in every man's hand, by the labor of half a day, money enough to be drunk a week. There is one temptation, dragging down the possi- bility of self-government into the pit of imbruted humanity ; and on the other side, is that hideous prob- lem of modern civilized life prostitution born of Orthodox scruples and aristocratic fastidiousness ; born of that fastidious denial of the right of woman to choose her own work, and, like her brother, to satisfy her am- bition, her love of luxury, her love of material gratifica tions, by fair wages for fair work. As long as you deny it, as long as the pulpit covers with its fastidious Ortho- doxy this question from the consideration of the public, it is but a concealed brothel, although it calls itself an Orthodox pulpit. [Applause and hisses.] I know what I say ; your hisses cannot change it. Go, clean out the Gehenna of New York! [Applause.] Go, sweep the Augean stable that makes New York the lazar-house 124 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. i f corruption ! You know that on one side or the other cf these temptations lies very much of the evil of modern civilized life. You know that before them, statesman- ship folds its hands in despair. Here is a method by which to take care of at least one. Give men fair wages, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will disdain to steal. The way to prevent dishonesty is to let every man have a field for his work, and honest wages ; the way to pre- vent licentiousness is to give to woman's capacity free play. Give to the higher powers activity, and they will choke down the animal. The man who loves thinking, disdains to be the victim of appetite. It is a law of our nature. Give a hundred women honest wages for ca- picity and toil, and ninety-nine will disdain to win it by vice. That is the cure for licentiousness. [Applause.] I wish to put into our civil life the element of woman's right to shape the laws, for all our social life copies largely from the statute-book. Let woman dictate at the Capital, let her say to Wall Street, " My votes on finance are to make stocks rise and fall;" and Wall Street will say to Columbia College, " Open your classes to woman ; it needs be that she should learn." The moment you give her the ballot, you take bonds of wealth and fashion and conservatism, that they will educate this power which is holding their interest in its right hand. 1 want to spike the gun of selfishness ; or rather, 1 want to double-shot the cannon of selfish- ness. Let Wall Street say, " Look you ! whether the New York Central stock shall have a toll placed upon it, whether my million shares shall be worth sixty cents in the market or eighty, depends upon whether certain women up there at Albany know the laws of trade and the secrets of political economy," and Wall Street \vill say, " Get out of the way, Dr. Adams ! Absent yourself Dr. Spring ! We don't care for Jewish prejudices ; these SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 125 women must have education ! " [Loud applause.] Sho\y; me the necessity in civil life, and I will find you forty thousand pulpits that will say Saint Paul meant just that. [Renewed applause.] Now, I am Orthodox; I believ? in the Bible ; I reverence Saint Paul ; I believe his was the most masterly intellect that God ever gave to the race ; I believe he was the connecting link, the bridge, by which the Asiatic and European mind were joined ; I believe that Plato ministers at his feet, but after all he was a man, and not God. [Applause.] He was limited, and liable to mistake. You cannot anchor this Western continent to the Jewish footstool of Saint Paul ; and after all, that is the difficulty, religious prejudice. It is not the fashion, we shall beat it; it is not the fastidiousness of the exquisite, we shall smother it; it is the religious prejudice, borrowed from a mistaken interpretation of the New Testament. That is the real Gibraltar with which we are to grapple, and my argu- ment with that is simply this, you left it when you founded a republic ; you left it when you inaugu- rated Western civilization ; we must grow out of one root. I congratulate you, as friends of this cause, on the progress of the last twelve months. You know that when you look at a barometer on a common sunshiny day, you must furnish yourself with an infinitesimal point of brass, and a machinery of delicate wheels to move it a small atom of space, sufficient to measure the changes of the quicksilver. But when you are in the East India seas, and the monsoon is about to blow, or the tempest is about to sweep the surface of the waters, the barometer will jump an inch, or fall down an inch, according as the change is to be. You need no ma- chinery then, when a storm is coming that will lift your 126 SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. ship out of the very sea itself. I think, that in the twenty years that have gone by, we have had the little, infinitesimally minute changes of the barometer ; but the New York Legislature has risen a full inch in the moral barometer the last twelve months. [Applause.] It is a proof that the monsoon is coming that will lift the old conservative ship, carrying the idea that woman is a drudge and a slave, out of the waters, and dash her into fragments on the surface of our democratic sea. In a few years more, I do not know but we shall dis- band, and watch these women to the ballot-box, to see that they do their duty. [Applause.] You will have your State Constitution to change in five or six years. Use such meetings as these, and perhaps the Empire State will earn its title by inaugurating the great move- ment becoming democratic and Saxon civilization, by throwing open civil life to woman. I hope it may be so. Let us go out and labor that it shall be so. Let me, in closing, show you by one single anecdote, how mean a thing a man can be. You have heard of Mrs. Norton, " the woman Byron," as critics call her, the grand-daughter of Sheridan, and the one on whose shoulders his mantle has rested, a genius by right of inheritance and by God's own gift. Perhaps you may remember that when the Tories wanted to break down the reform administration of Lord Melbourne, they brought her husband to feign to believe his wife unfaith- ful, and to sue her before a jury. He did so, brought an action, and an English jury said she was innocent; and his own counsel has since admitted in writing, under his own signature, that during the time he prosecuted that trial, the Honorable Mr. Norton (for so he is in the Herald's Book), confessed all the time that he did not believe a word against his wife, and knew she was in- SUFFRAGE FOR WOMAN. 127 nocent. She is a writer ; the profits of her books, by the law of England, belong to her husband. She has not lived with him of course not, for she is a woman ! since that trial ; but the brute goes every six months to John Murray, and eats the profits of the brain of the wife whom he tried to disgrace. [Loud cries of " Shame, shame ! "] And the law of England says it is right ; the Orthodox pulpit says, " If you change it, it will be the pulling down of the stars and Saint Paul." I do not believe that the Honorable Mr. Norton is half as near to the mind of Saint Paul as the Honorable Mrs. Norton. I believe, therefore, in woman having the right to her brain, to her hands, to her toil, to her ballot. " The tools to him that can use them " and let God settle the rest. If He made it just that we should have democratic in- stitutions, then lie made it just that everybody who is to suffer under the law should have a voice in making it ; and if it is indelicate for women to vote, then let Him stop making women [applause and laughter], because republicanism and such women are inconsistent. I say it reverently ; and I only say it to show you the absurdity. Why, my dear man and woman, we are not to help God govern the world by telling lies ! He can take care of it himself. If He made it just, you may be certain that He saw to it that it should be delicate ; and you need not insert your little tiny roots of fastidious delicacy into the great giant rifts of God's world, they are only in the way. [Applause.] WOMAN'S EIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. Address delivered hi New York City, May 10, 1866. T ADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I am very glad that all L' that will be required of me this morning, is to answer to the roll-call, to say "Yes" to my name. You know you cannot have more than the whole of a subject. That is not possible. I have only had the pleasure of listening to the last address, by our friend Henry Ward Beecher ; and I think if he had left a sug- gestion unmade, or any part of the field unexplored, I would have made an effort to supply the omission. But as I watched him step by step, it seemed to me that General Grant could riot have covered his camp and his lines more effectually, from centre to outpost. Oliver Wendell Holmes said once that there was always a representative man who went out of every lecture-room at a certain period, at all seasons of the year, and in all parts of the country. The lyceum lecturers held a con- sultation to learn the cause, and Holmes, being a surgeon, performed an autopsy, and found that the reason was that the man's brain was full ; and when he came to that state, he went out. I think you must all have come to that state. There is no speech left for us who fol- low to make ; but I hope you will allow me a single suggestion. WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. 129 I think our friend touched the very kernel of the whole subject when he reminded you that suffrage was not alone woman's right, but woman's duty. I believe that to confer the ballot will add but little to the influence of woman. I am interested in this question, because I wish to put recognized power where there already exists unrecognized influence. I think unre- cognized influence is always dangerous. It acts under no adequate sense of responsibility. Society does not attempt to check it. It is unheeded and unwatched. Consequently it is always doubly liable to corruption. I believe that to-day it may be said, more truly than of any other cause in our social philosophy, that woman rules the State. What made the Southern rebellion ? Woman did not make it ; but without the enthusiasm and the frenzy of women on its side, it never could have been made. What was the potent influence that almost tore the Republic asunder? Woman's. Yet that wide-spread, deep-anchored force had swayed the Southern mind for years, under no sense of civil responsibility, neither watched nor educated, never in the eye of day, never feeling that it was doing anything which needed to be summoned before the tribunal of conscience. Our friend said that if woman could vote, she would shut up the groggeries of this city. She could shut them up to-day. Albany is nothing compared with fashion. What is the legislature compared with the ton that per- meates society, the throne that woman first founded, and has ever since. filled? More than college, stronger than church, weightier than trade, more controlling than all put together, woman is its recognized queen. If she issued her edict to-day, unfaltering, unmixed, undoubt- irig, there could nought but submission follow. A vote is a great thing ; legislation is a large power, but money is a larger power. Why do not women make 9 130 WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. money ? They have the faculty. The brother comes into this city ; no man knows his name ; his purse is empty; his word would not be worth five dollars, and his opinion less ; he lives here a dozen years, walks up and down Wall Street, and finally his name counts for millions. Why was it ? He clutched at all the opportunities which society gave him ; he made himself a force ; he garnered around himself the influences of life and business connections. Why should not woman ? Albany does not hinder her. There is nothing on the statute-book to forbid. One large, ugly, irreconcilable fact of a woman worth ten millions by her own toil, would be worth quartos of statute-books. Why does she not make it? Because you do not let her ; because it is reputable for a boy to go and make money, and it is not reputable for his sister ; because fashion says to the girl that earns her own bread, " You are tabooed ; " while fashion says to the boy that does not earn his own bread, "You are a poppinjay." The consequence is that one earns his own bread, and his place in the world's panorama besides ; the other lacks it. Where is the remedy ? You cannot be legislated into it. Nothing can help you up at Albany. No ballot-box will help you, ex- cept indirectly. Issue your edict. The medical profession is full of prizes. The men that gain them occupy a large space before the world. Why does not woman obtain some of them ? Why does she not clutch the largest culture and discipline, and gain the greatest prizes ? If every woman said, " When I need, in extremest peril, the aid of science, I will take it only at a sister's hand," do you suppose there is a college in the broad United States that would dare to shut the doors of its opportunities against a woman ? Not for an hour. I want to urge it upon your attention that large as is WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. 131 the ballot, broad as legislation is, behind it are broader opportunities and a larger influence ; and the only thing that blocks the door to those paths is your opinion, an opinion that you can change. The edict of woman's decisive opinion will close the groggeries of New York City much quicker than the metropolitan police can close them. The singularity of this cause is that it has to be argued against the wishes and purposes of its victims. The slave stood behind us, the irresistible pulsations of his heart agonizing for his rights. The unrepresented millions of England swell the voice of John Bright; and as our friend told us, Aristocracy trembles before their half-uttered wish. But when you come to the Woman Question, the first great abiding difficulty is that woman is herself the obstacle, that she fills the chair most potent and irresistible in this discussion, that of popular opinion, and she utters her verdict against us. I would not belittle the ballot, nor fail to appreciate legislation ; but I would remind woman that legislation is but a circumstance in the broad circle of the forces that make and mould civil power. Business, professional distinction in society, education, these are as much the elemental creators of our civilization as the law- book. Indeed, the law-book is nothing but the vane on the steeple, and these are the winds that set its direction. So when we find fault with the prejudices of this class or that, against conferring the ballot, it is to be remem- bered that after all, in the largest and most emphatic sense, it is woman herself who is against us. Some- times they say, " That is very true ; but do you expect us to initiate an opinion on this subject while man remains unconvinced ?" That argument acknowl- edges your inferiority. The course of the world's history is, first, the govern- 132 WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. ment of force ; first, brute strength. An old Hindoo dreamed that he saw the human race led out to its varied fortunes. And first, he saw men bitted and curbed ; and the reins were of iron, and went back to an iron hand. And he dreamed on, the legend says, until he saw men led by invisible threads that came from the brain and went back to an unseen hand. The first was the government of force ; the last was the government of ideas. In this government of ideas, in the struggle upward, we have something more noble than selfish interests or party averages to govern the country. Woman's brain, if our cause rests on a sound and enduring basis, is to be as prompt and influential in establishing the future as man's. There have been but five or six times in the history of France when fashion in the salons of Paris would not have unseated any king ; yet woman never had a vote. When Napoleon banished Madame de Stael from France, he acknowledged the power of the throne she filled, and that his could not withstand her influence. If the genius of Madame de Stael is the representative to any extent of the force that woman can wield in modern society, then this cause rests upon you first, and almost last upon fashion. A sneer at woman's making her living, a lack of recog- nition because she earns her bread, just that flavor of unfashionableness which work stamps upon woman, in that impalpable, almost invisible, indescribable power, is the magic that binds Albany in the chains of male legislation. The legislator votes from the streets of New York. You may as well attempt to whisper back Niagara as to change this by legislation ; yet there are forces that can change it. The very force that gave it food can give it poison. The sister comes to New York. The prizes of life are before her, and her brother wins WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. 133 them, large wages, ample opportunities, breadth for development, every career open, lie takes them. He smothers the first stimulus to vice, and cultivates ambi- tion. If he fails once or twice he gets up again, and having driven out of the chamber the Devil, he fills it with honorable aspirations, with ambition to be worthy of his father, and to do something for the world into which God has sent him. The sister comes into the city, and she finds starvation wages, wages at such a rate that they offer no rise even in the future to what her soul aspires to. Vice comes with gilded hand, clad in velvet, attended with luxury, in the chariot of ease, and says, " An hour, and all this is yours." Give men honest wages, and ninety-nine out of a hun- dred will disdain to steal. Give woman what the same labor gives to man, and ninety-nine out of one hundred will disdain to purchase it by vice. [Applause.] But you will never fill up that grave until you enable women to stand before the competition of the crowded streets of this city and make their choice as men do, not crowded by your religious bigotry, born of a mistaken and ideal Saint Paul, or a fastidiousness which will not allow women to work into a few occupations, but with every door open to them. Let the fifty thousand women that must earn a living have a choice of five hundred occupations, and dictate terms, instead of standing trembling at the doors, and taking work at one tenth the price of male labor. Then you cure vice because you withhold the food upon which it lives. Legislation cannot do that. You cannot legislate the tailor into high wages, when a thousand needle-girls stand at his door begging for the work of which he has only enough to fill the hands of a hundred. The Sermon on the Mount, put into the statute-book, would not change it a half-cent ; but if fashion, re- spectability, and the public opinion of a kind sisterhood 134 WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. will say to those thousands of girls: "It shall be as honorable to you, no matter where you earn your bread, as it is to your brother. We trample mistaken Judaism under one foot, and our absurdly ideal Saint Paul under the other; nothing to us is the old, false, so-called deli- cacy, which was the Moloch to which religious bigotry and mistaken opinion offered up the virtue of two thirds of the sisterhood. In spite of all, go out; earn your living in some two hundred or five hundred vocations." Then, at his door, the tailor will find fifty women when he wants a hundred, and they will dictate terms from the outside, instead of he from within. Albany cannot help you. Political economy cannot help you. Help never will come while shrinking woman tries to save respectability by clinging to the needle, and labors only in the secrecy of home. Gild her pathway with your approbation, no matter where she walks in honest business. [Applause.] Greet her with the most honorable recognition, no matter what she does, provided it be what her brother might do, an honorable man under the same circumstances. That immedicable wound of a great city, that social vice before which modern civ- ilization stands aghast, unable even to suggest a remedy, will lie helpless and conquered in the hands of a correct public opinion, that shall allow woman to make her way upward to ease, to honor, to wealth, to all that the hu- man soul craves, unchecked by morbid fashion ; and it is you that make public opinion. The tempter to vice in the streets of New York is not the roue ; it is the absurdly fastidious, the bigotedly religious sister that lives in a warm mansion within half a mile. [Applause.] She is the one that binds the limbs that God made alert, and the powers that God made strong, and hands the victim over to the utmost control of the tempter. Go home and reform WOMAN'S RICHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. 185 yourself; go home and let there emanate from each one of you that influence in society which is the cradle of the realm, at once the creature and the creator of public opinion, the spur and the reward which gathers into its broad circle all the influences of modern civili- zation of which Greece and Rome knew nothing, which even the New Testament, with its manhood and equality, could not produce, which took its birth in Paris, born of a woman's edict, living solely by the inspiration of the .sex, more potent in shaping the literature, the religion, and the policy of the last two centuries than any other force. We have adequate illustration of the effect that I am prophesying. Take literature, for instance, to which allusion has been made. Woman is an equal in the literary republic ; genius knows no sex. Men count women as readers, even more of women than of busy men. What is the result ? The literature of the Middle Ages, that was not readable, that had to be expurgated, is lifted to a higher level ; its tone is broader, and its perception finer ; it is the diapason of the instrument before which the classicism of Greece and Rome was heavy and dull. Woman's influence is felt in literature, and what is the result ? As much as the average level of the race will permit, literature is the proof that there are some dark lines to be added. Potent and equal in this, as woman has been, there is much yet to be cured. Give woman the ballot, and I do not count on the millennium the next day. No ; it will come very gradually. In the Church, woman has had a recognition, but not an equality. Christianity has given her much more than the law did. She has a large rep- resentation there, and to some extent a vote ; but her authority is anchored two hundred years behind the nineteenth century in spite of it. It did not save the 136 WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. Church ; it will not save the State. The Church cut short her power, and limited her influence much more than literature has done ; and her marvellous effect is better seen in the literary republic than in the religious. Both show the almost immeasurable and inexpressible potency of the presence of this element of public opinion mingling with ours. But the largest symbol of what woman can do, is her own exclusive sphere, and that is fashion, in society, omnipotent. I do not blame men when I meet them full of preju- dice against this movement. I do not feel by any means that keen agony of interest in this question that I did in the Slavery Question. I do not feel even that intense interest that I did in the Temperance cause, because the drunkard asked us to help him in the effort to rise upon his feet ; but here is woman, educated, influential, walking up and down the highways of society, wielding enormous influence, corrupting the channels of politics to-day. The keenest observer of French politics and French society, Tocqueville, says in one of the most suggestive and most remarkable of all his letters, that he ascribes the treachery of some of the first leaders in the reform movements in France, to the influence of wives and daughters upon husbands and brothers, in- ducing them to use the positions which the men would have used for principle^ for their own private advance- ment or the comfort of the family. "Yes," said he, concluding his letter, " it is the mothers and daughters of France that have wrecked some of our noblest move- ments to help the millions." Unrecognized influence which ought to be turned into acknowledged power, exercised in the light of day, edu- cated, held to a strict responsibility, rebuked, criticised, held up to scorn, caricatured, visited with well-deserved sarcasm, made to feel that the vice and corruption of party WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. 137 and society are not by any means exclusively man's fault, rests upon no serious or earnest difference of opinion, but upon sbades of fashion, delicacy of taste, fastidious sensibility, and other absurdities, and to that we offer up, day by day, the virtue of society. Lucretia Mott, at the very first Woman's Rights Convention assembled in this country some eighteen years ago, bade us re- member that it would not be men that would be our greatest obstacles; that it would not be the law-book; but that we were launching a cause which would find in the besotted opposition of its own victims its deadliest foe. [Applause.] That has not ceased to be true to-day. Remember also that the moment you issue your com- mand every medical college will be open. The moment you take off your ban every avenue of trade will be trodden by women. The moment you make known your purpose the statute-book will record your verdict. Wives and daughters, you are able in these matters to dictate the policy of your fathers and husbands. In Massachusetts, we owe one of the first steps toward the recognition of woman's right to property to the selfish- ness of fathers, about to leave their daughters dowered with large wealth, and unwilling to trust it ^o- tffe chances of their husbands' character. They were always anxious to put it into, thWiands of trustees, and they found thayriicn \fere very much averse, even when bidden by the strongest friendship, to undertake a long trust on account of its dangers and responsibility. The fathers themselves selected the most conservative lawyer at the Suffolk bar to draw the statute, than which we could not have imagined a better, which secured to wealthy women the control of their inherited property, even if they were married. Again, it was the bank interest of the savings-bank 138 WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN'S DUTIES. of the Commonwealth, that secured to laboring women their wages. These causes co-operated before the public opinion of women themselves demanded the changes. Laggard, and lacking her promptings, the cause that we advocate came up behind the selfish elements of society. But if, instead of this, the working women or heiresses had dictated their wants, the changes could have been made ; and so they can to-day. I do not ignore the power of woman ; it is too great. I want it lessened. I am not going to give the sex any more influence; I am going to diminish it. Her in- fluence is hidden and all but omnipotent. Uneducated and irresponsible, it is terrible. I want it dragged to the light of day ; I want it measured and labelled ; I want it counted and criticised ; I want it educated and put on record ; I want to be able to find it and indict it, which I cannot do to-day. In order to do that, let us trace home the evil to its very source. Let woman know that nobody stops her but herself. She ties her own limbs; she corrupts her own sisters; she demoralizes civilization, and then folds her arms, and calls it " religion" [applause], or steps back, and chris- tens it " taste." Do you suppose that the tenants of a thousand pulpits could avail to shut woman out from making her own opportunity, if the women of the Empire State determined that it should be. Find me the motive, and I will guarantee the ministers to make it commen- surate with the Scriptures. Find me the popular habit, and I will find you the clergy to give it anchorage in the New Testament. THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. Address in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1865. IT is twenty-nine years this month since I first stood on the platform of Faneuil Hall to address an audi- ence of the citizens of Boston. I felt then that I was speaking for the cause of the laboring men, and if to- night I should make the last speech of my life, I would be glad that it should be in the same strain, for laboring men and their rights. *The labor of these twenty-nine years has been in be- half of a race bought and sold. The South did not rest their system wholly on this claim to own their laborers ; but according to Chancellor Harper, Alexander H. Ste- vens, Governor Pickens, and John C. Calhoun, asserted that the laborer must necessarily be owned by capitalists or individuals. That struggle for the ownership of labor is now somewhat near its end ; and we fitly commence a struggle to define and to arrange the true relations of capital and labor. To-day one of your sons is born. He lies in his cradle as the child of a man without means, with a little education, and with less leisure. The favored child of the capitalist is borne up by every circumstance, as on the eagle's wings. The problem of to-day is how to make the chances of the two as equal as possible ; and before this movement stops, every child born in America must have an equal chance in life. 140 THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. In this final arrangement, every man will combine in his own person the laborer and the capitalist. There cannot be any conflict between labor and capital. What makes our lives easier than those of our ancestors ? They are so because six generations of workmen have made Massachusetts a great treasure-house of capital. When our fathers landed here, Massachusetts was a wilderness. Forests have been removed, roads built, cities raised by capital or aggregated labor. Capital and labor are only the two arms of a pair of scissors, useless when separate, and only when fastened together cutting everything before them. What, then, do we come here for ? To find out the true relation between capital and labor, to make the laborer more comfortable, and a more worthy citizen. Where the government rests on the people, its adminis- trators are bound to give time to the laborers to under- stand the theory of government. When shut up an excessive number of hours in labor, the workman comes out but the fag-end of a man, without brain to think of such subjects. Now, therefore, it is a fair division to give him eight hours for labor, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for his own, his own to use as he pleases. [Applause.] I shall not be the first to say, " You shall not have it unless you come under bonds to use it well." It is none of my business to say what he shall do with what is his own. I shall not say to the millionnaire, " We will defend you in the possession of your stocks and bonds, if you will use them well." I may argue with him, and shall, to use his wealth properly ; but my first object shall be to give it to him, because it belongs to him. It has been argued that the negro would not work if his freedom was given to him. I have answered, his free- dom belongs to him, and he is responsible for its use. The present effort is to give the laborer more leisure, THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 141 in order to make him more intelligent. Never, in history, has more leisure been secured to the working-classes, but greater intelligence has resulted therefrom. Thirty millions of Frenchmen to-day hold a voice in the gov- ernment, because the cry against lessening their labors was not heeded. The same cry has been raised here ; it has been said that the workman will not work unless you starve him, that starvation is the only stimulus which the masses will obey. I don't believe it, and I want to lift them to the possibility of showing that it is not true. Now, how shall this thing be done ? I will tell you, I have had a little experience in this matter. [Laughter.] I have never held, and never expect to hold, a political office ; but this I know, that the man who only looks at the game can sometimes criticise it better than the players. This country is one of ideas. You can never gain your point by threats ; it would be disgraceful to gain it thus. Why have you not carried your ends be- fore ? Because in ignorance and division you have let the other side have their own way. We are ruled by brains. You might as well try to roll back Niagara, as to try to rule New England against her ideas. You have got to face them, and to change them. You need not despair if truth is on your side. You must have the truth, and must work for it. There are three sorts of men, those who have the truth, but lock it up ; those who have it not, but work like the devil against it ; and those who have it, and force it on the willing conscience of the nation. You want books and journals. I am glad you have one Voice ; but one can't cover the State or the North. You want something to subjugate all journals, and bring cultivated minds and foremost men to your service. Opinions differ not from scoundrelism or want of heart. You want to make the intellect of the 142 THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. country discuss the question, to make every man speak of it. How did we Antislavery men do this ? [A voice, " Kept at it ! "] Yes, kept at it. You know the pa- tient Job said, " Oh, that mine adversary had written a book ! " Well, he was a wise man. [Laughter.] When I made a speech here, the Daily Advertiser abused me ; but it could not abuse justice so much but that men could see the delusion. I defy a man to make an argu- ment against the laws of God that will hold water. Any man trying to dodge justice will answer himself. How will you make the newspapers and the public men discuss the Labor Question ? I will tell you. Go into the political field, and by the voice of forty thousand workmen say, " We mean that eight hours shall be a day's work, and no man shall go into office who opposes it." What will be the result ? It will be the same as in 1846, when the Abolitionists said they were going to trample on the Whig and Democratic parties. The journals then took up the question ; the intellect and education of the country took hold of it, and settled it by balking the South so that they said, "Make or ruin, we will go outside." How will you make your enemies wield the pen ? Do it by announcing your political creed. Break into the debating society at the state- house, and make them discuss the Labor Question. I don't want the subject made political in a bad sense of the word, but in a higher sense. When men have wrongs to complain of, they should go to the ballot-box and right them. 1 may be asked if 1 would give univer- sal suffrage to ignorant men, and thus give them power over the property of the milhonnaire. I answer, Yes ; all the more for that, because then the rnillionnaire would be willing to give a part of his wealth to aid in making voters intelligent. Universal suffrage is taking a bond of the rich to educate the poor. You will never reach the THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 143 influential classes by meetings like these. How will you do it ? Go to your next candidate for mayor, and ask him if he is in favor of the eight-hour system. If he says, Yes, let it be known that he is to have your votes. If No, let him know that he will not have them. You will not, perhaps, gain the victory the first time. It would be a disgrace if you did. [A voice, " Why ? "J Because it would look as if you had frightened the city of Boston. You will gain your point by argument. The Journal, the Advertiser, the Transcript will discuss it, and the State will be lifted by the four corners. You will gain in twelve months what we gained in twelve years, if you are true to yourselves. Some may think this a political address. I belong- to no political party, and if I live to the age of Methu- selah, do not expect a vote. I want Charles Sumner to stand on this platform, and give his views on this ques- tion ; I want Samuel Hooper to come down here and look his constituents in the face ; I want Henry Wilson, with his tireless activity, to give his labors to the work- ing-men. Abbott Lawrence, in 1840, when asked by a committee of his constituents what his opinion was in regard to slavery in the District of Columbia, said he did n't know as he had any opinion on the subject, and if he had, it was not worth while to express it. Twenty years later he would have cut off his hands rather than give such an answer. Two years hence, if you are true to yourselves, instead of having an Ishmaelite like me to address you, you can take your pick out of all the poli- ticians in the country ; instead of one journal, you will have all the journals discussing the Labor Question. You must imitate the tenacity of the Abolitionists in adhering to a single issue. The Temperance party committed the folly of depending upon resolutions, and voting for Whigs and Democrats ; and influential men, 144 THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. seeing that they did not value their own principles, left them out in the cold. There are men enough here to govern this city. When you have convinced thinking men that it is right, and humane men that it is just, you will gain your cause. Men always lose half of what is gained by violence. What is gained by argument, is gained forever. Mass meetings like these amount to nothing. A political movement, saying, " W T e will have our rights," is a mass meeting in perpetual session. Filtered through the ballot-box comes the will of the people, and statesmen bow to it. Go home, and say that the working-men of Massachusetts are a unit, and that they mean to stereotype their purpose on the statute- book. THE CHINESE. An Editorial in the " National (Antislavery) Standard," July 30, 1870. WE welcome every man of every race to our soil and to the protection of our laws. We welcome every man to the best opportunities of improving him- self and making money that our social and political systems afford. Let every oppressed man come ; let every poor man come ; let every man who wishes to change his residence come, we welcome all; frankly acknowledging the principle that every human being has the right to choose his residence just where he pleases on the planet. Our faith in our political institu- tions and in our social system is that both can endure all the strain which such immigration will produce. More than this, we believe that our civilization will be perfected only by gathering into itself the patient toil, the content with moderate wages, the cunning hand, the inventive brain, the taste and aspirations, the deep re- ligious sentiment, the rollicking humor and vivid im- agination, the profound insight and far-reaching sagacity which mark the different races ; each contributing one special trait to the great whole. But such immigration to be safe and helpful must be spontaneous. It must be the result of individual will obeying the laws of industry and the tendencies of the age. Immigration of labor is an unmixed good. Impor- tation of human freight is an unmitigated evil. 10 146 THE CHINESE. This brings us to the question of importing Chinese laborers. The Chinese are a painstaking, industrious, thrifty, inventive, self-respectful, and law-abiding race. They have some pretentious to democratic institutions and moral culture, are a little too much machines; but we shall soon shake that servility out of them. Their coming will be a welcome and valuable addition to the mosaic of our nationality ; but, in order to that, they must come spontaneously, of their own free-will and motion, as the Irish, Germans, and English have done. If the capital of the country sets to work, by system and wide co-operation, to import them in masses, to disgorge them upon us with unnatural rapidity, then their coming will be a peril to our political system, and a disastrous check to our social progress. We lay it down as a fundamental principle, never to be lost sight of, that every immigrant of every j;ace must be admitted to citizenship, if he asks for it. The right to be naturalized must not be limited by race, ^creed, or birthplace. Secondly, every adult here, native or naturalized, must vote. In spite of this, give us time, 'with only a natural amount of immigration, and we can trust the education and numbers of our native voters to safely absorb and make over the foreign element. Irish and German immigration has been only a ripple on our ocean's breadth ; generally speaking, it has been only a healthy stir. But it is easily possible for associated capital to hurry the coming of the Chinese in such masses as will enable these money lords to control the ballot-box by their bond-servants. An extended North Adams can do more than lessen shoemakers' wages ; one thousand such Samsons, the associated capital of Massachusetts, can swamp and overwhelm the ballot-box of that State. We hold it to be clearly within the prov- ince, and as clearly the duty of legislation, to avert this THE CHINESE. 147 danger. Capital is too strong now. The public welfare demands that its political power be crippled. Universal suffrage is admissible only on condition of an educated people. We cannot undertake to educate the whole world at once. In detachments, million by million, we can digest the whole human race. Then as to the influence of such importation on the laboring classes. The Chinaman will make shoes for seventy-five cents a day. The average wages for such work in Massachusetts is two dollars. What will be- come of the native working-men under such competi- tion ? He met similar competition from the Irish im- migrants and the German ; but it never harmed him. They came in such natural and moderate numbers as to be easily absorbed, without producing any ill-effect on wages. These continued steadily to advance. So will it be in the case of the Chinese, if he be left to come naturally by his individual motion ; imported in over- whelming masses by the concerted action of capital, he will crush the labor of America down to a pauper level, for many years to come. Putting aside all theories, every lover of progress must see, with profound regret, the introduction here of any element which will lessen wages. The mainspring of our progress is high wages, wages at such a level that the working-man can spare his wife to preside over a home, can command leisure, go to lectures, take a newspaper, and lift himself from the deadening routine of mere toil. That dollar left after all the bills are paid on Saturday night, means education, independence, self-respect, manhood ; it increases the value of every acre near by, fills the town with dwellings, opens public libraries and crowds them ; dots the continent with cities, and cobwebs it with railways. That one remain- ing dollar insures progress, and guarantees Astor's mil- 148 THE CHINESE. lions to their owner better than a score of statutes. It is worth more than a thousand colleges, and makes armies and police superfluous. The importation of Chinese labor seeks to take that dollar from our working-man. The true statesman must regard such a policy as madness. The philanthro- pist must consider it cruel and mad too. Even so much of such a result as will inevitably be wrought by the natural immigration of the Chinese is to be deplored; every aggravation of it is to be resisted for the sake of republicanism and civilization. If we cannot find in the armory of the law some effectual weapon to prevent it, our political and social future, for fifty years, is dark in- deed, and such a fate as swallowed up Roman civiliza- tion is by no means impossible. Every one cries out for cheap labor to develop the country. Even if material or pecuniary gain were the only requisite for social or natural progress, which, of course it is far from being, still it is true that jm- . settled lands may be opened up too fast for profit, much more for real progress. Indeed, this random and thoughtless cry for cheap labor is one of the great mis- takes of heartless and superficial economists ; seldom 1 has there been a graver mistake. We assert unhesitat- ingly that CHEAP PRODUCTIONS ARE AN UNMIXED GOOD; CHEAP LABOR IS AN UNMITIGATED EVIL. Human progress shows itself in a fall of prices and a rise of wages. Al- though labor makes one half the cost of production, still it is true that the world gains just so fast as prices fall and wages rise. To insure progress, the cost of every- thing but human muscle and brains must fall. The re- muneration of these two elements in production must rise. In William Penn's time it took one hundred and thirty-seven days' toil to buy a ton of flour ; in 1790, one hundred and twenty-five days' labor would buy it; THE CHINESE. 149 in 1835, eighty days' work sufficed ; now, in 1870, probably forty or fifty days' wages would buy a ton of flour. That fact measures and explains the social, in- dustrial, moral, and political progress of Pennsylvania. In view of such a rule we claim the right of govern- ment to check any forced and unnatural importation of labor ; against such a claim the advocate of a protec- tive tariff cannot consistently open his mouth. If gov- ernment may and should protect a nation against pauper labor in other lands, this surely this immigration of pauper labor is the most threatening danger. If you would be consistent, Mr. Protectionist, join with us in devising effectual methods to avert it. If the Free Trader assails us with his objection, " Has not the lab- orer a right to buy his coat or flour in the cheapest market ? " We answer, " Yes, under certain restric- tions." To purchase the products of the earth, manu- factured or otherwise, wherever you can get them cheap- est, is good ; good for the seller and good for the purchaser. But this is only true provided there is no artificial combination, no plot of powerful men or classes to flood the market of one land with the surplus of another. Every competition that comes in natural currents, from individual enterprise, is a healthy ten- dency to average. Secondly, this restriction is to be still more stringently enforced in the purchase of human labor ; since the artificial and forced antagonism of that deranges society, undermines government, obstructs progress, crushes individual effort, and drags the high- est type of human attainments down to the murky level of the lowest and idlest barbarism. Against anything which threatens such results government has the right to defend society by appropriate laws. The rate of wages is said to depend upon supply and demand. The rule is sound ; but so equivocal that it is 150 THE CHINESE. worth little. Rate of wages really depends on what the workman thinks will buy him the necessities of life. There are men in England whose highest idea of life is to work sixteen hours a day, go naked, eat meat once a year, herd both sexes and all ages with cattle under one roof, and need only two hundred words to express all their ideas. Such men will work for enough to sup- ply these natural wants. When wages fall below that, they steal, starve, or wake to an intellectual effort to better themselves ; their idea of necessaries does much to fix the rate of wages. A Yankee farmer's boy must have good clothes, schooling, ample food, and something over, these are his necessities. When wages will not buy them he ceases to belong to the ranks of " supply," and carves out a new career. There are good food and high wages in the kitchens of New York ; more than many trades afford. A great " demand " there for American girls ; no " supply " nevertheless. We know it is only a sentiment that prevents ; but that senti- ment is as rigid as iron and inexorable as fate. " Supply and demand," therefore, are to be understood, with a qualification. The u ideas " of the " supply " are a most important element in the calculation. What are the ideas of the " supply " ? These regulate his wages. The Chinaman works cheap because he is a barbarian, and seeks gratification of only the lowest, the most in- evitable wants. The American demands more because the ages, because Homer and Plato, Egypt and Rome, Luther and Shakspeare, Cromwell and Washington, the printing-press and the telegraph, the ballot-box and the Bible, have made him ten times as much a MAN. Bring the Chinese to us slowly, naturally, and we shall soon lift him to the level of the same artificial and civil- ized wants that we feel. Then capitalist and laborer will both be equally helped. Fill our industrial chan- THE CHINESE. 151 nels with imported millions, and you choke them ruin- ously. They who seek to flood us, artificially, with bar- barous labor, are dragging down the American home to the level of the houseless street-herds of China. If the working-men have not combined to prevent this, it is time they should. When rich men conspire, poor men should combine. In such combinations, inevitable and indispensable in the circumstances, the best minds and hearts of the land are with them. Only let them be sure not to copy the tyranny which makes their opponents weak. Their only strength is an admitted principle, all men equal, equally free to carve each his own career, and entitled to all the aid his fellows can give. Stand on that unflinchingly ; rebuke every threat ; avoid all violence ; appeal only to discussion and the ballot. You out- number the capitalists at any rate. The ballot was given for just such crises as these ; use it, and you oblige the press to discuss your claims. Use it remorse- lessly, and legislatures will soon find a remedy. Com- pel attention by fidelity to each other. Inscribe on your ballot-boxes, " HEBE WE NEVER FORGIVE." THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. At the Labor-Reform Convention, which assembled at Worcester, September 4, 1871, Mr. Phillips presided, and presented the follow- ing resolutions, which were unanimously adopted. They are, indeed, a tl full body of faith ; " and they show just where Mr. Phillips stood for the last thirteen years of his life. PLATFORM. We affirm, as a fundamental principle, that labor, the creator of wealth, is entitled to all it creates. Affirming this, we avow ourselves willing to accept the final re- sults of the operation of a principle so radical, such as the over- throw of the whole profit-making system, the extinction of all monopolies, the abolition of privileged classes, universal education and fraternity, perfect freedom of exchange, and, best and grandest .of all, the final obliteration of that foul stigma upon our so-called Christian civilization, the poverty of the masses. Holding prin- ciples as radical as these, and having before our minds an ideal con- dition so noble, we are still aware that our goal cannot be reached at a single leap. We take into account the ignorance, selfishness, prejudice, corruption, and demoralization of the leaders of the peo- ple, and to a large extent, of the people themselves ; but still, we demand that some steps be taken in this direction : therefore, Resolved, That we declare war with the wages system, which demoralizes alike the hirer and the hired, cheats both, and enslaves the working-man ; war with the present system of finance, which robs labor, and gorges capital, makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and turns a republic into an aristocracy of capital ; war with these lavish grants of the public lands to speculating companies, and whenever in power, we pledge ourselves to use every just and legal THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 153 means to resume all such grants heretofore made ; war with the sys- tem of enriching capitalists by the creation and increase of public interest-bearing debts. We demand that every facility, and all en- couragement, shall be given by law to co-operation in all branches of industry and trade, and that the same aid be given to co-operative efforts that has heretofore been given to railroads and other enter- prises. We demand a ten-hour day for factory-work, as a first step, and that eight hours be the working-day of all persons thus em- ployed hereafter. We demand that, whenever women are employed at public expense to do the same kind and amount of work as men perform, they shall receive the same wages. We demand that all public debts be paid at once in accordance with the terms of the con- tract, and that no more debts be created. Viewing the contract importation of .coolies as only another form of the slave-trade, we demand that all contracts made relative thereto be void in this coun- try ; and that no public ship, and no steamship which receives public subsidy, shall aid in such importation. In presenting this platform, he enforced its far-reaching principles in a speech from which the following passages are taken : I regard the movement with which this convention is connected as the grandest and most comprehensive movement of the age. And I choose my epithets deliberately ; for I can hardly name the idea in which humanity is interested, which I do not consider locked up in the success of this movement of the people to take possession of their own. All over the world, in every civilized land, every man can see, no matter how thoughtless, that the great movement of the masses, in some shape or other, has begun. Humanity goes by logical steps, and centuries ago the masses claimed emancipation from actual chains. It was citizenship, nothing else. When that was gained, they claimed the ballot ; and when our fathers won that, then the road was opened, the field was clear for this last movement, toward which the age cannot be said to grope, as we used to phrase it, but toward which the age lifts itself all over the world. If there is any one feature which we can distinguish in all Christendom, under different names, trades- unions, co-operation, Crispins, and Internationals, under all flags, there is one great movement. It is for the people peaceably to take possession of their own. No more riots in the streets ; no more disorder and revolu- 154 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. tiou ; no more arming of different bands; no cannon loaded to the lips. To-day the people have chosen a wiser method, they have got the ballot in their right hands, and they say, " We come to take possession of the governments of the earth." In the interests of peace, I welcome this movement, the peaceable marshalling of all voters toward remodelling the industrial and political civilization of the day. I have not a word to uttei , far be it from me ! against the grandest declaration of popular indignation which Paris wrote on the pages of history in fire and blood. I honor Paris as the vanguard of the Internationals of the world. When kings wake at night, star- tled and aghast, they do not dream of Germany and its orderly array or forces. Aristocracy wakes up aghast at the memory of France , and when I want to find the vanguard of the people, I look to the uneasy dreams of an aristocracy, and find what they dread most. And to- day the conspiracy of emperors is to put down what ? Not the Czar, not the Emperor William, not the armies of United Germany ; but, when the emperors come together in the centre of Europe, what plot do they lay? To annihilate the Internationals, and France is the soul of the Internationals. I, for one, honor Paris ; but in the name of Heaven, and with the ballot in our right hands, we shall not need to write our record in fire and blood ; we write it in the orderly majorities at the ballot-box, If any man asks me, therefore, what value I place first upon this movement. I should say it was the movement of humanity to pro- tect itself ; and secondly, it is the insurance of peace ; and thirdly, it is a guaranty against the destruction of capital. We all know that there is no war between labor and capital ; that they are part- ners, not enemies, and their true interests on any just basis are identical. And this movement of ballot-bearing millions is to avoid the unnecessary waste of capital. Well, gentlemen, I say so much to justify myself in styling this the grandest and most comprehensive movement of the age. You do not kill a hundred millions of corporate capital, you do not destroy the virus of incorporate wealth by any one election. The capitalists of Massachusetts are neither fools nor cowards; and you will have to whip them three times, and bury them under a monument weightier than Bunker Hill, before they will believe they are whipped. Now, gentlemen, the inference from that state- ment is this : The first duty resting on this convention, which rises THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 155 above all candidates and all platforms, is, that it should keep the Labor party religiously together. The following address was delivered in Music Hall, Boston, October31, 1871. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : We are sometimes so near an object that we cannot see it. I could place you so near the City Hall to-night that you would not know whether you were looking at a ton of granite or a wall of a large building. So it is with a fact. The men who stand the nearest to it are often the last to recog- nize either its breadth or its meaning. Perhaps the last men to appreciate a fact are the men nearest to whose eyes it passes ; and it is just so in government. We are hardly aware of the changes that are taking place about us ; our children will understand them distinctly. There is a large class among our German fellow- citizens who advocate the abolition of the Presidency. The thoughtful in that class perceive, what the ordinary passer-by does not recognize, that we are daily abolish- ing the Presidency, and the movement of the country for fifty years has been toward the abolition of the Pres- idency. You see this tendency in a variety of circum- stances. When we were first a nation, the greatest men among us were chosen President, and named for Pres- ident ; but now we don't think of putting up a first-rate man. There is another feature we don't sec, that the government is fast being monopolized by the House of Representatives. If we go on as we have done for half a century, there will be no government in this country except the House. Whatever defies the power of the great House will go down. Whether harmonious and beneficent results will follow our adoption of the sys- tem, depends upon whether the great mass of men and 156 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. women, with universal suffrage as their sheet-anchor, can work out through these results one single tool like the House. I have only gone into this statement to approach a second point ; and that is, we stand on the moment when the people actually put their hands forth for power. We stand at an epoch when the nature of the government is undergoing a fundamental change. I have been speak- ing of machines, whether we should operate through a Senate and President, or solely through a House. I have been speaking of the spindles and wheels. Below that lies the water-power. The water-power of Great Britain has been the wealth of thirty thousand land- holders, thirty thousand land-holding families, perhaps seven hundred thousand or a million voters. With us, the water-power is to be the ballots of ten millions of adult men and women, scattered through all classes, rich and poor, educated arid ignorant, prompt and con- servative, radical and timid, all modes and kinds and qualities of mind. Well, that brings me to the form which this great advance of the people takes. It is the working masses that are really about to put their hands to the work of governing. It is no accident, no caprice of an individual, no mere shout of the political arena, that heralds to-day the great Labor movement of the United States. But in the mean time, over the horizon, looming at first and now almost touching its meridian, comes up another power, I mean the power of wealth, the in- ordinate power of capital. Our fathers, when they pre- vented entail, when they provided for the distribution of estates, thought they had erected a bulwark against the money power that had killed Great Britain. They forgot that money could combine ; that a moneyed cor- poration was like the papacy, a succession of persons THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 157 with a unity of purpose; that it never died; that it never by natural proclivity became imbecile. The grand- son of a king is necessarily one third an idiot; but the third generation of a money corporation is wiser for the experience of predecessors, and preserves the same unity of purpose. This great money power looms over the horizon at the very moment when, to every thoughtful man, the power of the masses concentrating in the House of Represen- tatives is to become the sole omnipotence of the State. Naturally so ominous a conjecture provokes resistance ; naturally a peril so immediate prompts the wealthy class of the community to combine for defence. The land of England has ruled it for six hundred years. The corporations of America mean to rule it in the same way, and unless some power more radical than that of ordinary politics is found, will rule it in- evitably. I confess that the only fear I have in regard to republican institutions is whether, in our day, any adequate remedy will be found for this incoming flood of the power of incorporated wealth. No statesman, no public man yet, has dared to defy it. Every man that has met it has been crushed to powder ; and the only hope of any effectual grapple with it is in rousing the actual masses, whose interests permanently lie in an opposite direction, to grapple with this great force ; for you know very well that our great cities are the radiat- ing points from which go forth the great journalism, the culture, the education, the commercial influences, that make and shape the nation. The great cities are the arsenals of great wealth, where wealth manages every thing its own way. Now, gentlemen, to me the Labor movement means just this : It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth, seeking 158 THE FOUNDATION OP THE LABOR MOVEMENT. to do over again what the Whig aristocracy of Great Britain has successfully done for two hundred years. Thirty thousand families own Great Britain to-day ; and if you multiply John Bright by a hundred, and double his eloquence, it seems impossible that he should save England from a violent convulsion in the great grapple between such a power and the people who have deter- mined to have their way. Men blame us, the representatives of the working- men of the nation, that we come into politics. The other day it was my good fortune to meet that distin- guished Frenchman, Monsieur Coquerel ; and he asked me what was the motto of the working-men of the United States. I said to him, " Short hours, better education, co-operation in the end, and in the mean time a political movement that will concentrate the thought of the country upon this thing." Now, here I take issue with the best critic which the Labor movement has met : I refer to Rev. Samuel Johnson of Salem, one of the thinkers who has spread out before the people his objections to the Labor move- ment of this country. His first objection is, that we will hurry into politics. Well, now, our answer to him, and to the score of other scholars who have been criti- cising us, is this : Gentlemen, we see the benefit of going into politics. If we had not rushed into politics, had not taken Massachusetts by the four corners and shaken her, you never would have written your criticisms. We rush into politics because politics is the safety-valve. We could discuss as well as you, if you would only give us bread and houses, fair pay and leisure, and opportu- nities to travel. We could sit and discuss the question for the next fifty years. It 's a very easy thing to dis- cuss, for a gentleman in his study, with no anxiety about to-morrow. Why, the ladies and gentlemen of THE FOUNDATION OP THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 159 the reign of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., in France, seated in gilded saloons and on Persian carpets, sur- rounded with luxury, with the products of India, and the curious manufactures of ingenious Lyons and Rheims, discussed the rights of man, and balanced them in dainty phrases, and expressed them in such quaint gen- eralizations that Jefferson borrowed the Declaration of Independence from their hands. There they sat, bal- ancing and discussing sweetly, making out new theories, and daily erecting a splendid architecture of debate, till the angry crowd broke open the doors, and ended the discussion in blood. They waited too long, discussed about half a century too long. You see, discussion is very good when a man has bread to eat, and his chil- dren all portioned off, and his daughters married, and his house furnished and paid for, and his will made ; but discussion is very bad when " Ye bear the children weeping, O my brothers ! Ere the sorrow comes with years ; " discussion is bad when a class bends under actual op- pression. We want immediate action. We would fain save this issue from an outbreak of actual violence. Therefore we go into politics. Well, then, our critic goes on to say, " What do you call yourselves Labor party for ? All men labor. Rufus Choate labors. Daniel Webster labors. Why do you confine your party to the men that work ? " Well, now, we confine it because thus there is no mistake. 3ow, ijuppose you should take up a book presenting the con- dition of the laboring classes of Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone works harder than any other man there ; Lord Brougham did more work than any other man there ; Lord Palmerston, up to his eightieth year, worked hard as any man there. But if you were to take up a book 160 THE FOUNDATION OP THE LABOR MOVEMENT. on the working-men of Great Britain, do you think you would find the condition of Lord Brougham there ? If you took up a book on the British laboring class, or how much they eat, what kind of houses they live in, etc., do you think you would find Gladstone's income, and the number of rooms he had in his house, and how many children he had had the last fifty years ? So if an Englishman came here, and said, " I want to know something about your working-men. Please let me hear it from some of themselves. Whom shall I go to ? " Would you send him to Daniel Webster or Rufus Choate ? But Daniel Webster did as much work as any man of his day. Would you have him sent to Rufus Choate ? But Rufus Choate was a hard- working mn. John Marshall and Lemuel Shaw did as much work as any men in Massachusetts or Virginia ; but if George Combe had come to this country, and said, " I want to see a specimen of the laboring class of the United States," I doubt whether any man would have sent him to Lemuel Shaw. I ask the critics of the Labor movement, whether any man ever misunder- stood this ? Every man who reads of the Labor Ques- tion knows that it means the movement of the men that earn their living with their hands ; that are em- ployed, and paid in wages ; are gathered under roofs of factories ; sent out on farms ; sent out on ships ; gath- ered on the walls. In popular acceptation, the working class means the men that work with their hands, for wages, so many hours a day, employed by great capital- ists ; that work for everybody else. Why do we move for this class ? " Why," says Mr. Johnson, " don't you move for all working-men ? " Because, while Daniel Webster gets forty thousand dollars for arguing the Mexican claims, there is no need of anybody's moving for him. While Rufus Choate gets THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 161 five thousand dollars for making one argument to a jury, there is no need of moving for him, or for the men that work with their brains, that do highly disciplined and skilled labor, invent, and write books. The reason why the Labor movement confines itself to a single class is because that class of work does not get paid, does not get protection. Mental labor is adequately paid, and more than adequately protected. It can shift its channels ; it can vary according to the supply and demand. If a man fails as a minister, why, he becomes a railway- conductor. If that does n't suit him, he turns out, and becomes the agent of an insurance office. If that does n't suit, he goes West, and becomes governor of a Terri- tory. And if he finds himself incapable of either of these positions, he comes home, and gets to be a city editor. He varies his occupation as he pleases, and does n't need protection. But the great mass, chained to a trade, doomed to be ground up in the mill of sup- ply and demand, that work so many hours a day, and must run in the great ruts of business, they are the men whose inadequate protection, whose unfair share of the general product claims a movement in their behalf. Well, the third charge brought by Mr. Johnson against us is, that we are cruel, we combine ; we prevent this man from laboring there, and we won't let that man learn our trade ; we form trades-unions. To be sure we do. We say to the Chinese, " Stay at home. Don't come here by importation ; come by immigration." We say to the crowding millions who try to swamp our trade, " Stand aloof ; we won't teach you." We say to the mills of Lowell, who have turned us out of doors, "We'll starve you into submission." Well, "it's a narrow contest. It 's an unjust, it 's a cruel, it 's an avaricious method." So it is. Where did we learn it ? Learned it of capital, learned it of our enemies. 11 162 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. I know labor is narrow ; I know she is aggressive ; I know she arms herself with the best weapon that a cor- rupt civilization furnishes, all true. Where did we get these ideas ? Borrowed them from capital, every one of them ; and when you advance to us on the level of peace, unarmed, we '11 meet you on the same. While you combine and plot and defend, so will we. But Mr. Johnson says, " Come into the world with the white banner of peace." Ay, we will, when you disarm. How foolish it would have been for Grant to send home his Sharp's rifles to Springfield, and garner all his cannon in New York, and put all his monitors in the harbor of Norfolk, and go down to Virginia with eighty thousand unarmed men, to look her in the face ! Labor comes up, and says, " They have shotted their cannon to the lips ; they have rough-ground their swords as in battle ; they have adopted every new method ; they have invented every dangerous machine, and it is all planted like a great park of artillery against us. They have incorporated wealth ; they have hidden be- hind banks; they have concealed themselves in cur- rency ; they have sheltered themselves in taxation ; they have passed rules to govern us, and we will im- prove upon the lesson they have taught us. When they disarm, we will not before." Well, then, the fourth charge is found in the Daily Advertiser. W T e had a meeting at Framingham, and passed a set of resolutions ; we adopted a platform ; and the next day the Daily Advertiser granted us the condescension of an article, criticising our action, espe- cially mine ; and they described what we had adopted. They painted its horrible tendency. They said, " If you adopt that principle, it will lead you to that (a,nd so on to that) till the final result will be - "I held my breath. I said to mvself, " What will it probably be ? Perhaps THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 163 (lie stereotyped ghost of the French Revolution ; that 's what 's coming." " The final result will be " Horri- ble ! I thought probably they would paint a millionnaire hanging on every lamp-post. " The final result " Perhaps it will be Mormonism ; society dissolved into its original elements. Horrible ! I began to feel a faint sensation ; but I concluded to read on : " The final result will be an equalization of property." Hor- rible, horrible ! Actually, men will be almost equal ! An equalization of property ! Any man that does that ought to be hanged. Well, we do mean it ; we do mean just that. That 's the meaning of the Labor movement, an equalization of property. The Advertiser has found us out, actually discovered our plot. He 's let the cat out of the bag. We did n't mean to have told you, but it is so. What we need is an equalization of prop- erty, nothing else. My ideal of a civilization is a very high one ; but the approach to it is a New England town of some two thousand inhabitants, with no rich man and no poor man in it, all mingling in the same society, every child at the same school, no poorhouse, no beggar, opportunities equal, nobody too proud to stand aloof, no- body too humble to be shut out. That 's New England as it was fifty years ago, the horrible creature that the Daily Advertiser fears. That 's what Framingham pro- poses to bring about. But why is n't Framingham contented ? Because the civilization that lingers beau- tifully on the hillsides of New England, nestles sweetly in the valleys of Vermont, the moment it approaches a crowd like Boston, or a million of men gathered in one place like New York, rots. It cannot force the crowd ; it cannot stand the great centres of modern civilization. Our civilization cannot stand the city. One reason is, it has got some hidden disease. Another reason is, the moment it flows out into the broad, deep activity of the 164 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. nineteenth century, it betrays its weakness, and copies Europe. The moment this sweet-scented, dew-smelling Vermont flows down into the slums of New York, it becomes like London. The moment the North gathers its forces, and goes down the Mississippi Valley into New Orleans, social science stands aghast. .Modern civilization shrinks back at the terrible evil which she can neither fathom nor cure, just as she does in Europe. What is our cause ? It is this : there are three hun- dred and fifty millions of human beings in what you call Christendom, and two hundred millions of them don't have enough to eat from January to December. I won't ask for culture, for opportunities for education, for travel, for society ; but two hundred millions of men gathered under Christendom don't have even enough to eat. A hundred thousand men in the city of New York live in dwellings that a rich man would n't let his horse stay in a day. But that is n't anything. You should go up to beau- tiful Berkshire with me, into the factories there. It shall be the day after a Presidential election. I will go with you into a counting-room, four hundred em- ployees. The partners are sitting down, the day after a Presidential election. They take the list of workmen, and sift them out ; and every man that has not voted the ticket they wanted is thrown out to starve just as if he were cattle. That's Christian civilization ! that's Massachusetts ! I don't like that significant fact. I leap from that town into a large mill, with five hundred employees, and say to the master, " How about the dwel- lings of your operatives ? How many hours do they have at home ? " " Well, I hope they don't have any. The best-ventilated place they are ever in is my mill. They had better stay here sixteen hours out of the twenty-four ; it keeps them out of mischief better than THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 165 any other place. As long as they work, they are not do- ing worse. I cannot attend to their houses." I say to him, " It seems to me you do the same for your ox." That's another significant fact of our civilization. I go to Lowell, and I say to a young girl, wandering in the streets, "How is this?" "Well, I worked here seven years, and I thought I would leave that mill and go to another ; and the corporation won't give me my ticket. I have sued them in the Supreme Court, and I cannot get it ; and here I am, penniless, in Eastern Massachusetts." That 's Christian civilization. I am picking up, not individual facts, but significant rules, that were made for labor. You say, " What does labor need in New England ? " It needs justice. Mr. Stewart, in New York, has bought a whole town ; and he is going to build model houses, and house there all the labor he can get to go into them. Yet the civilization which alone can look the New Testa- ment in the face is a civilization where one man does not depend on the pity of another man's building him a model lodging-house; the civilization which alone can look the New Testament in the face is a civilization where one man could not build, and another man would not need, that sort of refuge. No, gentlemen, what we mean is this : The labor of yesterday, your capital, is protected sacredly. Not so the labor of to-day. The labor of yesterday gets twice the protection and twice the pay that the labor of to- day gets. Capital gets twice the protection and twice the pay. C .\^ Now, we mean a radical change, and in the few min- utes that are left me, I want to indicate our object. We mean certain great radical changes. I am not quite of the opinion of Mr. Secretary Boutwell, when he said here the other night, that fifty years hence the idea 166 THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. that a man could own land, and leave it to his children, would be ridiculous. I have not quite come to that. But then, you know there is a reason for it ; he is a radical, and I have always been a conservative. There is a curious thing underlies lands. We are not quite certain that we have got the best system. Secretary Boutwell may be right. Seventy years ago a man offered to a relative of mine all the land between Federal Street and Hawley Street, between Milk Street and Franklin, for thirty-three hundred dollars. He came to him day after day, urging him to purchase ; and the answer was, " I am not rich enough to have a cow-pasture at that price, and I couldn't use it for anything else," that tract of land which to-day, gentlemen, as you know, would sell for three million dollars. Now, labor goes about, like Socrates, asking questions. We don't assume anything. When we were little boys, and did our sums on the slate, and the answer came out wrong, we did n't break the slate. We went to the master ; and he said, " Go back ; there 's a mistake somewhere ; if you exam- ine, you will find it." I come into a civilization in which two men out of three don't have enough to eat. I come into New York, where it is a rich man that sup- plies a lodging for houseless poverty. I say to myself, " That course is n't right ; there 's a mistake some- where." Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. The end of things is New York. That does n't cohere. Where is the mistake ? It is some- where, and the Labor movement is trying to find it out. Again, gentlemen, we have another doubt to express. Are you quite certain that capital the child of artifi- cial laws, the product of society, the mere growth of social life has a right to only an equal burden with labor, the living spring ? We doubt it so much that we think we have invented a way to defeat Tom Scott, of THE FOUNDATION OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 167 the Pennsylvania Central. We think we have devised a little plan Ahraham Lincoln used to have a little story by which we will save the Congress of the Na- tion from the moneyed corporations of the State. When we get into power, there is one thing we mean to do. If a man owns a single house, we will tax him one hun- dred dollars. If he owns ten houses of like value, we won't tax him one thousand dollars, but two thousand dollars. If he owns a hundred houses, we won't tax him ten thousand dollars, but sixty thousand dollars ; and the richer a man grows, the bigger his tax, so that when he is worth forty million dollars he will not have more than twenty thousand dollars a year to live on. We '11 double and treble and quintuple and sextuple and increase tenfold the taxes, till Stewart, out of his un- counted millions, and the Pennsylvania Central, out of its measureless income, shall not have anything more than a moderate lodging and an honest table. The cor- porations we would have are those of associated labor and capital, co-operation. We '11 crumble up wealth by making it unprofitable to be rich. The poor man shall have a larger income in proportion as he is poor. The rich man shall have a lesser income in proportion as he is rich. You will say, " Is that just?" My friends, it is safe. Man is more valuable than money. You say, " Then capital will go to Europe." Good heavens, let it go ! If other States wish to make themselves vassals to wealth, so will not we. We will fare a country equal from end to end. Land, private property, all sorts of property, shall be so dearly taxed that it shall be impos- sible to be rich ; for it is in wealth, in incorporated, combining, perpetuated wealth, that the danger of labor lies. THE LABOR QUESTION. Delivered before the International Grand Lodge of the Knights of Saint Crispin, in April, 1872. /^ENTLEMEN, I feel honored by this welcome of ^J your organization, and especially so when I con- sider that the marvellously rapid success of the political strength of the Labor movement, especially in New Eng- land, is due mainly to this organization. There never has been a party formed that in three years has at- tracted toward itself such profound attention throughout the United States. Some of you may be old enough to remember that when the Antislavery sentiment, nearly thirty years ago, endeavored to rally a political party, it took them some seven or nine years before they had an organization that could be considered national in any real sense. The political Labor movement in three years has reached a position of influence which it took that idea nine years to obtain. I trace that rapid progress in popular recognition to the existence of these Crispin lodges and trades-unions of the State. You cannot marshal fifty thousand men at once, taken promiscuously from parties and sects ; they must be trained to work together, they must be dis- ciplined in co-operation ; and it is the training and the discipline which the working-men got in these organiza- tions that enabled the Labor movement to assume its proportions so rapidly. THE LABOR QUESTION. 169 Then, again, I stand here with great interest from another consideration, I stand in the presence of a momentous power. I do not care exactly what your idea is as to how you will work, whether you will work in this channel or in the other. I am told that you rep- resent from seventy thousand to one hundred thousand men, here and elsewhere. Think of it ! A hundred thousand men ! They can dictate the fate of this na- tion. Give me fifty thousand men in earnest, who can agree on all vital questions, who will plant their shoul- ders together, and swear by all that is true and just that for the long years they will put their great idea before the country, and those fifty thousand men will govern the nation. So if I have one hundred thousand men represented before me, who are in earnest, who get hold of the great question of labor, and having hold of it, grapple with it, and rip it and tear it open, and invest it with light, gathering the facts, piercing the brains about them and crowding those brains with the facts, then I know, sure as fate, though I may not live to see it, that they will certainly conquer this nation in twenty years. It is impossible tjiat they should not. And that is your power, gentlemen. I rejoice at every effort working-men make to organ- ize; I do not care on what basis they do it. Men some- times say to me, " Are you an Internationalist ? " I say, *' I do not know \vhat an Internationalist is ; " but they tell me it is a system by which the working-men from London to Gibraltar, from Moscow to Paris, can clasp hands. Then I say God speed, God speed, to that or any similar movement. Now, let me tell you where the great weakness of an association of working-men is. It is that it cannot wait. It does not know where it is to get its food for next week. If it is kept idle for ten days, the funds of the 170 THE LABOR QUESTION. society are exhausted. Capital can fold its arms, and wait six months ; it can wait a year. It will be poorer, but it does not get to the bottom of the purse. It can afford to wait ; it can tire you out, and starve you out. And what is there against that immense preponderance of power on the part of capital ? Simply organization. That makes the wealth of all, the wealth of every one. So I welcome organization. I do not care whether it calls itself Trades-union, Crispin, International, or Commune ; anything that masses up the units in order that they may put in a united force to face the organization of capital, anything that does that, I say amen to it. One hundred thousand men ! It is an immense army. I do not care whether it considers chiefly the industrial or the political questions ; it can control the nation if it is in earnest. The reason why the Abolitionists brought the nation down to fighting their battle is that they were really in earnest, knew what they wanted, and were determined to have it. Therefore they got it. The leading states- men and orators of the day said they would never urge abolition ; but a determined man in a printing-office said that they should, and they did it. And so it is with this question exactly. Brains govern this country ; and I hope to God the time will never come when brains won't govern it, for they ought to. And the way in which you can compel the brains to listen and to attend to you on the question of labor, ac- tually to concentrate the intellectual power of the nation upon it, is by gathering together by hundreds of thou- sands, no matter whether it be on an industrial basis or a political basis, and saying to the nation, " We are the numbers, and we will be heard," and you may be sure that you will. Now, an Englishman has but one method to pursue, to be heard. He puts his arm up among the cog-wheels of the industrial machine, and stops it. That THE LABOR QUESTION. 171 is a strike. The London Times looks down and says, "What in heaven is the matter?" That is just what the man wants ; he wishes to eall public attention to the facts, and the consequence is that every newspaper joins with the Times, and asks what is the matter, and the whole brain of the English nation is turned to consider the question. That is good, but we have a quicker way than that. We do not need to put our hands up among the cog-wheels, and stop the machine. Pierpont said of the little ballot, " It executes the freeman's will, As lightning does the will of God." Now, I turn my sight that way because I am a Demo- crat, a Jeffersonian Democrat in the darkest hour. Eng- land can look down into Lancashire, rotting in ignor- ance ; and if the people there rise up to claim their share of the enjoyments of life, she need not care, because she says, " I have got the laws of state in the hands of the middle classes ; and if that man down there can han- dle a spade, or work in a mill, it is all I want of him ; and, if he ever raises his hand against the State, I will put my cavalrymen into the saddle, and ride him down." The man is nothing but a tool to do a certain work. But when America looks down into her Lancashire, into the mines of Pennsylvania, she says literally, " Well, his hand holds the ballot, and I cannot afford to leave him down there in ignorance." I admire democracy be- cause it takes bonds of wealth and power, that they shall raise the masses. If they don't do it, there is no security. Therefore, on every great question I turn in- stantly to politics. It is the people's normal school ; it is the way to make the brains of the nation approach the subject. Why, in 1861 or 1862, when I first approached this question, you could not get an article on the Labor 172 THE LABOR QUESTION. movement in any newspaper or magazine, unless, indeed, there was a strike, or something of that sort. Now you cannot take up any of the leading newspapers or maga- zines without finding them full of it ; editors eat, drink, and sleep on it. The question is so broad, it has so many different channels, that it puzzles them. Even John Stuart Mill has not attempted to cover its whole breadth. It takes in everything. Let me tell you why I am interested in the Labor Question. Not simply because of the long hours of labor ; not simply because of a specific oppression of a class. I sympathize with the sufferers there; I am ready to fight on their side. But I look out upon Chris- tendom, with its three hundred millions of people, and 1 see, that, out of this number of people, one hundred mil- lions never had enough to eat. Physiologists tell us that this body of ours, unless it is properly fed, properly developed, fed with rich blood and carefully nourished, does no justice to the brain. You cannot make a bright or a good man in a starved body ; and so this one third of the inhabitants of Christendom, who have never had food enough, can never be what they should be. Now, I say that the social civilization which condemns every third man in it to be below the average in the nourishment God prepared for him, did not come from above ; it came from below ; and the sooner it goes down, the better. Come on this side of the ocean. You will find forty millions of people, and I suppose they are in the highest state of civilization ; and yet it is not too much to say, that, out of that forty millions, ten millions, at least, who get up in the morning and go to bed at night, spend all the day in the mere effort to get bread enough to live. They have not elasticity enough, mind or body, left to do anything in the way of intellec- tual or moral progress. THE LABOR QUESTION. 173 I take a man, for instance, in one of the manufactur- ing valleys of Connecticut. If you get into the cars there at 6.30 o'clock in the morning, as I have done, you will find, getting in at every little station, a score or more of laboring men and women, with their dinner in a pail ; and they get out at some factory that is already lighted up. Go down the same valley about 7.30 in the evening, and you will again see them going home. They must have got up about 5.30 ; they are at their work until nigh upon eight o'clock. There is a good, solid fourteen hours. Now, there will be a strong, substantial man, like Cobbett, for instance, who will sit up nights study- ing, and who will be a scholar at last among them, per- haps ; but he is an expert. The average man, nine out of ten, when he gets home at night, does not care to read an article from the North American, nor a long speech from Charles Sumner. No ; if he can't have a good story, and a warm supper, and a glass of grog per- haps, he goes off to bed. Now, I say that the civiliza- tion that has produced this state of things in nearly the hundredth year of the American Republic did not come from above. I believe in the Temperance movement. I am a Tem- perance man of nearly forty years' standing ; and I think it one of the grandest things in the world, because it holds the basis of self-control. Intemperance is the cause of poverty, I know ; but there is another side to that, poverty is the cause of intemperance. Crowd a man with fourteen hours' work a day, and you crowd him down to a mere animal life. You have eclipsed his aspirations, dulled his tastes, stunted his intellect, and made him a mere tool, to work fourteen hours and catch a thought in the interval ; and while one man in a hun- dred will rise to be a genius, ninety-nine will cower down under the circumstances. Now, I can tell you a fact. 174 THE LABOR QUESTION. In London, the other day, it was found that one club of gentlemen, a thousand strong, spent twenty thousand dol- lars at the club-house during the year for drink. Well, I would allow them twenty thousand dollars more at home for liquor, making in all forty thousand dollars a year. These men were all men of education and leisure ; they had books and paintings, opera, race-course, and regatta. A thousand men down in Portsmouth in a ship-yard, working under a boss, spent at the grog-shops of the place, in that year, eighty thousand dollars, - double that of their rich brethren. What is the explana- tion of such a fact as that ? Why, the club-man had a circle of pleasures and of company ; the operative, after he had worked fourteen hours, had nothing to look for- ward to but his grog. That is why I say, lift a man, give him life, let him work eight hours a day, give him the school, develop his taste for music, give him a garden, give him beautiful things to see, and good books to read, and you will starve out those lower appetites. Give a man a chance to earn a good living, and you may save his life. So it is with women in prostitution. Poverty is the road to it ; it is this that makes them the prey of the wealth and the leisure of another class. Give a hundred men in this country good wages and eight hours' work, and ninety-nine will disdain to steal. Give a hundred women a good chance to get a good living, and ninety- nine of them will disdain to barter their virtue for gold. You will find in our criminal institutions to-day a great many men with big brains, who ought to have risen in the world, perhaps gone to Congress. You may laugh, but I tell you the biggest brains don't go to Congress. Now, take a hundred criminals : ten of them will be smart men ; but take the remainder, and eighty of them are below the average, body and mind, they were, as THE LABOR QUESTION. 175 Charles Lamb said, " never brought up ; they were dragged up." They never had any fair chance ; the\- were starved in body and mind. It is like a chain weak in one link ; the moment temptation came, it went over. Now, just so long as you hold two thirds of this nation on a narrow, superficial line, you feed the criminal classes. Any man that wants to grapple with the Labor Question must know how you will secure a fair division of pro- duction. No man answers that question. I hail the Labor movement for two reasons ; and one is, that it is my only hope for democracy. At the time of the Antislavery agitation, I was not sure whether we should come out of the struggle with one republic or two ; but republics 1 knew we should still be. I am not so confident, indeed, that we shall come out of this storm as a republic, unless the Labor movement succeeds. Take a power like the Pennsylvania Central Railroad and the New York Central Railroad, and there is no legislative independence that can exist in its sight. As well expect a green vine to flourish in a dark cellar as to expect honesty to exist under the shadow of those upas- trees. Unless there is a power in your movement, industrially and politically, the last knell of democratic liberty in this Union is struck ; for as I said, there is no power in one State to resist such a giant as the Pennsylvania road. We have thirty-eight one-horse legislatures in this country ; and we have got a man like Tom Scott, with three hundred and fifty million dollars in his hands ; and, if he walks through the States, they have no power. Why, lie need not move at all. If he smokes, as Grant does, a puff of the waste smoke out of his mouth upsets the legislature. Now, there is nothing but the rallying of men against money that can contest with that power. Rally indus- 176 THE LABOR QUESTION. trially if you will ; rally for eight hours, for a little divis- ion of profits, for co-operation ; rally for such a banking- power in the government as would give us money at three per cent. Only organize, and stand together. Claim something together, and at once ; let the nation hear a united demand from the laboring voice, and then, when you have got that, go on after another; but get something. I say, let the debts of the country be paid, abolish the banks, and let the government lend every Illinois farmer (if he wants it), who is now borrowing money at ten per cent, money on the half-value of his land at three per cent. The same policy that gave a million acres to the Pacific Railroad, because it was a great national effort, will allow of our lending Chicago twenty millions of money, at three per cent, to rebuild it. From Boston to New Orleans, from Mobile to Roch- ester, from Baltimore to St. Louis, we have now but one purpose ; and that is, having driven all other politi- cal questions out of the arena, having abolished slavery, the only question left is labor, the relations of capital and labor. The night before Charles Sumner left Bos- ton for Washington the last time, he said to me, u I have just one more thing to do for the negro, to carry the Civil Rights Bill ; and after that is passed, I shall be at liberty to take up the question of labor." Now, one word in conclusion. If you do your duty, and by that I mean standing together and being true to each other, the Presidental election you will decide, every State election you may decide if you please. If you want power in this country ; if you want to make yourselves felt ; if you do not want your children to wait long years before they have the bread on the table they ought to have, the leisure in their lives they ought to have, the opportunities in life they ought to THE LABOR QUESTION. 177 have ; if you don't want to wait yourselves, write on your banner, so that every political trimmer can read it, so that every politician, no matter how short sighted he may be, can read it, " We never forget ! If you launch the arrow of sarcasm at labor, we never forget ; if there is a division in Congress, and you throw your vote in the wrong scale, we never forget. You may go down on your knees, and say, ' 1 am sorry I did the act ; ' and we will say, ' It will avail you in heaven, but on this side of the grave never.' " So that a man, in tak- ing up the Labor Question, will know he is dealing with a hair-trigger pistol, and will say, " I am to be true to justice and to man ; otherwise I am a dead duck." 12 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW; OR, THE LAWS OF THE COMMONWEALTH SHALL THEY BE ENFORCED? Address before the Legislative Committee, February 23, 1865. c \ n ENTLEMEN OP THE COMMITTEE : The question you have to consider at this time grows out of the question of Temperance, the interference with the sale, the public sale, of intoxicating drinks. It is not a new question. What we call the Temperance cause in this Commonwealth is half a century old ; and on the other side of the water, if you analyze strictly the legis- lation of the old countries, the attempt to limit and pro- hibit, to a certain extent, in the cause of public protection, the free use and sale of intoxicating liquor, is many cen- uries old. The new point in the discussion is, that any man should assume that a government trespasses on the rights of individuals when it attempts, at last, to legis- late on this subject. I think I may safely say, that there is no statute-book in the world, no matter how old its first page is, no statute-book since the dis- covery of alcohol, which has not in it a law in regard to this subject ; and if you go behind the Christian era, and into the legislation of the older countries, the same attempt is visible, 1 think, there. We are not, therefore, trying to gain or clutch any new ground ; we are only THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 179 examining the method by which an old and constantly acknowledged power shall be used. Again, some men say the Temperance cause is a very narrow, petty, sentimental enterprise, fit for half-witted men, weak-minded women, theorists, but utterly repudi- ated by the manly and practical intellect and common- sense of the public. On the contrary, to my mind, the Temperance cause is one of the weightiest, broadest, most momentous, that a citizen, under democratic insti- tutions, can contemplate, especially under democratic institutions here, and leading a race like ours. Every race, every blood, every climate, has its own spe- cial temptation. The tropics have one, the colder climates have another. Some races are distinguished from others by peculiar temptation and weakness. Our climate, our blood, is peculiarly open to the necessity of material stimulus, something that shall wake up and hurry the currents of the blood. The old idea of heaven, to the fathers of our race, was a drunken revel, overflowing with mead and every intoxicating drink. The race craves these stimulants naturally, and still more inci- dentally, from the fast life, from the incessant activ- ity, from the hurried and excited nature which modern life gives us, from some special need of the body itself. That is our temptation. Again, science, in modern times, has elaborated the processes of manufacturing intoxicating liquor to such a cheap and lavish extent, that a man with one hour's work may be drunk a day ; with one-half day's toil may spread his drunkenness over a week. And yet, with this blood, and with science hold- ing out this temptation, and wages holding out these means, and the heavy working of republican institutions resting on the basis of the people themselves, with no breakwater of bayonet or of despotism, the sense, virtue, purpose of the masses, the pedestal upon which 180 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. the great, heavy machine of government must be built, with these yawning gulfs on each side our national progress, there are men who set their faces against the Temperance agitation, and bid us beware of taking up too much time with the narrow and petty interest which we assume to champion ! A drunken people were never the safe depositaries of the power of self-government. Hurried on, the mere victims of demagogues, uncon- trollable passion their temptation and their guide, who can safely trust his future and the institutions secured by such toil and such blood, to a race making or groping its way amid such evils and such weakness ? 1 contend that every man who desires the security of democratic institutions is to see to it, first of all, that every possible means be exhausted to secure, so far as human means can, a sober people. To my mind, that is the signifi- cance of the Temperance enterprise. I know its other phases, alluded to by my friend, Rev. A. A. Miner, who has just stood here, the domestic desolation, the indi- vidual ruin, the spiritual wreck, the pecuniary loss, the family destruction. 1 know all that; and to the right mind, there lies the real strength of the Temperance agitation. But if any man is of too low a level, too sordid a logic to appreciate or acknowledge that argu- ment, at least citizenship and patriotism, at least selfish- ness may be brought, for one moment, to reflect, when the very ground around him rests secure only so long as the statute-book is upborne, and the rights of life and property secured by a sober people. The question which we meet to discuss to-night is one of this nature, whether this great principle is to have a fair trial ? Mark me ! That is my text, Whether this great principle is to have in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a fair trial? That is all we ask. Boston is a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 181 law that prevails in Boston is made in yonder state- house and recorded in the statute-book of the Common- wealth. The question to be asked in regard to such law is, whether the public opinion of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts demands it ? If that opinion does, then Boston has one duty, and but one, to obey it. Is there anything undemocratic in that ? Is there any breach of municipal or individual liberty in that ? Has Boston seceded from Berkshire ? I contend that Boston is a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and bound to obey her law. Now, the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts, after thirty years of discussion, after the most ex- haustive debate, after statistics piled mountain high on both sides, after every other method has been tried and has failed, has decided that what is called the Maine Liquor Law shall be the law of the Commonwealth. That is not sentiment, that is a fact. If you doubt it, go to the Secretary of State's office and get a certified copy. That is an indisputable fact, that the Common- wealth of Massachusetts has deliberately chosen this method of carrying out her Temperance purpose. Does any man say it is not a good method ? My friend, that is not admissible. We have floated beyond that level of argument. The liquor dealers say it is not a good method. You are out of order ! Sit down ! You do not belong to this stage of discussion ! Mark you ! We have funded thirty years of labor in that statute which the Governor has signed and the Secretary of State has sealed. When it was first enacted, the liquor dealers of the State did not like it. They went to the legislature, but the legislature stood unmoved. Having failed there, they went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, after thorough investigation, said, " It is law ! " How far, then, have the Temperance people travelled ? Let us stop, and take an inventory. We have a law on 182 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. the statute-book. We have a reiterated decision of the legislature, that that is their sober, second purpose. We have further the decision of the Supreme Court that it is constitutional. So far we have got. Now, what comes next ? The various elements that go to make up the State are to obey it, are they not ? Here is our claim ; if you do not like it, go back into the arena, and agitate against it. Get up your tracts, your circulars, your lectures, your public conventions, and assail the Gibraltar of the legislature ; and when you have carried it, we will sit down and put our hands on our lips. There is where we demand that the liquor in- terest shall meet us, in the convention, in the lecture- room, anywhere, to agitate against the law. We are ready to meet them. We went through thirty years of such agitation. We tried license, we tried the fifteen- gallon law, every method, and we failed. Let me turn aside to say one word here. The chief of police said, in 1863, that he thought it would be a good thing to have a license system. Well, our argu- ment is, " Gentlemen, we tried it for two hundred years, and it failed. Do let us try this fifty years. Is that an unfair demand ? " From the method in which gentlemen address us, one would suppose that there never was a State that tried licensing ; that it was a new thought, just struck out from some happy intellect, elevated by a glass of cham- pagne [laughter and applause] ; whereas license is as old as Plymouth Rock. The Commonwealth began witli it, and they came up to the year 1855 ; and every philan- thropist, every lover of his country and his city, was pale and aghast at the gigantic strides which this vice was making, at the tremendous yawning gulf in which all public virtue seemed about to be swallowed up. Pul- pit, forum, legislature, counting-house, every walk of THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 183 life, public and private, was rotten to the very core. Now, therefore, what we have gained is a law reiterated. We have got the court and the legislature on our side ; what further do we ask ? Well, in the various counties of the State, more or less direct and honest effort has been made to carry out the law. We do not stop to say how honest or how direct ; that is not our business to- night. Our business is with the fact, that in this city no effort has ever been made to carry it out ; and in say- ing that I am not throwing any particular blame on any individual officer. The mayor and the aldermen are as good as the average ; our police agents and subordinates are not open to exception. It is not the machine, it is the creator of the machine with whom we quarrel. It is not the police nor the mayor, but it is the elements that make both. The reasons why no effort has been made, are plain enough on the very surface of affairs. They were alluded to by my friend, Rev. Dr. Miner, just now. Nineteen hundred and fifty-one places in this city, where, illegally, liquor is sold, in open defiance of the law ; eight or ten millions of dollars on this peninsula invested in the manufacture and sale of liquor ; two or three million dollars' worth sold and consumed annually in the city itself. Every man familiar with the machinery of demo- cratic institutions knows that two thousand men, with ten millions of dollars behind them, commanding from three to seven thousand votes, as they readily may, can hold the balance in any election, and make it beyond question that no candidate can ever be ventured by either party, who is not pledged, publicly or privately, not to execute this law of the State. Every man knows that that power, thus massed up, can control the muni- cipal government of the city of Boston. But we are not now finding fault with this state of things. We only 184 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. say that in consequence of that, or of something else, the city of Boston says to us by the voice of her attorneys, her aldermen, her mayor, " We cannot execute your law." We take her at her word. Year after year she comes to the legislature and says, " We cannot execute your law." Well, there are two paths open, one path is, Repeal the law ; the other path is, Try somebody else to execute it. Suppose the engineer of the Fitchburg road should report to the directors, " I can't run your engine beyond Groton." Two courses would be open for the directors. One would be to take up the rails west of Groton, the other to get a new engineer. Which do you suppose they would adopt ? [Applause.] The city of Boston says to the Commonwealth, a Commonwealth that after thirty years of discussion, after two hundred years of patient experiment, announces a new plan, a plan successful to a marvellous extent elsewhere, the city of Boston says, " We cannot execute your law." We take her at her word, and we proceed to do, what ? Why, to go back to the armory of democratic weapons to find whether democracy has any other means of carry- ing out a law. Now, mark you, what is a city? It is a body of in- habitants selected from the rest of the State, which as- sembles together and goes to the legislature and says, " Grant us a city government." Why do they want it ? They say, " We have large masses of criminal inhabi- tants, large, massed-up quantities of wealth ; we need a more stringent machinery than a country town." The State says, " Yes ; take that city charter, and with it take certain conditions and privileges and rights peculiar to a city." Now, the tendency of the last hundred years has been to what you may call no government, that is, toward making the government light as possible ; filing down all its powers, restricting all its old despotic quali- THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 185 ties. That is the tendency of our day. You see it everywhere. We give to wards, to towns, and to small dis- tricts unlimited control of their own affairs. In the well- educated, sparsely- populated, comparatively poor districts of Massachusetts, it succeeds. Education and virtue supply the place of force and compulsion. We have tried the same policy with the city. We have given to it the exclusive execution of the State laws. It was not so forty years ago; the city was then a town in the county of Suffolk ; the State sent its own sheriff and its own deputy sheriffs, appointed by itself, not by vote, to execute its laws. You know the city has two codes, its own by-laws, and also the laws of the State. Its own by-laws were always executed by itself. Half a century ago, the State laws were executed by State officials. We have gradually tended toward giving to the city the whole control of the State laws also ; and to-day (a fact, probably, of which not one in ten in this audience is aware), the police of Boston are engaged three quar- ters of their time, and more, in the execution, not of city laws, but of State laws, of laws which, half a century ago, would have largely been in the hands of the sheriff and his deputies, appointed by the State. We have gone thus far. Now, like all other grants, the State may resume this. The reason why she should resume it is, because the city goes to the state-house, year by year, and says : " We cannot execute your laws." If you incorporate a company to build a railroad, after the assigned time, if the road is not finished, the State resumes the franchise. The State granted to the city of Boston the right to execute her laws ; they are not executed, and the city proclaims, by the lips of her own officers, that she cannot execute them. Therefore, the Temperance 186 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. men, who have funded thirty years of work in that statute, and who claim of the community this, that, at least, the plan shall have a trial, as I said at the beginning, a trial, and nothing more, ask that some other means be substituted. Suppose this plan is tried twenty years, and fails ; we will give it up. Suppose you try it, and it does not work even the miracles that we hope ; we will surrender it. But long argument, patient debate, constant experiment, have lifted it into the statute-book , and now, certainly, we may rightfully claim, that the State shall provide the machinery to try it before it is taken off that statute-book. Is there any- thing hard, anything unfair, anything undemocratic in that claim ? But the city says, u You cannot execute a law that has not public opinion behind it." Granted, I have no wish to execute a law that has not public opinion behind it. I have no wish to execute a law that has not a pre- ponderating public opinion behind it. But the opinion of what public ? Is it the opinion of the City Hall ? Is it the opinion of the grog-shops of Boston ? Is it the opinion of Beacon Street and the clubs ? Is it the opinion of Ann Street and North Street? Is it the opinion of the criminals in the dock ? No ; the law rests on the public opinion of the Commonwealth ; and if the liquor interests of Boston wish to appear before that tribunal, we are ready, always ready. We wel- come them to that great debate. All we claim is, that when they are beaten in that court, they shall submit. [Applause.] Is that too much to ask ? If they con- quer us, we will submit. But we have not been at boys' play for thirty years. We have converted the Common- wealth ; it has accepted this idea, and made it into a statute ; and if there be a law in Massachusetts, we mean it shall have a fair trial. [Applause.] THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 187 How is it to be done ? We have a court ; we have a legislature ; what we want is an executive. Now, friends, before I begin to speak on that point, let me say one thing. If the metropolitan police does not succeed, we shall ask something more. You need not think you will get rid of us with that. This is our solemn conviction of duty. We have converted the public opinion of the Commonwealth ; we mean now to exhaust Yankee ingenuity in the invention of machinery to execute the law; and when Universal Yankeedom confesses that it is bankrupt, we will give up, arid not till then. [Applause.] If the metropolitan police is not enough, then we will devise something stronger and better, before we sit down and say that the Common- wealth of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled, does not rule this Commonwealth, but that the liquor dealers of Boston do, for that is the issue. The question is, where is the law to be made ? In the gilded saloons of Boston, or in the state-house on yonder hill ? If the million of people who inhabit this Commonwealth make the law, this is law, and Boston has no right to complain having abdicated by her own confession that we go now to the State, and claim other and better machinery to carry it out. One other point. You must not expect that this law will convert the whole Commonwealth in a moment. Look at the history of all law. The time was, six or eight centuries ago, when it was a disputed point whether a man owned a separate lot of land. That was settled by public opinion. Then remained a second ; , question ; whether, owning it at his death, he could bequeath it. Public opinion nibbled at that question for a hundred years, and then settled it. Doubtless, when the first statute-book to that extent was enrolled among the parchments, many men relucted ; but it 188 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. gradually settled down from the food into the blood, from the blood into the bones, from the bones into the character of the Saxon race ; and to-day, every drop of Anglo-Saxon blood acknowledges the sacredness of property derived from a hundred ancestors. Law, once placed on the statute-book, educates the moral sense of the community. Many a man has no higher level than the statute-book ; what is legal he respects ; if he trespasses against it, he feels himself a sinner ; what is illegal he shrinks from. Now, this law, if you leave it on the statute-book, is to be the most powerful moral suasion that was ever employed to the conviction of the universal conscience of the Commonwealth. Leave it there a century, let it rest on the public opinion of the Commonwealth, and a man will walk these streets as much ashamed of being descended from an illegal liquor dealer as from an African slave-trader. [Applause.] To-day you regard that statement as fanaticism ; but you forget, that the masses of mankind may get their ethics, in the first instance, from the statute-book, and only secondly from the Bible ; so that, if you will only let this statute stand, we shall have, not merely public opinion, but public virtue, to sanction it, all over the Commonwealth. But you say to me, it is a single statute. It is not this single statute alone. The liquor dealers of the city of Boston permit that is the proper word the execution of the State laws only so far as they do not interfere with their interest. Take the Sunday law. If there be any- thing anchored in the very superstition as well as in the religious principles of Massachusetts, it is the sacred- ness of the seventh day ; and yet that law, two centuries old, perhaps the most largely supported by public opinion of anything this side the law of murder, is not executed on this peninsula, and never will be when THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 189 it comes in contact with the interests of the liquor deal- ers of the streets. You talk to me about this statute not being capable of execution. There is no statute capable of execution which comes athwart the selfishness of the liquor trade of the city. Gambling is illegal ; the brothel is illegal. They could neither of them be sustained without that substratum and corner-stone, the nineteen hundred and fifty open places for the sale of intoxicating drinks ; and do you suppose that either of those laws, held supersti- tiously, conventionally, religiously sacred as they are in the heart of every Massachusetts man, is executed, or can be executed to-day, when the liquor dealers of this city to a certain extent cover these places with the shelter of their common interest? No; I am not standing here to-night to plead merely that the Maine Liquor Law cannot be executed ; I am saying that ten millions of dollars, standing behind what are in fact the criminal- classes of the city (and I use the word "criminal" in its broad, legal sense, everything which evades the laws, by- laws, State laws, all laws), I say ten millions of dollars, two thousand places for the sale of drink, standing be- hind the criminal classes, sustaining them, massing them together by the attraction of a common interest, always have, always will, always must, control the municipal government of the peninsula. If you want any law ex- ecuted faithfully, efficiently, it must be done by the old democratic authority, the sovereignty of the State. Why does the city ask for peculiar privileges for her police ? You meet a policeman in the street, and he has powers over you a hundred fold greater than the consta- ble of a country town. Why does the city want it ? Because she acknowledges that the government wages an unequal war with the criminal classes. -Remember, that in ten years, forty -five men out of every hundred on this peninsula are arrested for crime. Forty-five men 190 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. out of every hundred, nearly one half of the population of the peninsula, in ten years pass through the station- house or jail. Now go with me to Berkshire, less than two men out of a hundred are subject to the same im- prisonment in that county. Do you suppose that a county like this can rule itself with the same facility and earnestness that Berkshire does ? Of course not. The criminal classes, banded together, rich, massed up, are too strong for democratic institutions. I avow my belief, derived from the experience of San Francisco, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New York, Phila- delphia, Boston, that it will be found in the next hun- dred years, that great cities cannot be ruled by munici- pal governments based on democratic foundations. The votes of the streets cannot execute the laws. You may be astonished, indignant, incredulous ; but the history of all great cities proves it. San Francisco flung herself out of a government into the hands of private citizens to save herself from anarchy. Baltimore did the same, New Orleans did the same. New York, wise by experi- ence, saved herself from the same lot by going to Al- bany, and invoking the shelter of the State. London, the capital of the civilized world, in the time of Sir Robert Peel, found herself unable to deal with the crim- inal classes of the city, and she invoked the aid of Par- liament and the whole realm to govern her territory. Boston has grown within ten years so much into the resemblance of a crowded capital that the same result is -cached here. Why, ladies and gentlemen, we relieve pvery year the poverty of fifty thousand persons on this peninsula, forty thousand of them, according to the testi- mony of benevolent societies and the overseers of the poor, reduced to claim our assistance by the habits of intoxication of the head of the family. Forty thousand persons kneel to your overseers of the poor every year, in THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 191 person or by representatives. What makes them ? The drinking saloons of the city. And to us who pay that taxation, the drinking saloons say, " You shall not exe- cute that plan which the wisdom of the State has devised to prevent the evil." Every year twenty-five thousand persons are arrested for crime ; nine tenths caused by drunkenness, increasing every year. You spent $700,000 on this peninsula, the last twelve months, to educate twenty-five thousand children, to lift them to morals, intelligence, and virtue. All the time two thousand drinking places are open, and they drag down thirty thousand inhabitants, adults, the grown up, perfect, developed fruit of your schools, drag them down to the pit. You might as well take that 8700,000 spent for schools, and fling it over the end of Long Wharf, when with one hand you build, and with the other tear down your building. These are the serious considerations. Every man who knows his fellows well enough to judge on this question, knows that streets, planted with every fifteenth house a place for the public sale of drink, are not safe streets for a weak man to walk in. Every man of you knows that the mother in the country follows her son into this city with trembling prayers, not knowing whether the virtue she has carefully watched and nurtured will stand the temptation of Boston streets, the great cancer of the Commonwealth, the source of daily and hourly cor- ruption ; and this is the means which the State has de- vised to stop the otherwise immedicable wound. Now, what do we claim ? We have the legislature by argument, the court by enactments. We are ready to meet our opponents any time to reverse the ver- dict ; but, until it is reversed, we claim police officer and jury to carry out the law. If that machinery suc- ceeds, well. If it does not succeed, something more shall 192 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. be devised ; all the while holding ourselves open to be answered, to be disputed, to be gainsaid, before that great tribunal, the public. I wish I could impress on every man's mind to-night, this one thing. The Temper- ance body ask nothing of the liquor dealer, nothing of the city, nothing of the State, which it has not already granted in essence. We are not on trial ; we have gained the battle ; we only ask to reap the fruits. If anybody disputes us, if anybody says the Maine Liquor Law is not good, that a license system would be better, we are willing to go with him into the argument ; but that is argument. We demand now that, having got the statute, we have a trial. I challenge the press of the city, the journals of the liquor dealers, to answer that claim, a trial of the statute we have richly earned. Some say that this law cannot be executed. No law is perfectly executed. Our jails and houses of correction are the evidence that no law is thoroughly executed ; but what we claim is, that with fair materials, this law may be as well executed as any law as young as this. Evidence is ready at hand that in the large cities of Maine, when there was as much wealth in proportion to numbers as here, four fifths of the drinking was killed by the execu- tion of the Maine Liquor Law ; and I challenge the history of all legislation to show that any other law, one year old on the statute-book, was ever able to kill four fifths of the evil against which it was directed. I claim as much, if not more, for the Maine Liquor Law as any law has ever achieved. When thoroughly executed, it killed four fifths of the sin which it attacked. You know well that the stranger in the streets of New York, if he is disposed to indulge in the vices that are hidden, must seek out counsel and assistance in order to enable him- self to indulge. The man who has any purpose stands firm against the temptation, but many a man who has THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 193 no purpose is unable to sin from lack of opportunity. I Jut when you open every fifteenth door in the streets, it must be a Hercules who is able to stand against that temptation. Shut up these tempting entrances, and seven out of ten who enter the city for the purpose of getting a livelihood are saved from temptation. Hide it from the investigation of the law, compel it to retreat into private cellars, and a man must seek it, seek it with advice, seek it with assistance, before he can fall through that sieve of deficient opportunity into shameful indulgence. There will be only a tenth or a fifth who will contrive the way to pass. Every man acquainted with the history of city indulgence, in this and simi- lar crimes, knows well this principle. Hide the sale of liquors, and we save our sons and brothers. Execute this law, and the streets of Boston, if not entirely clean, are yet as safe as a country town. The mother can trust her boy, the wife her husband, the brother his brother, in these streets of the capital, for education, for trade, for pleasure, without following him with a pang. I contend that no man needs argument, no man needs I evidence on such a subject as this ; and no man has lived / forty years who has not seen his pathway of life marked by i the graves of some that he loved most, from whose prom- ise he augured most, whose career was to be the bright- est, who have fallen at his side, victims to this sin. I should not dare to uncover one single roof in this city, no matter how guarded by wealth, education, or any other fence ; for I should be sure to /find, even in the narrowest family circle, one vacant seat which this gigantic tempter had emptied. I have only such a tale to tell as every one of your hearts bears witness to. Law- yer, merchant, divine, no matter where you take your testimony, every man's heart is full, every man's mem- ory is the most accusing witness against this great social 13 194 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. evil. I am no sentimentalist. The keen arrows of dreadful experience, which every year makes more in- tense and more emphatic, are my inspiration. I believe in it as a great national security, but I argue it as a great individual duty resting upon every man who judges his own past, or who has any pity for his neighbor. REVIEW OF DR. CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." An Address before the Association of the Ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Tremont Temple, Boston, January 24, 1881. This is the only address in this volume which was read from manu- script, and probably the only one Mr. Phillips ever delivered in that manner. I AM to offer you some remarks on a lecture delivered here a fortnight ago by Chancellor Crosby. He de- nounced the Temperance movement as now conducted. The address was not very remarkable for novelty, or weight of argument, or the correctness of its statements. Indeed, it was rather noticeable for the lack of these qualities. And it was so well handled and so fully answered in several of our pulpits that I thought it needed no further notice. But you thought otherwise, and perhaps it does deserve it, considering the source from which it comes. And when the health of the chan- cellor becomes the standing toast in the grog-shops of our city, and when the journal which publishes these Monday lectures is obliged to print a second and third edition, day after day, to supply that class of customers, it is evident that Temperance men have a text on which an effectual Temperance sermon can be preached, one that will probably arrest the attention of just those we seek to reach. Dr. Crosby laments the divisions among Temperance men, and lays it down as a principle that we " cannot 196 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." conscientiously object to the means employed by others, unless they contain an immorality." I beg leave to dis- sent from this. We have had sixty years' experience in Temperance methods, and certainly may claim to have learned something. Now, when these new converts these nursling babies of grace mislead by their crude suggestions the Temperance public, obstruct its efforts and waste its means, are we bound to sit silent and make no protest against such waste and recklessness ? The treasury of reform is not rich enough to bear such extravagance on the pretence of harmony ; much less are we bound to silence when a neighbor's mistake seri- ously harms and hinders the movement. If Boston lived, as it did in 1806, with no steam fire-engine, only leather buckets hanging in each man's front entry, cheerfully would I stand with Dr. Crosby and a hundred more to pass buckets of water up to the firemen on a burning building. But in 1881, I should not obstruct the engine, and crowd it out of its place, merely that Dr. Crosby and I might have a chance harmoniously to unite in passing empty buckets toward the flames. Life is too short for such false courtesies ; too short for us to postpone working on our line until we have educated every new convert up to our level. This might do very well before the Flood, as Sydney Smith suggests, when Methuselah could consult his friends for a hundred and fifty years in relation to an intended enterprise, and even then live to see the working of his plan, and its success or failure, for six or seven centuries afterward. But life now is limited to an average of seventy years, and practical men must put their hands to the plough in the best way they know, and if children stand in their way, move them gently but firmly out of the path. I think before Dr. Crosby spoke he should have studied the history of the Temperance movement. If he were as REVIEW OF CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 197 familiar with the literature of our enterprise as he is with that of Greece, he never would have repeated criti- cisms and suggestions that have been answered over and over again during the last fifty years. As I turn over his essay, and find how tediously familiar we all are with his objections, I am reminded of Johnson's objection to Goldsmith's plan of travelling over Asia in order to bring home valuable improvements : " Sir, Goldsmith is so ignorant of his own country that he would bring home a wheelbarrow as a new and valuable invention." The address turns back on its path frequently, and re- peats its chief criticisms again and again. If we analyze it, I think it may be fairly summed up thus : 1. Dr. Crosby objects to the Total-abstinence theory and movement that it insults the example of Jesus ; that its advocates undermine and despise the Bible, while they strain and wrench it to serve their purpose ; and he as- serts that the "Total-abstinence system is contrary to revealed religion ; " and that the Bible, correctly inter- preted, repudiates total abstinence and such a Temper- ance crusade as has existed here for the last fifty years. 2. Dr. Crosby objects to this movement as immoral as well as unchristian ; and as " doing unmeasured harm to the community." He considers it as the special and direct cause of the " growth of drunkenness in our land, and of a general demoralization among religious com- munities ; " asserts that it is exactly the kind of move- ment that rumsellers enjoy, and that it ought not to succeed, never will, and never can. 3. The pledge is unmanly, and kills character and self-respect. 4. The assertion that moderate drinking leads to drunkenness is untrue. 5. The total-abstainers bully and intimidate the com- munity, and disgust all good, sensible men. 198 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 6. That what is needed to unite sensible men in a movement sure to succeed, is a license system recognizing the distinction between moderation and excess, between harmless wines, arid beer and strong drink. Such a system, " free from taint of prejudice, and instinct with practical wisdom, will establish order and peace, and save us from a moral slough." The looseness of these statements is noticeable. Dr. Crosby says, " The Total-abstinence system is contrary to revealed religion." What is the " Total-abstinence system " ? It is ab- staining from intoxicating drink ourselves, and agreeing with others to do so. How is this contrary to revealed religion ? Can any one cite a text in the Bible or a principle laid down there which forbids it ? Of course not; no one pretends that he can. But Dr. Crosby's ar- gument is, that Jesus drank intoxicating wine and allowed it to others. There is no proof that he ever did drink intoxicating wine. But let that pass, and sup- pose, for the sake of the argument, that he did. What then ? To do what Jesus never did, or to refuse to do what he did, are such acts necessarily " contrary to revealed religion " ? Let us see. Jesus rode upon an " ass and a colt, the foal of an ass." We find it convenient to use railways. Are they " contrary to revealed religion" ? Jesus never married, neither did most of his apostles. Is marriage, therefore, " contrary to revealed religion " ? Jesus allowed a hus- band to put away his wife if she had committed adultery, he himself being judge and executioner. We forbid him to do it, and make him submit to jury trial and a judge's decision. Are such divorce laws, therefore, " contrary to revealed religion " ? Jesus said to the person guilty of adultery : " Go and sin no more." We send such sinners to the State prison. Are our laws punishing REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 199 adultery, therefore, "contrary to revealed religion"? There were no women at the Last Supper. We admit themjx) it. Is this "contrary to revealed religion"? We see, therefore, that Christians may, in altered cir- cumstances, do some things Jesus never actually did, and that their so doing does not necessarily contravene his example ; nor, unless it violates the principles he taught, does it tend to undermine Christianity. But the learned lecturer will perhaps urge : " I did not mean exactly what I said. I meant to point out that the means you use methods with which you urge and support the Total-abstinence theory are contrary to re- vealed religion. You strain and pervert the Bible to get the example of Jesus on your side, and so undermine the authority of the Scriptures." It would have been better if Dr. Crosby had originally said exactly what he meant, and on so grave a subject we had a right to claim that a trained and scholarly man should do so. But, waiving that, let us allow him, as the courts do, to amend his declaration. The Total-abstinence system is " contrary to revealed religion," because we strain and distort the Scriptures and wrest them to serve our purpose; and the chief in- stance upon which the Doctor mainly dwells is our as- sertion that wherever drinking wine is referred to in the Bible with approbation, unfermented wine is meant. Upon this claim the Doctor pours out his hottest indig- nation, indulging m a wealth of abusive epithets, and returning to it again and again, ringing changes on it, and turning it like a specially sweet morsel under his tongue. Indeed, this may be considered the chief thing he came to Boston to say. Now, there is a class of Biblical scholars and inter- preters who do assert that wherever wine is referred to in the Bible with approbation, it is unfermented wine. 200 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OP TEMPERANCE." Of this class of men, Dr. Crosby says " their learned ignorance is splendid ; " they are " inventors of a theory of magnificent daring ; " they " use false texts " and "de- ceptive arguments ; " " deal dishonestly with the Scrip- tures ; " " beg the question and build on air ; " their theory is a " fable," born of " falsehoods," supported by " Scripture twisting and wriggling ; " their arguments are " cobwebs," and their zeal outstrips their judgment, and they plan to " undermine the Bible." This is a fearful indictment ! Who are these daring, ridiculous, and illogical sinners ? As I call them up in my memory, the first one who comes to me is Moses Stuart, of Andover, whose lifelong study of the Bible and profound critical knowledge of both its languages place him easily at the head of all American commenta- tors. His well-balanced mind, conservative to a fault on many points, clears him from any suspicion of being misled by enthusiasm or warping his opinions to suit novel theories. " Moses Stuart's Scripture View of the Wine Question " was the ablest contribution, thirty years ago, to this claim about unfermented wine, and it still holds its place, unanswered and unanswerable. By his side stands Dr. Nott, tlje head of Union College, with the snows of ninety winters on his brow. Around them gather scores of scholars and divines on both sides of the Atlantic. In our day Tayler Lewis gives to the Ameri- can public, with his scholarly indorsement, the exhaus- tive commentary by Dr. Lees on every text in the Bible which speaks of wine, a work of sound learning, the widest research, and fairest argument. The ripe scholarship, long study of the Bible, and critical ability of these men entitle them to be consid- ered experts on this question. In a matter of Scripture interpretation it would be empty compliment to say that Dr. Crosby is worthy to loose the latchet of their UK VIEW OF CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 201 shoes. You would think me using only sarcasm if I said so. Now, imagine Moses Stuart, with his " learned igno- rance," " using false texts," " dealing dishonestly with the Scriptures," " begging a question and using cobwebs for arguments," " wriggling and twisting the Bible ; " at the ripe age of sixty years his boyish " zeal outstripping his judgment," imagine him, with his infidel pickaxe, zealously digging away up there on Andover Hill to " undermine the Bible " ! Of course all Andover will at once recognize the fidelity of the portrait, and cordially thank the New York Greek professor for informing them of his discovery of this Stuart conspiracy with Dr. Nott to bring the authority of the Scriptures into contempt. One thing Dr. Crosby wishes to be distinctly under- stood : he does not charge such men as Stuart with meaning to lie. "Their main arguments are falsehoods. They take up these weapons Vithout sufficiently exam- ining them. They see they can be made effective, but do not stop to inquire whether they are legitimate." Now, this is very kind in our New York professor. We had never discovered the superficial character of Stuart's scholarship, which left him^pen to such mistakes, or his mischievous haste and culpable carelessness in logical methods, and it is very generous in this new Daniel to assure us that, in spite of these faults, he " can [with effort, of course, and some struggle] believe in the pur- ity of motive " of such men, even when they " trample on reason and Scripture in blind rush." Now, the truth is, the only " castle built on air " in this matter is the baseless idea that the Temperance movement uses dishonest arguments or wrests the Scrip- ture, because it maintains that where the drinking of wine as an article of diet is mentioned in the Bible with approbation, unfermented wine is meant. The fact is, there are scholars of repute on both sides of the ques- tion ; but we do not claim too much when we say that the weight of scholarly authority is on our side, and not on that of the Doctor. But suppose the weight on each side were equal, what then ? One theory makes the Bible contradict itself, puts it below the sacred books of many other nations in the strictness of its morality, and sets it as an obstacle to the highest civilization. The other reconciles all its teachings one with another, lifts it to the level of the highest moral idea, and makes it the inspirer and the guide in all noble efforts to ele- vate the race. Which theory ought the believer in the Bible to prefer, if both were equally well supported ? Are those who degrade the Bible below other scriptures entitled to charge us with " undermining " it ? There are other claims besides that of unfermented wine which are "magnificent in their daring" and, let me add, in their insolence. Some of the Doctor's young hearers might have been surprised to see a divine flinging the Bible in the way of the Temperance movement. But we older ones and Abo- litionists are used to such attempts. Forty-five years ago the Princeton Review, representing the Presbyte- rian Church, denounced the Antislavery movement at a time when Garrison stood surrounded by divines and church-members without number as infidel and " contrary to revealed religion." Its argument was the exact counterpart of Dr. Crosby's against our Temperance enterprise. In vain we showed that the word " slave " in the New Testament did not necessarily or probably mean a chattel slave, and in vain did Weld's " Bible Argument" which was never answered prove the same to be true of the Old Testament. Still, we were denounced as REVIEW OF CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 203 " twisting and wresting and straining the Scriptures, and undermining the Bible." This Crosby Bible was flung in Garrison's face for thirty years. But since his great hand wrote Righteousness on the flag, and sent it down to the Gulf, and since we boast that no slave treads our soil, since then nine hundred and ninety-nine church- members out of every thousand will call you a libeller and suspect you of infidelity if you say the Bible any- where or in any degree upholds slavery ; and I see your lecturer last week closed his eloquent and able address by triumphantly claiming that the Gospel abolished slavery, which is true, only he should have stated that it was the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and not the gospel of the Church of that day. Hence, I am not impatient nor distrustful. I rest quiet in serene assurance that by and by, when our Tem- perance cause is a little stronger, men will blush to think they ever belittled and dishonored the Bible by such claims and arguments as these. At that time ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians will look askance upon you, and suspect your Orthodoxy, unless you believe Jesus never drank any fermented wine, and that the Bible's precepts touching wine-drinking can onlv be reconciled with each other, or with its claim as a revealed religion, by recognizing the distinction between fermented and unfermented wines. In my active life of fifty years I have seen more men made infidels by these attempts to prove the Bible an upholder of slavery, than I ever saw misled by the followers of Paine ; and I think this sad exhibition of New York partisanship will have the same result. The misled men to whom I refer, were not ignorant, careless-minded, or unprincipled, but men of conscientious earnestness of purpose, good culture, and blameless lives. It is, indeed, mournful to look back and notice how 204 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." uniformly narrow-minded men, hide-bound in the bark of tradition, conventionalism, and prejudice, have thrown the Bible in the way of every forward step the race has ever made. When the Reformation claimed that every Christian man was his own priest and entitled to read the Bible for himself, the cry was : " You are resisting and undermining the Bible." Even before that, the most advanced arid liberal churchmen denounced their own (unrecognized, but true) spiritual brothers the democ- racy of their day in Holland and elsewhere as infidels and contemners of the Scriptures. When the English Puritan saw dimly a republican equality of rights, Sir Robert Filmer and the High- Churchmen tried to frighten him with the scarecrow of their Bible. The chief Apostle says, " Honor the king ! " and this fellow leaves us no king to honor ! But even Dr. Crosby would, in spite of Saint Peter, hardly acknowledge the Declaration of Independence to be " contrary to revealed religion." One of the strongest proofs that the Bibb is really a divine book is, that it has outlived even the foolish praises and misrepresentations of its narrow and bigoted friends. When Antislavery lecturers first entered Ohio, some forty years ago, they carried the Bible before them as their sanction for the movement. Certain doctors of divinity, horror-struck at this profanation, proposed to form a society whose object should be to prove that the Bible sanctioned slavery. Ben Wade was then consid- ered somewhat of an infidel ; but on the principle of the forlorn sailor who puts up with any port in a storm, these divines sought out Wade, asking him to be presi- dent of the proposed society. Wade received them most courteously. " Certainly," said he, " gentlemen, I will serve you gladly, and do my best to make this thing ; CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 205 a success. But, you know, when we 've proved that the Bible supports and demands slavery as an institution, folks will ask you to show them what is the worth of such a Bible, here and now. And in that matter I can- not be of any help to you, gentlemen, at all." But some adherent of Dr. Crosby may say : Still, the New Testament does not anywhere specifically and in so many words describe a system of moral observance like Teetotalism. Possibly not; and hence the Doctor claims that this suiting Christianity to the needs of the age is disguised infidelity. But look at it a moment. The New Testament is a small book, and may be. read in an hour. It is not a code of laws, but the example of a life and a suggestion of principles. It would be idle to suppose that it could describe in detail, specifically meet every possible ques- tion, and solve every difficulty that the changing and broadening life of two or three thousand years might bring forth. The progressive spirit of each age has found in it just the inspiration and help it sought. But when timid, narrow, and short-sighted men claimed such exclusive ownership in it that they refused to their growing fellows the use of its broad, under- lying principles, and thus demanded to have new wine put into old bottles, of course the bottles burst and their narrow, surface Bible became discredited ; but the real Bible soared upward, and led the world onward still, as the soul rises to broader and higher life when the burden of a narrow and mortal body falls away. This is that kind of literal and starved ignorance which lays its unworthy hand on the Scriptures, and tells us that, because Solomon said, u He that spareth the rod spoileth the child," he meant every child must be mer- cilessly whipped ; thus dragging down the wisest of men to the level of their own narrow and brutal nature, 206 REVIEW OP CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." ignorant that the poet-king, putting the concrete for the principle involved, meant only to emphasize the truth that the training of a child must include subjection, by what method obtained each case and each child's nature must decide. And thus many a brute and igno- ramus has complacently fathered his absurd blindness and passionate temper on Solomon and the Bible. Had not the lecturer of last week, Dr. Crooks, so ably and eloquently pointed out this characteristic of Christianity, its opening to the moral and spiritual need of each age, its ready and complete adaptation of itself to the most unforeseen and immense changes in the moral life of succeeding ages, one of the proofs of its divine origin, furnishing the principles needed for each larger development of civilization, and giving its sanction to the new methods which keener temptations and more threatening dangers demanded, I might have troubled you with something on this point. You will allow me to quote what will show you that even the old divines, and those whose Orthodoxy will not be suspected, have again and again affirmed that a moral agency's being new was no evidence at all that Christianity did not include and intend it. Robinson, in "Address to the Pilgrim Fathers," says : " If God reveal aivything to you b} T an}* other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry ; for I am verily persuaded I am very confident the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy Word." The Hon. Robert Boyle (1680) says : u As the Bible was not written for an} r one particular time or people, ... so there are many passages very useful which will not be found so these many ages ; being possibly REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OP TEMPERANCE/' 207 reserved b}' the Prophetic Spirit that indited them ... to quell some foreseen heresy, ... or resolve some yet un- formed doubts, or confound some error that hath not yet a name." Bishop Butler, in his " Analogy " (1737) says : 44 Nor is it at all incredible that a Book which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should yet contain many truths as yet undiscovered. For all the same phenomena and the same faculties of investigation from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in the pres- ent and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that events, as the}' come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of several parts of Scripture." The Interpreter (1862) says : 44 A daj' is coming when Scripture, long darkened b}* tra- ditional teaching, too frequently treated as an exhaustw^ mine, will at length be recognized in its true character, as a field rich in unexplored wealth, and consequently be searched afresh for its hidden treasures." Vinet, in his " Lectures," says : 44 Even now, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, we may be involved in some tremendous error of which the Christianity of the future will make us ashamed." Dean Stanley says : 44 Each age of the Church has, as it were, turned over a new leaf in the Bible, and found a response to its own wants. We have a leaf still to turn, a leaf not the less new because it is so simple." Dr. Crosby passes to the great weapon of the Temper- ance movement, the pledge. This he calls 4i unmanly," 208 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." "a strait-jacket;" says it kills self-respect and under- mines all character. Hannah More said : " We cannot expect perfection in any one; but we may demand consistency of every one." It does not tend to show the sincerity of these critics of our cause when we find them objecting in us to what they themselves uniformly practise on all other occasions. If we continue to believe in their sincerity, it can only be at the expense of their intelligence. Dr. Crosby is, undoubtedly, a member of a church. Does he mean to say that when his church demanded his signature to its creed and his pledge to obey its discipline, it asked what it was " unmanly " in him to grant, and what destroys an individual's character; that his submission to this is " foregoing his reasoning," " sinking back to his non- age," etc ? Of course he assents to none of these things. He only objects to a Temperance pledge, not to a church pledge. I The husband pledges himself to his wife, and she to him, for life. Is the marriage ceremony, then, a curse, a hindrance to virtue and progress ? I have known men who, borrowing money, refused to sign any promissory note. They thought it unmanly and evidence that I distrusted them. Does Dr. Crosby think the world should change its customs and immedi- ately adopt that plan ? Society rests in all its transactions on the idea that a solemn promise, pledge, assertion, strengthens and as- sures the act. It recognizes this principle of human nature. The witness on the staffd gives solemn promise to tell the truth; the officer about to assume place for one year or ten, or for life, pledges his word and oath ; the grantor in a deed binds himself for all time by record ; churches, societies, universities, accept funds on REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 209 pledge to appropriate them to certain purposes and to no other, these and a score more of instances can be cited. In any final analysis all these rest on the same principle as the Temperance pledge. No man ever de- nounced them as unmanly. I sent this month a legacy to a literary institution, on certain conditions, and re- ceived in return its pledge that the money should ever he sacredly used as directed. The Doctor's principle would unsettle society, and if one proposed to apply it to any cause but Temperance, practical men would quietly put him aside as out of his head. "These . cobweb theorlespborn of isolated cloister life, 1 do not bear exposure to the midday sun or the rude winds of practical life. This is not a matter of theory. It must be tested and settled by experience and results. Thousands and tens of thousands attest the value of the pledge. It never degraded ; it only lifted them to a higher life. " Unmanly"? No. It made men of the*n. We who never lost our clear eyesight or level balance over books, but who stand mixed up and jostled in daily life, hardly deem any man's sentimental and fastidious criticism of the pledge worth answering. Every active worker in the Temperance cause can recall hundreds of instances where it has been a man's salvation. In a railway-car once, a man about sixty years old came to sit beside me. He had heard me lecture the evening before on Temperance. " I am master of a ship," said he, " sailing out of New York, and have just returned from my fiftieth voyage across the Atlantic. About thirty years ago I was a sot ; shipped, while dead- drunk, as one of a crew, and was carried on board like a log. When 1 came to, the captain sent for me. He asked me: ' Do you remember your mother?' I told him she died before I could remember anything. ' Well,' said he, ' I am a Vermont man. When I was young I H 210 REVIEW OP CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." was crazy to go to sea. At last my mother consented I should seek my fortune in New York.' He told how she stood on one side the garden-gate and he on the other, when, with his bundle on his arm, he was ready to walk to the next town. She said to him : ' My hoy, I don't know anything about towns, and I never saw the sea ; but they tell me those great towns are sinks of wickedness, arid make thousands of drunkards. Now, promise me you '11 never drink a drop of liquor.' He said, ' I laid my hand in hers and promised, as I looked into her eyes for the last time. She died soon after. I 've been on every sea, seen the worst kinds of life and men. They laughed at me as a milksop, and wanted to know if I was a coward ; but when they offered me liquor, I saw my mother across the gate, and I never drank a drop. It has been my sheet-anchor. . I owe all to that. Would you like to take that pledge ? ' said he." My companion took it, and he added : "It has saved me. I have a fine ship, wife and children at home, and I have helped others." How far that little candle threw its beams ! That anxious mother on a Vermont hillside saved two men to virtue and usefulness ; how many more, He who sees all can alone tell. But our agitation of the Drink Question is " bulldoz- ing" and "intimidation." This is only an unmanly whine. What is the pulpit ? Does it not take admitted truths and press them home on conscience ? Or does it not seek to prove principles the listener does not admit, and then urge him to their practice ? Does it not criti- cise and affirm and denounce, seeking to waken the in- different, convince the doubting, arid claim consistent action of all ? Does it wait until the sinner acknowledges its principles before it denounces his action as a sin ? REVIEW OP CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 211 By no means. Is church discipline visited only on those who see and confess their sins ? Is it not used to rouse them to a sense of the principle they will not acknowl- edge, and hold them up to the rebuke and take from them the respect of their fellows ? If our Temperance agitation is " intimidation," then nine tenths of the land's pulpits are bulldozers, and the other tenth is useless. What does the Bible say of those who prophesy smooth things, and whose order was Nathan obeying when he said, " Thou art the man " ? I have known even a Greek professor, when speaking in downright earnest, fling about the keenest and rough- est words in the dictionary in the most reckless and biting manner ; 1 yet I never dreamed of charging him with seeking to intimidate his opponents. Dr. Crosby says it is false, our constant assertion that moderate drinking makes drunkards. Will he please tell us where, then, the drunkards come from? Cer- 1 As illustrating Dr. Crosby's "calmness," the Chicago Advance says : "A collection of the dynamic complimentary phrases applied by this 'calm' lecturer to the main body of Temperance people of America would make a curious paragraph. Here are some specimens: 'Mere obstinacy of opinion and personal pride ; ' ' what a fearful prostitution of a noble word is seen in the use of the word " temperance" to-day!' a false flag' seized by 'radical and intemperate souls' which 'will disgust and alienate true and enlightened souls;' 'these infatuated defenders of the Total-abstinence principle;' 'these great untruths that are flaunted on its banners will disgust most men that have brains and use them;' 'its spirit of intimidation' and ' bulldozing,' the 'invariable accompani- ment of it during its forty years' curriculum ;' 'overbearing and tyran- nical,' 'using a violence of language that can admit of no excuse;' whose ' principal agencies have been falsehood and intimidation ;' whose ' principles are at war with proper manliness or self respect ;' 'upon the Total-abstinence system I charge the growth of drunkenness in our land and a general demoralization among religious communities ; ' ' moral jugglery,' ' a blunder that has the proportions of a crime ; ' of the pledge, a ' most pernicious instrument for debauching the conscience,' ' always an injury and never a help;' the wild ' lashl-bazouks of controversy' etc., etc." 212 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." tainly teetotalers do not recruit these swelling ranks. Will he please account for the million-times-repeated story of the broken-hearted and despairing sot, and of the reformed man, that " moderate drinking lulled them to a false security until the chain was too strong for them to break " ? Will he please explain that confes- sion forced from old Sam Johnson, and repeated hun- dreds of times since by men of seemingly strong resolve : " I can abstain ; I can't be moderate " ? Do not the Bible, the writers of fiction, the master dramatists of ancient and modern times; the philoso- ph r, the moralist, the man of affairs, do not all these bear witness how insidiously the habits of sensual in- dulgence creep on their victim, until he wakes to find himself in chains of iron, hisvery will destroyed ? When Milton says, " I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary," Dr. Crosby, you sup- pose, interprets it as meaning that boys should frequent gambling-hells and such resorts, in order to prove their strength of resistance. But no ; he does not mean any such tiling. He only thinks they should face the drink temptation ; none other. When you hear that the New York Central Railway prohibits the sale of flash litera- ture in its cars, perhaps you expect to hear Dr. Crosby denounce that corporation as emasculating the virtues of their travellers and making them unmanly. Not at all. He approves it. It is only drink temptations that he considers good training for heroic men. You might suppose that Dr. Crosby would recom- mend to colleges to substitute, in their study of the literature of fiction, the works of Eugene Sue, Dumas, and Balzac, in the place of George Eliot, Walter Scott, and Jane Austen, since these last would afford no proof of a lad's ability to withstand the harm of pernicious REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 213 novels. Oh, no ! I assure you that is a mistake. Dr. Crosby confines the new discovery of fortifying virtue by steeping it in temptation wholly and exclusively to rum. Hannah More's demand of " consistency," he thinks of no consequence whatever. But our movement is the delight of rumsellers and the great manufacturer of drunkards. How is it, then, that anxious and terror-stricken rumsellers assemble in conventions to denounce us, and plan methods of resist- ing us ? No such conventions were ever heard of or needed until the last twenty years. How is it that they mob our lecturers and break up our meetings ? Was T )r. Crosby or any of his class ever mobbed by rumsellers ? How is it that the moment we get one of the prohibi- tory laws " which delight rumsellers" passed, these delighted men form parties to defeat every man who voted for it, crowd the lobbies to repeal it, and never rest until, by threat or bribes, they have repealed it ? If rumsellers long and pray for the coming of the millennium of prohibition, why don't they all move down to Maine, and get as near to the desired heaven as they can ? If rumsellers delight in our Total-absti- nence labors, how ungrateful in them to allow their organs all over the world to misrepresent and deny what little success even Dr. Crosby allows we have had in Maine ! They ought to chuckle over it, and scatter the news far and wide. When Dr. Crosby has answered half these questions, we have some more difficulties to propound which trouble us, about the unaccountable freaks of these delighted rumsellers, who, delighted as they are with our work, yet never can bear or praise the very men who, Dr. Crosby says, are constantly employed spending time and money in " delighting " these unreasonable fellows. We are the cause of all this drunkenness, the Temper- 214 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." ance movement is a failure, and always must be a failure, and ought to be so. I will prove that Christianity is a failure in the same way. The famous unbelievers, down from Voltaire through Mill to the last infidel critic, prove Christian- ity, by the same sort of argument, to be a failure and the cause of most of the evils that burden us. Exag- gerate all the evil that exists, especially those vices that will never wholly die while human nature remains what it is ; belittle and cast into shade all the progress that has been made ; dwell with zest on the new forms of sin that each age contributes to the infamy of the race ; keep your eyes firmly in the back of your head] and insist that there 's nothing equal to what we had in old times, not even the snow-storms or the St. Michael pears, and the thing is done. Before our movement began, three quarters of the farms of Massachusetts were sold under the hammer for rum-debts. You could not enter a public-house in country or city, of the first-class or the smaller ones, except through a grog-shop. Their guests felt mean if they did not at dinner order some kind of wine, and often ordered it when they did not wish it. Now the grog-room is hidden from sight ; men slink into it; and not more than one man in ten at the most fashionable hotels, and not one in fifty in common inns, orders wine at dinner. Then the sideboard of every well-to-do house was covered with liquors, and every guest was urged to drink ; the omission to do so would have been held a gross neglect, if not an insult. No man was buried without a lavish use of liquor ; no stage stopped without the traveller being thought mean if he did not help the house by taking a drink. Now one may travel hundreds of miles on railways which allow no liquor in their stations. Every farmer furnished drink 215 to his men ; famous doctors went drunk to their patients ; the first lawyer in the Middle States was not singular when he held on by the rail in order to stand and argue, half-drunk, to the Supreme Court of the United States ; rich men saw to it that every clergyman who attended a convention was plied with wine ; and the preacher of the Concio ad Clerum was fed on bran- dy-punch to be on a more exhilarated level than his hearers. If a man caught sight of a grog-shop, he was as sure he had arrived in a Christian land as the ship- "wrecked sailor felt when he got sight of a gibbet. Dr. Crosby then had every man, lay and clerical, on his side in construing the Bible; whereas now we are in a healthy majority. Then a few scattered Temperance tracts, like rockets in a night, only betrayed how utterly the world was in the desert on this subject ; now a Tem- perance literature, crowded with facts, strong in argu- ment, filled with testimonies from men of the first emi- nence in every walk of life, in every department of science and literature, challenges and defies all comers. Then the idea of total abstinence was not so much denied as wholly unknown ; now, if New England were polled to-day, our majority would be overwhelming. Then all men held liquors to be healthy and useful ; now seventy men out of a hundred, whatever their practice, deny that claim, and the upper classes, well informed and careful of health, lead the way in giving up the use. Then the medical profession waded in the same slough of indulgence and ignorance as their patients ; now the verdict of the profession is undoubtedly and immeasura- bly against the use of intoxicating drinks at all in health, and but seldom in favor of it in disease. We have driven the indulgence in drink into hiding places, and for the first time the legislature is obliged and willing to prohibit the use of screens to hide rum- 216 REVIEW OF CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." drinkers from the public view they dread. Is not this skulking evidence of weakening ? Sixty years ago the legislature passed a few formal laws perfunctorily, and dismissed the whole subject. But ten years ago Liquor gathered at the state-house all the experts of social science, the lights of the medical profession, all the famous science from Harvard College, and retained an ex-governor, at vast expense, to mar- shal this host, in order to resist Dr. Miner arid a few Bible-twisters, whom Liquor seemed somehow to dread, although they had disgusted and repelled all the sensible- men in the State. Of course this was before Dr. Crosby had communi- cated to the liquor dealers the comforting fact that the Temperance movement was a failure, and that they ought to be delighted with it and with Dr. Miner and his Bible-twisters, and that they were delighted with it, whether they themselves knew it or not ! And far above all, set on a hill, a great State, Maine, challenges the world to show her equal in an intelligent, law-abiding, economical, and self-restraining population ; while smaller examples cluster round her, here and across the Atlantic ; and the haughty Episcopal Church, hardest and last to be roused to any reform, has put on record in its Convocations the most convincing and the most instructive array of facts and evidence on total abstinence that any ecclesiastical body ever contributed to social science. It is the ocean-wave kissing the Alps. You would weary if I continued the summary. Even if the statistics showed that the amount of liquor consumed increased as fast as our population and wealth do, which they do not show, but just the con- trary, that would not be sufficient evidence to prove that our movement has failed. The proper comparison is between what we were in 1820, and what we should REVIEW OF CROSBY'S "CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." 217 have been now had not some beneficent agency arrested our downward progress. These evils left to themselves increase by no simple addition, but in cubic ratio. Does Dr. Crosby fancy this active movement and vast mass of fact, opinion, and testimony can exist without beneficial influence in an age ruled by brains ? He does not, then, understand moral forces or his own times. When, twenty-five years ago, Frederick Douglas was painting the Antislavcry movement as a failure unless we would load our guns, Sojourner Truth asked : " Fred- erick, is God dead ?" When I see the Doctor's unbelief in the efficacy of the moral power and the weight of this mass of conviction, I am tempted to ask him : " Is your God dead ? " Dr. Crosby closes by stating his plan and panacea. It is a regulated license. I will not delay you by criti- cising his or any other license plan. The statute-books in forty States are filled with the abortions of thousands of license laws that were never executed, and most of them were never intended to be. We have as good a license law in this State as was ever devised, and yet it leaves sucli an amount of gross, defiant, unblushing grog-selling as discourages Dr. Crosby and leads him to think nothing at all has been done. His own city, with license laws, is yet so ruled and plundered by rum that timid statesmen advise giving up republicanism and borrowing a leaf from Bismarck to help us. License has been tried on the most favorable circum- stances and with the best backing for centuries, ten or twelve, at least; yet Dr. Crosby stands confounded before the result. We have never been allowed to try prohibition, except in one State and in some small cir- cuits. Wherever it has been tried it has succeeded. Friends who know claim this. Enemies, who have been for a dozen years ruining their teeth by biting files, 218 REVIEW OP CROSBY'S " CALM VIEW OF TEMPERANCE." confess it by their lack of argument and lack of facts, except when they invent them. With such a record may we not say that, even if we have no claim to be considered Crosby Christians, we have a right to ask one fair trial of what has, at least, never been, like license, demonstrated a hundred times to be a failure ? LETTER FROM NAPLES. Naples, April 12, 1841. DEAR GARRISON, I have borne very constantly in mind my promise, in London, to write you, but have found nothing in my way which I thought would be of interest ; and these late lines come not as a letter, but only as an excuse. For I know nothing now of in- terest, except, perhaps, the loss of my "Liberators," which the custom-house of his Holiness under the general rule, I believe, forbidding all which has not passed the censorship took from me as I went up to Rome, and which now lie at Civita Vecchia, waiting for me if I ever return that way. 'T is a melancholy tour, tins through Europe ; and I do not understand how any one can return from it without being, in Coleridge's phrase, " a sadder and a wiser man." Every reflecting mind at home must be struck with the many social evils which prevail around ; but the most careless eye cannot avoid seeing the painful contrasts which sadden one here at every step, wealth beyond that of fairy tales, and poverty all bare and starved at its side ; refinement face to face with bar- barism ; cultivation which hardly finds room to be, crowded out on all sides by so much debasement. I have been surprised to find so much faith in Catholicism as seems to exist among the Italians, even those who make what is called the higher classes. Men and women '2'20 LETTER FROM NAPLES. of every rank, and with every appearance of sincerity, really crowd the churches. Amid the regret with which a Protestant witnesses such a fact, there is much to ad- mire in the democratic method of Catholic worship. No " sit-thou-here " and " stand-thou-there " spirit class out the audience ; no hateful honeycomb of pews der forms the church. The beggar in rags, the peasant in his soiled and labor-stained homespun, kneel on the broad marble side by side with fashion and rank, right under the hundred lamps which burn constantly at the high altar of St. Peter's ; and this all unnoticed, and seemingly unconscious of any difference between them- selves and their fellow-worshippers. This is as it should be. Here, at least, Rome preserves the spirit of the early ages. 'T was well said, " I love the ever open door That welcomes to the house of God; I love the wide-spread marble floor, By every foot in freedom trod." One pardons much for such a trait, and I have lost half my dislike to the wearisomely frequent priestly dress, since I have seen it worn by a colored man who mingled freely with those about him, and was not stared at as a monster when he entered the frowning portal of the Propaganda College at Rome. Italy, however, is truly the land where " every pros- pect pleases, and only man is vile." Here one seems really to stand on the matchless shores of that sea where have passed some of the most interesting events in the history of our race. All Europe is, indeed, the treasure-house of rich memories, with every city a shrine. Mayence, the mother of printing and free trade ; Amalfi, with her Pandects, the fountain of law, her compass of commerce, her Masaniello of popular freedom ; Naples, LETTER FROM NAPLES. 221 with her buried satellite of Pompeii ; Florence, with her galaxy of genius ; Rome, whose name is at once history and description, will, indeed, ever he the Meccas of the mind. One must see them to realize the boundless wealth, the luxury, the refinement of art, to which the ancients had attained. The modern world deems itself rich when it gathers up only the fragments. But all the fascinations of art, all the luxuries of modern civili- zation, are no balance to the misery which bad laws and bad religion alike entail on the bulk of the people. The Apollo himself cannot dazzle one blind to the rags, want, and misery which surround him. Nature is not wholly beautiful. For even when she marries a matchless sky to her bay of Naples, the impression is saddened by the presence of degraded and suffering humanity. When you meet in the space of the same street a man encompassed with all the equipage of wealth, and the beggar on whose brow disease and starvation have written broadly his title to your pity, the question is involuntary, Is this a Chris- tian city ? Are both these Christians ? To my mind the answer is, No. In our own country the same contrast exists, but it is not so painfully prominent as here. I hope the discussion of this question of property will not cease till the Church is convinced that, from Christian lips, ownership means nothing but responsibility for the right use of what God has given ; that the title of a needy brother is as sacred as the owner's own, and is infringed upon, too, whenever that owner allows the siren voice of his own tastes to drown the cry of another's necessities. The Woman Question is another topic in which every one who becomes familiar with European customs must, I think, take a still deeper interest than before. Most Americans are shocked to see women engaged in every kind of labor, and doing full one half of the hard 222 LETTER FROM NAPLES. work on the continent, from macadamizing roads up through every kind of agricultural and town work. The last link that is left of the Feudal system hangs on the limbs of woman. The superiority of man, which an age of violence and military organization originated, still sur- vives, even in the lowest classes ; and you never meet a band of peasants by the road-side with a heavy bur- den among them that you do not see it on the head of woman, while the men of the party lounge carelessly along. There is one great advantage in this, though little meant as such. Women are almost, if not en- tirely, as unrestrained in action and choice of pursuit as men ; and this state of things gives us an opportunity of observing how woman's approach to the enjoyment of her rights, even under so many unfavorable circum- stances, affects society. A poor education and false faith of course deeply affect the moral condition of these nations; but making a fair allowance for both, if the testimony of those long resident here may be trusted, this difference of social habits in no degree contributes to render it inferior to our own. The experiment of woman's presence everywhere in social life, of sex de- barring her from no scene, and excusing her from no toil, has been fairly tried in France, Italy, and Ger- many, and its compatibility with good morals and every social good put beyond a doubt. I can give only a trav- eller's impression, with such information as he gathers in passing, and refer especially to those classes whom a kind Providence has obliged to let their own hands minister to their wants. Among others, of course, wealth and idleness produce only corruption. Every hour of life, and especially every step we have taken in these countries, show us more and more the importance of the Woman Question, as it is called. You must not think my long silence has sprung from LETTER FROM NAPLES. 223 any want of interest in the cause. This moral stagna- tion and death here only make us value more highly the stirring arena at home. You live fast, battling for humanity against so many forms of oppression. None know what it is to live till they redeem life from its seeming monotony by laying it a sacrifice on the altar of some great cause. There is more happiness in one such hour than in dwelling forever with the beautiful and grand which Angelo's chisel has redeemed from the " marble chaos," or the pencil of Raphael has given to immortality. Nothing brings back home so pleasantly, or with so much vividness, to Ann, 1 as to see a colored man occasionally in the street ; so you see we are ready to return to our posts in nothing changed. Indeed, there is one view in which I have learned to value my absence. I recognize in some degree the truth of the assertion that associations tend to destroy individual independence ; and I have found difficulty in answering others, however clear my own mind might be, when charged with taking steps which the sober judg- ment of age would regret, with being hurried reck- lessly forward by the enthusiasm of the moment and the excitement of heated meetings. I am glad, there- fore, to have had the opportunity of holding up the cause, with all its incidents and bearings, calmly before my own mind ; of having distance of place perform, as far as possible, the part of distance of years ; of being able to look back, cleared of all excitement, though not I hope of all enthusiasm, by other scenes and studies, upon the course we have taken the last few years ; and having done so, 1 am rejoiced to say that every hour of such thought convinces me more and more of the overwhelming claims our cause has on the life-long devo- tion of each of us ; of the perfect rightfulness, as well as i Mrs Phillips. 224 LETTER FROM NAPLES. fhe expediency, of every step we have taken, while I recognize still more clearly than ever the folly of yield- ing up its mighty interests to prejudices, however sacred, or, on the other hand, of attempting to gain it a temporary success hy sacrificing to it other rights which, whether more or less important, are still rights, and to be sacredly respected ; and I hope to be per- mitted to return to my place, prepared to urge its claims with more earnestness, and to stand fearlessly by it without a doubt of its success. When Paul's " appeal unto Caesar " brought him into this Bay of Naples, he must have seen all its fair shores and jutting headlands covered with bath and villa, imperial palaces and temples of the gods. A prisoner of a despised race, he stood, perhaps for the first time, in the presence of the pomp and luxury of the Roman people. Even amid their ruins, I could not but realize how strong the faith of the Apostle to believe that the message lie bore would triumph alike over their power and their religion. Struggling against priest and people, may we cherish a like faith ! Yours truly, WENDELL PHILLIPS. ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. On Tuesday forenoon, July 28, 1865, the Seventy-Second Annual Festival of the Public Schools of Boston took place in Music Hall. There was, as usual, a densely crowded attendance of the parents and friends of the children. The hall was handsomely decorated for the occasion. The choir of children numbered twelve hundred, under the direction of Mr. Carl Zerrahn. Addresses were made by Mayor Lincoln, Rev. Henry Burroughs, Jr., Hon. Richard H. Dana, and Wendell Phillips, Esq. " I spoke without gesture," Mr. Phillips says, " fearing if I moved a finger. I should topple over on one side and fall into Mayor Lincoln's arms." FALLOW-CITIZENS: I was invited by the Mayor to -T address the scholars of the schools of Boston, but like my friend Mr. Dana, who preceded me, I hardly know in what direction to look in the course of this address for the scholars. I can hardly turn my back on them, nor can I turn my back on you. I shall have to make a compromise, that everlasting refuge of Ameri- cans. [Applause.] I recollect, when I was in college, that when a classmate came upon the stage we could recognize in the audience where the family, the mother, or sister were, by noticing him when he made his first bow. He would look toward them, and they would inva- riably bow in return. By this inevitable sign, I have distinguished many a mother, sister, and father among the audience to-day 15 226 ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. This is the first time for many years that I have participated in a school festival. I have received no invitation since 1824, when I was a little boy in a class in a Latin school, when we were turned out in a grand procession on yonder Common at nine o'clock in the morning. And for what ? Not to hear eloquent music. No; but for the sight of something better than art or music, that thrilled more than eloquence, a sight which should live in the memory forever, the best sight which Boston ever saw, the welcome to Lafayette on his return to this country after an absence of a score of years. I can boast, boys and girls, more than you. I can boast that these eyes have beheld the hero of three revolutions ; this hand has touched the right hand that held up Hancock and Washington. Not all this glorious celebration can equal that glad reception of the nation's benefactor by all that Boston could offer him, a sight of its children. It was a long procession, and, unlike other processions, we started punctually at the hour published. They would not let us wander about, and did not wish us to sit down. I there received my first lesson in hero-worship. I was so tired after four hours' waiting I could scarcely stand. But when I saw him, that glorious old Frenchman ! I could have stood until to-day. Well, now, boys, these were very small times compared with this. Our public examinations were held up in Boylston Hall. I do not believe we ever afforded banners ; I know we never had any music. Now they take the classes out to walk on the Common at eleven o'clock. We were carried out into a small place eight feet by eleven, solid walls on one side and a paling on the other, which looked like a hencoop; there the public Latin scholars recreated themselves. They were very small times compared with these. As Mr. Dana referred to the facilities and opportu- ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. 227 nities that the Boston boys enjoy, I could not but think what it is that makes the efficient man. Not by floating with the current ; you must swim against it to develop strength and power. The danger is that a boy, with all these facilities, books, and libraries, may never make that sturdy scholar, that energetic man, we would wish him to become. When I look on such a scene as this, I go back to the precedent alluded to by you, sir, of him who travelled eighteen miles and worked all day to earn a book, and sat up all night to read it. By the side of me, in the same city of Boston, sat a boy in the Latin School, who bought his dictionary with money earned by picking chestnuts. Do you remember Cobbett, and Frederick Douglas, whose eloquent notes still echo through the land, who learned to read from the posters on the highway ; and Theodore Parker, who laid the foundation of his library with the book for which he spent three weeks in picking berries ? Boys, you will not be moved to action by starvation and want. Where will you get the motive power ? You will have the spur of ambition to be worthy of the fathers who have given you these opportunities. Re- member, boys, what fame it is that you bear up, this old name of Boston ! A certain well-known poet says it is the hub of the universe. Well, this is a gentle and generous satire. In Revolutionary days they talked of the Boston Revolution. When Samuel Johnson wrote his work against the American colonies, it was Boston he ridiculed. When the king could not sleep over night, he got up and muttered " Boston." When the procla- mation of pardon was issued, the only two excepted were the two Boston fanatics, John Hancock and Sam Adams. [Applause.] But what did Boston do ? They sent Hancock to Philadelphia to write his name on the Declaration of Independence in letters large enough, 228 ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. almost, for the king to read on the other side of the ocean. Boston then meant liberty. Come down to forty or fifty years ago. What did Boston mean when the South went mad, and got up a new flag, and said they would put it in Boston on Faneuil Hall ? It was Boston that meant liberty, as Boston had meant inde- pendence. And when our troops went out in the last war, what was it that gave them their superiority ? It was the brains they carried from these schools. When General Butler was stopped near the Relay House with a broken locomotive, he turned to the Eighth regiment, and asked if any one of them could mend it. A private walked out of the ranks, and patted it on the back and said, " I ought to know it ; I made it." When we went down to Charleston, and were kept seven miles off from the city, the Yankees sent down a New Hamp- shire Parrott that would send a two-hundred-pound shot into their midst. The great ability of New England has been proved. Now, boys, the glory of a father is his children. That father has done his work well who has left a child better than himself. The German prayer is, " Lord, grant I may be as well off to-morrow as yesterday ! " No Yankee ever uttered that prayer. He always means that his son shall have a better starting-point in life than himself. The glory of a father is his children. Our fathers made themselves independent seventy or eighty years ago. It remains for us to devote ourselves to liberty and the welfare of others, with the generous willingness to do toward others as we would have others do to us. Now, boys, this is my lesson to you to-day. You cannot be as good as your fathers, unless you are better. You have your fathers' example, the opportunities and advantages they have accumulated, and to be only as good is not enough. You must be better. You must ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. 229 copy only the spirit of your fathers, and not their im- perfections. There was an old Boston merchant, years ago, who wanted a set of china made in Pekin. You know that Boston men sixty years ago looked at both sides of a cent before they spent it, and if they earned twelve cents they would save eleven. He could not spare a whole plate, so he sent a cracked one, and when he received the set, there was a crack in every piece. The Chinese had imitated the pattern exactly. Now, boys, do not imitate us, or there will be a great many cracks. Be better than we. We have invented a telegraph, but what of that ? I expect, if I live forty years, to see a telegraph that will send mes- sages without wire, both ways at the same time. If you do notrinvenTTt, you are not so good as we are. You are bound to go ahead of us. The old London physician said the way to be well was to live on a sixpence, and earn it. That is education under the laws of necessity. We cannot give you that. Underneath you is the ever-watchful hand of city culture and wealth. All the motive we can give you is the name you bear. Bear it nobly ! I was in the West where they partly love and partly hate the Yankee. A man undertook to explain the dif- ference between a watch made in Boston and one made in Chicago. He asked me what I thought of it. I answered him as a Boston man should : " We always do what we undertake to do thoroughly." That is Boston. Boston has sefc the example of doing; do better. Sir Robert Peel said in the last hours of his life : " I have left the Queen's service ; I have held the highest offices in the gift of the Crown ; and now, going out of public life [he had just removed the breadTirom the table], the happiest thought I have is that when the poor man breaks his bread in his cottage, he thanks God that I 230 ADDRESS TO THE BOSTON SCHOOL CHILDREN. ever lived." Fellow-citizens, the warmest compliment I ever heard was breathed into my ears from the lips of a fugitive from South Carolina. In his hovel at home he said : " I thank God for Boston ; and I hope before I die I may tread upon its pavements." Boston has meant liberty and protection. See to it in all coming time, young men and women, you make it stand for good learning, upright character, sturdy love of liberty, willingness to be and do for others as you would have others be and do unto you. But make it, young men and women, make it a dread to every one who seeks to do evil. Make it a home and a refuge for the oppressed of all lands. THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. An address delivered in the Old South Meeting- House, June 4, 1876, and revised by Mr. Phillips. It was in this building that he made his last public address, the tribute to Harriet Martineau, which closes this volume, December 26, 1883. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Why are we here to-day ? Why should this relic, a hundred years old, stir your pulses to-day so keenly ? We sometimes find a community or an individual with their hearts set on some old roof or great scene ; and as we look on, it seems to us an exaggerated feeling, a fond conceit, an unfounded attachment, too emphatic value set on some ancient thing or spot which memory endears to them. But we have a right to-day this year we have a right beyond all question, and with no possibility of exagger- ating the importance of the hour to ask the world itself to pause when this nation completes the first hun- dred years of its life ; because these forty millions of people have at last achieved what no race, no nation, no age hitherto has succeeded in doing. We have founded a republic on the unlimited suffrage of the millions. We have actually worked out the problem that man, as God created him, may be trusted with self-government. We have shown the world that a Church without a bishop, and a State without a king is an actual, real, every-day possibility. Look back over the history of the race ; where will you find a chapter that precedes 232 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. us in that achievement ? Greece had her republics, but they were the republics of one freeman and ten slaves ; and the battle of Marathon was fought by slaves un- chained from the door-posts of their masters' houses. Italy had her republics : they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. She had not risen to a sublime faith in man. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of State to property and education. Arid all these which at their best held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time. A hundred years ago our fathers announced this sub- lime, and, as it seemed then, foolhardy declaration, that God intended all men to be free and equal : all men, without restriction, without qualification, without limit. A hundred years have rolled away since that venturous declaration ; and to-day, with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with forty millions of people, with two wars behind her, with the sublime achievement of having grappled with the fearful disease that threatened her central life and broken four millions of fetters, the great Republic, stronger than ever, launches into the second century of her existence. The history of the world has no such chapter, in its breadth, its depth, its significance, or its bearing on future history. Well may we claim that this centennial year is the baptism of the human race into a new hope for humanity. Are we not entitled, then, coming with the sheaves of such a harvest in our hands, to say to the world, " Behold the blessing of God on our right faith in the human race ! " Well, gentlemen, if that is sober prose, without one tittle of exaggeration, without one fond conceit borrowed from our kindred with the actors or from our birth in these streets, if that is the sober record, with how much THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 233 pride, with what a thrill, with what tender and loyal reverence, may we not hunt up and cherish, and guard from change or desecration, the spot where this marvel- lous enterprise began, the roof under which its first councils were held, where the air still trembles and burns with Otis and Sam Adams ? Except the Holy City, is there any more memorable or sacred place on the face of the earth than the cradle of such a change ? Athens has her Acropolis, but the Greek can point to no such immediate and distinct results. Her influence passes into the web and woof of history mixed with a score of other elements, and it needs a keen eye to follow it. London has her Palace and Tower, and her St. Stephen's Chapel ; but the human race owes her no such memories. France has spots marked by the sublimest devotion ; but the pilgrim- age and the Mecca of the man who believes and hopes for the human race is not to Paris. It is to the seaboard cities of the great Republic. And when the flag was as- sailed, when the merchant waked up from his gain, the scholar from his studies, and the regiments marched one by one through the streets, which were the pavements that thrilled under their footsteps? What walls did they salute as the regimental flags floated by to Gettys- burg and Antietam ? These ! Our boys carried down to the battlefields the memory of State Street and Faneuil Hall and the Old South Church. We had a signal prominence in those early days. It was not our merit ; it was an accident perhaps. But it was a great accident in our favor that the British Parlia- ment chose Boston as the first and prominent object of its wrath. It was on the men of Boston that Lord North visited his revenge. It was our port that was to be shut, and its commerce annihilated. It was Sam Adams and John Hancock who enjoy the everlasting reward of being 234 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. the only names excepted from the royal proclamation of forgiveness. It was only an accident ; but it was an accident which, in the stirring history of the most momentous change the world has seen, placed Boston in the van. Naturally, therefore, in our streets and neighborhood came the ear- liest collision between England and the Colonies. Here Sam Adams, the ablest and ripest statesman God gave to the epoch, forecast those measures which welded thirteen Colonies into one thunderbolt, and launched it at George III. Here Otis magnetized every boy into a desperate rebel. Here the fit successors of Knox and Hugh Peters consecrated their pulpits to the defence of that doctrine of the freedom and sacredness of man which the State borrowed so directly from the Christian Church. The towers of the North Church rallied the farmers to the Lexington and Concord fights ; and these old walls echoed the people's shout, when Adams brought them word that Governor Hutchinson surrendered and withdrew the red-coats. Lingering here still are the echoes of those clashing sabres and jingling spurs that dreamed Warren could be awed to silence. Otis's blood immortalizes State Street, just below where Attucks fell (our first martyr), and just above where zealous patriots made a teapot of the harbor. It was a petty town, of some twenty thousand inhabi- tants ; but " the rays of royal indignation collected upon it served only to illuminate, and could not consume." Almost every one of its houses had a legend. Every public building hid what was treasonable debate, or bore bullet-marks or bloodshed, evidence of royal displeas- ure. It takes a stout heart to step out of a crowd and risk the chances of support when failure is death. The strongest, proudest, most obstinate race and kingdom on one side ; a petty town the assailant, its weapons, THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 235 ideas ; its trust, God and the right ; its old-fashioned men patiently arguing with cannon and regiments ; blood the seal of the debate, and every stone and wall and roof and doorway witness forever of the angry tyrant and sturdy victim. Now, gentlemen, man is not a mere animal, to eat, and sleep, and gain, and lay up, and enjoy, and pass away to his fathers. If we had IXBCII only that ; if the North had been a pedler race, as the South supposed, not willing to risk sixpence for an idea, no Democratic lawyers in yonder Court Street would have shut up their doors, put their keys in their pockets, and asked of Gov- ernor Andrew a commission when that piece of bunting was fired upon near Fort Sumter ! It was only six feet square of cotton ; it was only a few stars and stripes ; it was only an insult offered to the sentiment of twenty millions of people. But it made Democrats and Repub- licans forget their differences, and a million of men crowd down to the Gulf. It was only a sentiment. But what does it feed on ? Ascend one of those lofty build- ings above Chicago, and grow weary in counting her crowd of masts and her miles of warehouses ; and when you have done it, you remember that the sagacity and the thrift of three hundred thousand men have created that great centre of industry, and there comes to your mind, perhaps sooner than anything else, the old lullaby, " How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower." It is industry ; it is thrift ; it is comfort ; it is wealth. But on Bunker Hill let somebody point out to you the church-tower whose lantern told Paul Revere that Mid- dlesex was to be invaded. Search till your eye rests on 236 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. this tiny spire which trembled once when the mock In- dian whoop bade England defiance. There is the elm wh^re Washington first drew his sword. Here Winter Hill, whose cannon-ball struck Brattle-Street Church. At your feet the sod is greener for the blood of Warren, which settled it forever that no more laws were to be made for us in London. The thrill you feel is that sentiment which, in 1862, made twenty million men, who had wrangled for forty years, close up their angry ranks and carry that insulted bunting "to the Gulf," treading down dissensions and prejudices harder to conquer than Confederate cannon. We cannot afford to close any school which teaches such lessons. Go ask the Londoner, crowded into small space, what number of pounds laid down on a square foot, what necessities of business, would induce him to pull down the Tower and build a counting-house on its site ! Go ask Paris what they will take from some business cor- poration for the spot where Mirabeau and Danton, or, later down, Lamartine saved the great flag of the tri- color from being drenched in the blood of their fellow- citizens ! What makes Boston a history ? Not so many men, not so much commerce. It is ideas. You might as well plough it with salt, and remove bodily into the more healthy elevation of Brookline or Dorchester, but for State Street, Faneuil Hall, and the Old South ! What does Boston mean ? Since 1630, the living fibre running through history which owns that name, means jealousy of power, unfettered speech, keen sense of justice, readiness to champion any good cause. That is the Boston Laud suspected, North hated, and the negro loved. If you destroy the scenes Avhich perpetuate that Boston, then rebaptize her Cottonville or Shoetown. Don't belittle these memories ; they lie long hid, but only to grow stronger. You mobbed John Brown meetings THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 237 in 1860, and seemed to forget him in 1861 ; but the boys in blue, led by that very mob, wearing epaulets, marched from State Street to the Gulf, because " John* Brown's soul was marching on." That and the flag only two memories, two sentiments led the ranks. My friend has told you that the church has removed its altar ; we submit. God is not worshipped in temples builded with men's hands ; and when their tower lifted itself in proud beauty to the heavens, and varied stone and rich woods furnished a new shelter for the descend- ants of Eckley, and Prince, and Sewall and the others that worshipped here, the consecration that the Puritans gave these walls to Christ and the Church was annulled. But these walls received as real a consecration when Adams and Otis dedicated them to liberty. We do not come here because there went hence to heaven the prayers of Sewall and Prince and the early saints of the colony. We come to save walls ^that heard and stirred the eloquence of Quincy, that keen blade which so soon wore out the scabbard, determined, "under God, that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, WE WILL DIE FREEMEN ! " These arches will speak to us, as long as they stand, of the sublime and sturdy religious enthusiasm of Adams; of Otis's passionate eloquence and single-hearted devotion ; of Warren in his young genius and enthusiasm ; of a plain, unaffected, but high-souled people who ventured all for a principle, and to transmit to us, unimpaired, the free lips and self-government which they inherited. Above and around us unseen hands have written, " This is the cradle of Civil Liberty, child of earnest religious faith." I will not say it is a nobler consecration ; I will not say that it is a better use. I only say we come here to save what our fathers consecrated to the memories of 238 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. the most successful struggle the race has ever made for the liberties of man. You spend half a million for a schoolhouse. What school so eloquent to educate citi- zens as these walls ? Napoleon turned his Simplon road aside to save a tree Caesar had once mentioned. Won't you turn a street or spare a quarter of an acre to remind boys what sort of men their fathers were ? Think twice before you touch these walls. We are only the world's trustees. The Old South no more belongs to us than Luther's, or Hampden's, or Brutus's name does to Ger- many, England, or Rome. Each and all are held in trust as torchlight guides and inspiration for any man strug- gling for justice, and ready to die for the truth. I went to Chicago more than twenty years ago ; and they showed me the log-house, thirty feet square and twenty feet high, in which the first officer of the United States, the first white man, lived, where now are half a million of human beings. There it nestled amid spa- cious inns, costly warehouses, and luxurious homes. I said to them, " Why not cover it with plate-glass, and let it stand there forever, the cradle of the great city of the lakes ? " But I could not wake any sentiment in that quarter-million of traders ; and the ancestral cabin which, to an anointed eye, measured the vast space be- tween that 1816 and 1856, with its wealth and splendor, passed away. Then I came back here. That same week I found at my door a slave-holder from Arkansas. Singularly enough, in those bitter years, he trusted himself to me as a guide through the historic scenes of Boston. But it shows you how true it is that a prophet has no honor in his own household ; how his reputation grows the farther off you get ! Well, the first place I took him to was the house of John Hancock, We as- cended those steps. 1 had learned from his talk, that, on that frontier where he was born, he had never seen a THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 239 building older than twenty-five years. As we stood under that balcony, which some of you may remember, he turned to me and said, " Is it actually true that the man who signed the Declaration of Independence stood on this flagstone, and lifted that latch ? " I said, " Yes, sir ; and above you, his body lay in state for some six or eight days." The man sat down on the flagstone, wholly unnerved, his face pale with emotion. Said he, " You must excuse me ; but 1 never felt as I feel to-day.'* That was Boston revealing to an every-day life the pa- triotism and nobleness smothered by petty cares. He came to our streets to wake that throb in his nature ; he grew a better man and a more chivalrous citizen when that thrill answered to the memory of the first signer of the Declaration. Gentlemen, these walls are the college for such train- ing. The saving of this landmark is the best monu- ment you can erect to the nien of the Revolution. You spend forty thousand dollars here, and twenty thousand dollars there, to put up a statue of some old hero ; you want your son to gaze on the nearest approach to the features of those "dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." But what is a statue of Cicero compared to standing where your voice echoes from pillar and wall that actually heard his philippics ! How much better than a picture of John Brown is the sight of that Blue Ridge which filled his eye, when, riding to the scaffold, he said calmly to his jailer, " This is a beautiful country ; I never noticed it before." Destroy every portrait of Luther, if you must, but save that terrible chamber where he fought with the Devil, and translated the Bible. Scholars have grown old and blind, striving to 240 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. put their hands on the very spot where bold men spoke, or brave men died ; shall we tear in pieces the roof that actually trembled to the words which made us a nation ? It is impossible not to believe, if the spirits above us are permitted to know what passes in this terrestrial sphere, that Adams and Warren and Otis are to-day bending over us, asking that the scene of their immortal labors shall not be desecrated or blotted from the sight of men. Consecrate it again, in the worship and memory of a people ! Consecrate it, in order that, if another rebel- lion breaks out against the flag ; if our young men need once more to have their hearts quickened to the sublime significance of the Republic which protects them ; if once more we must rally flags and marshal ranks for the protection of liberty, the young men shall be able to look up to Faneuil Hall and the Old State House and these walls, as a quickening inspiration, before they leave these streets to go down and show themselves worthy of their fathers. Let these walls stand, if only to remind us that, in those days, Adams and Otis, advo- cates of the newest and extremest liberty, found their sturdiest allies in the pulpit ; that our Revolution was so much a crusade that the Church led the van. Summon it again, ye venerable walls, to its true place in the world's toil for good ! Give us May hews and Coopers again ; and let the children of the Pilgrims show that religious conviction, veneration for " the great of old," and a stern purpose that our flag shall everv- where and always mean justice, are a threefold cord holding this nation together, never to be broken. We have a great future before us, how grand, human forecast cannot measure, yes, a great future endan- gered by many and grave perils. Our way out of these, faith believes in, but mortal eye cannot see. It is wisdom to summon every ally, to save every possible THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 241 help. Educate the people to noble purpose. Lift them to the level of the highest motive. Enforce by every possible appeal the influence of the finest elements of our nature. Let the great ideas self-respect, free- dom, justice, self-sacrifice help each man to tread the body under his feet. This worship of great memories, noble deeds, sacred places, the poetry of history, is one of the keenest ripeners of such elements. Seize greedily on every chance to save and emphasize these. Give me a people freshly and tenderly alive to sucli influences, and I will laugh at money-rings or dema- gogues armed with sensual temptations. Men marvelled at the uprising which hurled slavery to the dust. It was young men who dreamed dreams over patriot graves, - enthusiasts wrapped in memories ! Marble, gold, and granite are not real ; the only actual reality is an idea. Gentlemen, I remember, Mr. Chairman, you will re- member, also, that some six months ago the mayor and aldermen debated how they should use some eigh- teen or twenty thousand dollars left them by Jonathan Phillips to ornament the streets of Boston ; and then the city government decided and decided very properly - that they could do no better with that money than place before the people a statue of the great mayor, Josiah Quincy, to whom this city owes so much. It was a very worthy vote under those circumstances ; but if the great mayor were living to-day, he would be here with the Massachusetts yes, he would be here, Mr. Chairman, with the Massachusetts Historical Society in his right hand, and the Mechanic Association in the other, and he would protest against the use of a dollar of that money for his personal honor until it had been first used to save this immortal legacy. I wish that I had a voice in that aldermanic corps ; 1 would propose, with no 16 242 THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. discredit to the great mayor let no one tear a leaf from his well-earned laurels ! but it was the mechanics of Boston that threw tea into the dock ; it was the me- chanics of Boston that held up the hands of Sam Adams ; it was the mechanics of Boston, Paul Revere one of them, that made the Green Dragon immortal, and I would take that eighteen thousand dollars and add fifty thou- sand more, and let the city preserve this building as a Mechanics' Exchange for all time. The merchants have their gilded room, fit gathering place for consultations ; but the men that carried us through the Revolution, caulkers ! why, some men think we borrowed caucus from their name ! the men that carried us through the Revolution were the mechanics of Boston. Where do they gather to-day ? On the sidewalks and pavements of Court Street, in the open air ! We owe them a debt, in memory of what this grand movement, in its cradle, owed to them. I would ally the Green Dragon Tavern and the Sons of Liberty with the Old South, the grand- sons, and great grandsons, and representatives of the men who made the bulk of that meeting before which Hutchinson quailed, and Colonel Dalrymple put on his hat and left the Council Chamber. It w r as the message of the mechanics of Boston that Sam Adams carried to the governor and to Congress. They sent him to Salem and Philadelphia ; they lifted and held him up till even purblind George III. could distinguish his ablest opposer, and learned to hate with discrimination. Shelter them under this roof; consecrate it in its original form to a grand public use for the common run of the people, the bone and muscle. It will be the normal school of politics. It will be the best civil-service reform agency that the Republican party can adopt and use to-day. THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 243 The influence of these old walls will prevent men, if anything can, from becoming the tools of corruption or tyranny. " Recall every day one good thought, read one line line," says the German Shakspeare. Yes ; let every man's daily walk catch one ray of golden light, and his pulse throb once each day nobly, as he passes these walls ! No gold, no greed, can canker the heart of such a people. Once in their hands, neither need, greed, nor the clamor for wider streets will ever desecrate what Adams and Warren and Otis made sacred to the liberties of THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. I. Address at the New England Antislavery Convention at the Melo- deon, Boston, May 28-30, 1850. A clergyman by the name of Cor- liss having expressed his fears that some of the advocates of the slaves were lacking in a due appreciation of the Bible, and were therefore tending toward infidelity, Mr. Phillips rose and said : I WISH to say one word in regard to the remarks which have been addressed to us, in order that the Antislavery enterprise may stand aright before this au- dience. It might be judged from the tone of the last speaker, that the Abolitionists see an enemy and an ob- stacle in the Bible. He has been entreating us to have greater regard for the Bible. He has been endeavoring to impress upon us reverence for that book. You might draw the inference that we needed such entreaties. Now, in behalf of the Abolitionists, let me say, we have nothing to do with the Bible in regard to its merits or its faults, except in one point : does it sustain or rebuke slavery ? If any speaker wanders beyond that, he speaks on his own responsibility ; he speaks that for which this society is not amenable. Perhaps it may be impossible for him to avoid expressing his private opinion of the Bible as to other points, in the course of illustrating some Antislavery topic. Yet you are to take them as illustrations. And when my friend Foster introduced THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 245 some speculations of his own, on other points than slavery, he had no right to do it otherwise than as illustrations. Now, the friend who has just spoken will, I think, grant us this, that no speaker, unless it be Mr. Foster, has wandered beyond the just limits of Antislavery dis- cussion ; that our Antislavery speakers have never yet allowed that the Bible sustained slavery ; that we have felt no need, therefore, to throw it overboard. And al- though we may put the question like my friend Wright, What would you do in certain circumstances? let it be remembered that the Antislavery enterprise puts such circumstances as merely fictitious, hypothetical, and claims the Bible on its own side. [Prolonged applause.] Remember, that although we feel there is enough in mere humanity, without the Bible, to condemn slavery ; that the verdict against it is so self-evident as to destroy the title of any book to be thought inspired which sanc- tions such a system, still we, so far from bringing any such accusation against the Bible, have always claimed it in behalf of justice and liberty. It is from Moses Stuart, it is from Daniel Webster, it is from the Church and the politicians, that this attack on the Bible comes, and not from us. [Loud cheers.] I know I am repeat- ing things abundantly well known to all our friends ; but it is often the result of such speeches as we have just heard, that the audience go away under a wrong im- pression. I contend that everything that has been said, that the principles of these resolutions, that the sub- stratum of all that has been spoken, all claim the Bible as a basis ; and that, confident the Bible is on our side, we will not be forced into any position of seeming hostility to it. We have issues enough with this community. Because the clergy of our little day and neighborhood pervert the Scriptures, shall that make us disbelieve 246 THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. them ? No matter for the texts : enough for us to know that on every field where justice has triumphed, the Bible has led the van ; that tyrants in every age have hated it ; humanity, in every step of its progress, has caught watchwords from its pages. Freedom of thought was won by those who would read it in spite of Popes ; freedom of speech by those who would expound it in defiance of Laud. Luther and Savonarola, Howard and Oberlin, Fnelon and Wilberforce, Puritan and Hugue- not, Covenanter and Quaker, all hugged it to their breasts. It was to print the Bible that bold men fought for the liberty of the press. When the oppressor hurries to place it in every cottage, when the slave-holder labors that his slave may be able to read it, then will we begin to believe that Isaiah struggled to rivet " every yoke,'* that Paul was opposed to giving every man that which is just and equal, and that the New Testament was written to " strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees " of tottering iniquities. But not till then shall a few petty priests shut us out from sympathy with, and confidence in, the noble army of martyrs and the glorious company of the Apostles. Not till then shall the Stuarts and Waylands, with their little black gowns, hide from us the burning light of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. What though, holding up the Book, they cry, " See here and look there, note these specks on the sun ; " we know still it is the sun, and astronomy tells us that what is dark there to-day will perhaps be brightness and living light to-morrow. So with the Bible. What though, here and there, there should be isolated texts which look inconsistent with the great spirit which informs the whole ; coming years, we know, will show them, like spots on the sun, all bright with the splendid effulgence of Infinite Love. Shall an ambiguous line in Timothy cover up the whole THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 247 Sermon on the Mount ? No ! we still claim the Bible ; and, bad as the American Church is, it will take all its cunning and craft to make us doubt the purity of Jesus or the humanity of Paul. Let those lock up the Bible who fear it ; our prayer is, May it find its way into the hovel of every slave and into the heart of every legislator in the land ! Our original at- tempt was this, to show that the Bible and Christianity repudiate slavery. For a long time, in one unbroken phalanx, the so-called Christian Church denounced such a statement as infidelity ; and from Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, we had the un- broken testimony of the Church that the Bible was pro- slavery. Now the Church is divided. We have Henry Ward Beecher against Moses Stuart ; we have Albert Barnes against Leonard Woods. The time was when the Recorder, and the religious press, claimed, with the New York Observer, that until you could mend the Constitution, you must mind it. We have urged our principles until we have scared up William H. Seward, and pitted him against Daniel Web- ster. [Great applause.] We have found persons who are willing " to bewray not him that wandereth." And therefore it can never be often enough repeated, that when the question comes as to Christianity itself, not to American Christianity ; to the Bible itself, not to the Bible in the glass of Moses Stuart, that the Aboli- tionist holds on to the Bible as his, with his right hand and with his left hand. And I wish you to go away with that conviction, spite of the remonstrances which I think have been unnecessarily, however sincerely, made to us. 248 THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. n. From an address at Music Hall before the Twenty-Eighth Congre- gational Society, Sunday, April 24, 1859. Bible is a record of the religious history of the 1 Jews. It is a record of the struggle, as all history seems to be, between the conservative and the progres- sive elements in society ; between the element which believes, and the element which distrusts ; between the element which reaches forward, and the element which is contented with the present ; between the element which eats its bread in selfishness, and the element which seeks to raise itself and its fellows by sounding on and on in the great ocean of living thought. It has two sides, the priesthood and the prophets ; and although the word " people " is sometimes used in a general sense, yet both Testaments taken together represent the strug- gle betwixt the established and progressing, between the priesthood and the prophets. I want to read you this morning, the description which God gives of both, partly in words, partly in action. [Mr. Phillips then read one or two passages from the Old Testament, and said : ] If you have heard of a church where a man could say, after a quarter of a century of experience, "I lived a life of worldliness and trickery ; I stood in the market-place and let out my gift of persuasion to shield the guilty, and throw dust in the eyes of the judge, to turn the murderer out into society, and make black crime look like white justice ; and I went into the church, and heard nothing of it, and the next day I went out into the world to do the same deeds in the week to come, and remem- THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 249 bered nothing that I had heard," to such a church the language of the Lord is, " Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you : they make you vain ; they speak a vision of their own heart ; they steal every one words from his neighbor. Is not my word like as a fire ? saith the Lord : and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ? " The other side of the picture is found in such passages as this, " Think not I am come to send peace on the earth : I am not come to send peace, but a sword." I stand, if with one exception, then only one, in the only Christian church in the city. I stand in the pulpit from which, 1 verily think, the ear of God has listened to more Christian truth, within a dozen years, than from any or all of the pulpits of Boston put together. I stand in the place of one whose great offence was that he practised what he preached. He dared to take his torch, and flare it in the face of the public and recognized creeds. He differed but little, at the outset, from the faith of the Unitarians that he saw around him ; but he pronounced the word " Liberty " and Unitarianism vanished with a shriek ! He found himself alone, with God's sky above him, and the world for an audience. They said, " He is a reckless man, he tells all he knows. He is a rash man, he utters all he thinks." If he were, I should say with the old divine, when divinity meant something, u Thank God for a rash man once in a quarter of a cen- tury ! " They said, " He shall not have the sounding- board of Brattle Street, nor the walls of Chauncy Place for an audience ; " and when they denied him these, they gave him the Rocky Mountains for a sounding- board, and the heart of every hopeful and oppressed man for an audience. You and I are called " infidels," which means, merely, that we do not submit our necks to yokes. But, men 250 THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. and women, brothers and sisters, if your gathering here has done no other good, it has done this, what was the New England Church, in its ideal, has come to be a mere yoke in which the awakened religious life was fastened, and it became a spiritual slavery, so that all the machineries of outside life were brought to bear as if for the manufacture of hypocrites. It lias become the outer shed of the factory, the appendage of the shop, the rich man's kitchen. It contents itself with the police- man's duty of blinding the eyes of the working-men, and striving to make them contented. The undertone of its preaching is the clink of the dollar. I have studied the history of the New England Church ; I know what the world owes to Calvinism, to the pulpit ; I have no wish to tear a leaf from its laurels ; its history is written and sealed, but God knows that, within the last thirty years, the ecclesiastical machinery of New Eng- land has manufactured hypocrisy just as really as Lowell manufactures cotton. The Pope himself, with all the ingenuity of a succession of the most astute intellects that Christendom has known, could not have devised machinery more exactly suited to crush free thought, and to make each man a sham. It was never more plainly shown than in an article published in one of the papers of the day, which arrogates to itself a semi-reli- gious character, the Boston Traveller of the 13th of April. It refers to Dr. Kirk's sermon on " Infidel Phil- anthropy." What a title ! " Infidel Philanthropy " ! Black white; moist dry; hot cold; "Infidel Philan- thropy " ! There was a Man once who said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." The beloved disciple said, " He that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how shall he love God, whom he hath not seen ?" " In- fidel loving your brother ! " The writer in the Traveller says : THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 251 " We have not unfrequently thought that the combination of infidel philanthropy, angry political violence, and religious devotion which has been enlisted against slavery, was the cause of the ill success which has thus far befallen this work. . . . 44 We hardly know how to speak in fitting terms, in the brief space which is allotted to our editorial column, of the theoretical and practical infidelity of the present da}*. It certainty presents an entirely different phase from that which was witnessed in the days of Paine and Voltaire and their associates. Instead of the ribald rj*, sensuality, and blas- phemy of that day, it presents to us now seriousness, philan- throp}', and religion." When Paul " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come, Felix trembled." When infi- delity reasons of "seriousness, philanthropy, and religion" the Felix of the day has a right to tremble. But how blind the writer must be ! As if the Church of God was a place, and not a power ! Why, when the news of this great experiment in the West Indies came to this coun- try, as your preacher tells it, the infidels asked, " Is the man temperate ? Does he love his brother and not shed his blood ? Does he respect his wife ? Does he teach his children?" and the Church asked, " Does he make as much rum as he did before ? Are there as many hogsheads of sugar exported from Jamaica ? Show me the statistics ! " God said, " Justice ! When I founded the universe, I saw to it that right should be profitable." Infidelity said, " Amen ! I cannot see, but I believe." The Church said, " Prove it ! " THE PULPIT. A Discourse before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Music Hall, November 18, 1860. I AM going to use the hour you lend me this morning in speaking of the pulpit. Not that I expect to say anything new to you who have statedly frequented these seats for many years ; but the subject commends itself to my interest just at this moment when we all feel so earnestly the propriety and the duty of endeavoring to perpetuate this legacy of Theodore Parker. This pulpit, there are two elements which distin- guish it from all other pulpits in New England, which distinguish it emphatically from all other pulpits in the city. One is this : you allow it to be occupied by men and by women, by black men and white men, by the clergy and by laymen. That is a very short statement, and seemingly a very simple one ; but how vast an in- terval of progress is measured by the extent of that sim- ple statement! It seems to me the first, the very first time that the central idea of New England has gotten expression ; for if there be anything that lies at the very root of New England moral life, it is a protest against the idea of a priesthood, a select class, set apart with peculiar authority, and capable, and they alone, of pecu- liar functions. Our churches have drifted away from the old idea ; but New England was the vanguard of that Protestant protest against the idea of a priest, the idea THE PULPIT. 253 that the laying on of hands, or the consent of a brother- hood of peculiar devotion, could so set apart one indivi- dual as to make him more capable of certain functions, or more entitled to instruct. You, it seems to me, are the first who have boldly faced the ultimate consequences of that principle. Congregationalism blossoms in its " bright, consummate flower " here. 1 feel a peculiar in- terest in this principle. The first man, if you will allow me to go back for a moment, the first man who bore my name this side of the ocean, said to his church at Water- town, when they proceeded to induct him to office be- cause of his calling in England, " If they would have him stand minister by that calling which he received from the prelates in England, he would leave them." When, a year later, Governor Winthrop went to Water- town to settle certain dissensions there, the church said to him, " If you come as a magistrate you have no busi- ness here ; if you come with authority from the court we have no business with you ; if you come as friends from a neighbor church you are welcome." That was a fair representation of the original spirit of New England. When you initiated your church, you remembered it. Down to the present moment it has grown and unfolded, until at last you stand here with a platform which re- cognizes nothing but moral purpose ; which ignores, sex, race, profession ; which goes down to the central root of the pulpit, a moral purpose, and says, practically, Whoever can help us in that is welcome here. The second element that distinguishes you is, no creed. You have remembered another great philosophical prin- ciple, that men never can unite on metaphysics. The human machine cannot beat time in unison with a mil- lion of others. Charles V., when he endeavored to crowd Europe into one creed, and resigned, tried, you remember, to make a dozen watches beat time together, 254 THE PULPIT. and failed. Then he said, " What a fool I have been all my life, trying to make a million of minds beat time to- gether ! " But there is one thing which can melt multi- tudes together, which can make a million of men one. It is not metaphysics, it is not dogma, but it is purpose, the same which moulds a political party into one thun- derbolt, the same which at all times aggregates men, travelling over different routes, and actuated by different motives, to one single end. You are not as new in that as your enemies would have it believed ; for it is a singular but forgotten fact that the first churches in New England, the first three in this city, and the general church throughout New England at its earliest day, had no statement of doctrine in their creeds. They confined themselves to a simple statement of purpose ; for our fathers did not attempt to refine, they felt, which has always been the strength of all ages, and obeying, with simple, childlike loyalty, that instinctive feeling, they shaped their churches to serve their age. You are in that but the descendants, the legitimate children of New England ideas. Not that I think it necessary to prove that Protestantism sustains us, but simply to show that the ignorance and short-sight- edness of critics fail to see that you are not an abnormal monster, but the normal growth of New England progress. I should spend the whole hour that you give me if I in- sisted, as it deserves, on this first or this second element of your difference from the churches about you, but it is enough to state them. Let us look now for a moment at the essence of the pulpit, and in order to that, in a moment, I will read you my text. There is no mystery about a pulpit. There is no necessary connection between a church and a pulpit, a very common mistake. You may have as much or as little of a church as you please. I believe in THE PULPIT. .255 more of a church than most of you do. I think the ex- perience of centuries has shown that an organization of men for the culture of what you may consider the reli- gious sentiment and devotional feeling, the unfolding of these two elements of our nature, is a good thing. I think that to a certain extent the " ordinances " of what are called churches are good. Understand me, I would never join one of those petty despotisms which usurp in our day the name of a Christian Church. I would never put my neck into that yoke of ignorance and supersti- tion led by a Yankee Pope, and give my good name as a football for their spleen and bigotry. That lesson I learned of my father long before boyhood ceased. I could never see any essential difference between the one portentjjous Roman Pope and the thousand petty ones who ape him in our pulpits. In the fervor of the Reforma- tion, men dreamed they were getting rid of the claim to infallibility and the right to excommunicate. But the Protestant Church, in consequence of the original sin of its constitution, soon lapsed into the same dogmatism and despotism. Indeed, Macaulay does not seem to believe that there ever was any real intent in the Reformers to surrender these prerogatives. " The scheme was," he says, " merely to rob the Babylonian enchantress of her ornaments, to transfer the cup of her sorceries to other hands, spilling as little as possible by the way" But I quite agree with the last speaker who occupied this desk, Mr. Sanborn of Concord, when he intimated the emi- nent utility, perhaps necessity, of a pastor in the full sense of that term. The many needs of your daily domestic life in which he could aid you are evident. But a pulpit has no connection with a church. The Roman Catholic Church, which makes seven sacraments and bases her whole religious life and purpose upon sacraments, gives very little or no importance whatever 256 THE PULPIT. to the pulpit. For centuries she had no pulpit. They are totally distinct elements, the devotional and the mor- ally intellectual. The pulpit springs into being when- ever there is an earthquake in society, whenever the great intellectual heavens are broken up, and men be- gin to shape their purposes and plans anew. Whenever a nation is passing through a transition period in its thought, then the pulpit springs into being and special value. The priesthood of Solomon's Temple was one thing ; that was a church. The prophets, Jeremiah and Isaiah, were a totally distinct body, and they were a pul- pit. The pulpit, therefore, you perceive by this very statement, must shape itself according to its time. Its object is not distinctly to educate, as we most often use that w T ord. Here is the division of the spheres of educa- tion. The theatre amuses, the press instructs, the pul- pit improves. Education with the motive of moral pur- pose is the essence of the pulpit. That element has always existed. Let me glance a moment at its different forms, and then come down to ours. Among the Jews, what you read in the last half of the Old Testament, that is a pulpit. It covered everything ; it covered politics, national manners, the thoughts, sins, and customs of the day. Everything that made the in- tellect of Judea, Isaiah and Jeremiah touched upon. Their diocese was as broad as conscience, no matter how broad those limits were. If you went to Greece, Greece had two instruments of education. She had the theatre, and she had the public assembly, like our legislature. There being no books, that is, not enough to need men- tioning, and a very small circle of learned men in the academy, the people got what ideas they did get from the theatre on the one side, and from the orators' dis- cussion of national affairs, on the other ; and the effect of that method was, that neither the one nor the other THE PULPIT. 257 had a distinctly moral purpose. The theatre was amuse- ment, was intellect : politics was success, no broader than Athens, to make the Greek keep the Barbarian under his feet; the means, war, that was the end of politics. When Christianity came she had to fight her way against the customs, the fashion, and the intellect of Rome. Instantly she leaped into the pulpit, and her sons preached. The Apostles preached ; all the early ages preached. The last half of the New Testament, the letters of the Fathers, everything that has come down to us from the first three centuries, is controversial ; it is aggressive ; it is an attempt to dislodge one idea and plant another. It was done. When it was done, the age went to sleep in its hermitage ; it went to sleep in senti- ment, and the pulpit died. Luther sprang into existence. He wanted to wake the mind of the people from its long dream of a holiness that abounded in emotions ; he wanted to plant an intellectual vigor of thought. In- stantly he seized the pulpit ; and during that age the pulpit covered everything that we call the newspaper- press, literature, politics, religion. Luther wrote upon everything, he spoke upon everything; and so did his compeers. There was no question, public or private, that the pulpit did not deal with. That was the secret of its influence ; it was a live man speaking to men alive on all live questions. Now we come down to our day. We have things that call themselves pulpits. And here I want to read you my text. It consists of an extract from an apology of the Rev. Dr. Ellis, of Charlestown, for the stupidity of the pulpit. You observe that a clergyman never steps into an ordinary meeting and takes the platform, that, one half the time he does not commence his remarks by saying, by way of relief to his audience, " I am not going to impose a sermon on you." As if a sermon was 17 258 THE PULPIT. the last ounce that would break the camel's back. Now I am going to read the remarks of one of the ablest men of the Unitarian denomination, standing in what pro- fesses to be, and what is the most influential spot that an intellectual man can occupy in our age, a spot to which men look up with instinctive and passive rever- ence, ready to accept its tenets almost without examina- tion ; one whose vocation is to deal with everything that can stir the very depths of our nature ; one who speaks to us on the themes that make the blood tingle, and which make life worth living ; an able man in an able place, on the most momentous of all themes. He says : 44 It will not do to make the pulpit talents of the preacher the main motive-impulse of attraction to the meeting-house on Sunday. Our New England people, especially, have been fall- ing into an error here, and the interests of religious institutions among us are feeling the effects of it. The courses of lyceum and miscellaneous lectures, which are provided for annually in our cities and towns, enlist the services of a few gifted men of extraordinar} T popular talents, who seize upon fasci- nating subjects and treat them with a fantastic skill, and so are listened to with a lively interest by mixed and sometimes crowded audiences. These men picked out of the whole mass of cultivated, scholarly, or eloquent writers and speak- ers in our communities have a whole }-ear for the composi- tion of one of their lectures. The}' learn what is the popular taste, and they adapt themselves to it, not always trying or helping to improve it Some of their lectures are not really half so good or sensible or instructive as ordinary sermons. If you were to take them apart, you could not put them together again. Occasionally they are positively unwhole- some and mischievous. But these lectures, such as they are, indicate and help to fix a standard for public discourses. People get the names of a few speakers or racy lecturers on their lips, and are apt to judge of common preaching as it THE PULPIT. 259 compares with the lively talk and discursive essays of these itinerants. They call preaching dull and commonplace by comparison. And so it is ; just as a corn-field or grain-field or potato- field or any other spread of acres covered with substantial food or fodder of daily life, is dull in comparison with a little garden patch of peonies, marigold, and poppies, pinks, and coxcombs. If some of these tyceum attendants could only overhear the secret banter of two or three itinerant lecturers, as to the sort of stuff which takes with the people, the homoeopathic doses of sound wisdom and the lavish mix- ture of light nutriment which suits the popular fancy, perhaps such hearers might not be flattered by the information. No\v, it may as well be confessed that the preacher of weekly sermons cannot treat the commonplace themes of sober and homely truth so as to tickle itching ears. Alto- gether too much is expected of preaching ; and that preaching which many like most to hear does them the least benefit." Now, that is half truth, and a half truth often does as much harm as a whole lie. It is no doubt true that you cannot take a platform, and let successively a dozen of the ablest men in the community occupy it, without making it more attractive than the same platform occu- pied continuously by one able man ; but it is not true that the lyceum owes its interest to the " sparkling talk and lively rattle " of its lecturers. It is not true that the pulpit may trace its weakness to the " commonplace treatment of sober and homely truth." Let me show you this. The " Mercantile Library Association " of this city for years engaged almost the same men that you do to occupy the platform of its lyceum course. That lyceum course is dead and buried ; yours still lives. Not because you have gotten better men, abler men, with more " sparklfng talk and lively rattle " than they have. Theodore Parker did not fill these walls because of his un- matched pulpit talent. It was because all that he thought, 260 THE PULPIT. all that he planned, all that he read, all that he lived, he brought here. All the great topics that make the court, the street, the caucus, life, interesting to you, he brought here. All that makes your life a life he brought here. That is what gives interest to this pulpit. If we go to see the androides as we used to when we were children which can haul a wheelbarrow out, and water a plot of ground, and whip the children, and strike the hour of the day on the clock, we do nut go more than once ; in once we have seen all that they can do. The moment the world realizes that the pulpit has a limit which it cannot pass ; that they are not seeing a man there, but the puppet of something behind ; that when you have seen the performance once or twice you have gauged the extent, sounded the bottom, men do not go more than twice, unless attracted by some rare rhetorical gift, as they crowded long ago to hear Everett read the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians in Brattle-Street Church, the same as some hang night after night on the same words from Kean or Rachel ; unless they go from the motive of example, from a sense of duty, from an idea of supporting the religious institutions of their times, as Coleridge, you know, said he found, on inquiry, that four fifths of the people who attended his preaching at- tended from a sense of duty to the other fifth. Now, that is not a pulpit, in the sense of being able to keep the mind of an age. Mark me, I am not speaking in any bitterness toward the pulpit. I have no more bit- terness than the municipality of Paris has when it cuts down an old street in order to make a new thoroughfare. My opinion is, that the age, in order to get all its advan- tage from the pulpit, needs a new type of the pulpit. Look at our life ! The press, flooding us e"very day with ideas ; the theatre, open to very serious objections, yet sometimes lifting the people by addressing its love of THE PULPIT. 261 amusement, which is a beautiful, necessary, and useful part of our nature ; on the other side, government, ener- gizing the elements of popular life into greater extent of being than they ever had before, by committing to the masses the great questions of the age ; business, taking up the four corners of the globe, feeding nations, chang- ing the current of commerce, supplying wants, creating wants. Side by side with these stands an instrumentality of education which does not advance a whit, which does not attempt to make the life of the nation its business. Henry Ward Beecher said last week in his pulpit that the Antislavery enterprise was not owing in any degree to the Church ; that it had its origin, its life, its strength outside of the Church. What a confession ! You know yourselves, that in regard to two thirds of these pulpits in Boston, no man who sits beneath them ever expects to learn, or does learn, his duty, as a voter, for instance. Take the single question of the position of woman, on the result of which hangs the moral condition of New York. On a law to be passed by the legislature hangs the right of the laboring mother to the possession of her wages ; out of that grows the welfare of the child, care of its training, preservation of home, the lessening of temptation, the drying up of the great cancer of social life. It is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, moral question of our day. I certainly should not exaggerate if I said that a man might attend ninety-nine out of a hundred pulpits from here to New Orleans, and he would never have his course as a voter on that question enlight- ened or directed, or have one motive addressed to him, not one. I might take Temperance, I might take any other of the great social questions of the day, and you would know, as I do, that the last place where a man would have his moral nature awakened and melted would be 262 THE PULPIT. the pulpits of this city. It is not my business now to complain of them ; I am not here to find fault with them. They do as well as they can ; they fulfil their contract. They exist for a different purpose. The fault is not in the tenant of the pulpit ; the fault is in that corrupt sentiment which belittles the pulpit, which sup- poses that it comes with " homely and sober truth," meaning by that, that it comes with something that everybody has heard a thousand times, and is tired of hearing ; that it comes with something that a man sub- mits to hear, but has no interest in hearing. Of course their real and great sin is, that while conscious of this inherent slavery of their position, they still pretend to be independent in thought and speech, to speak unfet- tered, and, as some claim and many believe, by exclusive right, for God. I affirm, with no bitterness of spirit, but as an Amer- ican interested in the great machinery that is to create the future, I affirm that the pulpit of this country, ten- anted though it is by some of the best educated and some of the ablest men in the country, does not hold the helm of the intellectual life of America. It does not guide the thought, as it did in the early ages of New England. It has a momentous influence, but it is only through dread and awe. It has made the masses afraid to think. It has told them that thought is infidelity, that intellectual activity is ruin ; and they look up to it, thinking that stupidity is heaven, that chaining thought is agreeable to God, that suicide of the mind is doing honor to the Maker who gave us mind ; and having drilled the people into that superstition, the pulpit broods over it like a nightmare ; but it does not lead them. There are clergymen who lead the thought of their time, but they do not lead it through the pulpit, they lead it through the press, through reviews. Thev throw off the THE PULPIT. 263 shackles when they get into the Christian Examiner, into the North American Review, or into any other of the channels of active life. But the sin of this pulpit is, that it permits you to think. Now, I value the Sunday for this, it is one step toward intellect. The Devil invented work, I mean forced work. Heaven is leisure. When we clutched a day and gave it to the mind, we just redeemed one seventh of the time from the Devil, and gave it to God. You may use that in two ways. You may use it as a mere intellectual instrumentality ; but the mere culture of the intellect does not make a man. Take a common man and teach him to read ; lift him up into intellectual life, as the newspaper does, as the review does ; and take him in the mass, he will not murder, he will not rob, he will not knock a man down in the highway, the crimes of violence will decrease ; but he will steal, he will cheat on the Stock Exchange. The channel of the intellect becomes the channel in which his character and nature move. Now, the world has reached that point. The press has done its work marvellously well. Politics has done its work ; it has taken the vassal and lifted him up into a voter ; it has taken the mere plodder in the ditch and lifted him up into a man whose thought makes in- dustry gainful and wealth more safe. So far you have done a great deal. Now what you want in addition is a literature that has a moral purpose, that is, you want a pulpit. In order to that, it must cover the whole sphere of intellectual life, sanitary questions, social questions, health of the body, marriage, slavery, labor, the owning of land, temperance, the laws of society, the condition of woman, the nature of government, the re- sponsibility to law, the right of a majority, how far a minority need to yield. All these arc the moral questions of our day, riot 264 THE PULPIT. metaphysics, not dogmas. Hindostan settled these thou- sands of years ago. Christianity did not bury itself in the pit of Oriental metaphysics ; neither did it shroud itself in the hermitage of Italian emotion. The pulpit is not, as seen in the north-west of Europe and in this country, a thing built up of mahogany and paint and pray- ers. It is the life of an earnest man ; it is the example of the citizen, the reformer, the thinker, the man, who means to hold up, help, broaden, and unfold his brother. That is a pulpit ; and that is the reason you and I owe it to the community in which we live to perpetuate such a pulpit as this. You observe, you cannot get the ultimate and entire good from such an institution when you confine its functions to a class, when you set apart a certain body of men to minister at it. In the first place, that is a priesthood, the esprit de corps instantly comes into existence, and they begin to plot against their neighbors. In the next place, they cannot know life. No one can know life except from suffering. A man cannot argue the Woman Question. Literary men never do justice to the wrongs or duties of women. We know nothing of slavery ; we never shall know it until God's hand sweeps the strings of four millions of broken hearts, and lets us hear from the plantations of the Southern half of this nation. It is in the protest of men ground down under some wrong principle that the world learns the depth and the extent of right. It is only, therefore, by putting into this desk women as well as men, all races, all professions, that you will sound the diapason of man's moral and intellectual nature. And that is what has been done in every great moving age. The early idea of Christianity was that of a free church. What is the meaning of those directions in ivhich the Apostles said, " Let your women keep silence THE PULPIT. 265 in the churches"? Do you not see without going into the nature of that command that it is evident from the very prohibition that everybody was in the habit of speak- ing, men and women, every one that sat in the church ? The early Church was not like the Catskill Falls, where, when you crawl up to see them, a man pulls away a board and lets the water down. It was Niagara, poured by God's hand from a million of voices and a million of hearts. Everybody spoke. The purposes, the wants, the thoughts, the hopes of every Christian man bubbled up to the sur- face. Now there are practical difficulties in the way of that. Our ideal is to stand midway. Men do not go to a caucus in Faneuil Hall from the idea of example. A man does not say to his wife, " My dear, I am going down to Faneuil Hall to-night in order to hold up the institutions of the country. If I don't go, my neighbors won't do their duty ; I am sorry to waste the hour, but I must do it and set a good example to my children." He goes, because his heart is there half an hour before he is. He goes, because he cannot stay away ; because there are live men there who are making his cradle safer ; who, with earnest blows on the hot iron of the present, are to shape his future. He goes to share in the great struggle, and glow in the electric confjict. You do not need to have societies to preach to men the duty of going to Faneuil Hall. That organ plays itself. The real pulpit does not need Dr. Ellis's apology. It can hold its own against the lyceum. " Lively talk and sparkling rattle " are not what most deeply interests the human heart. One earnest sentence will scatter all the " lively rattle " that ever came from countless lyceum lecturers. Thousands crowd to listen to the man who appeals to his fellows, saying, " Brothers, I find great suffering, help me to cure it ; I find great darkness, 266 THE PULPIT. help me to enlighten it. I find one half the race bowed down by injustice of which we have never been conscious ; lift them up. I seek a faithful, spotless church; let us find or make it. I see men only half conscious of the vice or the injustice that herds them with brutes ; let us inspire them with manhood." That is a pulpit. That is what I would have you continue here. I see that in order to do that it is necessary we should breast for a time the prejudice of a community which thinks that an example like yours is uprooting what are called, emphatically and particularly, the reli- gious institutions of the country ; but that it seems to me is founded in this mistake. More than half the world is always afraid to use the liberty God gives it. You see this want of faith cropping out on all sides. One man is in favor of a strong government. He wants somebody to hold everybody else. Why ? Because although he does not confess it, he thinks that the world is made up of children. You go into a church, and somebody is afraid of having all the truth told. Why ? He cannot trust men to hear it. Men are children. They are to be put under guardianship ; they are to be hoodwinked ; they are not to be trusted with the life God gave them, or all the truth he shows to his saints. In fact we are exactly in this condition. One quarter of the community is awake, alive ; there is another quar- ter that pretends to be awake ; and the other half are afraid of everybody that is awake. It is just that last half which dreads the opening of this hall on Sunday. They dread that men should come here and try to lift up the moral purpose of the city of Boston on every question that can make Boston a happier, purer, better city to live in. They are afraid to trust you with the whole truth in religion or in politics, even with all they think truth. I remember Theodore Parker told me that once in a meet- THE PULPIT. 267 ing of Unitarian clergymen, the head of that sect lec- tured the assembly on the danger of not believing in the miracles. Mr. Parker saw that the lesson was intended for him, and after saying so, he added, " Now let me ask you, Dr. , do you believe in the miraculous con- ception ? " A solemn silence followed. The priest re- fused to answer. " He knew," continued Mr. Parker to me, " that if he said he did not, he would show lie had no right to lecture me ; if he said he did, three fourths of his audience would think him a fool, though all feared to tell their people as much." No worse priestcraft nightmares Rome. I do not believe that " the whole of truth ever did harm to the whole of virtue." I believe that the way God intends to educate a community is by throwing broadcast the truth, as far as He shows it to any man living at the time. There may be here and there a single man to whom it will do harm ; but as a general thing, in the long result, in the great average, the seed falls on good ground, raises higher the life, enlarges the thought, strengthens the virtue, and deepens the manhood of those who hear it. I wish, therefore, a pulpit like this, wholly unfettered. The reason why Dr. Ellis has to apologize for the pulpit is simply this. It is a melancholy truth, and it is a truth which seems harsh in the saying, but it is a true saying, and it is one necessary that somebody should say, that, instead of being a moral agency, an intellectual instrumentality in one half the New England towns, the pulpit is merely an appendage to the factory. The min- ister is just as much employed to preach, as the opera- tive is to tend the loom. The owner of the works as truly settles the length of the pastor's tether as that owner does the amount of water which it is prudent to allow on the dam. The extent of his authority, the amount of his freedom, the depth of his intellect, are all 268 THE PULPIT. bought and paid for. There is a class of men who go and look up to him, conceiving that he tells them all he thinks, and for a while they live contented. But in fact, the master-hand of that wealth which commands the town, as much decides the quality of the preaching on Sundays as he does the fineness of the cloth made week- days. It is merely the jugglery of wealth ; merely the reflection of that same unlimited power that now, through all the avocations of life, seem so to control us. You know this as well as I do. Now, that sort of pulpit ought not to have any in- fluence. It needs an apology. The lyceum is Jesus of Nazareth casting out its devil ; and it is natural that such a preacher should say to the lyceum lecturer, " Why dost thou torment me before my time ?" To the dead body, you know, the first movement of blood and the first element of returning life is exquisite pain ; so to the mind dwarfed and fettered by such a pulpit, the first entering of a thought endeavoring, with magnetic and electric circles, to new-arrange society, is exquisite pain. Jt ought to be. There is a class of women which is a fair gauge of the influence of this sort of pulpit. Shut out as women are from politics, and absorbed as this particular class is in petty cares during the week, the pulpit is all their liter- ature. Notice how narrow and timid is their range of thought, how borrowed are all their ideas, how real their dread of some sect or person to whom or to which the pas- tor has given a bad name, how unaffected their anxiety when some man of the family breaks out into daring difference with the minister ! In fact, their minds are a blurred photograph of the dwarfed, fossil, shrunken, and stunted creed the priest has substituted for the brain God gave him. The quiet disdain with which practical men receive THE PULPIT. 269 an argument on any topic drawn from the opinions of such a pulpit, shows the real place it fills in our great national school. " Go home," I once heard a deacon, sixty years old, sitting as judge in a criminal court, say to a clergyman of his own denomination who offered a suggestion as to the amount of punishment proper for a convict, " Go home and write your sermons ; we '11 take care of the world." Such a sneer our city pulpits have earned. As Cardinal Wolsey wrote to the Pope, three centuries ago, '* This printing will give rise to sects ; and besides other dangers, the common people at last may come to believe that there is not so much use for a clergy ! " They have come to believe so. They do believe rightly that there 's no use in a clergy who echo their hearers' prejudices, mile-stones indicating exactly how far the old stage-coach has travelled ; who eschew live questions : that is, truth of importance to the pass- ing hour, lest taking sides on them should injure their influence on dead ones, that is, topics which felt the hot blood of two hundred years ago, but now are as well settled as gravitation and the cause of the tides; priests who affect to believe that their hearers, masters of literature, cannot safely bear the whole truth their gigantic minds have discovered, to whom a stormy and unscrupulous life could pay the compliment that the pew had always been to him a place of repose. But this is not what our pulpit should be in New England. I do not believe in a civilization which is to be a vassal to the industrial energy of society. I do not believe that our nature and race have fallen so low that wealth really will canker the whole of it. A pulpit representing moral energy, announcing its purpose to deal with each question as it arises, to trust the popular conscience, and say, " If God gave you that, take it ; it is no responsibility of mine ; " such a pulpit will put wealth 270 THE PULPIT. where it belongs, under its feet. It was to such a pulpit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts went two centuries ago on every great political question, and sat at its feet. Why the time was when the government and the House of Representatives in this very colony, requested the clergymen to assemble on a great political crisis in the city of Boston, and tell them what to do. " Political preaching," forsooth ! Then the pulpit was broad enough to cover the whole intellectual and moral life of the peo- ple. It went exactly as far as conscience goes, and therefore it lived. That is what you have done here, nothing more. The ordinary pulpit is completely described by the angry parishioner who told John Pier'pont that he was u employed to preach Unitarianism, not Temperance." Our idea of a pulpit is, that wherever a moral purpose dictates earnest words to make our neighbor a better man and better citizen, to clear the clogged channels of life, to lift it to a higher level or form it on a better model, there is a pulpit. Such a pulpit as this is perfectly con- sistent with the most Orthodox creed. It may have baptism and the sacrament ; it may have seven sacra- ments, if it chooses. This desk has nothing to do with ecclesiasticism. It is a mere accidental adjunct of Sunday. It is only something which the mind of Protestantism seized upon as the most convenient instrumentality, and it showed essential good sense in seizing it. The news- paper cannot rebuke its customer ; the writer of a book wants it to sell ; the man who devotes himself to preach- ing knows that he has a family growing up about him, and is naturally tempted to preach pleasant things, and not true things, for he cannot afford to starve. It is no fault of his. You cannot starve ; and you have no right to ask of him what you cannot do. But if you say, " Welcome any man to this pulpit who has a new idea THE PULPIT. 271 to give us, a new moral plan to propose to us, a better way to suggest, a sin to rebuke, a nation to create, a statute-book to tear asunder, a corrupt custom to assail," you get at least one of the elements of pulpit usefulness, Independence. The other is, Capacity. What is this desk ? There is no mystery in it. You want thought, growing out of moral purpose, and a man who dares to speak it ; and then you have a pul- pit. But you take an able man from Harvard College, with five languages and three philosophies, and tell him : " Teach Unitarianism ; if you teach us anything else, go ! Read the Bible, teach from it, preach from it ; but beware lest you find anything in it that the Christian Examiner does not approve ! " Of what use listening to the preaching of such a man ? You have contracted beforehand that he shall tell you nothing you do not already know. I alluded to the fact that the clergy have education. They know enough. They have the culture of all ages garnered in those brains of theirs. The only diffi- culty is the habitual caution which treads on eggs without breaking the shells. In the very last Christian Examiner, the representative of the freest of all the sects, and perhaps I should do no injustice to the others if I were to say that it represents the widest culture of all the sects, there is an article on Woman's Rights. It cannot afford to do justice to the scarred and able-headed pioneers who, sacrificing themselves to public ridicule and disgust, have made with their bodies the firm ground upon which the writer treads, and have given him ideas and the courage to utter them ; but it is obliged to say that it sees no use in Woman's Rights Conventions and outside agitation, etc. To be sure not, except to supply those pages to which timid respectability looks up, sure that the Scribes and Pharisees have already believed 272 THE PULPIT. whatever it finds written there, except to supply such pages with brains and heart. Now, you wanted that writer in his own pulpit, ten years ago, to do from the height of a revered, trusted, loved pulpit that which " like a thunder-storm against the breeze," men of no repute and of few opportunities, and in small audiences have been doing for ten years. To be sure, his idea that agitation was needless is like the clown in the old classic play two thousand years ago, who, seeing a man bring down with an arrow an eagle floating in the blue ether above, said, " You need not have wasted that arrow, the fall would have killed him." And we shall certainly succeed. Here we are out- voted ; here we are fanatics ; and here we are persecuted. But persecution is only want of faith. When a man does not believe what he says he does, he persecutes the man who contradicts him ; when he does believe it, he sits quiet. But all the great thinkers, all the broad minds of Europe, are on our side. Just now two names occur to me, Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, per- haps two of the largest brains in Europe, two of the profoundest thinkers, and yet from their works I could cull sentence after sentence that would indorse every sentiment you would hear in a twelvemonth from this pulpit, organized as I have sketched it. The thinkers and the doers, the men that stand close to the popular heart, and the men sitting still and calm in the Aca- demy, agree. The upper and the nether mill-stone have said, " Let it come to pass ! " and we shall grind up con- servatism between us. The craving of the popular mind for truth, the opening in America for a wider in- tellectual and moral battle, taking into its bosom the seed which the Master who bestows thought is ready to plant, between us two, we shall make in this very THE PULPIT. 273 community in which we live, long before the middle- aged of us are in our graves, those dead desks vocal with what the people need. If not for their own pur- poses, then in self-defence, to save their own ground which we are clutching from them, they shall preach upon everything. We will so affirm upon all possible questions that they shall at least deny, and out of that affirmation and denial will come discussion and agita- tion, which make the worth of the pulpit. Theodore Parker's life is funded in Ids books, his ex- ample, and this pulpit his creation. I beseech you, there- fore, if your life enables you to do anything for the very best interests of this community, see to it that by every effort in your power, not merely out of grateful, affec- tionate memory of one whose life is imaged in the insti- tution which consecrates this roof every Sunday, not out of mere love for the only child that Theodore Parker has left to our guardianship, but out of the broader motive of setting an example for the United States ; of shaming the pulpit into independence ; of holding up in weaker com- munities, by the grandeur and respectability of your ex- ample, similar institutions to this ; of making the pulpit both caucus and newspaper, literature and college, Bible and moral purpose, to the millions who are asking its guid- ance, perpetuate this pulpit here, under the beneficial and beneficent influence of a meeting, stated, always to be found, gathering strength every hour that it lives, sub- duing the community into respect. Give us a spot where every new idea of New England can announce itself from this place to the Mississippi. I would rather every other pulpit in Boston should die out than this. I should deem that we had lost one of the largest waves on the shore, if we lost such an institution as this. We have conquered a peace. To the farthest West this pulpit is quoted. The man who sighs under some unwonted oppression on the 18 274 THE PULPIT. shores of the great lakes, on the other side of Mason and Dixon's line, thinks of this free hall in Boston, and thanks God that he lias an advocate. Every unpopular truth remembers you, and takes courage ; and the time will come when the dwarfed souls in these other build- ings, who look up and are not fed, who dare not think, who dread their own intellect as a sin, will come to you and learn to live. Whenever brutal prejudice tramples on right, here shall it find fitting rebuke. Whenever law, masking tyranny, drives weak men and wicked to some damned deed, here shall they see held up fearlessly their hideous image. When great interests clashing in a storm make stout hearts quail, and startled routine rushes blindly to some infamous submission, bartering right for safety; while all other desks are silent, and the vassal press gives no certain sound, here shall the truth, the utter truth, rebuke low interest to its right place, lash the sin plated with gold, and plead the cause of justice against cruel and selfish gain. Against slave-hunters and mobs, against bigots and time-servers, against cravens and priests, against things wicked, only borne because old, against fashionable sins and profitable errors, we pro- claim war. How necessary that the trade or bigot rid- den city, in some hour of forced abasement, when honest hearts swell, silent but indignant, should feel, "Music Hall will file a true record and utter the fitting word." This is our Faneuil Hall, now that patriotism means plunder ; this is our college, now that only what is old and Greek is deemed true or safe. The canvass of the last three months, how valuable it is ! You are a canvass every seventh day, and on a higher standpoint, with no necessity to pander to the prejudices or evils of the time. God's unalloyed truth from every lip, welcome it ! A church without a creed, THE PULPIT. 275 a constant rotation of sects to speak to you, the moral purpose of the whole Union at your service, if you gain nothing else from it, brothers. I think it was a Unitarian critic, a member of a church whose right to the name of u church " every other sect denies, that said of you, " Theodore Parker did not leave a church, he only left a ' Fraternity.' " The great Master said, " One is your Master, and all ye are brethren." I do not know what better name could be taken by His fol- lowers than " Fraternity." If you gain nothing else from your pulpit, you will gain this, courage. You will unfold in your natures a courage to listen to every man. You will be able to say to yourselves, " I know I am right, I know why I am right, and I dare to listen to the best that any man can say against me," and that is the corner-stone of char- acter, which is better than intellect ; that is the corner- stone of manhood, which is next to Godhood, and the nearest that we can come to it. CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. A discourse at the thirteenth Sunday afternoon meeting, Horticul- tural Hall, Boston, April 11, 1869. TO tell the truth, the subject is one not very familiar to my beaten path of thought, and I am present rather at the urgency of the Committee to take a share in the discussion of the topics for which the doors were opened, than from any earnest wish of my own. But still I should be ashamed to say, after having lived thirty years of active life in a community stirred as ours has been, that I have not some suggestions to offer on a topic so vital as the one which 1 have named. Every man who has lived thoughtfully in the midst of the great issues that have been struggling for attention and settlement ; every man who has striven to rouse to action the elemental forces of society and civilization 1 which ought to grapple with these problems, must have had his thoughts turned often, constantly, to the nature of Christianity itself, and to the part which it ought to claim, to the place which it really occupies, amid the great elements which are to mould our future. There is a great deal of talk about Christianity as the mere reflection of the morals and intellect of the -passing age ; as something which may be made to take any form, assume any principle, direct itself against any point, at the bidding of the spirit of its individual age. It is CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 277 looked upon as an ephemeral result, not as a perma- nent cause; and when viewed as such, men very natu- rally class it with the other religions of the world, which have all been results, not causes, effects, not sources of action. As I look at Christianity in its relation to absolute religion, religion the science of duty to our- selves, to our fellows, and to God, as I look at Chris- tianity in reference to religion, I want to say at the out- set that it, for me, occupies an entirely distinct place, an entirely different level from any other of what are called or have been the religions of the world. If you go to the East, for the last three thousand years you find a religion the reflection of its civilization, the outgrowth of its thought, steeped in its animal life, dragged down by all its animal temptations, rotted through with license, with cruelty, with all that grows out of the abnormal relation of the body to the soul. And the only distinctive element in this outburst of Hindoo religions, Buddha and Brahma too, the only redeem- ing point is a sort of exceptional intellectual life, which busied itself exclusively with the future ; which strug- gled to plan and shape life, and mould it on the princi- ple that to be like God, you were to trample out all human affection and interests, thought, duties, and relations ; and the moment you became utterly passion- less, without thought, without interest in aught external, you were godlike, absorbed into the Infinite and ready for the hereafter. The only thing remarkable in these Asiatic religions is that they were infinitely below the popular level of morality and intelligence, while intellectually they busied themselves with nothing but the future state ; not in one single thought or effort or plan or method with man as God places him on the surface of this planet. And it was a religion so much the actual result of the moral 278 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. and intellectual life, so moonlike a reflection, that in due time, after a century or two, society in Hindostan was infinitely better than its religion. I know, of course, of the bright gems of thought that glisten here and there on their sacred pages, original, perhaps ; interpolated nobody can say when, possibly ; but, whether so or not, exceptions to the broad, popular estimate of the religion of the age. That was in itself so weak, so poor, so immoral, so degraded, so animal, that any social system in Hindo- stan which had not been better than its gods, would have rotted out from inherent corruption. I repudiate utterly and indignantly the supposition that in any sense Chris- tianity is to be grouped with the religious demonstra- tions of Asia. If you cross the Straits and come to the fair humani- ties of ancient Greece, to the classic mythology which gave us the civilization of Greece, the same general truth obtains. The mythology of the age was so liter- ally and utterly a mere reflex of its earliest civilization, that the finest specimens of human life find no prototype at all in the religion of the classic epochs. Where in the Greek mythology do you find any prototype for the nobleness of Socrates or the integrity of Cato ? If Athens and Rome had not been far better than Olympus, neither empire would have survived long enough to have given us Phocion, Demosthenes, or Cato. Religion is the soul of which society and civil polity are the body, and when you bring forward the excep- tional lives of thoughtful men, living either in Greece or on the banks of the Ganges, as a measure of the religion of their age and country, I reject it ; for I go out into the streets of both continents to ask what is the broad result grouping a dozen centuries together of the great religious force which always, in some form or other, underlies every social development ; and when CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 279 I seek it either in Greece or Asia or Mahomet, I find a civilization of caste, exclusively a civilization of animal supremacy, a civilization in itself natural, not wholly useless, but superficial, grovelling, and short-lived. In a world covered over with this religious experience, out of a world lying in murky ignorance, except where one or two points like Athens and some old cities of Asia towered out of it by an intellectual life, all at once there started up a system which we call Christianity; the outgrowth of the narrowest, and, as the world supposed, the most degraded tribe of human beings that occupied its surface. I am not going to touch on its doctrines, because I do not believe that it has many doctrines. 1 do not believe that out of the New Testament you can, by any torture of ingenuity, make a creed. I do not believe that the New Testament intended that you should make a creed. The sneer of the infidel is that you may get anything out of the New Testament. It is like the napkin in the hands of a juggler. It can be made to assume many shapes, church-towers, rabbit's- head, baby's-cradle, but it is a napkin still. When you torture the New Testament into Calvinism or Roman- ism or Catholicism or Universalism or Unitarianism, it is nothing but the New Testament after all. There are certain great principles inherent in Chris- tianity, as a religious and an intellectual movement, that distinguish it from all others, judging in two ways, either by the fair current of its records or by the fruit of its existence. There are two ways of judging Christian- ity, one to open its records, and the other tojrace Eu- rope and its hUtory under the influence of Christianity. I wish to call attention to two or three principles of Christianity which are not included in any other reli- gious system, and the first is the principle of sacrifice. " Bear ye one another's burdens " is the cardinal prin- 280 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. ciple that underlies Christianity. All other religions allow that the strong have the right to use the weak. Like Darwin's principle of philosophy, the best, the strongest, the educated, the powerful, have the right to have the world to themselves, and to absorb the less privileged in their enjoyable career. Carlyle represents that element in modern literature. Christianity ignores it in its central principle. Wealth, health, and knowl- edge are a trust. " If any man be chief among you, let 1 x , him be your servant." If you know anything, commum^ k .^ cate it. Whatever you hold, it is not yours. See that you make yourself the servant of the weakness of your age. God in his Providence, to which Christ gave us the key, is the mover of the ages, has always been dragging down the great, and lifting up the poor ; and Christian- ity was the first testimony of religion which recognized the decree of Providence, that the greater is the servant of the lesser. Again, Christianity endeavors to reform the world by ideas. There is not such another attempt in the history of the race. There is nowhere a single religious leader that ever said, " I will remodel the world, and I will remodel it by thought." Christianity not only trusts itself to the mind, to the supremacy of the soul, but it is aggressive on that line. It not only says, with every thoughtful man, the mind is stronger than the body, but the Saviour says, u Go out and preach the Gospel to every creature." The great AGITATOR of the centuries is Jesus Christ of Jerusalem, who undertook to found his power on an idea, and at the same time to announce his faith and to teach his disciples, " this idea shall remould the world." No other religion has attempted it ; no other religious leader has proclaimed any such purpose, plan, or faith. NOT A DREAM. 281 Christianity has another element that distinguishes it from all religions. It does not appeal to education ; it does not appeal to caste ; it does not appeal to culture and the disciplined mind, in that century or in any other. To the poor the Gospel is preached. Chris- tianity did not condescend to the lowest ignorance ; it selected the lowest ignorance as the depositary of its trust. Some one has said, " Christianity is the highest wisdom condescending to the lowest ignorance." That is an insufficient statement. Christ intrusted his gospel to the poor, to the common-sense of the race, to the instincts of human nature. He turned away from San- hedrim and school ; from Pharisee, who was observance, and Sadducee, who was sceptical inquiry, and called to his side the unlearned ; planted the seeds of his empire in the masses^ no caste, no college, no " inside " clique of adepts, and no " outside" herd of dupes. Christ proclaimed spiritual equality and brotherhood. You see in the Bible that the Saviour was considered a babbler, a disorganizer, a pestilent fellow, a stirrer-up of sedition. All the names that have been bestowed on men that ever- came to turn the world upside down were heaped upon that leader of Christianity in the streets of Jerusalem. If he should come to-day into.tftese streets, as he stood up in the corners of the streets of Jerusalem and arraigned tfce Cfiurch and State of his day, he would be denied and crucified exactly as he was in the streets of Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago. This is a most singular and unique characteristic of Christianity. It did not affect the schools ; it did not ask the indorsement of the Academy of Plato ; rtjvent to the people ; it trusted the human race. It said, " I am as immortal as man. I accept human nature, and the evidence of my divinity will be that every suc- cessive development of a fact of human nature will come 282 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. back here and find its key." Christianity says, " I leave my record with the instincts of the race. The accu- mulating evidence of my divine mission shall be that nowhere can the race travel, under no climate, in the midst of no circumstances, can it develop anything of which I have not offered beforehand the explanation and the key." The fourth element peculiar to Christianity is its ideal of woman. In all civilization as in every individual case, in all times as well as in all men, this rule holds : The level of a man's spiritual life, and the spiritual life of an age, is exactly this, its ideal of woman. No matter where you test society, what its intellectual or moral development, the idea that it has held of woman is the measure and test of the progress it has made. The black woman in the South holds in her hands to-day the social reconstruction of half the Union. The black man of the South holds its material and industrial future ; its spiritual and moral possibility lies in the place which woman shall compel her fellow-beings to accord her in their ideas in the future. So, wherever you go, into Asia or Greece, the idea that each religion held of woman is a test of its absolute spiritual truth and life. Chris- tianity is the only religion that ever accorded to woman her true place in the Providence of God. It is excep- tional ; it is antagonistic to the whole spirit of the age. The elements I have named are those which distinguish Christianity. Is Christianity an inspired faith or not ? Shakspeare and Plato tower above the intellectual level of their times like the peaks of Teneriffe and Mont Blanc. We look at them, and it seems impossible to measure the interval that separates them from the intellectual development around them. But if this Jewish boy in that era of the world, in Palestine, with the Ganges on CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 283 one side of him and the Olympus of Athens on the other, ever produced a religion with these four elements, he towers so far above Shakspeare and Plato that the difference hetween Shakspeare and Plato and their times, in the comparison, becomes an imperceptible wrinkle on the surface of the earth. I think it a greater credulity to believe that there ever was a man so much superior to Athens and to England as this Jewish youth was, if he was a mere man, than it is to believe that in the fulness of time a higher wisdom than was ever vouchsafed to a human being undertook to tell the human race the secret by which it could lift itself to a higher plane of moral and intellectual existence. I have weighed Christianity as the great and vital and elemental force which underlies Europe, to which we are indebted for European civilization. I have endeav- ored to measure its strength, to estimate its permanence, to analyze its elements ; and if they ever came from the unassisted brain of one uneducated Jew, while Shaks- peare is admirable, and Plato is admirable, and Goethe is admirable, this Jewish boy takes a higher level ; he is marvellous, wonderful ; he^is in himself a miracle. The miracles he wrought are nothing to the miracle he was, if at that era and that condition of the world he in- vented Christianity. Whately says, " To disbelieve is to believe." I^cannot^ be so credulous as to believe that any mere man invented Christianity. Until you show me some loving heart that has felt more profoundly, some strong brain that, even with the aid of his example, has thought further and added something to religion, I must still use my common-sense and say, No man did all this. I know Buddha's protest, and what he is said to have tried to do. To all that my answer is, India past and present. In testing ideas and elemental forces, if you give them centuries to work in, success is the only 284 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. criterion. " By their fruits " is an inspired rule, not yet half understood and appreciated. Our religion was never yet at peace with its age. Ours is the only faith whose first teacher and eleven out of his twelve original disciples died martyrs to their ideas. There is no other faith whose first teacher was not cherished and deified. The proof that some mighty power took possession of this Jewish mind, and lifted it up above, and flung it against its age, is that he himself and eleven of his twelve first dis- ciples forfeited, to the age, their lives for the message they brought. I put aside all the tenets of the Sermon on the Mount, the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man; all the gleams which the noblest intellects of the classic and Asiatic world undoubtedly had of the truth. That is not it. A man who says that Christianity is but the outgrowth of a human intellect must explain to me Europe as she stands to-day, the intelligence, morality, and civilization of Europe as compared with the Asiatic civilization which has died out. Asiatic civilization failed from no lack of intellectual vigor or development. Tocqueville shows us that all the social problems and questions that agitate Europe and America to-day were debated to rags in Hindostan ages ago. Every one knows that Saracen Spain outshone all the rest of Europe for three or four centuries. The force wanting was a spiritual one. Body and brain, without soul, Asia rotted away. From Confucius to Cicero there is light enough but no heat. If this is the essence of Christianity, what is our duty in view of it ? A large proportion of the men who dis- cuss radical religion, as well as Orthodox religionists, mistake the essence of Christianity for speculation. We have an immense amount of speculation as to the nature CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 285 of God, the soul's relation to God, the essence of the soul, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the nature of sin, and the characteristics of another state. It seems to me that most of that is dream and re very. The marvel of the New Testament is that when you read it through, only about one line in four touches upon any such problems. There is very little of it there. Christianity does not attempt to teach us any of this metaphysics. The glimpses it gives us of it are all accidental, indirect, in passing along. All through the New Testament it is not the future life and the essence of the soul that are dwelt on ; it is the problems that make up the society of to-day. Open your New Testament, and you will be surprised to find the comparative, the relative amount that there is on the one topic to what there is on the other. While bishops were discussing the metaphys- ics of the soul, and German theologians were dividing brains, Christianity was writing its record by the pen of Beccaria, when he taught Europe a better system of penal laws. I remember, of course, the duty and value of prayer ; the place devotion has ; the need all human nature has for meditation and self-culture. But viewed broadly, and noting the distinctive nature of Christian- ity, when Voltaire thundered across Europe in defence of Calais, struggling for rational religion, he was nearer to the heart of Christ than Jeremy Taylor when he wrote his eloquent and most religious essays, " Holy Living and Dying." Bating some human imperfections, tram- pling under foot his personal vices, and remembering only his large service to his race, when even that name of all names which the Christian has been taught to hate, when even Thomas Paine went into the other world he was much more likely to be received with " Well done, good and faithful servant ! " than many a bishop who died under an English mitre. 286 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. There are two classes of philanthropists ; one allevi- ates and the other cures. There is one class of philan- thropists that undertakes when a man commits an evil to help him out of it. There is another class that en- deavors to abolish the temptation. The first is senti- timent, the last is Christianity. The religion of to-day has too many pulpits. Men say we have not churches enough. We have too many. Two hundred thousand men in New York never enter a church. There is not room. Thank God for that ! If there are two hundred thousand Christian men in New York that cannot get into a church, all the better. They do not need to enter. Christianity never intended the pulpit in the guise in which we have it. In yonder college, do they keep boys for seventy years on their hands, lecturing to them on science ? When Agassiz has taught his pupils fully, he sends them out to learn by practice. Of these fifty or sixty pulpits in this city, we don't need more than ten or twenty. They will ac- commodate all who should hear preaching. The rest should be in the State prison talking to the inmates ; they should be in North Street, laboring there among the poor and depraved. Their worship should be putting their gifts to use, not sitting down and hearing for the hundredth time a repetition of arguments against theft. There will never be any practical Christianity until we cease to teach it, and let men begin to learn by practice. You never saw a Quaker pauper ; because the moment a Quaker begins to fail, the better influences surround and besiege him, help him over the shallows, strengthen his purpose, watch his steps, hold up the weary hands and feeble knees, and see to it that lie never falls so low as to be a pauper. Break down these narrow Quaker walls, and let your Christianity model a world on the finer elements of that sect! CHRISTIANITY A . BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 287 I would not have so many pulpits. " I 'm not going to inflict a sermon on you," says your generously con- siderate friend. What a testimony ! You should go to church when you absolutely need a message; you should go as the old Christian did, who went to pray and then off to his work. The existence of a poor class in a Christian community is an evidence that it is not a Christian community. There ought to he no perma- nently poor class in a Christian community. " Bear ye one another's burdens." Who shall so slander society as to say that there is not enough wealth to lift up its poverty ? We never look at our duty in this respect. Christianity goes round amid the institutions of the world and stamps each as sin. Fashion cries, No ; wealth says, It shall not be ; and churches work to prevent it, but by and by the whole crashes down. Christianity marked slavery as sin one hundred years ago. You may go to England and find blue-books that might be piled up as high as Bunker Hill, which were written by intelligent committees, set to inquire whether it is safe to do right. The principle of truth was there car- ried out, however, and culminated with Wilberforce, as he carried up eight hundred thousand broken fetters to God. [Mr. Phillips read an extract from an article in one of the most religious of our daily papers, in 1861, in which it was stated that the struggle between the North and the Soutli might go on with such bitterness that we should be obliged to emancipate the slaves. The article said : " The ordeal was one m which hypocritical philan- thropists and bigoted religionists might exult, but from which genuine Christianity would pray most earnestly that the nation might be saved."] Every man in political life now will say that he knew for years that slavery was wrong, but he did n't think it best to say so. Christianity says, " Whatever God tells 288 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. you, don't look back to see if there 's a man standing on your level who cannot see it ; walk forward and tell what God has told you." Christianity does n't reside in metaphysics. You won't find it in some of the most brilliant articles of The Radical, or in the stern creed of Andover ; but you will find it in the Peace Society, the Temperance organization, in prison discipline, in Anti- slavery, in Woman's Rights, in the eight-hour movement. Some may smile at that ; but the man who recognizes the right of every laboring man, and shows that he knows he has a soul, is nearer Christianity than he who can discuss all the points of the Godhead, live he either at Concord or any where else. But there is more real, essential Christianity at Concord than sleeps under a score of steeples. [Mr. Phillips spoke of his recent argument before the legislative committee on the Labor Question, and said that while he endeavored to show that the working-men should have better opportunities to improve themselves physically, socially, morally, and spiritually, with the aid of more leisure, and thus secure a better civilization, the only consideration that could be expected to have weight with the committee was this : You must show that a man can do as much work in eight as he can in ten hours.] In a recent speech before an audience of three thou- sand people in New York, I alluded to the governor's argument that alcohol was " food," and had nutritive properties as well as beef. Without consulting authori- ties, if alcohol is food, and any one will prove to me that beef causes two thirds of the pauperism and crime in the community, then I demand the prohibition of beef. One half of my audience started at the fanaticism, and even the platform trembled at the audacity of such a claim. But Paul, the ever-blessed fanatic and agitator, CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 289 once said, " If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth." I believe in the regeneration of the world through Christianity. We are in a transition state. Christianity is moving forward to fresh triumphs ; but there will never be a union of thought. You never can get the Methodist to stand side by side with the Calvinist, and the conservative and the radical to read the New Testa- ment in the light of the same interpretation. It is _a__ purpose and an opportunity, not a creed, that will unite Christianity; a benevolent movement, not* an intellectual effort, that will ever make a seamless garment of the Christian Church. If John Stuart Mill, who rejects the four Gospels, shall agitate Europe, and so the working- men shall be lifted from the pit they now occupy, a pit which is worse than any hell Calvin ever im- agined, then I shall say that Lord Shaftesbury is a dreamer, and John Stuart Mill the apostolic successor of Saint Paul. " By their fruits ye shall know them," said the Master. Wherever a chain is broken, wherever a ray of light is admitted, wherever a noble purpose is struggling, wherever an obstacle is removed, there is Christianity. There may be mummies hidden in the churches ; meta- physicians dividing the truth according to the north or north-western side of a hair, but they will never be cru- cified ; never have the Pharisees and Sadducees fretting that their time is come ; they will never have the devils of their age asking to be sent into the swine. We don't know Jesus, and no man would know him if he came to- day. We imagine that he was a respectable, sentimental, decorous, moderate, careful, conservative element, who took a hall and was decently surrounded. He was the se- dition of the streets. He said to wealth, " You are rob- bery," and Christendom stood aghast. He said to Judah, 19 290 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. " You are a tyranny." He arraigned unjust power at its own feet. If a man does so now we send him to the Coventry of public contempt or the house of correc- tion. But that is where Christianity goes. That is the way it entered the world, and that is the way it grapples with the world to-day. As the old Italian said in 1554, " There has not a Christian died in his bed, for two hun- dred years." There will never a Christian die in his bed in the sense in which he meant it. The distinctive representative, the typical, advanced Christian of his age will never die in a respectable bed, because the society of to-day, though growing out of a Christian subsoil, struggles yet to defy its Master. I have endeavored to show the wise men at the State House that they are gravitating toward the despotism of incorporated wealth. I showed them that in a republi- can community you could not afford to have half the in- dividuality of the masses taken away, because you would have no basis for our form of government to rest upon. I did n't dare to say to that legislature, " God gives to you the keeping, annually, of so many hundred thou- sand souls, and whether they are good voters or trust- worthy citizens, is a secondary matter. You should make these streets safe for immortal souls to grow up in." And yet that legislature is better than a church, for it says there shall be no distinction of color. It does n't know caste. But when you go down to the Old South Church, you find it has taken a leaf out of Hindo- stan, and has black men in one place and white men in another. That is a church ; the other is Christianity. I have impressed this fact, Christianity is a divine force ; it is the great force to which we owe Europe ; it is the key that unlocks the government, the society, the literature of Europe. It unfolds to you the goal toward which we are all hastening; but you must not seek for it CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 291 in the religious organizations. You must not seek for it in representative and organized systems which undertake to hold its essence. The Church as a mile-stone shows how far morals have travelled up to that moment. The moment it is found, it is useless. It is like the bulwarks of Holland, good when the waters are outside, but all the worse, when the waters are inside, to keep them in. The pioneer goes through the forest girdling the trees as he moves, and, five years after, these trees are dead lumber. So Christianity goes through society, dooming now this institution and now that custom as sinful. Soon they die. Look back forty years. Christianity branded slavery as sin. Wealth laughed scornfully at the fanaticism. Fashion swept haughtily past in her pride. The State thought to smother the protest by statutes. The Church clasped hands and blessed the plot. But a printer's boy yielded himself to the sublime inspiration, gave life to the martyrdom of the message ; and when his hand struck off three million of fetters, the Church said, " Yes, I did it, for did I not always say ' There was no bond in Christ Jesus.' " Yes, you did. But when to take that terrible protest from your treas- ure-house and flare it in the face of an angry nation, was grave peril and cruel sacrifice, you hid it ! You always had the truth ; your only lack was life to be- lieve, and courage to apply it. The question that lies beyond, and has for thirty years, is the question of race. We lifted races up to a dead level, and the Church said, " Did n't I tell you God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth ? " And we all said : " Yes, you did. The trouble was that when it was crucifixion to apply it, you could not see it." The thing that lies beyond is sex. Will you crush woman out of her opportunities ? The Church says, " Yes." But the age travels on, and by and by she will 292 CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. take her place side by side with man in politics, as she does in society, and then the Church will say, " Did n't I tell you so ? There is neither male nor female in Christ." Then we shall say : " Yes, you did ; but when it was vulgar and unpopular and isolated to apply it, you were not there." And beyond that lies the darkened chamber of labor that only rises to toil and lies down to rest. It is lifted by no hope, mellowed by no comfort ; looks into gardens it created, and up to wealth which it has garnered, and has no pleasure thence ; looks down into its cradle, there is no hope : and Stuart Mill says to the Church, " Come and claim for labor its great share in civilization and its products ; " the bench of bishops says, " Let us have a charity-school ; " Episco- pacy says, " We will print a primer ; " the dissenting in- terest says, " We will have cheap soup-houses ; " Lord Shaftesbury says, " We will have May-day pastimes ; " and gaunt labor says, " I don't ask pity, I ask for jus- tice. In the name of the Christian brotherhood I ask for justice." And the Church quietly hides itself behind its prayer-book, and the great vital force underneath bears us onward, till by and by through the ballot, by the power of selfish interest, by the combination of necessity, labor will clutch- its rights, and the Church will say, " So I did it ! " You have no right to luxuriate. If you are Christian men, you should sell your sword and garments, go into your neighbor's house and start a public opinion, and rouse and educate the masses. One soul with an idea outweighs ninety-nine men moved only by interests. Though there are powerful obstacles in our pathway, they will be permeated by the idea we advocate, as was Caesar's palace by the weeds nurtured by an Italian summer. It was supposed that nothing less than an earthquake that would shake the seven hills could dis- CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM. 293 turb the solid walls, but the tiny weeds of an Italian summer struck roots between them and tossed the huge blocks of granite into shapeless ruins. So must inevi- tably our ideas, the only living forces, for a while overawed by marble and gold and iron and organization, heave all to ruin and rebuild on a finer model. THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. Delivered in Music Hall before the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, December 18, 1859. I THANK God for John Calvin. To be sure, he burned Servetus ; but the Puritans, or at least their imme- diate descendants, hung the witches ; George Washing- ton held slaves ; and wherever you go up and down history, you find men, not angels. Of course you find imperfect men, but you find great men ; men who have marked their own age, and moulded the succeeding ; men to whose might of ability, and to whose disinterested suffering for those about them, the succeeding genera- tions owe the larger share of their blessings ; men whose lips and lives God has made the channel through which his choicest gifts come to their fellow-beings. John Calvin was one of these, perhaps the profoundest in- tellect of his day, certainly one of the largest statesmen of his generation. His was the statesman-like mind that organized Puritanism, that put ideas into the shape of institutions, and in that way organized victory, when, under Loyola, Catholicism, availing itself of the shrewd- est and keenest machinery, made its reacti& assault upon the new idea of the Protestant religion. If in that struggle, Western Europe came out victorious, we owe it more to the statesmanship of Calvin, than to the large German heart of Luther. We owe to Calvin at least, THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 295 it is not unfair to claim, nor improbable in the sequence of events to suppose that a large share of those most eminent and excellent characteristics of New England,/ which have made her what she is, and saved her for the future, came from the brain of John Calvin. Luther's biography is to be read in books. The .plod- ding patience of the German intellect^ has gathered up every trait and every trifle, the minutest, of his life, and you may read it spread out in loving admiration on a thousand pages of biography. Calvin's life is written in Scotland and New England, in the triumphs of the people against priestcraft and power. To him, more than to any other man, the Puritans owed republicanism, the republicanism of the Church. The instinct of his day recognized that clearly, distinguishing this element of Calvinism. You see it in the wit 'of Charles II., when he said, u Calvinism is a religion unfit for a gentleman." It was unfit for a gentleman of that day, for it was a religion of the people. It recognized first since the earliest centuries of Christianity that the heart of God beats through every human heart, and that when you mass up the millions, with their instinctive, fair-play sense of right, and their devotional impulses, you get nearer God's heart than from the second-hand scholarship and conservative tendency of what are called the thoughtful and educated classes. We owe this ele- ment, good or bad, to Calvinism. Then, we owe to it a second element, marking the Puritans most largely, and that is action. The Puritan was not a man of speculation. He originated nothing. His principles are to be found broadcast in the centuries Ix-hind him. His speculations were all old. You might find them in the lectures of Abelard ; you meet with them in the radicalism of Wat Tyler; you find them all over the continent of Europe. The distinction between 296 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. his case and that of others was simply that he practised what he believed. He believed God. He actually be- lieved him, "just as much as if he saw demonstrated before his eyes the truth of the principle. For it is a very easy thing to say ; the difficulty is to do. If you will tell a man the absolute truth, that if he will plunge into the ocean, and only keep his eyes fixed on heaven, lie will never sink, you can demonstrate it to him, you can prove it to him by weight and measure, each man of a thousand will" believe "you, as they say; and then they will plunge into the water, and nine hundred and ninty-nine will throw up their arms to clasp some straw or neighbor, and sink ; the thousandth will keep his hands by his body, believing God, and float, and he is the Puritan. Every other man wants to get hold of something to stay himself ; not on faith in God's eternal principle of natural or religious law, but on his neighbor ; he wants to lean on somebody ; he wants to catch hold of something. The Puritan puts his hands to his side, and his eyes upon heaven, and floats down the centuries, faith personified. These two elements of Puritanism are, it seems to me, those which made New England what she is. You see them everywhere developing into institutions. For instance, if there is anything that makes us, and that made Scotland, it is common schools. We got them from Geneva. Luther said, " A wicked tyrant is batter than a wicked war." It was the essence of aristocracy. " Better submit to any evil from above than trust the masses." Calvin no sooner set his foot in Geneva than he organized the people into a constituent element of pub- lic affairs. He planted education at the root of the Republic. The Puritans borrowed it in Holland, and brought it to New England, and it is the sheet-anchor that has held us amid the storms and the temptations of THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 297 two hundred years. We have a people that can think, a people that can read ; and out of the millions of refuse lumber, God selects one in a generation, and he is enough to save a State. One man that thinks for him- self is the salt of a generation poisoned with printing ink or cotton dust. The Puritans scattered broadcast the seeds of thought. They knew it was an error, in counting up the popula- tion, to speak of a million of souls because there was a million of bodies, as if every man carried a soul ! but they knew, trusting the mercy of God, that by edu- cating all, the martyrs and the saints that do not travel in battalions, that never come to us in regiments, but come alone, now and then one would be reached and unfolded, and save their own time. Puritanism, therefore, is action; it is impersonating ideas; it is dis- trusting and being willing to shake off what are called institutions. They were above words ; they went out into the wilderness outside of forms. The consequence was, that throughout their whole history, there is the most daring confidence in their being substantially right. The consequence is, that when Conservatism comes together to-day, whether in the form of a " Union meeting," - dead men turning in their graves and pretending to be alive, whether it be in this form, or any other, its occupation is to explain how, a hundred years ago, it was right, and not to see the reflection of a hundred years ago staring them in the face to-day. Like the sitting figure on our coin, they are looking back ; they have no eyes for the future. The souls that God touches have their brows gilded by the dawn of the future. A man present at the glorious martyrdom of the 2d of December, said of the hero-saint who marched out of the jail, " He seemed to come, his brow radiant with triumph." It was the dawn of a future day that gilded his brow. He was high 298 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. enough in the Providence of God, to catch, earlier than the present generation, the dawn of the day that he was to inaugurate. This is my idea of Puritan principles. Nothing new in them. How are we to vindicate them ? Eminent historians and patriots have told us that the pens of thp Puritans are their best witnesses. It does not seem to me so. We_ are their witnesses. If they lived to any purpose, they produced a generation better than them- selves. The true man always makes himself to be out- done by his child. The vindication of Puritanism is a New England bound to be better than Puritanism ; bound to look back and see its faults, and meet the exi- gencies of the present day, not with stupid imitation, but with that essential disinterestedness with which they met the exigencies of their time. Take an illustration. When our fathers stood in London, under the corpora- tion charter of Charles, the question was, " Have we a right to remove to Massachusetts ? " The lawyers said, " No." The fathers said, " Yes ; we will remove to Mas- sachusetts, and let law find the reason fifty years hence." They knew they had the substantial right. Their motto was not " Law and Order ; " it was " God and Justice," a much better motto. Unless you take law and or- der in the highest meaning of the words, it is a base motto, if it means only recognizing the majority. Crime comes to history gilded and crowned, and says, " I am not crime, I am success." And history, written by a soul girded with parchments and stunned with half-a-dozen languages, says, " Yes, thou art success ; we" accept tliee." But the faithful soul below cries out, " Thou art crime ! A vaunt ! " There is so much in words. This is the lesson of Puritanism, how shall we meet it to-day ? Every age stereotypes its ideas into forms. THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 299 It is the natural tendency ; and when it is done, every u.ire grows old and dies. It is God's beneficent Provi- dence, death ! When ideas have shaped themselves and become fossil and still, God takes off the weight of the dead men from their age, and leaves room for the new bud. It is a blessed institution, death! But there are men running about who think that those forms which are old and which the experience of the past left them are necessarily right and efficient. They are the conservatives. The men who hold their ears open for the message of the present hour, they are the Puritans. I know these things seem very trite ; they are very trite. All truth is trite. The difficulty is not in truth. Truth never stirs up any trouble, mere speculative truth. Plato taught, nobody cared what he taught ; Socrates acted, and they poisoned him. It is when a man throws himself against society, thai; society is star- tled to persecute and to think. The Puritan did not stop to think ; he recognized God in his soul, and acted. If he had acted wrong, our generation would load down his grave with curses. He took the risk ; he took the curses of the present, but the blessings of the future swept them away, and God's sunlight rests upon his grave. That is what every brave man does. It is an easy thing to say. The old fable is of Sisyphus rolling up a stone, and the moment he gets it up to the mountain-top, it rolls back again. So each generation, with much trouble and great energy and disinterested- ness, vindicates for a few of its sons the right to think ; and the moment they have vindicated the right, the stone rolls back again, nobody else must think ! The battle must be fought every day, because the body rebels against the soul. It is the insurrection of the soul against the body, free thought. The gods piled Etna upon the insurgent Titans. It is the emblem of the 300 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AN0 JOHN BROWN. world piling mountains banks, gold, cotton, parties, Everetts, Cushings, Couriers, everything dull and heavy to keep down thought. And ever again, in each generation, the living soul, like the bursting bud, throws up the incumbent soil and finds its way to the sunshine and to God, and is the oak of the future, leaving out, spreading its branches, and sheltering the race and time that is to come. I hold in my hand the likeness of a child of seventeen summers, taken from the body of a boy, her husband, who lies buried on the banks of the Shenandoah. He flung himself against a State for an idea, the child of a father who lived for an idea, who said, " I know that slavery is wrong; thou shalt do unto another as thou wouldst have another do to thee," and flung himself against the law and order of his time. Nobody can dis- pute his principles. There are men who dispute his acts. It is exactly what he meant they should do. It is the collision of admitted principles with conduct which is the teaching of ethics ; it is the normal school of a generation. Puritanism went up and down England and fulfilled its mission. It revealed despotism. Charles I. and James, in order to rule, were obliged to persecute. Under the guise of what seemed government, they had hidden tyranny. Patriotism tore off the mask, and said to the enlightened conscience and sleeping intellect of England, " Behold, that is despotism ! " It was the first lesson ; it was the text of the English Revolution. Men still slumbered in submission to law. They tore off the semblance of law ; they revealed despotism. John Brown has done the same for us to-day. The slave system has lost its fascination. It had a certain pictur- esque charm for some. It called itself " chivalry," and " a State." One assault has broken the charm, it is despotism ! THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 301 Look how barbarous it is ! Take a single instance. A young girl throws herself upon the bosom of a Northern boy who himself had shown mercy, and en- deavors to save him from the Christian rifles of Virginia. They tore her off, and the pitiless bullet found its way to the brave, young heart. She stands upon the streets of that very town, and dares not avow the motive glorious, humane instinct that led her to throw herself on the bosom of the hapless boy ! She bows to the despotism of her brutal State, and makes excuses for her humanity ! That is the Christian Virginia of 1859. In 1608 an Indian girl flung herself before her father's tomahawk on the bosom of an English gentleman, and the Indian refrained from touching the English traveller whom his daughter's affection protected. Pocahontas lives to-day, the ideal beauty of Virginia, and her proudest names strive to trace their lineage to the brave Indian girl : that was Pagan Virginia, two centuries and a half ago. What has dragged her down from Pocahontas in 1608 to John Brown in 1859, when humanity is disgraceful, and despotism treads it out under its iron heel ? Who revealed it ? One brave act of an old Puritan soul, that did not stop to ask what the majority,.,tirought, or what forms were, but acted. The revelation of despotism is the great lesson which the Puritan of one month ago has taught us. He lias flung himself, under the instinct of a great idea, against the institutions beneath which we sit, and he says, practically, to the world, as the Puritan did : " If I am a felon, bury me with curses. I will trust to a future age to judge between you and me. Posterity will summon the State to judgment, and will admit my principle. I can wait." Men say it is anarchy, that this right of the individual to sit in judgment cannot be trusted. It is the lesson of Puritanism. If the Individ- 302 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. ual criticising law cannot be trusted, then Puritanism is a mistake, for the sanctity of individual judgment is the lesson of Massachusetts history in 1620 and '30. We accepted anarchy as the safest. The Puritan said : " Hu- man nature is sinful ; " so the earth is accursed since the fall ; but I cannot find anything better than this old earth to build on ; I must put my corner-stone upon it, cursed as it is ; I cannot lay hold of the battlements of heaven. So Puritanism said : " Human nature is sinful, but it is the best basis we have got. We will build upon it, and we will trust the influences of God, the inherent gravitation of the race toward right, that it will end right." I affirm that this is the lesson of our history, that the world is fluid ; that we are on the ocean ; that we cannot get rid of the people, and we do not want to ; that the millions are 'our basis ; and that God has set us this task : " If you want good institutions, do not try to bulwark out the ocean of popular thought, educate it. If you want good laws, earn them." Conservatism says : " I can make my own hearthstone safe ; I can build a bulwark of gold and bayonets about it high as heaven and deep as hell, and nobody can touch me, and that is enough." Puritanism says : " It is a delusion ; it is a refuge of lies ; it is not safe ; the waters of popular in- stinct will carry it away. If you want your own cradle safe, make the cradle of every other man safe and pure. Educate the people up to the law you want." How ? They cannot stop for books. Show them manhood. Show them a brave act. What has John Brown done for us ? The world doubted over the horrid word " in- surrection," whether the victim had a right to arrest the course of his master, and even at any expense of blood, to vindicate his rights ; and Brown said to his neighbors in the old school-house at North Elba, sitting among the THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 303 snow, where nothing grows but men, and even wheat freezes : " I can go South, and show the world that he has a right to rise and can rise." He went, girded about by his household, carrying his sons with him. Proof of a life devoted to an idea ! Not a single spasmodic act of greatness, coining out with no back-ground, but the flowering of sixty years. The proof of it, that every- thing around him grouped itself harmoniously, like the planets around the central sun. He went down to Vir- ginia, took possession of a town, and held it. He says : " You thought this was strength ; I demonstrate it is weakness. You thought this was civil society ; I show you it is a den of pirates." Then he turned around in his sublimity, with his Puritan devotional heart, and said to the millions, "Learn ! " And God lifted a mil- lion hearts to his gibbet, as the Roman cross lifted a million of hearts to it in that divine sacrifice of two thousand years ago. To-day, more than a statesman could have taught in seventy years, one act of a week has taught these eighteen millions of people. That is the Puritan principle. What shall it teach us ? " Go thou and do likewise." Do it by a resolute life ; do it by a fearless rebuke ; do it by preaching the sermon of which this act is the text ; do it by standing by the great example which God has given us ; do it by tearing asunder the veil of respec- tability which covers brutality calling itself law. We had a " Union meeting " in this city a while ago. For the first time for a quarter of a century, political brutal- ity dared to enter the sacredness of the sick chamber, and visit with ridicule the broken intellect, sheltered from criticism under the cover of sickness. Never, since I knew Boston, has any lip, however excited, dared to open the door which God's hand had closed, making the inmate sacred, as he rested under broken health. 304 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. The four thousand men who sat beneath the speaker are said to have received it in silence. If so, it can only be that they were not surprised at the brutality from such lips. And those who sat at his side, they judge us by our associates ; they criticise us, in general, for the loud word of any comrade. Shall we take the scholar of New England, and drag him down to the level of the brutal Swiss of politics, and judge him indecent because his associates were indecent ? I thank God for the op- portunity of protesting, in the name of Boston decency, against the brutal language of a man, thank God, not born on our peninsula, against the noble and benighted intellect of Gerrit Smith. On that occasion, too, a noble island was calumniated. The New England scholar, bereft of everything else on which to arraign the great movement in Virginia, takes up a lie about St. Domingo, and hurls it in the face of an ignorant audience, ignorant, because no man ever thought it worth while to do justice to the negro. Ed- ward Everett would be the last to allow us to take an English version of Bunker Hill, to take an Englishman's account of Hamilton and Washington as they stood beneath the scaffold of Andre, and read it to an Amer- ican audience as a faithful description of the scene. But when he wants to malign a race, he digs up from the prejudice of an enemy they had conquered, a forgot- ten lie, showing how weak was the cause he espoused when the opposite must be assailed with falsehood, for it could not be assailed with anything else. I said that they had gone to sleep, and only turned in their graves, those men in Faneuil Hall. It was not wholly true. The chairman came down from the heart of the Commonwealth, and spoke to Boston safe words in Faneuil Hall, for which he would have been lynched at Richmond, had he uttered them there that evening. THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 305 Thanks to God, I said, as I read it, a hunker cannot live in Massachusetts without being wider awake than he imagines. He must imbibe fanaticism. Insurrection is epidemic in the State ; treason is our inheritance. The Puritans planted it in the very structure of the State ; and when their children try to curse a martyr, like the prophet of old, half the curse, at least, turns into a blessing. I thank God for that Massachusetts ! Let us not blame our neighbors too much. There is something in the very atmosphere that stands above the ashes of the Puritans that prevents the most ser- vile of hearts from holding a meeting which the des- pots of Virginia can relish. They do not know how to be servile within forty miles of Plymouth. They have not learned the part; with all their wish, they play it awkwardly. It is the old stiff Puritan trying to bend, and they do it with a marvellous lack of grace. I read encouragement in the very signs, the awkward attempts made to resist this very effort of the glorious martyr of the northern hills of New York. Virginia her- self looks into his face, and melts ; she has nothing but praises. She tries to scan his traits ; they are too manly, and she bows. Her press can only speak of his manhood. One has to get outside the influence of his personal presence before the slaves of Virginia can dig up a forgotten Kansas lie, and hurl it against the picture which Virginian admiration has painted. That does not come from Virginia. Northern men volunteer to do the work which Virginia, lifted for a moment by the sight of martyrdom, is unable to accomplish. A New- buryport man comes to Boston, and says that he knows John Brown was at the massacre of Pottawatomie. He was only twenty-five miles off ! The Newburyport ora- tor gets within thirty miles of the truth, and that is very near, for him ! But Virginia was unable mark 20 306 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. you ! Virginia was unable to criticise. She could only bow. It is the most striking evidence of the majesty of the action. There is one picture which stands out in bright relief in this event. On that mountain side of the Adirondack, up among the snows, there is a plain cottage " plain living and high thinking," as Wordsworth says. Grouped there are a family of girls and boys, the oldest hardly over twenty ; sitting supreme, the majestic spirit of a man just entering age, life, one purpose. Other men breed their sons for ambition, avarice, trade ; lie breeds his for martyrdom, and they accept serenely their places. Hardly a book under that roof but the Bible. No sound so familiar as prayer. He takes them in his right hand and in his left, and goes down to the land of bondage. Like the old Puritans of two hundred years ago, the muskets are on one side and the pikes upon the other ; but the morning prayer goes up from the domestic altar as it rose from the lips of Brewster and Carver, and no morsel is ever tasted without that same grace which was made at Plymouth and Salem ; and at last he flings himself against the gigantic system which trembles under his single arm. You measure the strength of a blow by the force of the rebound. Men thought Virginia a Commonwealth ; he reveals it a worse than Austrian despotism. Neigh- bors dare not speak to each other no man can travel on the highway without a passport ; the telegraph wires are sealed, except with a permit ; the State shakes beneath the tramp of cannon and armed men. What does she fear ? Conscience ! The Apostle has come to torment her, and he finds the weakest spot herself. She dares not trust the usual forms of justice. Arraigned in what she calls her court is a wounded man, on a pallet, unable to stand. The civilized world stands asrhast. She THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. 307 says, " It is necessary." Why ? "I stand on a volcano. The Titans are heaving beneath the mountains. Thought the earthquake of conscience is below me." It is the acknowledgment of defeat. The Roman thought, when he looked upon the cross, that it was the symbol of infamy, only the vilest felon hung there. One sacred sacrifice, and the cross nestles in our hearts, the emblem of everything holy. Virginia erects her gibbet, repul- sive in name and form. One man goes up from it to God, with two hundred thousand broken fetters in his hands, and henceforth it is sacred forever. I said that, to vindicate Puritanism, the children must be better than the fathers. Lo, this event ! Brewster and Carver and Bradford and Winthrop faced a New England winter and defied law for themselves. For us, their children, they planted and sowed. They said, " Lo ! our rights are trodden under foot ; our cradles are not safe ; our prayers may not ascend to God." They formed a State, and achieved that liberty. John Brown goes a stride beyond them. Under his own roof, he might pray at liberty ; his own children wore no fetters. In the catalogue of Saxon heroes and martyrs, the Ridleys and the Latimers, he only saw men dying for themselves ; in the brave souls of our own day, he saw men good as their fathers ; but he leaped beyond them, and died for a race whose blood he did not share. This child of seventeen years gives her husband for a race into whose eyes she never looked. Braver than Carver or Winthrop, more disinterested than Bradford, broader than Hancock or Washington, pure as the brightest names on our catalogue, nearer God's heart, for, with a divine magnanimity he comprehended all races, Ridley and Latimer minister before him. He sits in that heaven of which he showed us the open door, with the great men of Saxon blood ministering 308 THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND JOHN BROWN. below his feet. And yet they have a right to say, " We created him." Lord Bacon, as he takes his march down the centuries, may put one hand on the telegraph, and the other on the steam engine, and say, " These are mine, for I taught you to invent." So the Puritans may put one hand on John Brown and say, " You are ours, though you have gone beyond us, for we taught you to believe in God. We taught you to say, God is God, and trample wicked laws under your feet." And now from that Virginia gibbet, he says to us, " The maxim I taught you, prac- tise it ! The principle I have manifested to you, apply it ! If the crisis becomes sterner, meet it ! If the battle is closer, be true to my memory ! Men say my act was a failure. I showed what I promised, that the slave ought to resist, and could. Sixteen men I placed under the shelter of English law, and then I taught the mil- lions. Prove that my enterprise was not a failure, by showing a North ready to stand behind it. I am willing, in God's service, to plunge with ready martyrdom into the chasm that opens in the forum, only show yourselves worthy to stand upon my grave ! " It seems to me that this is the lesson of Puritanism, as it is read to us to-day. " Law and order " are only names for the halting ignorance of the last generation. John Brown is the impersonation of God's order and God's law, moulding a better future, and setting it for an example. THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. Address delivered in the Representatives' Chamber, Boston, March 10, 1859. In connection with this lecture the following remarks of Mr. Phillips in regard to our public school methods of instruction may well find place. They were delivered in Boston, in December, 1876 . a The public schools teach her arithmetic, philosophy, trigonometry, geometry, music, botany, and history, and all that class of knowl- edge. Seven out of ten of them, remember, are to earn their bread by the labor of their hands. Well, at fifteen we give that child back to her parents utterly unfitted for any kind of work that is worth a morsel of bread. If the pupil could only read the ordinary newspaper to three auditors it would be something, but this the scholar, so educated, so produced, cannot do. I repeat it. Four fifths of the girls you present to society at fifteen cannot read a page intelligibly. We produce only the superficial result of the culture we strive for. u Now I claim that this kind of education injures the boy or girl in at least three ways. First, they are able only by forgetting what they have learned to earn their day's bread; in the second place, it is earned reluctantly ; third, there is no ambition for perfection aroused. " It seems to be a fact which many of the public educators of to-day overlook, that seven tenths of the people born into the world earn their living on matter and not on mind. Now, friends, I protest against this whofe system of common schools in Massachusetts. It lacks the first element of preparation for life. We take the young girl or the young boy whose parents are able to lift them into an in- tellectual profession ; we keep them until they are eighteen years old in the high schools ; we teach them the sciences ; they go to the 310 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. academy or the college to pursue some course of preparation for their presumed work through life. Why not keep them a little longer and give them other than intellectual training for the business of life f " MR. CHAIRMAN : I have never been present at any of your meetings, and am not well informed as to their precise purpose. I may, therefore, step aside from the platform accorded to you in the remarks I am to offer. I cannot expect, either, ladies and gentlemen, to present to you, on the topic of to-night, anything like the comprehensive views or the varied and exquisite illus- trations which the speakers of the last week gave you on a kindred topic. They are rare men and have had rare opportunities. I am sorry to remember, even though it be to their honor, how much rarer still it is to find such men coining forward to aid in meetings like these. I suppose your intention is to touch all sides of the question of Popular Education, and with especial reference, so far as outsiders may, to some of the plans which engage the attention of the community and of the legislature at this moment, plans of vast public improvement ; plans of generous State aid toward great interests of the public ; plans intended to make Boston the leading city of the Union, in regard to some of those intellectual gratifications and scientific attractions which our country so much lacks, which would subserve, not only the honor, but the interest of the State, if that is to be considered. Some call the Yankee blood niggard, and think we look with suspicion upon such plans of public expense. ' For one, Mr. Chairman, I doubt that. I think we have fairly earned, we New Englanders, the character of generous patrons of all things that really claim public support. They call us " pedlers," " huck- sters ; " we are said to look upon both sides of a dollar, and all round the rim, before we spend it ; and yet I THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 811 undertake to say, that in this very " niggardly New England," there have been, and are. not only the most iivnerous efforts for the widest education, for the readiest relief, for the most lavish endowment of all institutions for the public, but we have set the world the first exam- ple in many of these. I believe it would be found, that if we compared New England, I will not say with the rest of the Union, for she may justly disdain such comparison, but with England itself, with any country, it would be found that a greater proportion, a larger percentage of private wealth, since its foundation, had been given and pledged to matters of public concern, than anywhere else in the world. We are educated in that faith. Money-giving is the fashion, provided you choose popular objects. Indeed, to give is so much a matter expected and of course, that the rich man's will which is opened in the latitude of Boston, or its neighborhood, and found not to contain ample legacies for great public objects, is set down as singular, odd, so singular as to be marked with the stigma of public rebuke. It is so much a fashion, that it takes a peculiar obstinacy of stinginess even to hide itself in the grave without giving more than the Jewish tenth to the public. If, therefore, the projects of State aid to great public intellectual and moral purposes should result which I doubt in expense to the State, they would be justified by the whole tone of the past history of Massachusetts, and welcomed with proud satisfaction by the commu- nity. I think we have only reached a new level in the gradual rising of public feeling. Every year, at least every decade, every generation, certainly, originates a new step ; the standpoint rises ; we look at things from a different point of view. We have reached one now, when it begins to be claimed of government and 312 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. private individuals, that all their wealth belongs to the public ; that it is mortgaged for the education of every child among us ; that God gave it for mankind. I look upon the State, or rather I look upon society, com- posed of the religious and civil organizations the one represented here, the other represented in the churches as a great Normal School. I think the men who occupy these benches day by day are mere schoolmasters for the State. Their object is to arrange the best method to unfold and carry forward the public mind. The friend who has just taken his seat, Isaac F. Shepard, Esq., has alluded to Greece. It reminds me that there were two civilizations in the old time, one was Egyptian, the other was Greek. The Egyptian kept its knowledge for priests and nobles. Science hid itself in the cloister ; it was confined to the aristocracy. Knowledge was the organ .of despotism ; it was the secret of the upper classes ; it was the engine of govern- ment ; it was used to over-awe the people ; and when Cambyses came down from Persia, and thundered across Egypt, treading out under his horse's hoofs royalty and priesthood, he trod out science and civilization at the same time. The other side of the picture is Greece. Her civilization was democratic. It was for the mob of Athens, so to speak, that Pericles spoke and planned ; that the tragedian wrote ; that the historian elaborated, in his seven years' labor, those perfect pictures of times and states and policies. It was for the people that the games, the theatres, the treasures of art, and the records of learning were kept. It busied itself witli every man in the market-place, day by day; and the scholar thought life wasted if he did not hear, at the moment, the echo and the amen to his labors in the appreciation of the market-place. The Greek trusted the people ; he laid THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 313 himself, full length, on the warm heart of the mob, the masses. Anacharsis came to Greece, and they asked him what he thought of the Greek Democracy, when he had heard the orators argue and seen the people, vote. The faithful scholar, with that same timidity which marks the fastidious scholarship of to-day, replied, " 1 think that wise men argue questions and fools decide them." It was a scholar's judgment. But you sit here to-day with the science of Egypt its exclusive, fas- tidious, timid, conservative science buried in the oblivion of two thousand years ; and you live to-day with a hundred idioms of speech borrowed, all your art copied from Greece, your institutions shaped largely on her model, and your ideas of right and wrong influenced by the hearts that throbbed in that mob of Athens, two thousand years ago ! [Applause.] Our civilization takes its shape from the Greek, it is for the people. There was no private wealth, there was no private interest in Greece ; it was all for one commonwealth ; and such should be ours to-day. Government, I say, is a school. Two thousand years ago all government thought of was to build up its gal- lows. Fine and death we^e its two punishments ; it knew no other. To use Bulwer's figure, it put up the gallows at the end of the road, and allowed men to stray as they might. We have gone on two thousand years, and now we put a guide-board at the beginning, saying, " This is the wrong road." We educate men. We have added disgrace, disfranchisement, imprisonment, moral restraint, rewards, and many other things to our list of instruments. Government is beginning to remember that prevention is one of its great objects. It begins to remember that it does not get the right to hang, until it has discharged the duty of education ; that until it 314 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. has held up the baby footsteps with knowledge and moral culture, it has no right to arrest the full-grown sinner, and strangle him. Now, that idea broadens with every year. What is Education ? It is not simply books. There is another idea that is dawning before us. We have been accus- tomed to study only books. I believe every observing man will agree with me, that the day is dawning when we are to study things, not books only. I do not mean that we are to lay aside books. We are not to give up languages and history, and studies of that class, but I think that the study of things is to be grafted upon these. God's works, the beautiful in objects, the curious and useful in science, the great relations be- tween the sciences, the laws which govern national development, the conditions of health and disease, the growth of population, the laws which crime and accident obey, the material interests of society, the handiwork of God and his laws, the day is dawning, I think, when education will turn largely in that direc- tion. The people claim of government that it should provide these museums of things; that it should, " taking time by the forelock," gather up all these living books that God has made for the education of the people, and preserve them. Science, the history of science, the details of it, as preserved in museums, these are beginning to be, especially with us, the objects of study. They affect legislation closely. No man is up to the van of his age, if he has not, at least, a general knowl- edge of these relations ; he is not fit to sit in this hall and legislate about them. If you will take up Brougham's discourse on " The Advantages and Pleasures of Science," or Herschel's, or that of any English scholar, you will find that they point to the pleasure and the moral growth which the THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 315 individual finds in the pursuit of science. We have a broader interest. The young men of New England, as a general thing, are tossed into life before twenty. Their fathers cannot afford them long schooling. After the training of a few years, " the narrow means at home," as the Roman poet says, the keen wants of the family, oblige them to launch into life, after having gathered what they can in a few short years from books. And these very men, snatching education from the wayside, their minds developed one-sidedly, perhaps, by too close attention to the immediate calling which earns their bread, are to come up to this hall, and be trusted with the various interests, the great necessities, and the honor of the Commonwealth. It is, then, for the interest of the Commonwealth, that all along their wayside should be planted the means of a wider education, the provoca- tives of thought. I will tell you what I mean, Suppose to-day you go to Paris. (I am not now touching on the motives that make governments liberal ; we may have one motive, a despotic government may have another.) But sup- pose you go to Paris. In the Jardin des Plantes there, as it is technically called, you may find a museum of mineralogy ; in the acres under cultivation, you may find every plant, every tree possible of growth in the climate of France ; in other departments, every animal that can be domesticated from the broad surface of the globe ; so that the children of the poor man, without fee, he himself, in his leisure, may study these related sciences as much in detail, and with as much thorough- ness, as one half of men can study them in books, and better than the other half can study them at all, in the actual living representative. The very atmosphere of such scenes is education. People are not able even to live, even to stand among the evidences of the labors, 316 THE EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. among the collected intellectual fruits of their fellows, without tasting something of education. If I were, therefore, speaking simply as a Massachusetts citizen, with my future interest in the hands of a democratic legislature, chosen from among the people, I should claim of the wealth of the State, of the wealth of the wealthiest, that it was all mortgaged, not for ordinary schools merely, not for book culture, not even for the costly apparatus of university life, but that, in the crowded thoroughfares of cities, there should be thrown open to the public, in every large crowd of popula- tion, the means of studying the great sciences of the day. If I asked it for nothing else, I would ask it as wise policy for the future. I believe in it as education. As simple, individual education, I believe in it I believe in it as thoroughly, and for the same ends, as those Englishmen to whom I have referred. I welcome it as such. I know its influence. I believe that the dissipated young man of Boston who goes to Paris to spend his three years, has fifty chances out of a hundred to come back a better moral man from the fact that his nature derives the needed stimulus from causes which call out his mind and better feelings, for we can, none of us, get along without some stimulus. In our country, there are only three sources of stimulus, as a general thing : One is, the keen zest of money-making ; the other is the intense excitement of politics ; and if a man cannot throw himself into either of these he takes to drinking. [Laughter and applause.] It is no marvel that there is so much dissipation among us ; for every human being must have his pleasure, must have his excitement. One man snatches it in ambition, another man hives it in close pursuit of wealth, and in pecuni- ary success. There was a time when it seemed almost providential THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 317 that our race should have the keen edge of money - loving. We were to conquer the continent. God set us to subdue the wilderness. We were to dot America with cities and States ; we were to marry the oceans with roads. Two generations have almost done it. That function could be discharged only under the keen stimulus of a love of pecuniary and material gain. God gave it to us for that purpose. I never blushed for the Yankee's love for the "Almighty Dollar;" it was no fault in the age of it. But now, we may say, we have built our London and our Paris, we have finished our Rome and our Vienna, and the time has come to crowd them witli art, to flush them with the hues of painting, and fill them with museums of science, and all to create and feed a keen appetite for intellectual culture and progress among the people. [Applause.] In this very city, in one ward, in one of the months of the past year, six hundred families were relieved by public aid, and mostly because their heads were intem- perate, nigh twenty-five hundred persons out of a population of fourteen thousand. I verily believe that if those six hundred heads of families, in their hours of leisure, in their moments not necessary for toil, could have been lured, as the Italian is, into gardens, could have had thrown open to them, as the Frenchman has, museums, teaching him history at a glance, as in the galleries of the Louvre, their families would not have been left to the hand of public charity. The citizen of Paris, without a sou, after laboring at fifty cents a day the week through, may have, on Saturday or Sunday, his nature elevated, the needed stimulus supplied with- out liquor, by entering a museum in which, if he has the taste, he shall see every form of ship ever built, from the first frail canoe that ever floated, to the last steamer that defied the elements ; every species of arms, from 318 THE EDUCATION GP THE PEOPLE. the first rude arrow made by a Greek or Egyptian hand, down through the Middle Ages, to the last revolver that Yankee skill has lent to war ; every form of furniture, if he chooses to turn there ; every plan of a city, ancient or modern ; every bone, every fact of anatomy illustrated for him. The very share our institutions give to each man in the government, the responsibility we lay on him will call out, more than anywhere else has been mani- fested, an eager love for these things. It is but just to say, that our community has made most readily the amplest use of all means provided by government or individuals. In our libraries, books wear out in using ; and no complaint is made anywhere of want of popular interest in any scientific collection. You know not how the taste grows by the feeding. We sometimes forget how the sight of these stores unfolds a taste which the man himself never dreamed he possessed. He gazes, and, lo ! he too is a thinker and a student, instead of a half-wakened brute, born only, as the Roman says, " to consume the fruits of the earth." He no longer merely digs or cumbers the ground, or hangs a dead weight on some braver soul. He thinks and his spread- ing pinion lifts his fellows. Mr. Waterston taught this in the anecdote he mentioned, of a glance at Franklin's urn first revealing to Greenough that he was a sculptor. You know the great John Hunter, the head of English surgery, constructed with his own hands a museum of comparative anatomy a hundred feet long, and every spot filled with some specimen which his own hands had preserved in the leisure of a large city practice. A lady once asked him, " Mr. Hunter, what do you think is to be our occupation in heaven ? " "I do not know," replied the old man ; " I cannot tell what we shall do there; but if the Almighty God would grant me the liberty to sit and think, for eternity, of his wonderful THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 319 works that I have seen in forty years, I could be happy as long as eternity lasted." [Applause.] It is impossible to trace the results of such provoca- tives of thought as these. A name which the previous .speaker used gives me an illustration pertinent to the occasion. He spoke of one who has just left our shores, a man eminent in every good work, Dr. Bowditch. You know his family story. His father was a poor boy, one of those whose early privations and need after-tfhie gathers up with loving and grateful admi- ration. It chanced that one of the privateers of Essex county brought in, as a prize, the extensive library of Dr. Kirwan, a scientific man. It was given to the public by the generosity of the merchants of Salem, and so became open to young Bowditch. He was left to avail himself at will of this magazine of science. The boy grew into a man ; wife and children were about him, and moderate wealth in his hands. La Place published his sublime work, which it is said only twenty men in the world can read. With patient toil, with a brain which that early devotion had made strong, he mastered its contents ; and was the first among the twenty to open that great commentary on the works of God to every man who reads the English language, by translating it into our tongue, and supply- ing, with adroit and skilful industry, the steps by which the humblest student in mathematics may follow the giant strides of La Place. The expense of publishing a work which so few would buy, would take half of his fortune. That life had in part educated, perhaps, his wife to the same high-souled determination which ani- mated him. He said to her, " Shall we give our wealth to this service for posterity, shall we give it to our boys, or spend it in the pleasures of life?" "Publish," was the wife's reply. He consecrated half his fortune to the 320 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. service of the future and the distant, to the student, and left to his children only education and example. They stand now around us, eminent in every profession, and equally eminent for the same enthusiastic devotion, and the same prodigal liberality in every good cause. How proud might the State be, if, by opening similar libraries and museums, she educated a community of Bowditches, fathers of such children in the generations to come ! [Loud applause.] There is another consideration. I will not pursue this subject, merely on this level ; I will present even a lower one, if you please. I mean to come down to the business level. We never shall compete with New York in the allurements of a great city life. As far as magnificent spectacles, as far as metropolitan wealth, as far as the splendors and amusements of the world are concerned, the great focal metropolis of the Empire, New York, must always outdo us, in drawing vast num- bers of business men and strangers to enter her streets. She can make the tide set that way constantly, and turn New England into a dependency on her great central power. But it lies with Boston to create an attraction only second to hers. The blood of the Puritans, the old New England peculiarities, can never compete with the Parisian life of New York. But if we create here a great intellectual centre by our museums, by our scien- tific opportunities, if we become really " the Athens of America," as we assume to be, if we guard and preserve the precious gatherings of science now with us, we shall attract here a large class of intelligent and cultivated men, and thus do something to counterbalance the over- shadowing influence of the great metropolis. Why, here is the museum in Mason Street, which has laid a petition upon the table of this House to-day, possessed of treas- ures which, if lost, no skill, no industry, would replace, THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 321 giving to the geological and natural history of New England contributions which, if once lost, cannot be regained ; treasures visited, weekly, by crowds from our schools. They should be covered safely and extended, if we would do what New York has done already. I went, in Albany, lately to a noble building which the Empire State has furnished, dedicated to this : she means that every ore, every plant, every shell, every living or extinct animal, every tree, on the surface or in the bowels of the Empire State, shall be represented in that Museum, for the study of her sons. They shall find the fauna and the flora there ; they shall find the living and the dead of the State represented. It re- mained awhile, so the custodian, Colonel Jewett, told me, for some five or seven years, without provision for its shelter and safe-keeping, and one half its treasures were lost. They have placed it to-day beyond risk. They have done it in order to excite the curiosity and appreciation of their sons ; they have given them the natural and scientific map of the State to study ; they have called out their latent capacity for science ; they have set an example for other cities ; they have done thus much to educate the people. There is education in the very sight of things about us. I believe in the sentiment which would preserve yonder Hancock House ; for the very sight of such a monument is a book pregnant with thought to the peo- ple that pass by it. A man of one mould has, of course, no right to regard a man of another mould as neces- sarily his inferior. But this much surely we may be allowed, to hold that philosophy as cold and heartless which " conducts us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by piety or valor." Certainly that profound sentiment which makes the past live for us in the scenes consecrated to the noble 21 322 THE EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. servants and great events of our race ; which deepens our sense of obligation to the future by showing us our debt to the past ; which changes our little life here, from an isolated instant into the connecting link between two eternities ; which lifts the low window of some humble dwelling, and lets the genius of the past enter, till its walls expand into a palace, and we see written " in glowing letters over all," the courage or virtue, the toil or self-devotion, which have made our daily life safer or more noble ; which calls into being, amid the desert of low cares and dull necessities, an oasis, and so forces us, even when most hurried or smothered in dust, to think and feel " till the place Becomes religion, and the heart runs o'er With silent worship of the great of old, The dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns." For this sentiment, no one need blush ; and often as it has been perverted, much as it has been abused, I believe in it as the mother of much that is beautiful, as a staff to resolution, as an incentive to virtue, as a pulse of that full being which lives in us when we are nearest to God. [Applause.] A few years ago, I was in Chicago, and they showed me, in the very centre of her stately streets, the original log-cabin in which General Dearborn lived, before any other white man, save himself, drew* breath upon that spot, now covered by the Queen of the West. It stood in its original, untouched, primeval condition, the dark-stained, natural wood of the forest. On all sides of it rose the splendid palaces of the young queen of western cities, the lavish outpouring of the rapidly increasing wealth of the lakes. Roofs that covered depots, hotels, houses of commerce rivalling any to be THE EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. 323 found in the spacious magnificence of Europe, were within a biscuit's throw of the spot ; while that very evening were celebrated the nuptials, in her twenty- first year, of the first child born on that spot where stands now a city of sixty thousand inhabitants. It was the original ark of the city ; it was the spot where her Romulus first drew breath ; it was the cradle of her history. No capital in the world ever had such an opportunity of saying, when a hundred years old, to her million sons, " Behold the first roof that told the forest man had taken possession ! " To-day it has van- ished ! There was not education, there was not senti- ment, there was not historic interest, there was not that manhood which marries the past and the future and raises us above the brutes, there was not enough of it in the young civilization of the West to save that unique specimen, testifying by its very presence to the growth, in a night, of the city of the lakes, to save from the greed of speculation or the roar of trade a spot full of such interest to every thoughtful mind ! Would you like Boston to be subject to such criticism as that ? Is there not an education of the heart of which it shows a lack ? Evidently there is. Such public treasures, open to all, work for us all the time. If you should go and stand, for instance, in Florence, and see the peasant walking amid a gallery of beautiful sculp- ture, or wandering through the gardens of princes, sur- rounded with every exotic and every form of beauty in marble and bronze, you would see the reason why the Italian drinks in the love of the beautiful, until it becomes a part of him, without his thinking of it. So I think that the very sight of yonder Public Library, even to the man who does not enter its alcoves, con- tributes to the growth, expansion, and elevation of his mind. He remembers, at least, that some men have 324 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. recognized that duty to the minds of their fellows, and it raises him for a moment. Direct study is only half. The influences we drink in as we live and move, do even more to mould us. It is not till these do their full work that the character is formed. Argument is not half so strong as habit. A truth is often proved long before it is felt. A man is convinced long before he is converted. Constant, habitual, and often slight influ- ences give us shape and direction. Whately lias well said there is more truth than men think in Dogberry's solemn rebuke, " Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly." I had supposed that I should have given place before this, to one who would have addressed you in detail, and more specifically, in reference to the plans which engage the attention of the public ; but I do not see the gentle- man who has been announced as one of the speakers this evening, Mr. J. A. Andrew, before me, and perhaps, as we have reached the hour at which these meetings usually close, it will be proper for us to adjourn, leaving that particular branch of the subject untouched and fresh for your next session. Perhaps indeed it does not become us, not members of the legislature, to volunteer our advice or opinion on topics that are before them. But still it is to be remembered that, after all, public opinion, the opinion of all thoughtful men who have an interest in the growth and future of the Commonwealth and of Boston, is entitled to consideration ; that all of us have a right to utter our wish, to express our earnest desire, that the State should recognize, before it be too late, her duty in this respect ; that she should save, while she may, this unexpected and large accession of wealth from the possibility of misuse, not let it slip from her hands till some great measures be accomplished, THE EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. 325 such measures as show us worthy, by noble thoughts, of these great trusts, for such wealth is a trust ; that she should help the growth of her capital city, and with it that of the whole Commonwealth, by plans fitted for the highest culture of the people. I welcome the action of the State for another thing. If we could snatch from dispersion, or from the purchase of some foreign capitalist, that magnificent collection which Catlin has made for the history of the aboriginal races of this continent, something that can never be replaced if it be once scattered and lost, of which Boston might fairly take the custody, as the nucleus of that ethnologic study of the races, languages, and epochs of the past history of the continent, and make New Eng- land the centre, as that one collection would make it, of this inqurry and study, it would give a peculiar interest to our city, and a great impulse to a curious and valu- able study. I see before me some of the women of the Common- wealth ; and I remember that this very legislature lias voted the funds of the State for forty-eight scholarships for boys, to be instructed in our various institutions of learning. I see no reason why, with the normal schools, the district schools, and the academies of the State call- ing for teachers, and all departments of life calling for a more broad and liberal culture, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should not raise forty -eight scholarships for the girls of the State, so that they may enjoy the same liberal opportunities with her boys. [Applause.] It seems to me that, in connection with these noble pro- visions for the growth of the adult intellect, the State should remember the schools, and the various channels of woman's influence, and hold the balance even. I value those open institutions of learning which it is pro- posed to establish on yonder bay, especially because they 326 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. will tempt women I mean, in an especial sense, the women in easy circumstances, not obliged to labor for bread to imitate the example of their English sisters on the other side of the Atlantic, and make it fashiona- ble to study the open pages of God's work as they are written out for them in the collections of museums and curiosities of the past. Mr. Chairman, our social life, or what we call such, is a poor and vapid imitation of foreign manners, so un- like the original no wonder some will doubt the propri- ety of my calling it an imitation. Like an exotic laid on an unfit soil, we cannot say planted, it dies. For the mere show and splendor, the luxurious pleasure, the prodigal display of social life, we have neither the wealth nor a large class of idle loungers to keep each other in countenance, and make such continual show possible. Hence, what we call society is only a herd of boys and girls, tired with the day's lessons, or just emancipated from school, met to prattle of nothing, and eat and drink. Selfishness and rude frolic, or tasteless bearing about of rich dress, and a struggle round groaning tables have usurped the place of conversation and manners. Earnest life, the cares of business take up the full grown men ; disgust and weariness keep women away; these last must either contract into idle gossips, or marry to be the drudges of a life aping wealthier levels. Old preju- dice shuts them out of active life. No social life, worthy of the name, upholds them in that wide and liberal in- terest in thought and science, in great questions and civil interests, which made the French woman a power in life and the State, which once separated the Quaker women from the level of their gayer sisters, which now crowds the lists of English literature with women, some of them the best thinkers, the greatest poets, and most faithful scholars in our mother-land. Open these public THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 327 store-houses ; gather these treasures of science into the lap of the State, and see if we cannot create for our women a nobler career, and call into being a society which will refine life, and win men from cares that eat out everything lofty, and sensual pleasures that make them half brutes. All these things work for us. They would make gov- ernment unnecessary, so far as it is coercion. I look upon these things as I do upon the windmills one sees all over the provinces of Holland. They have shut out the ocean with dykes ; past ages built up the colossal structures which save Holland from the wave. So we have built up laws, churches, universities, to keep out from our garnered Commonwealth the flood of ignorance and passion and misrule. But in morals as in Nature, the water which we press back upon the flood oozes daily through the mass ; and the cunning Hollander for cent- uries, remembering this law, has placed his picturesque and wide-spread sails to catch every breeze that sweeps through the country, and as fast as Nature lets the ocean ooze through his defences, the tireless windmills lift it and pour it back into the depths of the sea, and every breeze that hurries across the province at night tells the Dutchman, as he listens, that his home is safer for its passage. So, while you wake or sleep, these stores arid associations shall do the work for you which the winds do for Holland. As the floods of vice ooze back through your defences, they shall relieve you from the continual watching, and educate the people in spite of them- selves, winning them to think, pointing them through Nature to her God, fortifying virtue by habits that render low stimulus needless, and developing the whole man. I think we owe all this to posterity. The generations that preceded us built ships, roads, cities, invented arts, 328 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. raised up manufactures, and left them to us. We inherit libraries and railways ; we inherit factories and houses ; we inherit the wealth and the industry and the culture of the past. We do not do enough if we merely trans- mit that, or what is exactly like it, to the future. No ; he does not imitate his father who is just like his father, paradoxical as it may seem. Every age that has pre- ceded us in New England has set its ingenuity to work to find out some wider, deeper, better, more liberal, and higher method of serving posterity. The Winthrops, the Carvers, and the Brewsters left us churches, planned schools, common roads, and wooden houses. The gen- eration just gone have not only turned their wooden wharves into granite, their roads to iron, their spinning- wheels to factories that can clothe the earth in a month, but they have conquered space and the elements with steam, they have harnessed the lightning and sent it on errands ; they have not only continued their churches, they have taken hold of the four corners of the earth with their societies for the education of the race. It is for us so to be wise in our time, that posterity shall remember us also for some peculiar improvement upon the institu- tions of our fathers. Inaugurate, then, this generation, by the avowal of the principle that private wealth has ceased to be ; that it is mortgaged for the use of the public ; that its office is not to breed up idlers, but to provide the broadest and most liberal means of education ; that it takes the babe of poverty, and holds him in its care- ful hands, and pledges the skill and garnered wealth of the wealthiest to give him the very best possible cul- ture of which the age is capable, that Massachusetts not only gives him the district schools and the normal school, she not only sees to it that his hands shall be educated to earn money, but when, with native tenacity, THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 329 he turns his attention wholly to the present, she opens her broad arms, she utters her tempting voice, she spreads before him the wonders of creation, lures him back from a narrow and sordid life, and bids him be a Massachusetts man, worthy of the past, and the apostle of a greater future. THE SCHOLAR IIS" A REPUBLIC. Address at the Centennial Anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard College, June 30, 1881. None of Mr. Phillips's literary addresses is more characteristic than this, and in none are there more passages parallel with his earlier utterances. His first address before a strictly academic audience was given at the Commencement of Williams College in 1852, before the Adelphi Society. " His sub- ject," says a contemporary report, u was the Duty of a Christian Scholar in a Republic. The morals of the address was this : that the Christian scholar should utter truth, and labor for right and God, though parties and creeds and institutions and constitutions might be damaged. His whole address was in the spirit of that sentence of Emerson : ' I am an endless seeker, with no past at my back.' " In 1855 Mr. Phillips spoke at the Commencement at Dartmouth College, before the United Literary Societies upon the Duties of Thoughtful Men to the Republic. A correspondent sums up the address as follows . " Mr. Phillips thought servility was the great danger of the American scholar, and that as the politician, the press. the pulpit, were faithless, we must place our hope upon the scholars of the country. In them Reform must find the strongest advocates and most efficient supporters. Scholars should leave the heights of contemplation, and come down into the every-day life of the people." In 1857 Mr. Phillips gave the Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale College on The Republican Scholar of Necessity an Agitator, and arraigned the cowardice of American scholarship. Substantially the same address was given the same year at the Commencement of Brown University, before the Philomenian and United Brothers' Society. The sentences which follow and the notes appended to the present address were added by Mr. Phillips himself when it was brought out in pamphlet form by the publishers of this volume. THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 331 Though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he had not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman competently wise in his mother dialect only. MILTON. I cannot but think as Aristotle (lib. 6) did of Thales and Anaxago- ras, that they may be learned but not wise, or wise but not prudent, when they are ignorant of such things as are profitable to them. For suppose they know the wonders of Nature and the subtleties of meta- physics and operations mathematical, yet they cannot be prudent who spend themselves wholly upon unprofitable and ineffective contempla- tion. JEREMY TAYLOR The people, sir, are not always right. The people, Mr. Grey, are not often wrong. DISRAELI : Vivian Grey. Chains are worse than bayonets. DOUGLAS JERROLD. Hadst thou known what freedom was, thou wouldst advise us to defend it not with swords but with axes. Spartans to the Great King's Satrap. MR. PRESIDENT AND BROTHERS OF THE P. B. K. : A hundred years ago our society was planted, a slip from the older root in Virginia. The parent seed, tradition says, was French, part of that conspiracy for free speech whose leaders prated democracy in the salons, while they carefully held on to the flesh-pots of society by crouching low to kings and their mistresses, and whose final object of assault was Christianity itself. Voltaire gave the watchword, " Crush the wretch." "Ecrasez Vinfame" No matter how much or how little truth there may be in the tradition ; no matter what was the origin or what was the object of our society, if it had any special one, both are long since forgotten. We stand now simply a representative of free, brave, American scholarship. 1 emphasize American scholarship. 332 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. In one of those glowing, and as yet unequalled pict- ures which Everett drew for us, here and elsewhere, of Revolutionary scenes, I remember his saying, that the independence we then won, if taken in its literal and narrow sense, was of no interest and little value ; but, construed in the fulness of its real meaning, it bound us to a distinctive American character and purpose, to a keen sense of large responsibility, and to a generous self- devotion. It is under the shadow of such unquestioned authority that I use the term u American scholarship/' Our society was, no doubt, to some extent, a protest against the sombre theology of New England, where, a hundred years ago, the atmosphere was black with ser- mons, and where religious speculation beat uselessly against the narrowest limits. The first generation of Puritans though Lowell does let Cromwell call them " a small colony of pinched fanat- ics " included some men, indeed not a few, worthy to walk close to Roger Williams and Sir Harry Vane, the two men deepest in thought and bravest in speech of all who spoke English in their day, and equal to any in practical statesmanship. Sir Harry Vane^in my judg- ment the noblest human being who ever walked the streets of yonder city, I do not forget Franklin or Sam Adams, Washington or Fayette, Garrison or John Brown, but Vane dwells an arrow's flight above them all, and his touch consecrated the continent to measureless toler- ation of opinion and entire equality of rights. We are told we can find in Plato " all the intellectual life of Europe for two thousand years ; " so you can find in Vane the pure gold of two hundred and fifty years of American civilization, with no particle of its dross. Plato would have welcomed him to the Academy, and Fe*nelon kneeled with him at the altar. He made Somers and John Marshall possible ; like Carnot, he organized vie- THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 333 tory ; and Milton pales before him in the stainlessness of his record. He stands among English statesmen pre- eminently the representative, in practice and in theory, of serene faith in the safety of trusting truth wholly to her own defence. For other men we walk backward, and throw over their memories the mantle of charity and excuse, saying reverently, " Remember the tempta- tion and the age." But Vane's ermine has no stain ; no act of his needs explanation or apology ; and m thought he stands abreast of our age, like pure intellect, be- longs to all time. Carlyle said, 'in years when his words were worth heeding, " Young men, close your Byron, and open your Goethe." If my counsel had weight in these halls, I should say, "Young men, close your John Winthrop and Washington, your Jefferson and Webster, and open Sir Harry Vane." The generation that knew Vane gave to our Alma Mater for a seal the simple pledge, Veritas. But the narrowness and poverty of colonial life soon starved out this element. Harvard was rededicated Christo et Ecclesice ; and up to the middle of the last century, free thought in religion meant Charles Chauncy and the Brattle-Street Church protest, while free thought hardly existed anywhere else. But a single generation changed all this. A hundred years ago there were pul- pits that led the popular movement; while outside of religion and of what called itself literature, industry and a jealous sense of personal freedom obeyed, in their rapid growth, the law of their natures. English com- mon-sense and those municipal institutions born of the common law, and which had saved and sheltered it, grew inevitably too large for the eggshell of English dependence, and allowed it to drop off as naturally as the chick does when she is ready. There was no change of law, nothing that could properly be called revolu- 334 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. tion, only noiseless growth, the seed bursting into flower, infancy becoming manhood. It was life in its omnipo- tence, rending whatever dead matter confined it. So have I seen the tiny weeds of a luxuriant Italian spring upheave the colossal foundations of the Caesars' palace, and leave it a mass of ruins. But when the veil was withdrawn, what stood revealed astonished the world. It. showed the undreamt power, the serene strength of simple manhood, free from the burden and restraint of absurd institutions in Church and State. The grandeur of this new Western constel- lation gave courage to Europe, resulting in the French Revolution, the greatest, the most unmixed, the most unstained and wholly perfect blessing Europe has had in modern times, unless we may possibly except the Reformation and the invention of printing. What precise effect that giant wave had when it struck our shore we can only guess. History is, for the most part, an idle amusement, the day-dream of pedants and triflers. The details of events, the actors' motives, and their relation to each other are buried with them. How impossible to learn the exact truth of what took place yesterday under your next neighbor's roof! Yet, we complacently argue and speculate about matters a thou- sand miles off, and a thousand years ago, as if we knew them. When I was a student here, my favorite study was history. The world and affairs have shown me that one half of history is loose conjecture, and much of the rest is the writer's opinion. 1 But most men see facts, 1 Read me anything but history, for history must be false. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE The records of the past are not complete enough to enable the most dilligent historian to give a connected narrative in which there shall not be many parts resting on guesses or inferences or unauthenticated ru- mors. He may guess himself, or he may report other people's guesses ; but guesses there must be. SPEDDIXO, Life of Bacon, vol. vi. p. 76. THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 335 not with their eyes, but with their prejudices. Any one familiar with courts will testify how rare it is for an honest man to give a perfectly correct account of a transaction. We are tempted fco see facts as we think they ought to be, or wish they were. And yet journals are the favorite original sources of history. Tremble, my good friend, if your sixpenny neighbor keeps a journal. " It adds a new terror to death." You shall go down to your children not in your fair lineaments and proportions, but with the smirks, elbows, and angles he sees you with. Journals are excellent to record the depth of the last snow and the date when the May- flower opens ; but when you come to men's motives and characters, journals are the magnets that get near the chronometer of history and make all its records worth- less. You can count on the fingers of your two hands all the robust minds that ever kept journals. Only milk- sops and fribbles indulge in that amusement, except now and then a respectable mediocrity. One such journal nightmares New England annals, emptied into history by respectable middle-aged gentlemen who fancy that narrowness and spleen, like poor wine, mellow into truth when they get to be a century old. But you might as well cite the Daily Advertiser of 1850 as authority on one of Garrison's actions. And, after all, of what value are these minutia3? Whether Luther's zeal was partly kindled by lack of gain from the sale of indulgences, whether Boston rebels were half smugglers and half patriots, what mat- ters it now ? Enough that he meant to wrench the gag from Europe's lips, and that they were content to suffer keenly, that we might have an untrammelled career. We can only hope to discover the great currents and massive forces which have shaped our lives ; all else is trying to solve a problem of whose elements we know 386 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. nothing. As the poet-historian of the last generation says so plaintively, " History comes like a beggarly gleaner in the field, after Death, the great lord of the domain, has gathered the harvest, and lodged it in his garner, which no man may open." But we may safely infer that French debate and ex- perience broadened and encouraged our fathers. To that we undoubtedly owe, in some degree, the theoreti- cal perfection, ingrafted on English practical sense and old forms, which marks the foundation of our republic. English civil life, up to that time, grew largely out of custom, rested almost wholly on precedent. For our model there was no authority in the record, no precedent on the file ; unless you find it, perhaps, partially, in that Long Parliament bill with which Sir Harry Vane would have outgeneralled Cromwell, if the shameless soldier had not crushed it with his muskets. Standing on Saxon foundations, and inspired, perhaps^ in some degree by Latin example, we have done what no race, no nation, no age, had before dared even to try. We have founded a republic on the unlimited suffrage of the millions. We have actually worked out the prob- lem that man, as God created him, may be trusted with self-government. We have shown the world that a Church without a bishop, and a State without a king, is an actual, real, every-day possibility. Look back over the history of the race ; where will you find a chapter that precedes us in that achievement ? Greece had her republics, but they were the republics of a few freemen and subjects and many slaves ; and " the battle of Mara- thon was fought by slaves, unchained from the door-posts of their masters' houses." Italy had her republics : they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. The Swiss republics were groups of cousins. Holland had her republic, a republic of THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 337 guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of state to property and education. And all these, which at their best held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time. A hundred years ago our fathers announced this sub- lime, and, as it seemed then, foolhardy declaration, that God intended all men to be free and equal : all men, without restriction, without qualification, without limit. A hundred years have rolled away since that venturous declaration ; and to-day, with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with fifty millions of people, with two wars be- hind her, with the grand achievement of having grappled with the fearful disease that threatened her central life and broken four millions of fetters, the great Republic, stronger than ever, launches into the second century of her existence. The history of the world has no such chapter in its breadth, its depth, its significance, or its bearing on future history. What Wycliffe did for religion, Jefferson and Sam Adams did for the State, they trusted it to the people. He gave the masses the Bible, the right to think. Jef- ferson and Sam Adams gave them the ballot, the right to rule. His intrepid advance contemplated theirs as its natural, inevitable result. Their serene faith com- pleted the gift which the Anglo-Saxon race makes to humanity. We have not only established a new meas- ure of the possibilities of the race ; we have laid on strength, wisdom, and skill a new responsibility. Grant that each man's relations to God and his neighbor are exclusively his own Concern, and that he is entitled ta all the aid that will^ moTre him the hsuda.^L these- relations ;^Saf/ the people are the source of all power, and their measureless capacity, the lever of all progress ; their sense of right, the court of final appeal in civil affairs ; the institutions they create the only ones any IS 338 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. power has a right to impose ; that the attempt of one class to prescribe the law, the religion, the morals, or the trade of another is both unjust and harmful, and the Wycliffe and Jefferson of history mean this if they mean anything, then, when in 1867, Parliament doubled the English franchise, Robert Lowe was right in affirming, amid the cheers of the House, " Now the first interest and duty of every Englishman is to educate the masses our masters." Then, whoever sees farther than his neighbor is that neighbor's servant to lift him to such higher level. Then, power, ability, influence, character, virtue, are only trusts with which to serve our time. \J0Te all agree in the duty of scholars to help those less favored in life, and that this duty of scholars to educate the mass is still more imperative in a republic, since a republic trusts the State wholly to the intelli- gence and moral sense of the people.} The experience of the last forty years shows every man that law has no atom of strength, either in Boston or New Orleans, unless, and only so far as, public opinion indorses it, and that your life, goods, and good name rest on the moral sense, self-respect, and law-abiding mood of the men that walk the streets, and hardly a whit on the provisions of the statute-book. Come, any one of you, outside of the ranks of popular men, and you will not fail to find it so. Easy men dream that we live under a government of law. Absurd mistake ! we live under a government of men and newspapers. Your first attempt to stem dominant and keenly-cherished opinions will reveal this to you. But what is education ? Of course it is not book- learning. Book-learning does not make five per cent of that mass of common-sense that "runs" the world, transacts its business, secures its progress, trebles its THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 339 power over Nature, works out in the long run a rougli average justice, wears away the world's restraints, and lifts off its burdens. The ideal Yankee, who " has more brains in his hand than others have in their skulls," is not a scholar ; and two thirds of the inventions that enable France to double the world's sunshine, and make Old and New England the workshops of the world, did not come from colleges or from minds trained in the schools of science, but struggled up, forcing their way against giant obstacles, from the irrepressible instinct of untrained natural power. Her workshops, not her colleges, made England, for a while, the mistress of the world ; and the hardest job her workman had was to make Oxford willing he should work his wonders. So of moral gains. As shrewd an observer as Gov- ernor Marcy, of New York, often said he cared 'nothing for the whole press of the seaboard, representing wealth and education (he meant book-learning), if it set itself against the instincts of the people. Lord Brougham, in a remarkable comment on the life of Romilly, en- larges on the fact that the great reformer of the penal law found all the legislative and all the judicial power i of England, its colleges and its bar, marshalled against -^ him, and owed his success, as all such reforms do, says/ his lordship, to public meetings and popular instinct/ It would be no exaggeration to say that government itself began in usurpation, in the feudalism of the sol- dier and the bigotry of the priest ; that liberty and civilization are only fragments of rights wrung from the strong hands of wealth and book-learning. Almost all the great truths relating to society were not the result of scholarly meditation, " hiving up wisdom with each curious year," but have been first heard in the solemn protests of martyred patriotism and the loud 340 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. cries of crushed and starving labor. When common- sense and the common people have stereotyped a prin- ciple into a statute, then book-men come to explain how it was discovered and on what ground it rests. The world makes history, and scholars write it, one half truly, and the other half as their prejudices blur and distort it. New England learned more of the principles of tol- eration from a lyceum committee doubting the dicta of editors and bishops when they forbade it to put Theodore Parker on its platform ; more from a debate whether the Antislavery cause should be so far counte- nanced as to invite one of its advocates to lecture ; from Sumner and Emerson, George William Curtis, and Edwin Whipple, refusing to speak unless a negro could buy his way into their halls as freely as any other, New Eng- land has learned more from these lessons than she has or could have done from all the treatises on free print- ing from Milton and Roger Williams through Locke down to Stuart Mill. Selden, the profoundest scholar of his day, affirmed, " No man is wiser for his learning ; " and that was only an echo of the Saxon proverb, u No fool is a perfect fool until he learns Latin." Bancroft says of our fathers, that " the wildest theories of the human reason were re- duced to practice by a community so humble that no statesman condescended to notice it, and a legislation without precedent was produced off-hand by the in- stincts of the people." And Wordsworth testifies, that, while German schools might well blush for their subserviency, " A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day Than all the pride of intellect and thought." THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 341 Wycliffe was, no doubt, a learned man. But the learning of his day would have burned him, had it dared, as it did burn his dead body afterwards. Luther and Melanchthon were scholars, but they were repudiated by the scholarship of their time, which followed Erasmus, trying "all his life to tread on eggs without breaking them ; " he who proclaimed that " peaceful error was better than tempestuous truth." What would college- graduate Seward weigh, in any scale, against Lincoln bred in affairs? Hence, I do not think the greatest things have been done for the world by its book-men. Education is not the chips of arithmetic and grammar, nouns, verbs, and the multiplication table; neither is it that last year's almanac of dates, or series of lies agreed upon, which we so often mistake for history. Education is not Greek and Latin and the air-pump. Still, I rate at its full value the training we get in these walls. Though what we actually carry away is little enough, we do get some training of our powers, as the gymnast or the fencer does of his muscles ; we go hence also with such general knowledge of what mankind has agreed to consider proved and settled, that we know where to reach for the weapon when we need it. I have often thought the motto prefixed to his college library catalogue by the father of the late Professor Peirce, Professor Peirce, the largest natural genius, the man of the deepest reach and firmest grasp and widest sympathy, that God has given to Harvard in our day, whose presence made you the loftiest peak and farthest outpost of more than mere scientific thought, the magnet who, with his twin Agassiz, made Harvard for forty years the intellectual Mecca of forty States, his father's catalogue bore for a motto, Scire ubi ali- quid invenias magna pars eruditions est ; and that 342 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. always seemed to me to gauge very nearly all we ac- quired at college, except facility in the use of em- powers. Our influence in the community does not really spring from superior attainments, but from this thorough training of faculties, and more even, perhaps, from the deference men accord to us. Gibbon says we have two educations, one from teachers, and the other we give ourselves. This last is (the real and only education of the masses, one gotten [from life, from affairs, from earning one's bread ; neces- sity, the mother of invention ; responsibility, that teaches prudence, and inspires respect for right. Mark the critic out of office : how reckless in assertion, how care- less of consequences ; and then the caution, forethought, and fair play of the same man charged with administra- tion. See that young, thoughtless wife suddenly wid- owed ; how wary and skilful, what ingenuity in guarding her child and saving his rights ! Any one who studied Europe forty or fifty years ago could not but have marked the level of talk there, far below that of our masses. It was of crops and rents, markets and mar- riages, scandal and fun. Watch men here, and how often you listen to the keenest discussions of right and wrong, this leader's honesty, that party's justice, the fair- ness of this law, the impolicy of that measure, lofty, broad topics, training morals, widening views. Niebuhr said of Italy, sixty years ago, " No one feels himself a citizen. Not only are the people destitute of hope, but [they have not even wishes touching the world's affairs; ind hence all the springs of great and noble thoughts ire choked up." In this sense the Fremont campaign of 1856 taught Americans more than a hundred colleges ; and John Brown's pulpit at Harper's Ferry was equal to any ten thousand ordinary chairs. God lifted a million of hearts THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 343 to his gibbet, as the Roman cross lifted a world to itself in that divine sacrifice of two thousand years ago. As much as statesmanship had taught in our previous eighty years, that one week of intellectual watching and weighing and dividing truth taught twenty millions of people. Yet how little, brothers, can we claim for book- men in that uprising and growth of 1856 ! And while the first of American scholars could hardly find in the rich vocabulary of Saxon scorn words enough to express, amid the plaudits of his class, his loathing and contempt for John Brown, Europe thrilled to him as proof that our institutions had not lost all their native and distinctive life. She had grown tired of our parrot note and cold moonlight reflection of older civilizations. Lansdowne and Brougham could confess to Sumner that they had never read a page of their contemporary, Daniel Web- ster; and you spoke to vacant eyes when you named Prescott, fifty years ago, to average Europeans ; while Vienna asked, with careless indifference, " Seward, who is he ? " But long before our ranks marched up State Street to the John Brown song, the banks of the Seine and of the Danube hailed the new life which had given. us another and nobler Washington. Lowell foresaw him when, forty years ago, he sang of, " Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne ; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God, within the shadow. Keeping watch above His own." And yet the book-men, as a class, have not yet acknowl- edged him. It is here that letters betray their lack of distinctive American character. Fifty millions of men God gives us to mould ; burning questions, keen debate, great in- 344 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. terests trying to vindicate their right to be, sad wrongs brought to the bar of public judgment, these are the people's schools. Timid scholarship either shrinks from sharing in these- agitations, or denounces them as vulgar and dangerous interference^by incompetent hands with matters above them. KA chronic distrust of the people pervades the book-educated class of the North ; they shrink from that free speech which is God's normal school for educating men, throwing upon them the grave responsibility of deciding great ques- tions, and so lifting them to a higher level of intel- lectual and moral life. Trust the people the wise and the ignorant, the good and the bad with the gravest questions, and in the end you educate the race. At the same time you secure, not perfect institutions, not necessarily good ones, but the best institutions pos- sible while human nature is the basis and the only ma- terial to build with. Men are educated and the State uplifted by allowing all every one to broach all their mistakes and advocate all their errors. The com- munity that will not protect its most ignorant and un- popular member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves ! Anacharsis went into the Archon's court at Athens, heard a case argued by the great men of that city, and saw the vote by five hundred men. Walking in the streets, some one asked him, " What do you think of Athenian liberty?" "I think," said he, "wise men argue cases, and fools decide them." Just what that timid scholar, two thousand years ago, said in the streets of Athens, that which calls itself scholarship here says to-day of popular agitation, that it lets wise men argue questions and fools decide them. But that Athens where fools decided the gravest questions of policy and of right and wrong, where property you had THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 845 gathered wearily to-day might be wrung from you hy the caprice of the mob to-inorro\v, that very Athens probably secured, for its era, the greatest amount of human happiness and nobleness, invented art, and sounded for us the depths of philosophy. God lent to it the largest intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet the mountain peaks of the Old World. While Egypt, the hunker conservative of antiquity, where no- body dared to differ from the priest or to be wiser than his grandfather ; where men pretended to be alive, though swaddled in the grave-clothes of creed and custom as close as their mummies were in linen, that Egypt is hid in the tomb it inhabited, and the intellect Athens has trained for us digs to-day those ashes to find out how buried and forgotten hunkerism lived and acted. I knew a signal instance of this disease of scholar's distrust, and the^ cure was as remarkable. In boyhood and early Jife I was honored with the friendship of Lothrop Motley. He grew up in the thin air of Bos- ton provincialism, and pined on such weak diet. I remember sitting with him once in the State House when he was a member of our legislature. With bit- ing words and a keen crayon he sketched the ludicrous points in the minds and persons of his fellow-members, and tearing up the pictures, said scornfully, " What can become of a country with such fellows as these making its laws ? No safe investments ; your good name lied away any hour, and little worth keeping if it- were not." In vain I combated the folly. He went to Europe ; . spent four or five years. I met him the day he landed on his return. As if our laughing talk in the State House had that moment ended, he took my hand with the sudden exclamation, " You were all right; I was all wrong! It is a country worth dying for ; better still, worth living and working for, to make 346 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. it all it can be ! " Europe made him one of the most American of all Americans. Some five years later, when he sounded the bugle-note in his letter to the London Times, some critics who knew his early mood, but not its change, suspected there might be a taint of ambition in what they thought so sudden a conversion. I could testify that the mood was five years old, years before the slightest shadow of political expectation had dusked the clear mirror of his scholar life. This distrust shows itself in the growing dislike of universal suffrage, and the efforts to destroy it made of late by all our easy classes. The white South hates universal suffrage ; the so-called cultivated North dis- trusts it. Journal and college, social-science convention and the pulpit, discuss the propriety of restraining it. Timid scholars tell their dread of it. Carlyle, that bundle of sour prejudices, flouts universal suffrage with a blasphemy that almost equals its ignorance. See his words : " Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ." No democracy ever claimed that the vote of ignorance and crime was as good in any sense as that of wisdom and virtue. It only asserts that crime and ignorance have the same right to vote that virtue has. Only by allow- ing that right, and so appealing to their sense of justice, and throwing upon them the burden of their full re- sponsibility, can we hope ever to raise crime and igno- rance to the level of self-respect. The right to choose your governor rests on precisely the same foundation as the right to choose your religion ; and no more arro- gant or ignorant arraignment of all that is noble in the civil and religious Europe of the last five hundred years ever came from the triple crown on the Seven Hills than this sneer of the bigot Scotsman. Protestantism holds up its hands in holy horror, and tells us that the THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 347 Pope scoops out the brains of his churchmen, saying, 4; I '11 think for you ; you need only obey." But the danger is, you meet such popes far away from the Seven Hills ; and it is sometimes difficult at first to recognize them, for they do not by any means always wear the triple crown. Evarts and his committee, appointed to inquire why the New York City government is a failure, were not wise enough, or did not dare, to point out the real cause, the tyranny of that tool of the demagogue, the corner grog shop ; but they advised taking away the bal- lot from the poor citizen. But this provision would not reach the evil. Corruption does not so much rot the masses ; it poisons Congress. Credit-Mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs ; they flaunt at the Capitol. As usual in chemistry, the scum floats uppermost. The railway king disdained canvassing for voters : " It is cheaper," he said, " to buy legislatures." It is not the masses who have most disgraced our political annals. I have seen many mobs between the seaboard and the Mississippi. I never saw or heard of any but well-dressed mobs, assembled and countenanced, > if not always led in person, by respectability and what called itself education. That unrivalled scholar, the first and greatest New England ever lent to Congress, signalled his advent by quoting the original Greek of the New Testament in support of slavery, and offering to shoulder his musket in its defence ; and forty years later the last professor who went to quicken and lift the moral mood of those halls is found advising a plain, blunt, honest witness to forge and lie, that this scholarly reputation might be saved from wreck. Singular com- ment on Landor's sneer, that there is a spice of the scoundrel in most of our literary men. But no exacting 348 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. level of property qualification for a vote would have saved those stains. In those cases Judas did not come from the unlearned class. Grown gray over history, Macaulay prophesied twenty years ago that soon in these States the poor, worse than another inroad of Goths and Vandals, would begin a general plunder of the rich. It is enough to say that our national funds sell as well in Europe as English consols ; and the universal-suffrage Union can borrow money as cheaply as Great Britain, ruled, one half by Tories, and the other half by men not certain that they dare call themselves Whigs. Some men affected to scoff at democracy as no sound basis for national debt, doubting the payment of ours. Europe not only won- ders at its rapid payment, but the only taint of fraud that touches even the hem of our garment is the fraud of the capitalist cunningly adding to its burdens, and increasing unfairly the value of his bonds ; not the first hint from the people of repudiating an iota even of its unjust additions. Yet the poor and the unlearned class is the one they propose to punish by disfranchisement. No wonder the humbler class looks on the whole scene with alarm. They see their dearest right in peril. When the easy class conspires to steal, what wonder the humbler class draws together to defend itself ? True, universal suffrage is a terrible power ; and with all the great cities brought into subjection to the dan- gerous classes by grog, and Congress sitting to register the decrees of capital, both sides may well dread the next move. Experience proves that popular govern- ments are the best protectors of life and property. But suppose they were not, Bancroft allows that " the .fears of one class are no measure of the rights of another." Suppose that universal suffrage endangered peace and THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 349 threatened property. There is something more valuable than wealth, there is something more sacred than peace. As Humboldt says, " The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a man." To ripen, lift, and educate a man is the first duty. Trade, law, learning, science, and religion are only the scaffolding wherewith to build a man. Despotism looks down into the poor man's cradle, and knows it can crush resistance ' and curb ill-will. Democracy sees the ballot in that baby-hand ; and sel- fishness bids her put integrity on one side of those baby footsteps and intelligence on the other, lest her own hearth be in peril. Thank God for His method of tak- ing bonds of wealth and culture to share all their bless- ings with the humblest soul He gives to their keeping ! The American should cherish as serene a faith as his fathers had. Instead of seeking a coward safety by battening down the hatches and putting men back into chains, he should recognize that God places him in this peril that he may work out a noble security by concen- trating all moral forces to lift this weak, rotting, and dangerous mass into sunlight and health. The fathers touched their highest level when, with stout-hearted and serene faith, they trusted God that it was safe to leave men witli all the rights he gave them. Let us be worthy of their blood, and save this sheet-anchor of the race, universal suffrage, God's church, God's school, God's method of gently binding men into com- monwealths in order that they may at last melt into brothers. I urge on college-bred men, that, as a class, they fail in republican duty when they allow others to lead in the agitation of the great social questions which stir and educate^ the age. Agitation is an old word with a new meaning. Sir Robert Peel, the first English leader who felt himself its tool, denned it to be " marshalling the 350 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. conscience of a nation to mould its laws." Its means are reason and argument, no appeal to arms. Wait patiently for the growth of public opinion. That se- cured, then every step taken is taken forever. An abuse once removed never reappears in history. The freer a nation becomes, the more utterly democratic in its form, the more need of this outside agitation. Par- ties and sects laden with the burden of securing their own success cannot afford to risk new ideas. " Pre- dominant opinions," said Disraeli, " are the opinions of a class that is vanishing." The agitator must stand out- side of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candi- date to elect, no party to save, no object but truth, to tear a question open and riddle it with light. In all modern constitutional governments, agitation is the only peaceful method of progress. Wilberforce and Clarkson, Rowland Hill and Romilly, Cobden and John Bright, Garrison and O'Connell, have been the I master-spirits in this new form of crusade. Rarely in this country have scholarly men joined, as a class, in these great popular schools, in these social movements which make the great interests of society " crash and jostle against each other like frigates in a storm." It is not so much that the people need us, or will feel any lack from our absence. They can do without us. By sovereign and superabundant strength they can crush their way through all obstacles. "They will march prospering, not through our presence ; Songs will inspirit them, not from our lyre ; Deeds will be done, while we boast our quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bid aspire." The misfortune is, we lose a God-given opportunity of making the change an unmixed good, or with the slightest possible share of evil, and are recreant besides to a special duty. These " agitations " are the oppor- THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 351 tunities and the means God offers us to refine the taste, mould the character, lift the purpose, and educate the moral sense of the masses on whose intelligence and self-respect rests the State. God furnishes these texts. He gathers for us this audience, and only asks of our coward lips to preach the sermons. There have heen four or five of these great oppor- tunities. The crusade against slavery that grand hypocrisy which poisoned the national life of two gen- erations was one, a conflict between two civiliza- tions which threatened to rend the Union. Almost every element among us was stirred to take a part in the battle. Every great issue, civil and moral, was in- volved, toleration of opinion, limits of authority, rela- tion of citizen to law, place of the Bible, priest and layman, sphere of woman, question of race, State rights and nationality ; and Channing testified that free speech and free printing owed their preservation to the struggle. But the pulpit flung the Bible at the reformer ; law vis- ited him with its penalties ; society spewed him out of its mouth ; bishops expurgated the pictures of their Common Prayer Books ; and editors omitted pages in republishing English history ; even Pierpont emascu- lated his Class-book ; Bancroft remodelled his chapters ; and Everett carried Washington through thirty States, remembering to forget the brave words the wise Vir- ginian had left on record warning his countrymen of this evil. Amid this battle of the giants, scholarship sat dumb for thirty years until imminent deadly peril convulsed it into action, and colleges, in their despair, gave to the army that help they had refused to the market-place and the rostrum. There was here and there an exception. That earth- quake scholar at Concord, whose serene word, like a whisper among the avalanches, topples down supersti- 352 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. tions and prejudices, was at his post, and with half a score of others, made the exception that proved the rule. Pulpits, just so far as they could not hoast of culture, and nestled closest down among the masses, were infinitely braver than the " spires and antique towers" of stately collegiate institutions. Then came reform of penal legislation, the effort to make law mean justice, and substitute for its bar- barism Christianity and civilization. In Massachusetts, Rantoul represents Beccaria and Livingston, Mackin- tosh and Romilly. I doubt if he ever had one word of encouragement from Massachusetts letters ; and with a single exception, I have never seen, till within a dozen years, one that could be called a scholar active in moving the legislature to reform its code. The London Times proclaimed, twenty years ago, that intemperance produced more idleness, crime, dis- ease, want, and misery, than all other causes put to- gether ; and the Westminster Review calls it a "curse that far eclipses every other calamity under whicli we suffer." Gladstone, speaking as prime minister, admitted that " greater calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than by the three great his- torical scourges, war, pestilence, and famine." De Quincey says, " The most remarkable instance of a com- bined movement in society which history, perhaps, will be summoned to notice, is that which, in our day, has applied itself to the abatement of intemperance. T\vo vast movements are hurrying into action by velocities continually accelerated, the great revolutionary move- ment from political causes, concurring with the great physical movement in locomotion and social intercourse . from the gigantic power of steam. At the opening of such a crisis, had no third movement arisen of resistance to intemperate habits, there would have been ground of THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 353 despondency as to the melioration of the human race." These are English testimonies, where the State rests more than half on bayonets. Here we are trying to rest the ballot-box on a drunken people. " We can rule a great city," said Sir Robert Peel, "America can- not ; " and he cited the mobs of New York as sufficient proof of his assertion. Thoughtful men see that up to this hour the govern- ment of great cities has been with us a failure; that worse than the dry-rot of legislative corruption, than the rancor of party spirit, than Southern barbarism, than even the tyranny of incorporated wealth, is the giant burden of intemperance, making universal suf- frage a failure and a curse in every great city. Scholars who play statesmen, 1 and editors who masquerade as scholars, can waste much excellent anxiety that clerks shall get no office until they know the exact date of Caesar's assassination, as well as the latitude of Pekin, and the Rule of Three. But while this crusade the Temperance movement has been, for sixty years, gath- ering its facts and marshalling its arguments, rallying parties, besieging legislatures, and putting great States on the witness-stand as evidence of the soundness of its methods, scholars have given it nothing but a sneer. But if universal suffrage ever fails here for a time, per- manently it cannot fail, it will not be incapable civil service, nor an ambitious soldier, nor Southern vandals, nor venal legislatures, nor the greed of wealth, nor boy statesmen rotten before they are ripe, that will put uni- versal suffrage into eclipse : it will be rum intrenched in great cities and commanding every vantage ground. Social science affirms that woman's place in society marks the level of civilization. From its twilight in 1 Vide note at the end of this lecture, page 363. 23 354 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. Greece, through the Italian worship of the Virgin, the dreams of chivalry, the justice of the civil law, and the equality of French society, we trace her gradual recog- nition ; while our common law, as Lord Brougham con- fessed, was, with relation to women, the opprobrium of the age and of Christianity. For forty years plain men and women, working noiselessly, have washed away that opprobrium ; the statute-books of thirty States have been remodelled, and woman stands to-day almost face to face with her last claim, the ballot. It has been a weary and thankless, though successful, struggle. But if there be any refuge from that ghastly curse, the vice of great cities, before which social science stands pal- sied and dumb, it is in this more equal recognition of woman. If, in this critical battle for universal suffrage, our fathers' noblest legacy to us, and the greatest trust God leaves in our hands, there be any weapon, which once taken from the armory will make victory certain, it will be, as it has been in art, literature, and society, summoning woman into the political arena. But at any rate, up to this point, putting suffrage aside, there can be no difference of opinion ; everything born of Christianity, or allied to Grecian culture or Saxon law, must rejoice in the gain. The literary class, until within half a dozen years, has taken note of this great uprising only to fling every obstacle in its way. The first glimpse we get of Saxon blood in history is that line of Tacitus in his " Germany," which reads, " In all grave matters they consult their women." Years hence, when robust Saxon sense has flung away Jewish superstition and Eastern prejudice, and put under its foot fastidious scholarship and squeamish fashion, some second Tacitus, from the valley of the Mississippi, will answer to him of the Seven Hills, " In all grave questions we consult our women." THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 355 I used to think that then we could say to letters as Henry of Navarre wrote to the Sir Philip Sidney of his realm, Crillon, " the bravest of the brave," " We have conquered at Arques, et tu rfy etais pas, Crillon" u You were not there, my Crillon." But a second thought reminds me that what claims to be literature has been always present in that battlefield, and always in the ranks of the foe. Ireland is another touchstone which reveals to us how absurdly we masquerade in democratic trappings while we have gone to seed in Tory distrust of the peo- ple ; false to every duty, which, as eldest-born of demo- cratic institutions, we owe to the oppressed, and careless of the lesson every such movement may be made in keeping public thought, clear, keen, and fresh as to principles which are the essence of our civilization, the groundwork of all education in republics. Sydney Smith said, " The moment Ireland is men- tioned the English seem to bid adieu to common-sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the- fatuity of idiots. ... As long as the patient will suffer, the cruel will kick. ... If the Irish go on withholding and forbearing, and hesitating whether this is the time for discussion or that is the time, they will be laughed at another century as fools, and kicked for another century as slaves." Byron called England's Union with Ireland " the union of the shark with his prey." Ben- 1 tham's conclusion, from a survey of five hundred years of European history, was, " Only by making the ruling few uneasy can the oppressed many obtain a particle of relief." Edmund Burke Burke, the noblest fig- ure in the Parliamentary history of the last hundred years, greater than Cicero in the senate and almost Plato in the academy Burke affirmed, a century ago, " Ireland has learned at last that justice is to be had from 356 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. England only when demanded at the sword's point." And a century later, only last year, Gladstone himself proclaimed in a public address in Scotland, " England never concedes anything to Ireland except when moved to do so by fear." When we remember these admissions, we ought to clap our hands at every fresh Irish " outrage," as a par- rot-press styles it, aware that it is only a far-off echo of the musket-shots that rattled against the Old State House on the 5th of March, 1770, and of the war- whoop that made the tiny spire of the Old South trem- ble when Boston rioters emptied the three India tea- ships into the sea, welcome evidence of living force and rare intelligence in the victim, and a sign that the day of deliverance draws each hour nearer. Cease ringing endless changes of eulogy on the men who made North's Boston port-bill a failure, while every leading journal sends daily over the water wishes for the success of Gladstone's copy of the bill for Ireland. If all rightful government rests on consent, if, as the French say, you " can do almost anything with a bayonet except sit on it," be at least consistent, and denounce the man who covers Ireland with regiments to hold up a despotism which, within twenty months, he has confessed rests wholly upon fear. Then note the scorn and disgust with which we gather up our garments about us and disown the Sam Adams and William Prescott, the George Washington and John Brown, of St. Petersburg, the spiritual de- scendants, the living representatives of those who make our history worth anything in the worlds annals, the Nihilists. Nihilism is the righteous and honorable resistance of a people crushed under an iron rule. Nihilism is evi- dence of life. When " order reigns in Warsaw," it is THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 357 spiritual death. Nihilism is the last weapon of victims choked and manacled beyond all other resistance. -It is crushed humanity's only means of making the op- pressor tremble. God means that unjust power shall be insecure ; and every move of the giant, prostrate in chains, whether it be to lift a single dagger, or stir a city's revolt, is a lesson in justice. One might well tremble for the future of the race if such a despotism could exist without provoking the bloodiest resistance. 1 honor Nihilism, since it redeems human nature from the suspicion of being utterly vile, made up only of heartless oppressors and contented slaves. Every line in our history, every interest of civilization, bids us rejoice when the tyrant grows pale and the slave rebel- lious. We cannot but pity the suffering of any human being, however richly deserved ; but such pity must not confuse our moral sense. Humanity gains. Chat- ham rejoiced when our fathers rebelled. For every single reason they alleged, Russia counts a hundred, each one ten times bitterer than any Hancock or Adams could give. Sam Johnson's standing toast in Oxford port was, " Success to the first insurrection of slaves in Jamaica," a sentiment Southey echoed. u Eschew cant," said that old moralist. But of all the cants that are canted in this canting world, though the cant of piety may be the worst, the cant of Americans bewailing Russian Nihilism is the most disgusting. I know what reform needs, and all it needs, in a land where discussion is free, the press untrammelled, and where public halls protect debate. There, as Emerson says, " What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations." Lieber said, in 1870, " Bismarck proclaims to-day in the Diet the very princi- 358 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. pies for which we were hunted and exiled fifty years ago." Submit to risk your daily bread, expect social ostracism, count on a mob now and then, " be in ear- nest, don't equivocate, don't excuse, don't retreat a sin- gle inch," and you will finally be heard. No matter how long and weary the waiting, at last, " Ever the truth comes uppermost, And ever is justice done ; " " For Humanity sweeps onward Where to-day the martyr stands On the morrow crouches Judas, With the silver in his hands ; " Far in front the cross stands ready, And the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday In silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes Into History's golden urn." In such a land he is doubly and trebly guilty who, except in some most extreme case, disturbs the sober rule of law and order. But such is not Russia. In Russia there is no press, no debate, no explanation of what government does, no remonstrance allowed, no agitation of public issues. Dead silence, like that which reigns at the summit of Mont Blanc, freezes the whole empire, long ago de- scribed as " a despotism tempered by assassination." Meanwhile, such despotism has unsettled the brains of the ruling family, as unbridled power doubtless made some of the twelve Caesars insane, a madman sporting with the lives and comfort of a hundred millions of men. The young girl whispers in her mother's ear, under a ceiled roof, her pity for a brother knouted and dragged half dead into exile for his opinions. The next week THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 359 she is stripped naked and flogged to death in the public square. No inquiry, no explanation, no trial, no pro- test ; one dead uniform silence, the law of the tyrant. Where is there ground for any hope of peaceful change ? Where the fulcrum upon which you can plant any pos- sible lever ? Macchiavelli's sorry picture of poor human nature would be fulsome flattery if men could keep still under such oppression. No, no ! in such a land dynamite and the dagger are the necessary and proper substitutes for Faneuil Hall and the Daily Advertiser. Anything that will make the madman quake in his bedchamber, and rouse his victims into reckless and desperate resistance. This is the only view an American, the child of 1620 and 1776, can take of Nihilism. Any other unsettles and perplexes the ethics of our civilization. Born within sight of Bunker Hill, in a commonwealth which adopts the motto of Algernon Sydney, sub libertate quietem (" accept no peace without liberty") ; son of Harvard, whose first pledge was " Truth ; " citizen of a republic based on the claim that no government is rightful unless resting on the consent of the people, and which assumes to lead in asserting the rights of humanity, I at least can say nothing else and nothing less ; no, not if every tile on Cambridge roofs were a devil hooting my words ! I shall bow to any rebuke from those who hold Chris- tianity to command entire non-resistance. But criticism from any other quarter is only that nauseous hypocrisy which, stung by threepenny tea-tax, piles Bunker Hill with granite and statues, prating all the time of patriot- ism and broadswords, while, like another Pecksniff, it recommends a century of dumb submission and entire non-resistance to the Russians, who for a hundred years have seen their sons by thousands dragged to 360 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. death or exile, no one knows which, in this worse than Venetian mystery of police, and their maidens flogged to death in the market-place, and who share the same fate if they presume to ask the reason why. " It is unfortunate," says Jefferson, " that the efforts of mankind to secure the freedom of which they have been deprived, should be accompanied with violence and even with crime. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end." Pray fearlessly for such ends ; there is no risk ! " Men are all tories by nature," says Arnold, " when tolerably well off ; only monstrous injustice and atrocious cruelty can rouse them." Some talk of the rashness of the uneducated classes. Alas ! ignorance is far oftener obstinate than rash. Against one French Revolution that scarecrow of the ages weigh Asia, " carved in stone," and a thousand years of Europe, with her half-dozen nations meted out and trodden down to be the dull and contented footstools of priests and kings. The customs of a thousand years ago are the sheet-anchor of the passing generation, so deeply buried, so fixed, that the most violent efforts of the maddest fanatic can drag it but a hand's-breadth. Before the war, Americans were like the crowd in that terrible hall of Eblis which Beckford painted for us, each man with his hand pressed on the incurable sore in his bosom, and pledged not to speak of it ; com- pared with other lands, we were intellectually and morally a nation of cowards. When I first entered the Roman States, a custom- house official seized all my French books. In vain I held up to him a treatise by Fe*nelon, and explained that it was by a Catholic archbishop of Cambray. Gruffly he answered, " It makes no difference ; it is French" As I surrendered the volume to his remorse- less grasp, I could not but honor the nation which had THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 361 made its revolutionary purpose so definite that despot- ism feared its very language. I only wished that in- justice and despotism everywhere might one day have as good cause to hate and to fear everything American. At last that disgraceful seal of slave complicity is broken. Let us inaugurate a new departure, recognize that we are afloat on the current of Niagara, eternal vigilance the condition of our safety, that we are ir- revocably pledged to the world not to go back to bolts and bars, could not if we would, and would not if we could. Never again be ours the fastidious scholarship that shrinks from rude contact with the masses. Very pleasant it is to sit high up in the world's theatre and criticise the ungraceful struggles of the gladiators, shrug one's shoulders at the actors' harsh cries, and let every one know that but for " this villanous saltpetre you would yourself have been a soldier." But Bacon says, " In the theatre of man's life, God and his angels only should be lookers-on." " Sin is not taken out of man as Eve was out of Adam, by putting him to sleep." " Very beautiful," says Richter, " is the eagle when he floats with outstretched wings aloft in the clear blue ; but sublime when he plunges down through the tempest to his eyry on the cliff, where his unfledged young ones dwell and are starving." Accept proudly the analysis of Fisher Ames : " A monarchy is a man-of-war, stanch, iron-ribbed, and resistless when under full sail ; yet a single hidden rock sends her to the bottom. Our repub- lic is a raft hard to steer, and your feet always wet ; but nothing can sink her." If the Alps, piled in cold and silence, be the emblem of despotism, we joyfully take the ever-restless ocean for ours, only pure because never still. Journalism must have more self-respect. Now it praises good and bad men so indiscriminately that a 362 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. good word from nine tenths of our journals is worthless. In burying our Aaron Burrs, both political parties in order to get the credit of magnanimity exhaust the vocabulary of eulogy so thoroughly that there is nothing left with which to distinguish our John Jays. The love of a good name in life and a fair reputation to survive us that strong bond to well-doing is lost where every career, however stained, is covered with the same fulsome flattery, and where what men say in the streets is the exact opposite of what they say to each other. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, most men translate, " Speak only good of the dead." I prefer to construe it, " Of the dead say nothing unless you can tell something good." And if the sin and the recreancy have been marked and far-reaching in their evil, even the charity of silence is not permissible. To be as good as our fathers we must be better. They silenced their fears and subdued their prejudices, inaugurating free speech and equality with no precedent on the file. Europe shouted " Madmen ! " and gave us forty years for the shipwreck. With serene faith they persevered. Let us rise to their level. Crush appetite, and prohibit temptation if it rots great cities. Intrench labor in sufficient bulwarks against that wealth which, without the tenfold strength of modern incorporation, wrecked the Grecian and Roman States ; and with a sterner effort still, summon women into civil life as re- inforcement to our laboring ranks in the effort to make our civilization a success. Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever backward. " New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, Who would keep abreast of Truth. THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. 363 Lo ! before us gleam her camp-fires ! We ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly Through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal With the Fast's blootl-rusted key." NOTE. See page 353. For George William Curtis, the leader of the civil-service reform, I have the most sincere respect. His place as statesman, scholar, and reformer is such, and so universally recognized, that praise from me would be almost impertinence. But a large proportion of the party in New York, and a still larger proportion of its adherents in Massachusetts, justify all I have said of it and them. My plan of civil-service reform would be the opposite of what they propose. I should seek a remedy for the evils they describe in a wholly different direction from theirs, in fearless recourse to a further extension of the democratic principles of our institutions. Let each district choose its own postmaster and custom-house offi- cials. This course would appeal to the best sense and sober second thought of each district. Responsibility would purify and elevate the masses, while government would be relieved from that mass or patronage which debauches it. Their plan is impracticable, and ought to be ; for it contravenes the fundamental idea of our institutions, and contemplates a coterie of men kept long in office, largely independent of the people, a miniature aristocracy, filled with a dangerous esprit de corps. The liberal party in England has long felt the dead weight and obstruc- tive influence of such a class. The worst element at Washington in 1861 ; the one that hated Lincoln most bitterly, and gave him the most trouble ; the one that resisted the new order of things most angrily and obstinately, and put the safety of the city into most serious peril, was the body of old office-holders, poisoned with length of official life, scoffing at the people as intrusive intermed- dlers ; men in whom something like a fixed tenure of office had killed all sympathy with the democratic tendency of our system. Some might fear that our government could not be carried on without this patronage. 364 THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. Hamilton is quoted as saying, li Purge the British Government <>i' its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representa- tion, and it would become an impracticable government." The British Government has been pretty well purged, and its pop- ular branch comes now very near to equality of representation. Yet, spite of Hamilton's prophecy, the machine still works, and works better and better for every successive measure of such purification and reform. So our government, relieved of the weight of this debasing pat- ronage, would disappoint the sullen forebodings of Tory misgiving, and rise to nobler action. THE LORE OF LONG ASO. Recent RosrarclioH Prove that the Anc -uorant. g Dispatch. *rious spirit of the nocks at the a THE LOST ARTS. No lecture in the American lyceum ever met with a wider or more enthusiastic welcome than this. It was first delivered in the winter of 1838-139. Mr. Phillips had spoken before this upon subjects taken from chemistry and physics, and on discoveries and inventions in the field of mechanics. Called suddenly to address a certain audience, he thought there might be a charm in a familiar resume of those arts which the ancients carried to a perfection still unrivalled. Hastily outlined in a series of notes, it was an almost impromptu delivery. But so great was the interest which it excited, that Mr. Phillips was called to repeat it over two thousand times. About twenty years ago Mr. Phillips was engaged to deliver the lecture in the " Redpath Lyceum." A stenographer was employed to make a verbatim report ; it was carefully written out in full, was elegantly bound, and then presented to its author. Mr. Phillips ex- pressed himself exceedingly grateful to his friends, but was much overcome by the reply : "We have not done it for your sake, Mr. Phillips, but far posterity." LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I am to talk to you to-night about " The Lost Arts," a lecture which has grown under my hand year after year, and which belongs to that first phase of the lyceum system, before it undertook to meddle with political duties or danger- ous and angry questions of ethics ; when it was merely an academic institution, trying to win busy men back to books, teaching a little science, or repeating some tale of foreign travel, or painting some great representative character, the symbol of his age. I think I can claim a purpose beyond a moment's amusement in this glance at early civilization. 366 THE LOST ARTS. I, perhaps, might venture to claim that it was a medicine for what is the most objectionable feature of our national character ; and that is self-conceit, an un- due appreciation of ourselves, an exaggerated estimate of our achievements, of our inventions, of our contribu- tions to popular comfort, and of our place, in fact, in the great procession of the ages. We seem to imagine that whether knowledge will die with us or not, it certainly began with us. We have a pitying estimate, a tender pity, for the narrowness, ignorance, and dark- ness of the bygone ages. We seem to ourselves not only to monopolize, but to have begun, the era of light. In other words, we are all running over with a fourth- day-of-July spirit of self-content. I am often reminded of the German whom the English poet Coleridge met at Frankfort. He always took off his hat with pro- found respect when he ventured to speak of himself. It seems to me, the American people might be painted in the chronic attitude of taking off its hat to itself ; and therefore it can be no waste of time, with an audi- ence in such a mood, to take their eyes for a moment from the present civilization, and guide them back to that earliest possible era that history describes for us, if it were only for the purpose of asking whether we boast on the right line. I might despair of curing us of the habit of boasting, but I might direct it better ! Well, 1 have been somewhat criticised, year after year, for this endeavor to open up the claims of old times. I have been charged with repeating useless fables with no foundation. To-day I take the mere subject of glass. This material, Pliny says, was discov- ered by accident. Some sailors, landing on the eastern coast of Spain, took their cooking utensils, and sup- ported them on the sand by the stones that they found in the neighborhood ; they kindled their fire, cooked THE LOST ARTS. 367 the fish, finished the meal, and removed the apparatus ; and glass was found to have resulted from the nitre and sea-sand, vitrified by the heat. Well, I have been a dozen times criticised by a number of wise men, in newspapers, who have said that this was a very idle tale, that there never was sufficient heat in a few bun- dles of sticks to produce vitrification, glass-making. I happened, two years ago, to meet, on the prairies of Missouri, Professor Shepherd, who started from Yale College, and, like a genuine Yankee , brings up any- where where there is anything to do. I happened to mention this criticism to him. " Well," says he, " a little practical life would have freed men from that doubt." Said' ho,-" We stopped last year in Mexico, to cook some venison. We got down from our saddles, and put the cooking-apparatus on stones we found there ; made our fire with the wood we got there, re- sembling ebony ; and when we removed the apparatus there was pure silver gotten out of the embers by the intense heat of that almost iron wood.* XN Now," said he, " that heat was greater than any necessary to vitrify the materials of glass." Why not suppose that Pliny's sailors had lighted on some exceedingly hard wood ? May it not be as possible as in this case ? So, ladies and gentlemen, with a growing habit of distrust of a large share of this modern and exceedingly scientific criticism of ancient records, I think we have been betraying our own ignorance, and that frequently, when the statement does not look, on the face of it, to be exactly accurate, a little investigation below the sur- face will show that it rests on a real truth. Take, for instance, the English proverb which was often quoted in my college days. We used to think how little logic the common people had ; and when we wanted to illus- trate this in the school-room, it was what was called a 368 THE LOST ARTS. non sequitur : the effect did not come from the cause named, we always quoted the English proverb, " Ten- terden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands." We said, " How ignorant a population ! " But when we went deeper into the history, we found that the proverb was not meant for logic, but was meant for sarcasm. One of the bishops had fifty thousand pounds given to him, to build a breakwater to save the Goodwin Sands from the advancing sea ; but the good bishop, being one of the kind of bishops which Mr. Froude describes in his lecture, that the world would be better if Provi- dence would remove them from it, instead of build- ing the breakwater to keep out the sea, simply built a steeple ; and this proverb was sarcastic, and not logical, that " Tenterden steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands." When you contemplate the motive, there was the closest and best-welded logic in the proverb. So I think a large share of our criticism of old legends and old statements will be found in the end to be the ignorance that overleaps its own saddle, and falls on the other side. Well, my first illustration ought to be this material, glass ; but, before I proceed to talk of these lost arts, I ought in fairness to make an exception, and it is the conception and conceit which lies here. Over a very large section of literature, there is a singular contradic- tion to this swelling conceit. There are certain lines in which the moderns are ill satisfied with themselves, and contented to acknowledge that they ought fairly to sit down at the feet of their predecessors. Take poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, the drama, and almost everything in works of any form that relates to beauty, with regard to that whole sweep, the modern world gilds it with its admiration of the beautiful. Take the very phrases that we use. The artist says he wishes to t THE LOST ARTS. 369 pro to Rome. " For what ? " " To study the masters." \Vell, all the masters have been in their graves several hundred years. We are all pupils. You tell the poet, " Sir, that line of yours would remind one of Homer," and he is crazy. Stand in front of a painting, in the hearing of the artist, and compare its coloring to that of Titian or Raphael, and he remembers you forever. I remember once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by Powers, a Vermonter who had a matchless, instinctive love of art, and perception of beauty. I said to an Italian standing with me, " Well, now, that seems to me to be perfection." "Perfection!" was his answer, shrugging his shoulders, " Why, sir, that reminds you of Phidias ! " as if to remind you of that Greek was a greater compliment than to be perfection. Well, now the very choice of phrases betrays a con- fession of inferiority, and you see it again creeps out in / the amount we borrow. Take the whole range of im- - aginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty, or form, we are borrowers. You may glance around the furniture of the palaces in Europe, and you may gather all these utensils of art or use ; and when you have fixed the shape and forms in your mind, I will take you into the museum of Naples, which gathers all remains of the domestic life of the Romans, and you shall not find a single one of these modern forms of art or beauty or use that was not anticipated there. We have hardly added one single line or sweep of beauty to the antique. Take the stories of Shakspeare, who has perhaps written his forty-odd plays. Some are historical. The rest, two thirds of them, he did not stop to invent, but he found them. These he clutched, ready made to his hand, from the Italian novelists, who had taken them 24 370 THE LOST ARTS. before from the East. Cinderella and her slipper is older than all history, like half a dozen other baby legends. The annals of the world do not go back far enough to tell us from where they first came. All the boys' plays, like everything that amuses the child in the open air, are Asiatic. Rawlinson will show you that they came somewhere from the banks of the Ganges or the suburbs of Damascus. Bui we r bor- rowed the incidents of his Roman stories from legends of a thousand years before. Indeed, Dunlop, who lias grouped the history of the novels of all Europe into one essay, says that in the nations of modern Europe there have been two hundred and fifty or three hundred distinct stories. He says at least two hundred of these may be. traced, before Christianity, to the other side of the Black Sea. If this were my topic, which it is not, 1 might tell you that even our newspaper jokes are enjoy- ing a very respectable old age. Take Maria Edgeworth's essay on Irish bulls and the laughable mistakes of the Irish. Even the tale which either Maria Edgeworth or her father thought the best is that famous story of a man writing a letter as follows : " My dear friend, I would write you in detail, more minutely, if there was not an impudent fellow looking over my shoulder, read- ing every word." " No, you lie ; I 've not read a word you have written ! " This is an Irish bull, still it is a very old one. It is only two hundred and fifty years older than the New Testament. Horace Walpole dis- sented from Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and thought the other Irish bull was the best, of the man who said, u I would have been a very handsome man, but they changed me in the cradle." That comes from Don Quixote, and is Spanish ; but Cervantes borrowed it from the Greek in the fourth century, and the Greek stole it from the Egyptian hundreds of years back. THE LOST ARTS. 371 There is one story which it is said Washington has related, of a man who went into an inn, and asked for a glass of drink from the landlord, who pushed forward a wine-glass about half the usual size ; the tea-cups also in that day were not more than half the present size. The landlord said, "That glass, out of which you are drinking is forty years old." "Well," said the thirsty traveller, contemplating its diminutive proportions, " I think it is the smallest thing of its age I ever saw." That story as told is given as a story of Athens three hundred and seventy-five years before Christ was born. Why ! all these Irish bulls are Greek, every one of them. Take the Irishman who carried around a brick as a specimen of the house he had to sell ; take the Irish- man who shut his eyes and looked into the glass to see how he would look when he was dead ; take the Irish- man that bought a crow, alleging that crows were re- ported to live two hundred years, and he meant to set out and try it ; take the Irishman who met a friend who said to him, " Why, sir, I heard you were dead." " Well," says the man, " I suppose you see I 'm not." " Oh, no ! " says he, " I would believe the man who told me a good deal quicker than I would you." Well, those are all Greek. A score or more of them, of a parallel charac- ter, come from Athens. Our old Boston patriots felt that tarring and feather- ing a Tory was a genuine patent Yankee fire-brand, Yankeeism. They little imagined that when Richard Coeur de Lion set out on one of his crusades, among the orders he issued to his camp of soldiers was that any one who robbed a hen-roost should be tarred and feathered. Many a man who lived in Connecticut has repeated the story of taking children to the limits of the town, and giving them a sound thrashing to enforce their memory of the spot. But the Burgundians in 372 THE LOST ARTS. France, in a law now eleven hundred years old, attrib- uted valor to the east of France because it had a law that the children should be taken to the limits of the district, and there soundly whipped, in order that they might forever remember where the limits came. So we have very few new things in that line. But I said I would take the subject, for instance, of this very material, glass. It is the very best expression of man's self-conceit. I had heard that nothing had been observed in ancient times which could be called by the name of glass, that there had been merely attempts to imitate it. I thought they had proved the proposition ; they certainly had elaborated it. In Pompeii, a dozen miles south of Naples, which was covered with ashes by Vesuvius eigh- teen hundred years ago, they broke into a room full of glass: there was ground glass, window-glass, cut-glass, and colored glass of every variety. It was undoubtedly a glass-maker's factory. So the lie and the refutation came face to face. It was like a pamphlet printed in London, in 1836, by Dr. Lardner, which proved that a steamboat could not cross the ocean ; and the book came to this country in the first steamboat that came across the Atlantic. (- The chemistry of the most ancient period had reached a point which we have never even approached, and which we in vain struggle to reach to-day. Indeed, the whole management of the effect of light on glass is still a matter of profound study. The first two stories which I have to offer you are simply stories from history. The first is from the letters of the Catholic priests who broke into China, which were published in France some two hundred years ago. They were shown a glass, transparent and colorless, which was filled with a liquor made by the Chinese, that was shown to the observers, THE LOST ARTS. 373 and appeared to be colorless like water. This liquor was poured into the glass, and then, looking through it, it seemed to be filled with fishes. They turned this out, and repeated the experiment, and again it was filled with fish. The Chinese confessed that they did not make them ; that they were the plunder of some foreign conquest. This is not a singular thing in Chinese his- tory ; for in some of their scientific discoveries we have found evidence that they did not make them, but stole them. The second story of half a dozen certainly five re- lates to the age of Tiberius, the time of Saint Paul, and tells of a Roman who had been banished, and who re- turned to Rome, bringing a wonderful cup. This cup he dashed upon the marble pavement, and it was crushed, not broken, by the fall. It was dented some, and with a hammer he easily brought it into shape again. It was brilliant, transparent, but not brittle. I had a wine- glass when I made this talk in New Haven ; and among the audience was the owner, Professor Silliman. He was kind enough to come to the platform when I had ended, and say that he was familiar with most of my facts ; but speaking of malleable glass, he had this to say, that it was nearly a natural impossibility, and that no amount of evidence which could be brought would make him credit it. Well, the Romans got their chemistry from the Arabians ; they brought it into Spain eight centuries ago, and in their books of that age they claim that they got from the Arabians malleable glass. There is a kind of glass spoken of there that, if sup- ported by one end, by its own weight in twenty hours would dwindle down to a fine line, and that you could curve it around your wrist. Von Beust, the Chancellor of Austria, has ordered secrecy in Hungary in regard to a recently discovered process by which glass can 374 THE LOST ARTS. be used exactly like wool, and manufactured into cloth. These are a few records. When you go to Rome, they will show you a bit of glass like the solid rim of this tumbler, a transparent glass, a solid thing, which they lift up so as to show you that there is nothing concealed ; but in the centre of the glass is a drop of colored glass, perhaps as large as a pea, mottled like a duck, finely mottled with the shifting colored hues of the neck, and which even a miniature pencil could not do more perfectly. It is manifest that this drop of liquid glass must have been poured, because there is no joint. This must have been done by a greater heat than the annealing process, because that process shows breaks. The imitation of gems has deceived not only the lay people, but the connoisseurs. Some of these imitations in later years have been discovered. The celebrated vase of the Genoa Cathedral was considered a solid emerald. The Roman-Catholic legend of it was, that it was one of the treasures that the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon, and that it was the identical cup out of which the Saviour drank at the Last Supper. Columbus must have admired it ; it was venerable in his day. It was death for anybody to touch it but a Catholic priest. And when Napoleon besieged Genoa, I mean the great Napoleon, not the present little fellow, it was offered by the Jews to loan the Senate three mil- lion dollars on that single article as security. Napo- leon took it, and carried it to France, and gave it to the Institute. Somewhat reluctantly the scholars said, " It is not a stone ; we hardly know what it is." Cicero said that he had seen the entire Iliad, which is a poem as large as the New Testament, written on a skin so that it could be rolled up in the compass of a THE LOST ARTS. 375 nut-shell. Now, this is imperceptible to the ordinary eye. You have seen the Declaration of Independence in the compass of a quarter of a dollar, written with glasses. I have to-day a paper at home, as long as half my hand, on which was photographed the whole con- tents of a London newspaper. It was put under a dove's wing, and sent into Paris, where they enlarged it, and read the news. This copy of the Iliad must have been made by some such process. In the Roman theatre, the Coliseum, which could seat a hundred thousand people, the emperor's box, raised to the highest tier, bore about the same propor- tion to the space as this stand does to this hall ; and to look down to the centre of a six-acre lot, was to look a considerable distance. (" Considerable," by the way, is not a Yankee word. Lord Chesterfield uses it in his letters to his son, so it has a good English origin.) Pliny says that Nero the tyrant had a ring with a gem in it, which he looked through, and watched the sword- play of the gladiators, men who killed each other to amuse the people, more clearly than with the naked eye. So Nero had an opera-glass. So Mauritius the Sicilian stood on the promontory of his island, and could sweep over the entire sea to the coast of Africa with his nauscopite, which is a word derived from two Greek words, meaning "to see a ship." Evidently Mauritius, who was a pirate, had a marine telescope. You may visit Dr. Abbot's museum, where you will sec the ring of Cheops. Bunsen puts him five hundred years before Christ. The signet of the ring is about the size of a quarter of a dollar, and the engraving is invisi- ble without the aid of glasses. No man was ever shown into the cabinets of gems in Italy without being fur- nished with a microscope to look at them. It would be 376 THE LOST ARTS. idle for him to look at them without one. He could n't appreciate the delicate lines and the expression of the faces. If you go to Parma, they will show you a gem once worn on the finger of Michael Angelo, of which the engraving is two thousand years old, on which there are the figures of seven women. You must have the aid of a glass in order to distinguish the forms at all. I have a friend who has a ring, perhaps three quarters of an inch in diameter, and on it is the naked figure of the god Hercules. By the aid of glasses, you can dis- tinguish the interlacing muscles, and count every sepa- rate hair on the eyebrows. Layard says he would be unable to read the engravings on Nineveh without strong spectacles, they are so extremely small. Rawlinson brought home a stone about twenty inches long and ten wide, containing an entire treatise on mathematics. It would be perfectly illegible without glasses. Now, if we are unable to read it without the aid of glasses, you may suppose the man who engraved it had pretty strong spectacles. So the microscope, instead of dating from our time, finds its brothers in the books of Moses, and these are infant brothers. So if you take colors. Color is, we say, an ornament. We dye our dresses, and ornament our furniture. It is an ornament to gratify the eye. But the Egyptians impressed it into a new service. For them, it was a method of recording history. Some parts of their his- tory were written ; but when they wanted to elaborate history they painted it. Their colors are immortal, else we could not know of it. We find upon the stucco of their walls their kings holding court, their armies march- ing out, their craftsmen in the ship-yard, with the ships floating in the dock ; and, in fact, we trace all-their rites and customs painted in undying colors. The French who went to Egypt with Napoleon said that all tho THE LOST ARTS. 377 I colors were perfect except the greenish-white which is the hardest for us. They had no difficulty with the Tyrian purple. The burned city of Pompeii was a city of stucco. All the houses are stucco outside, and it is stained with Tyrian purple, the royal color of antiquity. But you never can rely on the name of a color after a thousand years. So the Tyrian purple is almost a red, about the color of these curtains. This is a city all of red. It had been buried seventeen hundred years ; and if you take a shovel now, and clear away the ashes, this color flames up upon you, a great deal richer than anything we can produce. You can go down into the narrow vault which Nero built him as a retreat from the great heat, and you will find the walls painted all over with fanciful designs in arabesque which have been buried beneath the earth fifteen hundred years; but when the peasants light it up with their torches, the colors flash out before you as fresh as they were in the days of Saint Paul. Your fellow-citizen, Mr. Page, spent twelve years in Venice, studying Titian's method of mixing his colors, and he thinks he has got it. Yet come down from Titian, whose colors are wonderfully and perfectly fresh, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and although his colors are not yet a hundred years old, they are fading: the colors on his lips are dying out, and the cheeks are losing their tints. He did not know how to mix well. All this mastery of color is as yet un- equalled. If you should go with that most delightful of all lecturers, Professor Tyndall, he would show you in the spectrum the vanishing rays of violet, and prove to you that beyond their limit there are rays still more delicate, and to you invisible, but which he, by chemi- cal paper, will make visible ; and he will tell you that probably, though you see three or four inches more 378 THE LOST ARTS. than three hundred years ago your predecessors did, yet three hundred years later our successors will sur- pass our limit. The French have a theory that there is a certain delicate shade of blue that Europeans cannot see. In one of his lectures to his students, Ruskin opened his Catholic mass-book, and said, " Gentlemen, we are the best chemists in the world. No Englishman ever could doubt that. But we cannot make such a scarlet as that ; and even if we could, it would not last for twenty years. Yet this is rive hundred years old ! " The Frenchman says, " I am the best dyer in Europe ; nobody can equal me, and nobody can surpass Lyons." Yet in Cashmere, where the girls make shawls worth thirty thousand dollars, they will show him three hun- dred distinct colors which he not only cannot make, but cannot even distinguish. When I was in Rome, if a lady wished to wear a half-dozen colors at a masquer- ade, and have them all in harmony, she would go to the Jews ; for the Oriental eye is better than even those of France or Italy, of which we think so highly. Taking the metals, the Bible in its first chapters shows that man first conquered metals there in Asia ; and on that spot to-day he can work more wonders with those metals than we can. One of the surprises that the European artists re- ceived, when the English plundered the summer palace of the King of China, was the curiously wrought metal vessels of every kind, far exceeding all the boasted skill of the workmen of Europe. Mr. Colton of the Boston Journal, the first week he landed in Asia, found that his chronometer was out of order, because the steel of the works had become rusted. The London Medical and Surgical Journal advises surgeons not to venture to carry any lancets to Calcutta, to have them gilded, because English steel THE LOST ARTS. 379 could not bear the atmosphere of India. Yet the Damascus blades of the Crusades were not gilded, and they are as perfect as they were eight centuries ago. There was one at the London Exhibition, the point of which could be made to touch the hilt, and which could be put into a scabbard like a corkscrew, and bent every way without breaking, like an American politician. Now, the wonder of this is, that perfect steel is a marvel of science. If a London chronometer-maker wants the best steel to use in his chronometer, he does not send to Sheffield, the centre of all science, but to the Punjaub, the empire of the seven rivers, where there is no science at all. The first needle ever made in England was made in the time of Henry VIII. and made by a negro ; and when he died, the art died with him. Some of the first travellers in Africa stated that they found a tribe in the interior who gave them better razors than they had ; the irrepressible negro coming up in science as in politics. The best steel is the greatest triumph of metallurgy, and metallurgy is the glory of chemistry. The poets have celebrated the perfection of the Orien- tal steel ; and it is recognized as the finest by Moore, Byron, Scott, Southey, and many others. I have even heard a young advocate of the lost arts find an argu- ment in Byron's " Sennacherib," from the fact that the mail of the warriors in that one short night had rusted before the trembling Jews stole out in the morning to behold the terrible work of the Lord. Scott, in his " Tales of the Crusaders," for Sir Walter was curious in his love of the lost arts, describes a meeting be- tween Richard Cceur de Lion and Saladin. Saladin asks Richard to show him the wonderful strength for which he is famous, and the Norman monarch responds by severing a bar of iron which lies on the floor of his 380 THE LOST ARTS. tent. Saladin says, u I cannot do that ; " but he takes an eider-down pillow from the sofa, and drawing his keen blade across it, it falls in two pieces. Richard says, " This is the black art ; it is magic ; it is the devil : you cannot cut that which has no resistance ; " and Sala- din, to show him that such is not the case, takes a scarf from his shoulders, which is so light that it almost floats in the air, and tossing it up, severs it before it can descend. George Thompson told me he saw a man in Calcutta throw a handful of floss-silk into the air, and a Hindoo sever it into pieces with his sabre. We can produce nothing like this. Taking their employment of the mechanical forces, and their movement of large masses from the earth, we know that the Egyptians had the five, seven, or three mechanical powers ; but we cannot account for the mul- tiplication and increase necessary to perform the won- ders they accomplished. In Boston, lately, we have moved the Pelham Hotel, weighing fifty thousand tons, fourteen feet, and are very proud of it ; and since then we have moved a whole block of houses twenty-three feet, and I have no doubt we shall write a book about it : but there is a book tell- ing how Domenico Fontana of the sixteenth century set up the Egyptian obelisk at Rome on end, in the Papacy of Sixtus V. Wonderful ! Yet the Egyptians quarried that stone, and carried it a hundred and fifty miles, and the Romans brought it seven hundred and fifty miles, and never said a word about it. Mr. Batterson, of Hartford, walking with B runnel, the architect of the Thames tunnel, in Egypt, asked him what he thought of the mechanical power of the Egyptians ; and he said, " There is Pompey's Pillar; it is a hundred feet high, and the capital weighs two thousand pounds. It is something of a feat to hang two thousand pounds at THE LOST ARTS. 381 that height in the air, and the few men that can do it would better discuss Egyptian mechanics." Take canals. The Suez Canal absorbs half its receipts in cleaning out the sand which fills it continually, and it is not yet known whether it is a pecuniary success. The ancients built a canal at right angles to ours ; be- cause they knew it would not fill up if built in that direction, and they knew such an one as ours would. There were magnificent canals in the land of the Jews, with perfectly arranged gates and sluices. We have only just begun to understand ventilation properly for our houses ; yet late experiments at the Pyramids in Egypt show that those Egyptian tombs were ventilated in the most perfect and scientific manner. Again, cement is modern, for the ancients dressed and joined their stones so closely, that in buildings thousands of years old the thin blade of a penknife cannot be forced between them. The railroad dates back to Egypt. Arago has claimed that they had a knowledge of steam. A painting has been discovered of a ship full of machinery, and a French engineer said that the arrangement of this machinery could only be accounted for by supposing the motive power to have been steam. Bramah acknowledges that he took the idea of his celebrated lock from an ancient Egyp- tian pattern. De Tocqueville says there was no social question that was not discussed to rags in Egypt. "Well," say you, "Franklin invented the lightning- rod." J have no doubt he did ; but years before his invention, and before muskets were invented, the old soldiers on guard on the towers used Franklin's inven- tion to keep guard with ; and if a spark passed between them and the spear-head, they ran and bore the warn- ing of the state and condition of affairs. After that you will admit that Benjamin Franklin was not the 382 THE LOST ARTS. only one that knew of the presence of electricity, and the advantages derived from its use. Solomon's Tem- ple, you will find, was situated on an exposed point of the hill ; the temple was so lofty that it was often in peril, and was guarded by a system exactly like that of Benjamin Franklin. Well, I may tell you a little of ancient manufactures. The Duchess of Burgundy took a necklace from the neck of a mummy, and wore it to a ball given at the Tuileries ; and everybody said they thought it was the newest thing there. A Hindoo princess came into court; and her father, seeing her, said, " Go home, you are not decently covered, go home;" and she said, "Father, I have seven suits on;" but the suits were of muslin, so thin that the king could see through them. A Roman poet says, " The girl was in the poetic dress of the country." I fancy the French would be rather astonished at this. Four hundred and fifty years ago the first spinning-machine was intro- duced into Europe. I have evidence to show that it made its appearance two thousand years before. Well, I tell you this fact to show that perhaps we do not invent just everything. Why did I think to grope in the ashes for this ? Because all Egypt knew the secret, which was not the knowledge of the pro- fessor, the king, and the priest. Their knowledge won an historic privilege which separated them from and brought down the masses ; and this chain was broken when Cambyses came down from Persia, and by his genius arid intellect opened the gates of knowledge, thundering across Egypt, drawing out civilization from royalty and priesthood. Such was the system which was established in Egypt of old. It was four thousand years before* humanity took that subject to a proper consideration ; and when THE LOST ARTS. 383 this consideration was made, civilization changed her character. Learning no longer hid in a convent, or slumbered in the palace. No; she came out, joining hands with the people, ministering unto them and deal- ing with them. We have not an astrology in the stars, serving only the kings and priests : we have an astrology serving all those around us. We have not a chemistry hidden in underground cells, striving for wealth, striving to change everything into gold. No ; we have a chem- istry laboring with the farmer, and digging gold out of the earth with the miner. Ah, this is the nineteenth century ; and of the hundreds of things we know, I can show you ninety-nine of them which have been anticipated ! It is the liberty of intellect, and a diffu- sion of knowledge, that has caused this anticipation. When Gibbon finished his History of Rome, he said, " The hand will never go back upon the dial of time, when everything was hidden in fear in the dark ages." He made that boast as he stood at night in the ruins of the Corsani Palace, looking out upon the places where the monks were chanting. That vision disappeared, and there arose in its stead the Temple of Jupiter. Could he look back upon the past, he would see nations that went up in their strength, and down to graves with fire in one hand, and iron in the other hand, before Rome was peopled, which, in their strength, were crushed in subduing civilization. But it is a very different principle that governs this land ; it is one which should govern every land ; it is one which this nation needs to practise this day. It is the human property; it is the divine will that any man has the right to know anything which he knows will be ser- viceable to himself and to his fellowman, and that will make art immortal if God means that it shall last. DANIEL O'CONNELL. On the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Daniel O'Connell, August 6, 1875, a celebration was hold in Music Hall, Boston. Mr. Phillips was the orator of the occasion. No subject could have been more congenial, for no statesman of his own day had more deeply impressed Mr. Phillips than O'Conuell, and the name of the Irish agitator was often on the American agitator's lips. The oration was often repeated, and takes rank with the orator's masterpieces. A HUNDRED years ago to-day Daniel O'Connell was 1- born. The Irish race, wherever scattered over the globe, assembles to-night to pay fitting tribute to his memory, one of the most eloquent men, one of the most devoted patriots, and the most successful states- man which that race has given to history. We of other races may well join you in that tribute, since the cause of constitutional government owes more to O'Connell than to any other political leader of the last two centuries. The English-speaking race, to find his equal among its statesmen, must pass by Chatham and Walpole, and go back to Oliver Cromwell, or the able men who held up the throne of Queen Elizabeth. If to put the civil and social elements of your day into suc- cessful action, and plant the seeds of continued strength and progress for coming times, if this is to be a states- man, then most emphatically was O'Connell one. To exert this control, and secure this progress, while and because ample means lie ready for use under your hand, does not rob Walpole and Colbert, Chatham and Riche- DANIEL O'CONNELL. 885 lion, of their title to be considered statesmen. To do it, as Martin Luther did, when one must ingeniously discover or invent his tools, and while the mightiest forces that influence human affairs are arrayed against him, that is what ranks O'Connell with the few mas- terly statesmen the English-speaking race has ever had. When Napoleon's soldiers bore the negro chief Tous- saint LTOuverture into exile, he said, pointing back to San Domingo, " You think you have rooted up the tree of liberty, but I am only a branch. I have planted the tree itself so deep that ages will never root it up." And whatever may be said of the social or industrial condi- tion of Hayti during the last seventy years, its nation- ality has never been successfully assailed. O'Connell is the only Irishman who can say as much of Ireland. From the peace of Utrecht, 1713, till the fall of Napoleon, Great Britain was the leading State in Europe; while Ireland, a comparatively insignificant island, lay at its feet. She weighed next to nothing in the scale of British politics. The Continent pitied, and England despised her. O'Connell found her a mass of quarrelling races and sects, divided, dispirited, broken- hearted, and servile. He made her a nation whose first word broke in pieces the iron obstinacy of Wellington, tossed Peel from the cabinet, and gave the government to the Whigs ; whose colossal figure, like the helmet in Wai pole's romance, has filled the political sky ever since ; whose generous aid thrown into the scale of the three great British reforms, the ballot, the corn-laws, and slavery, secured their success ; a nation whose continual discontent has dragged Great Britain down to be a second-rate power on the chess-board of Europe. I know other causes have helped in producing this result, but the nationality which O'Connell created has been the main cause of this change in England's importance. 25 386 DANIEL O'CONNELL. Dean Swift, Molyneux, and Henry Flood thrust Ireland for a moment into the arena of British polities, a sturdy suppliant clamoring for justice ; and Grattan held her there an equal, and, as he thought, a nation, for a few years. But the unscrupulous hand of William Pitt brushed away in an hour all Grattan's work. Well might he say of the Irish Parliament which he brought to life, " I sat by its cradle, I followed its hearse ;" since after that infamous union, which Byron called a " union of the shark with its prey," Ireland sank back, plun- dered and helpless. O'Connell lifted her to a fixed and permanent place in English affairs, no suppliant, but a conqueror dictating her terms. This is the proper standpoint from which to look at O'Connell's work. This is the consideration that ranks him, not with founders of States, like Alexander, Caesar, Bismarck, Napoleon, and William the Silent, but with men who, without arms, by force of reason, have revo- lutionized their times, with Luther, Jefferson, Maz- zini, Samuel Adams, Garrison, and Franklin. I know some men will sneer at this claim, those who have never looked at him except through the spectacles of English critics, who despised him as an Irishman and a Catholic, until they came to hate him as a conqueror. As Grattan said of Kirwan, "The curse of Swift was upon him, to have been born an Irishman and a man of genius, and to have used his gifts for his country's good." Mark what measure of success attended the able men who preceded him, in circumstances as favor- able as his, perhaps even better ; then measure him by comparison. An island soaked with the blood of countless rebel- lions ; oppression such as would turn cowards into heroes ; a race whose disciplined valor had been proved on almost every battlefield in Europe, and whose reck- DANIEL O'CONNELL. 387 less daring lifted it, any time, in arms against England, with hope or without, what inspired them ? Devotion, eloquence, and patriotism seldom paralleled in history. Who led them? Dean Sivift, according to Addison, " the greatest genius of his age," called by Pope " the incomparable," a man fertile in resources, of stubborn courage and tireless energy, master of an English style unequalled, perhaps, for its purpose then or since, a man who had twice faced England in her angriest mood, and by that masterly pen subdued her to his will ; Henry Flood, eloquent even for an Irishman, and sagacious as he was eloquent, the eclipse of that brilliant life one of the saddest pictures in Irish biography ; G-rattan, with all the courage, and more than the eloquence, of his race, a statesman's eye quick to see every advantage, boundless devotion, unspotted integrity, recognized as an equal by the world's leaders, and welcomed by Fox to the House of Commons as the " Demosthenes of Ireland ; " Emmet in the field, Sheridan in the senate, Cur ran at the bar ; and, above all, Edmund Burke, I whose name makes eulogy superfluous, more than Cicero in the senate, almost Plato in the academy. All / these gave their lives to Ireland ; and when the present century opened, where was she ? Sold like a slave in the market-place by her perjured master, William Pitt. It was then that O'Connell flung himself into the struggle, gave fifty years to the service of his country ; and where is she to-day ? Not only redeemed, but her independence put beyond doubt or peril. Grattan and his predecessors could get no guaranties for what rights they gained. In that sagacious, watchful, and almost ; omnipotent public opinion, which O'Connell created, is an all-sufficient guaranty of Ireland's future. Look at her ! almost every shackle has fallen from her limbs ; all that human wisdom has as yet devised to remedy the 388 DANIEL O'CONNELL. evils of bigotry and misrule has been done. O'Connell found Ireland a " hissing and a byword " in Edinburgh and London. He made her the pivot of British politics ; she rules them, directly or indirectly, with as absolute a sway as the slave question did the United States from 1850 to 1865. Look into Earl Russell's book, and the history of the Reform Bill of 1832, and see with how j much truth it may be claimed that O'Connell and his \ fellows gave Englishmen the ballot under that act. It is by no means certain that the corn-laws could have been abolished without their aid. In the Antislavery struggle O'Connell stands, in influence and ability, equal with the best. I know the credit all those measures do to English leaders; but, in my opinion, the next genera- tion will test the statesmanship of Peel, Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, almost entirely by their conduct of the Irish question. All the laurels they have hitherto won in that field are rooted in ideas which Grattan and O'Connell urged on reluctant hearers for half a cen- tury. Why do Bismarck and Alexander look with such contemptuous indifference on every attempt of England to mingle in European affairs ? Because they know they have but to lift a finger, and Ireland stabs her in the back. Where was the statesmanship of English leaders when they allowed such an evil to grow so for- midable ? This is Ireland to-day. What was she when O'Connell undertook her cause ? The saddest of Irish poets has described her : " O Ireland, my country, the hour of thy pride and thy splendor hath And the chain that was spurned in thy moments of power hangs heavy around thee at last ! There are marks in the fate of each clime, there are turns in the fortunes of men ; But the changes of realms or the chances of time shall never restore thee again. DANIEL O'CONNELL. 389 " Thou art chained to the wheel of the foe by links which a world cannot sever : With thy tyrant through storm and through calm thou shaft go, and thy sentence is bondage forever. Thou art doomed for the thankless to toil, thou art left for the proud to disdain: And the blood of thy sons and the wealth of thy soil shall be lavished and lavished in vain " Thy riches with taunts shall be taken, thy valor with coldness be paid; And of millions who see thee thus sunk and forsaken not one shall jtavt forth in thine aid. In the nations thy place is left void ; thou art lost in the list of the free; Even realms by the plague and the earthquake destroyed may revive, but no hope is for thee." It was at this moment, when the cloud came down close to earth", that O'Connell, then a young lawyer just admitted to the bar, flung himself in front of his coun- trymen, and begged them to make one grand effort. The hierarchy of the Church disowned him. They said, " We have seen every attempt lead always up to the scaffold ; we are not willing to risk another effort." The peerage of the Island repudiated him. They said, " We have struggled and bled for a half-dozen centuries ; it is better to sit down content." Alone, a young man, with- out office, without wealth, without renown, he flung him- self in front of the people, and asked for a new effort. What was the power left him ? Simply the people, poverty-stricken, broken-hearted peasants, standing $n a soil soaked with the blood of their ancestors, cowering under a code of which Brougham said that " they could not lift their hands without breaking it." It was a com- munity impoverished by five centuries of oppression, four millions of Catholics robbed of every acre of their native land ; it was an island torn by race-hatred and religious bigotry, her priests indifferent, and her nobles 390 DANIEL O'CONNELL. hopeless or traitors. The wiliest of her enemies, a Prot- estant Irishman, ruled the British senate ; the sternest of her tyrants, a Protestant Irishman, led the armies of Europe. Puritan hate, which liad grown blinder and more bitter since the days of Cromwell, gave them weapons. Ireland herself lay bound in the iron links of a code which Montesquieu said could have been u made only by devils, and should be registered only in hell." Her millions were beyond the reach of the great reform engine of modern times, since they could neither read nor write. Well, in order to lead Ireland in that day an Irishman must have four elements, and he must have them also to a large extent to-day. The first is, he must be what an Irishman calls a gentleman, every inch of him, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, that is, he must trace his lineage back to the legends of Ireland. Well, O'Connell could do that ; he belonged to one of the perhaps seven royal families of the old history. Secondly, he must have proved his physical courage in the field or by the duel. Well, O'Connell knew this ; his enemies knew it. Bred at St. Omer, with a large leaning to be a priest, he had the most emphatic scruples against the duel, and so announced himself ; so that when he had got his head above the mass and began to be seen, a Major d'Esterre, agent of the Dublin Corpora- tion, visited him with continuous insult. Every word that had insult in it was poured upon his head through the journals. O'Connell saw the dread alternative, he must either give satisfaction to the gentleman or leave the field ; and at last he consented to a challenge. He passed the interval between the challenge and the day of meeting in efforts to avoid it, which were all attributed to cowardice. When at last he stood opposite his an- tagonist, he said to his second, " God forbid that 1 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 391 should risk a life; mark mo, I shall fire below the knee." But you know in early praetice with the pistol you always fire above the mark ; and O'Coimcll's pistol took effect above the knee, and D'Esterre fell mortally wounded. O'Connell recorded in the face of Europe a vow against further duelling. He settled a pension on the widow of his antagonist ; and a dozen years later, when he held ten thousand dollars' worth of briefs in the northern courts, he flung them away, and went to the extreme south to save for her the last acre she owned. After this his sons fought his duels ; and when Disraeli, anxious to prove himself a courageous man, challenged O'Connell, he put the challenge in his pocket. Disraeli, to get the full advantage of the matter, sent his letter to the London Times; whereupon Maurice O'Connell sent the Jew a message that there was an O'Connell who would fight the duel if he wanted it, but his name was not Daniel. Disraeli did not continue the correspondence. Thirdly, an Irish leader must not only be a lawyer of great acuteness, but he must have a great reputation for being such. He had to lift three millions of people, and fling them against a government that held in its hand a code which made it illegal for any one of them to move ; and they never had moved prior to this that it did not end at the scaffold. For twenty long years O'Connell lifted these three millions of men, and flung them against the British government at every critical moment, and no sheriff ever put his hand on one of his followers; and when late in" life the Queen's Bench of Judges, sit- ting in Dublin, sent him to jail, he stood almost alone in his interpretation of the statutes against the legal talent of the Island. He appealed to the House of Lords, and the judges of England confirmed his construction of the law, and set him free. Fourthly, an Irish leader must 392 DANIEL O'CONNELL. be an orator ; lie must have the magic that moulds mil- lions of souls into one. Of this I shall have more to say in a moment. In this mass of Irish ignorance, weakness, and quar- rel, one keen eye saw hidden the elements of union and strength. With rarest skill he called them forth, and marshalled them into rank. Then this oiie man, without birth, wealth, or office, in a land ruled by birth, wealth, and office, moulded from those unsuspected ele- ments a power which, overawing king, senate, and peo- ple, wrote his single will on the statute-book of the most obstinate nation in Europe. Safely to emancipate the Irish Catholics, and in spite of Saxon-Protestant hate, to lift all Ireland to the level of British citizenship, this was the problem which statesmanship and patriot- ism had been seeking for two centuries to solve. For this, blood had been poured out like water. On this, the genius of Swift, the learning of Molyneux, and the eloquence of Bushe, Grattan, and Burke, had been wasted. English leaders ever since Fox had studied this problem anxiously. They saw that the safety of the empire was compromised. At one or two critical moments in the reign of George III., one signal from an Irish leader would have snapped the chain that bound Ireland to his throne. His ministers recognized it ; and they tried every expedient, exhausted every device, dared every peril, kept oaths or broke them, in order to succeed. All failed ; and not only failed, but acknowl- edged they could see no way in which success could ever be achieved. O'Connell achieved it. Out of this darkness, he called forth light. Out of this most abject, weak, and pitiable of kingdoms, he made a power; and dying, he left in Parliament a spectre, which, unless appeased, pushes Whig and Tory ministers alike from their stools. DANIEL O'CONNELL. 393 But Brougham says he was a demagogue. Fie on Wellington, Derby, Peel, Palmerston, Liverpool, Russell, and Brougham, to be fooled and ruled by a demagogue ! What must they, the subjects, be, if O'Connell, their king, be only a bigot and a demagogue ? A demagogue ' rides the storm ; he has never really the ability to create one. He uses it narrowly, ignorantly, and for selfish ends. If not crushed by the force which, without his will, has flung him into power, he leads it with ridicu- lous miscalculation against some insurmountable ob- stacle that scatters it forever. Dying, he leaves no mark on the elements with which he has been mixed. Robespierre will serve for an illustration. It took O'Connell thirty years of patient and sagacious labor to mould elements whose existence no man, however wise, had ever discerned before. He used them unselfishly, only to break the yoke of his race. Nearly fifty years have passed since his triumph, but his impress still stands forth clear and sharp on the empire's policy. Ireland is wholly indebted to him for her political educa- tion. Responsibility educates ; he lifted her to broader responsibilities. Her possession of power makes it the keen interest of other classes to see she is well informed. He associated her with all the reform movements of GreaUBritain. This is the education of affairs, broader, deeper, and more real than what school or college can give. This and power, his gifts, are the lever which lifts her to every other right and privilege. How much England owes him we can never know; since how great a danger and curse Ireland would have been to the em- pire had she continued the cancer Pitt and Castlereagh left her is a chapter of history which, fortunately, can never be written. No demagogue ever walked through the streets of Dublin, as O'Connell and G rattan did more than once, hooted and mobbed because they opposed 894 DANIEL O'CONNELL. themselves to the mad purpose of the people, and crushed it hy a stern resistance. No demagogue would have offered himself to a race like the Irish as the apostle of peace, pledging himself to the British govern- ment, that, in. the long agitation before him, with brave millions behind him spoiling for a fight, he would never draw a sword. I have purposely dwelt long on this view, because the extent and the far-reaching effects of O'Connell's work, without regard to the motives which inspired him, or the methods he used, have never been fully recognized. Briefly stated, he did what the ablest and bravest of his forerunners had tried to do and failed. He created a public opinion, and unity of purpose, no matter what be now the dispute about methods, which made Ire- land a nation; he gave her British citizenship, and a place in the imperial Parliament ; he gave her a press and a public: with these tools her destiny is in her own hands. When the Abolitionists got for the negro schools and the vote, they settled the slave question ; for they planted the sure seeds of civil equality. O'Connell did this for Ireland, this which no Irishman before had ever dreamed of attempting. Swift and Molyneux were able. Grattan, Bushe, Saurin, Burrowes, Plunket, Curran, Burke, were eloquent. Throughout the Jsland courage was a drug. They gained now one point, and now another ; but, after all, they left the helm of Ire- land's destiny in foreign and hostile hands. O'Connell was brave, sagacious, eloquent; but, more than all, he was a statesman, for he gave to Ireland's own keeping the key of her future. As Lord Bacon marches down the centuries, he may lay one hand on the telegraph, and the other on the steam-engine, and say, " These are mine, for I taught you how to study Nature." In a similar sense, as shackle after shackle falls from Irish DANIEL O'CONNELL. 395 limbs, O'Connell may say, " This victory is mine ; for I taught you the method, and I gave you the arms." I have hitherto been speaking of his ability and suc- cess ; by and by we will look at his character, motives, and methods. This unique ability even his enemies have been forced to confess. Harriet Martineau, in her incomparable history of the " Thirty Years' Peace," has, with Tory hate, misconstrued every action of O'Connell, aiid invented a bad motive for each one. But even she confesses that " he rose in power, influence, and noto- riety to an eminence such as no other individual citizen has attained in modern times " in Great Britain. And one of his by 110 means partial biographers has well said, " Any man who turns over the magazines and newspapers of that period will easily perceive how grandly O'Connell's figure dominated in politics, how completely he had dispelled the indifference that had so long prevailed on Irish questions, how clearly his agitation stands forth as the great fact of the time. . . . The truth is, his position, so far from being a common one, is absolutely unique in history. We may search in vain through the records of the past for an}' man, who without the effusion of a drop of blood, or the advan- tages of office or rank, succeeded in governing a people so absolutely and so long, and in creating so entirely the elements of his power. . . . There was no rival to his supremacy, there was no restriction to his authority. He played with the enthusiasm he had aroused, with the neg- ligent ease of a master ; he governed the complicated organ- ization he had created, with a sagacity that never failed. He made himself the focus of the attention of other lands, and the centre around which the rising intellect of his own revolved. He had transformed the whole social system of Ireland ; almost reversed the relative positions of Protestants and Catholics ; remodelled by his influence the representa- tive, ecclesiastical, and educational institutions, and created 396 DANIEL O'CONNELL. a public opinion that surpassed the wildest dreams of his predecessors. Can we wonder at the proud exultation with which he exclaimed, ' G rattan sat by the cradle of his countiy, and followed her hearse ; it was left for me to sound the resurrection trumpet, and to show that she was not dead, but sleeping'?" But the method by which he achieved his success is perhaps more remarkable than even the success itself. An Irish poet, one of his bitterest assailants thirty years ago, has laid a chaplet of atonement on his altar, and one verse runs, " great world-leader of a mighty age ! Praise unto thee let all the people give. By thy great name of LIBERATOR live In golden letters upon history's page; And this thy epitaph while time shall be, He found his country chained, but left her free." ' It is natural that Ireland should remember him as her Liberator. But, strange as it may seem to you, I think Europe and America will remember him by a higher title. I said in opening, that the cause of constitutional government is more indebted to O'Connell than to any other political leader of the last two centuries. What I mean is, that he invented the great method of constitu- tional agitation. Agitator is a title which will last longer, which suggests a broader and more permanent influence, and entitles him to the gratitude of far more millions, than the name Ireland loves to give him. The " fi rst great agitator " is his proudest title to gratitude and fame. Agitation is the method that puts the school by the side of the ballot-box. The Fremont canvass was the nation's best school. Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals ; agitation is the atmosphere of brains. The DANIEL 6'CONNELL. 397 old Hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. First, men were in chains which went back to an iron hand ; then he saw them led by threads from the brain which went upward to an un- seen hand. The first was despotism, iron, and ruling by force. The last was civilization, ruling by ideas. Agitation is an old word with a new meaning. Sir Robert Peel, the first English leader who felt he was its tool, defined it to be " the marshalling of the con- science of a nation to mould its laws." O'Connell was the first to show and use its power, to lay down its principles, to analyze its elements, and mark out its metes and bounds. It is voluntary, public, and above- board, no oath-bound secret societies like those of old time in Ireland, and of the Continent to-day. Its means are reason and argument, no appeal to arms. Wait patiently for the slow growth of public opinion. The Frenchman is angry with his government ; he throws up barricades, and shots his guns to the lips. A week's fury drags the nation ahead a hand-breadth ; reaction lets it settle half-way back again. As Lord Chesterfield said, a hundred years ago, " You French- men erect barricades, but never any barriers." An Englishman is dissatisfied with public affairs. He brings his charges, offers his proofs, waits for prejudice to relax, for public opinion to inform itself. Then every step taken is taken forever ; an abuse once re- moved never reappears in history. Where did he learn this method ? Practically speaking, from O'Connell. It was he who planted its corner-stone, argument, no violence ; no political change is worth a drop of human 1)1><>atience, u patience, all the pas- sion of great souls ; " the tireless patience, which, from 1800 to 1820, went from town to town, little aided by 404 DANIEL O'CONNELL. the press, to plant the seeds of an intelligent and united, as well as hot patriotism. Then, after many years and long toil, waiting for rivals to be just, for prejudice to wear out, and for narrowness to grow wise, using British folly and oppression as his wand, he moulded the enthusiasm of the most excitable of races, the just and inevitable indignation of four millions of Catholics, the hate of plundered poverty, priest, noble, and peasant, into one fierce though harmonious mass. He held it in careful check, with sober moderation, watching every opportunity, attracting ally after ally, never forfeiting any possible friendship, allowing no provocation to stir him to anything that would not help his cause, compelling each hottest and most igno- rant of his followers to remember that " he who com- mits a crime helps the enemy." At last, when the hour struck, this power was made to achieve justice for itself, and put him in London, him, this despised Irishman, this hated Catholic, this mere demagogue and man of words, him, to hold the Tory party in one hand, and the Whig party in the other ; all this without shedding a drop of blood, or disturbing for a moment the peace of the empire. While O'Connell held Ireland in his hand, her people were more orderly, law-abiding, and peaceful than for a century before, or during any year since. The strength of this marvellous control passes comprehension. Out West, I met an Irishman whose father held him up to see O'Connell address the two hundred thousand men at Tara, literally to see, not to hear him. I said, " But you could not all hear even his voice." "Oh, no, sir! Only about thirty thousand could hear him ; but we all kept as still and silent as if we did.'' 1 With magnani- mous frankness O'Connell once said, " I never could have held those monster meetings without a crime, with- DANIEL O'CONNELL. 405 out disorder, tumult, or quarrel, except for Father Muthew's aid." Any man can build a furnace, and turn water into steam, yes, if careless, make it rend hi& dwelling in pieces. Genius builds the locomotive, har- nesses this terrible power in iron traces, holds it with master-hand in useful limits, and gives it to the peace- able service of man. The Irish people were O'Connell's locomotive ; sagacious patience and moderation the genius that built it; Parliament and justice the station he reached. Every one who has studied O'Connell's life sees his marked likeness to Luther, the unity of both their lives ; their wit ; the same massive strength, even if coarse-grained ; the ease with which each reached the masses, the power with which they wielded them ; the same unrivalled eloquence, fit for any audience ; the same instinct of genius that led them constantly to acts which, as Voltaire said, " Foolish men call rash, but wisdom sees to be brave ; " the same broad success. But O'Con- nell had one great element which Luther lacked, the universality of his sympathy ; the far-reaching sagacity which discerned truth afar off, just struggling above the horizon ; the loyal, brave, and frank spirit which ac- knowledged and served it ; the profound and rare faith which believed that " the whole of truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue." From the serene height of intellect and judgment to which God's gifts had lifted him, he saw clearly that no one right was ever in the way of another, that injustice harms the wrong- doer even more than the victim, that whoever puts a chain on another fastens it also on himself. Serenely confident that the truth is always safe, and justice always expedient, he saw that intolerance is only want of faith. He who stifles free discussion secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really 406 DANIEL O'CONNELL. true. Coleridge says, " See how triumphant in debate and notion O'Connell is ! Why ? Because he asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests his body on it, and has faith in it." Coworker with Father Mathew ; champion of the dissenters ; advocating the substantial principles of the Charter, though not a Chartist ; foe of the corn-laws ; battling against slavery, whether in India or the Caro- linas ; the great democrat who in Europe seventy years ago called the people to his side ; starting a movement of the people, for the people, by the people, show me another record as broad and brave as this in the Euro- pean history of our century. Where is the English statesman, where the Irish leader, who can claim one ? No wonder every Englishman hated and feared him ! He wounded their prejudices at every point. Whig and Tory, timid Liberal, narrow Dissenter, bitter Radical, all feared and hated this broad brave soul, who dared to follow Truth wherever he saw her, whose toleration was as broad as human nature, and his sympathy as bound- less as the sea. To show you that he never took a leaf from our American gospel of compromise ; that he never filed his tongue to silence on one truth, fancying so to help another ; that he never sacrificed any race to save even Ireland, let me compare him with Kossuth, whose only merits were his eloquence and his patriotism. When Kossuth was in Faneuil Hall, he exclaimed, " Here is a flag without a stain, a nation without a crime ! " We Abolitionists appealed to him, " O eloquent son of the Magyar, come to break chains ! have you no word, no pulse-beat, for four millions of negroes bending under a yoke ten times heavier than that of Hungary ? " He answered, " I would forget anybody, I would praise anything, to help Hungary." DANIEL O'CONNELL. 407 O'Connell never said anything like that. When I was in Naples, I asked Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, a Tory, u Is O'Connell an honest man ? " " As honest a man as over breathed," said he, and then told me this story : " When, in 1830, O'Connell entered Parliament, the Anti- slavery cause was so weak that it had only Lushington and myself to speak for it ; and we agreed that when he spoke I should cheer him, and when I spoke he should cheer me ; and these were the only cheers we ever got. O'Connell came, with one Irish member to support him. ^ A large number of members [1 think Buxton said twenty- seven] whom we called the West-India interest, the T Bristol party, the slave party, went to him, saying, 4 O'Connell, at last you are in the House, with one helper. Jf you will never go down to Freemasons' Hall with Buxton and Brougham, here are twenty-seven votes for you on every Irish question. If you work with those Abolitionists, count us always against you.' " It was a terrible temptation. How many a so-called statesman would have yielded ! O'Connell said, " Gen- tlemen, God knows I speak for the saddest people the sun sees ; but may my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if to save Ireland, even Ireland, I forget the negro one single hour ! " " From that day," said $uxton, " Lushington and I never went into the lobby that O'Connell did not follow us." Some years afterwards I went into Conciliation Hall where* O'Connell was arguing for repeal. He lifted from the table a thousand-pound note sent them from New Orleans, and said to be from the slave-holders of that city. Com- ing to the front of the platform, he said : " This is a draft of one thousand pounds from the slave-holders of New- Orleans, the unpaid wages of the negro. Mr. Treasurer, I suppose the treasury is empty ? " The treasurer nodded 408 to show him that it was, and he went on. " Old Ireland is very poor ; but thank God she is not poor enough to take the unpaid wages of anybody. Send it back." A gentleman from Boston went to him with a letter of in- troduction, which he sent up to him at his house in Merrion Square. O'Connell came down to the door, as was his wont, put out both his hands, and drew him into his library. " I am glad to see you," said he ; " I am always glad to see anybody from Massachusetts, a free State." " But," said the guest, " this is slavery you allude to, Mr. O'Connell. 1 would like to say a word to you in justification of that institution." u Very well, sir, free speech in this house ; say anything you please. But before you begin to defend a man's right to own his brother, allow me to step out and lock up my spoons." That was the man. The ocean of his philanthropy knew no shore. And right in this connection, let me read the follow- ing despatch : ; CINCINNATI, O., August 6. WENDELL PHILLIPS, BOSTON : The national conference of colored newspaper-men to the O'Connell Celebration, greeting : ' Resolved, That it is befitting a convention of colored men assembled on the centennial anniversary of the birth of the liberator of Ireland and friend of humanitj', Daniel O'Con- nell, to recall with gratitude his eloquent and effective pleas for the freedom of our race ; and we earnestly commend his example to our countrymen. J. C. JACKSON, Secretary. PETER H. CLARK, President. GEORGE T. RUBY. 1 - LEWIS D. E ASTON. DANIEL O'CONNELL. 409 Learn of him, friends, the hardest lesson we ever have set us, that of toleration. The foremost Catholic of his age, the most stalwart champion of the Church, he was also broadly and sincerely tolerant of every faith. His toleration had no limit and no qualification. I scorn and scout the word u toleration ; " it is an insolent term. No man, properly speaking, tolerates another. I do not tolerate a Catholic, neither does he tolerate me. We are equal, and acknowledge each other's right ; that is the correct statement. That every man should be allowed freely to worship God according to his conscience, that no man's civil rights should be affected by his religious creed, were both cardinal principles of O'Conncll. He had no fear that any doctrine of his faith could be endangered by the freest possible discussion. Learn of him, also, sympathy with every race and every form of oppression. No matter who was the sufferer, or what the form of the injustice, starving Yorkshire peasant, imprisoned Chartist, persecuted Prot- estant, or negro slave ; no matter of what right, personal or civil, the victim had been robbed ; no matter what religious pretext or political juggle alleged " necessity " as an excuse for his oppression ; no matter with what solemnities he had been devoted on the altar of slavery, the moment O'Connell saw him, the altar and the god sank together in the dust, the victim was acknowledged a man and a brother, equal in all rights, and entitled to all the aid the great Irishman could give him. I have no time to speak of his marvellous success at the bar ; of that profound skill in the law which enabled him to conduct such an agitation, always on the verge of illegality and violence, without once subjecting himself or his followers to legal penalty, an agitation under a code of which Brougham said, " No Catholic could lift 410 DANIEL O'CONNELL. his hand under it without breaking the law." I have no time to speak of his still more remarkable success in the House of Commons. Of Flood's failure there, Grattan had said, " He was an oak of the forest, too old and too great to be transplanted at fifty." Grattan's own success there was but moderate. The power O'Connell wielded against varied, bitter, and unscrupu- lous opposition was marvellous. I have no time to speak of his personal independence, his deliberate cour- age, moral and physical, his unspotted private character, his unfailing hope, the versatility of his talent, his power of tireless work, his ingenuity and boundless resource, his matchless self-possession in every emergency, his ready and inexhaustible wit ; but any reference to O'Connell that omitted his eloquence would be painting Wellington in the House of Lords without mention of Torres Vedras or Waterloo. Broadly considered, his eloquence has never been equalled in modern times, certainly not in English speech. Do you think I am partial ? I will vouch 'John Randolph of Roanoke, the Virginia slave-holder, f'who hated an Irishman almost as much as he hated a Yankee, himself an orator of no mean level. Hearing O'Connell, he exclaimed, " This is the man, these are he lips, the most eloquent that speak English in my 'ay." I think he was right. I remember the solem- : ty of Webster, the grace of Everett, the rhetoric of hoate ; I know the eloquence that lay hid in the iron logic of Calhoun ; I have melted beneath the magnetism of Sergeant S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, who wielded a power few men ever had. It has been my fortune to sit at the feet of the great speakers of the English tongue on the other side of the ocean. But I think all of them together never surpassed, and no one of them ever equalled, O'Connell. Nature intended him for our DANIEL O'CONNELL. 411 Demosthenes. Never since the great Greek, has she . sent forth any one so lavishly gifted for his worji as a V tribune of the people. In the first place, he had a mag- nificent presence, impressive in bearing, massive, like that of Jupiter. Webster himself hardly outdid him in the majesty of his proportions. To be sure, he had not Webster's craggy face, and precipice of brow, nor his eyes glowing like anthracite coal ; nor had he the lion roar of Mirabeau. But his presence filled the eye. A small O'Connell would haroHy have been an O'Connell at all. These physical advantages are half the battle. I remember Russell Lowell telling us that Mr. Web- ster came home from Washington at the time the Whig party thought of dissolution a year or two before his death, and went down to Faneuil Hall to protest ; draw- ing himself up to his loftiest proportion, his brow clothed with thunder, before the listening thousands, he said, " Well, gentlemen, I am a Whig, a Massachu- setts Whig, a Faneuil-hall Whig, a revolutionary Whig, a constitutional Whig. If you break the Whig party, sir, where am I to go?" And says Lowell, " We held our breath, thinking where he could go. If he had bee five feet three, we should have said, ' Who cares whei you go ? ' ' So it was with O'Connell. There wq something majestic in his presence before he spok and he added to it what Webster had not, what Clfe might have lent, infinite grace, that magnetism tiy f melts all hearts into one. I saw him at over sixty- years of age, every attitude was beauty, every gesture gracv You could only think of a greyhound as you looked $ him ; it would have been delicious to have watched hiiji, if he had not spoken a word. Then he had a voice that covered the gamut. The majesty of his indignation, fitly uttered in tones of superhuman power, made him able to " indict " a nation, in spite of Burke's protest. 412 DANIEL O'CONNELL. I heard him once say, " I send my voice across the Atlantic, careering like the thunder-storm against the breeze, to tell the slave-holder of the Carolinas that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman that the dawn of his redemption is already breaking." You seemed to hear the tones come echoing back to London from the Rocky Mountains. Then, with t]i slightest possible Irish brogue, he would tell a story^ while all Exeter Hall shook with laughter. The next moment, tears in his voice like a Scotch song, five thou- sand men wept. And all the while no effort. He seemed only breathing. " As effortless as woodland nooks Send violets up, and paint them blue." We used to say of Webster, " This is a great effort ; " of Everett, "It is a beautiful effort ; " but you never used the word "effort" in speaking of O'Connell. It provoked you that he would not make an effort. I heard him perhaps a score of times, and I do not think more than three times he ever lifted himself to the full sweep of his power. And this wonderful power, it was not a thunder-storm : he flanked you with his wit, he surprised you out of yourself; you were conquered before you knew it. He was once summoned to court out of the hunting-field, when a young friend of his of humble birth was on trial for his life. The evidence gathered around a hat found by the body of the murdered man, which was recognized as the hat of the prisoner. The lawyers tried to break down the evidence, confuse the testimony, and get some relief from the directness of the circum- stances ; but in vain, until at last they called for O'Con- nell. He came in, flung his riding- whip and hat on the table, was told the circumstances, and taking up the hat DANIEL O'CONNELL. 413 said to the witness, " Whose hat is this ? " " Well, Mr. O'Connell, that is Mike's hat." " How do you know it ? " "I will swear to it, sir." " And did you really find it by the murdered man ?" "I did that, sir." - " But you 're not ready to swear that ? " "I am, indeed, Mr. O'Connell." "Pat, do you know what hangs on your word ? A human soul. And with that dread burden, are you ready to tell this jury that the hat, to your cer- tain knowledge, belongs to the prisoner ? " " Y-yes, Mr. O'Connell, yes, I am." O'Connell takes the hat to the nearest window, and peers into it, " J-a-m-e-s, James. Now, Pat, did you see that name in the hat ? " "I did, Mr. O'Connell." - " You knew it was there ?" " Yes, sir; I read it after I picked it up." " No name in the hat, your Honor." So again in the House of Commons. When he took his seat in the House of 1830, the London Times visited him with its constant indignation, reported his speeches awry, turned them inside out, and made nonsense of them ; treated him as the New York Herald used to treat us Abolitionists twenty years ago. So one morning he rose and said, " Mr. Speaker, you know I have never opened my lips in this House, and I expended twenty years of hard work in getting the right to enter it, I have never lifted my voice in this House, but in behalf of the saddest people the sun shines on. Is it fair play, Mr. Speaker, is it what you call 4 English fair play ' that the press of this city will not let my voice be heard?" The next day the Times sent him word that, as he found fault with their manner of reporting him, they never would report him at all, they never would print his name in their parliamentary columns. So the next day when prayers were ended, O'Connell rose. Those reporters of the Times who were in the gallery rose also, ostenta- tiously put away their pencils, folded their arms, and 414 DANIEL O'CONNELL. made all the show they could, to let everybody know how it was. Well, you know nobody has any right to be in the gallery during the session, and if any member notices them, the mere notice clears the gallery ; only the reporters can stay after that notice. O'Connell rose. One of the members said, " Before the member from Clare opens his speech, let me call his attention to the gallery and the instance of that * passive resistance ' which he is about to preach." " Thank you," said O'Connell : " Mr. Speaker, I observe strangers in the gallery." Of course they left ; of course the next day, in the columns of the London Times, there were no par- liamentary debates. And for the first time, except in Richard Cobden's case, the London Times cried for quarter, and said to O'Connell, " If you give up the quarrel, we will." Later down, when he was advocating the repeal of the land law, when forty or fifty thousand people were gath- ered at the meeting, O'Connell was sitting at the breakfast-table. The London Times for that year had absolutely disgraced itself, and that is saying a great deal, and its reporters, if recognized, would have been torn to pieces. So, as O'Connell was breakfasting, the door opened, and two or three English reporters Gurney, and among others our well-known friend Russell of Bull Run notoriety entered the room and said," Mr. O'Connell, we are the reporters of the Times" " And," said Russell, " we dared not enter that crowd." " Should n't think you would," replied O'Connell. " Have you had any breakfast ? " " No, sir," said he ; " we hardly dared to ask for any." " Should n't think you would," answered O'Connell ; " sit down here." So they shared his breakfast. Then he took Bull Run in his own carriage to the place of meet- ing, sent for a table and seated him by the platform, DANIEL O'CONNELL. 415 and asked him whether he had his pencils well sharpened and had plenty of paper, as he intended to make a long speech. Bull Run answered, " Yes." And O'Connell stood up, and addressed the audience in Irish. His marvellous voice, its almost incredible power and sweetness, Bulwer has well described : " Once to my sight that giant form was given, Walled by wide air, and roofed by boundless heaven. Beneath his feet the human ocean lay, And wave on wave rolled into space away. Methought no clarion could have sent its sound Even to the centre of the hosts around ; And, as I thought*rose the sonorous swell, As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell. Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide It glided, easy as a bird may glide ; Even to the verge of that vast audience sent, It played with each wild passion as it went, Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled, And sobs or laughter answered as it willed." Webster could awe a senate, Everett could charm a college, and Choate could cheat a jury ; Clay could magnetize the million, and Corwin lead them captive. O'Connell was Clay, Corwin, Choate, Everett, and Web- ster in one. Before the courts, logic ; at the bar of the senate, unanswerable and dignified ; on the platform, grace, wit, and pathos ; before the masses, a whole man. Carlyle says, " He is God's own anointed king whose single word melts all wills into his." This describes O'Connell. Emerson says, " There is no true eloquence, unless there is a man behind the speech." Daniel O'Connell was listened to because all England and all Ireland knew that there was a man behind the speech, one who could be neither bought, bullied, nor cheated. He held the masses free but willing subjects in his hand. He owed this power to the courage that met every new question frankly, and concealed none of his con- 416 DANIEL O'CONNELL. viciions ; to an entireness of devotion that made the people feel he was all their own ; to a masterly brain that made them sure they were always safe in his hands. Behind them were ages of bloodshed : every rising had ended at the scaffold ; even Grattan brought them to 1798. O'Connell said, " Follow me : put your feet where mine have trod, and a sheriff shall never lay hand on your shoulder." And the great lawyer kept his pledge. This unmatched, long-continued power almost passes belief. You can only appreciate it by comparison. Let me carry you back to the mob-year of 1835, in this country, when the Abolitionists were hunted ; when the streets roared with riot ; when from Boston to Balti- more, from St. Louis to Philadelphia, a mob took pos- session of every city ; when private houses were invaded and public halls were burned ; press after press was thrown into the river; and Lovejoy baptized freedom with his blood. You remember it. Respectable jour- nals warned the mob that they were playing into the hands of the Abolitionists. Webster and Clay and the staff of Whig statesmen told the people that the truth floated farther on the shouts of the mob than the most eloquent lips could carry it. But law-abiding, Protest- ant, educated America could not be held back. Neither Whig chiefs nor respectable journals could keep these people quiet. Go to England. When the Reform Bill of 1831 was thrown out from the House of Lords, the people were tumultuous ; and Melbourne and Grey, Russell and Brougham, Lansdowne, Holland, and Macau- lay, the Whig chiefs, cried ou-t, " Don't violate the law : you help the Tories ! Riots put back the bill." But quiet, sober John Bull, law-abiding, could not do without it. Birmingham was three days in the hands of a mob ; castles were burned ; Wellington ordered the Scotch Greys to rough-grind their swords as at Waterloo. DANIEL O'CONNELL. 417 This was the Whig aristocracy of England. O'Connell had neither office nor title. Behind him were three million people steeped in utter wretchedness, sore with the oppression of centuries, ignored by statute. For thirty restless and turbulent years he stood in front of them, and said, " Remember, he that commits a crime helps the enemy." And during that long and fearful struggle, I do not remember one of his followers ever being convicted of a political offence, and during this period crimes of violence were very rare. There is no such record in our history. Neither in classic nor in modern times can the man be produced who held a million of people in his right hand so passive. It was due to the consistency and unity of a character that had hardly a flaw. I do not forget your soldiers, ora- tors, or poets, any of your leaders. But when I con- sider O'ConnelPs personal disinterestedness, his rare, brave fidelity to every cause his principles covered, no matter how unpopular, or how embarrassing to his main purpose, that clear, far-reaching vision, and true heart, which, on most moral and political ques- tions, set him so much ahead of his times ; his elo- quence, almost equally effective in the courts, in the senate, and before the masses ; that sagacity which set at naught the malignant vigilance of the whole imperial bar, watching thirty years for a misstep ; when I re- member that he invented his tools, and then measure his limited means with his vast success, bearing in mind its nature ; when I see the sobriety and moderation with which he used his measureless power, and the lofty, generous purpose of his whole life, I am ready to affirm that he was, all things considered, the greatest man the Irish race ever produced. 27 TRIBUTES. THEODORE PARKER. I. From the Proceedings of the New England Antislavery Conven- tion at the Melodeon, Boston, May 31, 18(>0. The following resolutions were offered by Wendell Phillips : Resolved, That in the death of our beloved friend and fellow- laborer Theodore Parker, liberty, justice, and truth lose one of their ablest and foremost champions, one whose tireless industry, whose learning, the broadest, most thorough, and profound New England knows, whose masterly intellect, melted into a brave and fervent heart, earned for him the widest and most abiding influence; in the service of truth and right, lavish of means, prodigal of labor, fearless of utterance; the most Christian minister at God's altar in all our Commonwealth ; one of the few whose fidelity saves the name of the ministry from being justly a reproach and by- word with religious and thinking men ; a kind, true heart, full of womanly tenderness ; the object of the most unscrupulous even of bigot and priestly hate, yet on whose garments bitter and watchful malice found no stain ; lay- ing on the altar the fruits of the most unresting toil, yet ever ready as the idlest to man any post of daily and humble duty at any mo- ment. In him we lose that strong sense, deep feeling, and love of right for whose eloquent voice millions waited in every hour of dark- ness and peril ; whose last word came, fitly, across the water a salu- tation and a blessing to the kindred martyrs of Harper's Ferry ; a storehouse of the lore of every language and age; the armory of a score of weapons sacred to right ; the leader whose voice was the bond of a mighty host ; the friend ever sincere, loyal, and vigilant ; a man whose fidelity was attested equally by the trust of those who loved him, and the hate of everything selfish, heartless, and base in the land. In time to come the slave will miss keenly that voice always heard in his behalf, and which a nation was learning to heed ; and 422 THEODORE PARKER. whoever anywhere lifts a hand for any victim of wrong and sin, will be lonelier and weaker for the death we mourn to-day. Resolved, That a copy of the above resolution be sent to Mrs. Par- ker, with fit expression of our most sincere and respectful sympathy in this hour of her bitter grief and sad bereavement. A NOTHER friend is gone. Not gone ! No, with us, -/~\ only standing one step higher than he did. To such spirits, there is no death. In the old times, when men fought with spears, the warrior hurled his weapon into the thickest of the opposite host, and struggled bravely on, until he stood over it and reclaimed it. In the bloom of his youth, Theodore Parker flung his heart forward at the feet of the Eternal ; he has only struggled onward and reached it to-day. Only one step higher ! " Wail ye may full well for Scotland, Let none dare to mourn for him." How shall we group his qualities ? The first that occurs to me is the tireless industry of that unresting brain which never seemed to need leisure. When some engagement brought me home in the small hours of the morning, many and many a time have I looked out (my own window commands those of his study), and seen that unquenched light burning, that unflagging student ever at work. Half curious, half ashamed, I lay down, saying with the Athenian, " The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep." He seemed to rebuke me even by the light that flashed from the window of his study. I have met him on the cars deep in some strange tongue, or hiving up knowledge to protect the weak and hated of his own city. Neither on the journey nor at home did his spirit need to rest. Why is he dead ? Because he took up the burden of three men. A faithful pulpit is enough for one man. He filled it until the fulness of his ideas overflowed into THEODORE PARKER. 423 other channels. It was not enough. His diocese ex- tended to the prairies. On every night of the week, those brave lips smothered bigotry, conquered prejudice, and melted true hearts into his own on the banks of the Mississippi. This was enough for two men. But he said, " I will bring to this altar of Reform a costlier offering yet," and he gathered the sheaf of all literature into his bosom, and came with another man's work, almost all the thoughts of all ages and all tongues, as the back- ground of his influence in behalf of the slave. He said, " Let no superficial scholarship presume to arraign Re- form as arrogant and empty fanaticism. I will overtop your candidates with language and law, and show you, in all tongues, by arguments hoar with antiquity, the right- fulness and inevitable necessity of justice and liberty." Enough work for three men to do ; and he sank under the burden. Lord Bacon says, " Studies teach not their own use ; that comes from a wisdom without them and above them." The fault of New England scholarship is that it knows not its own use; that, as Bacon says, " it settles in its fixed ways, and does not seek reformation." The praise of this scholar is, that, like the great master of English philosophy, he was content to light his torch at every man's candle. He was not ashamed to learn. When he started in the pulpit, he came a Unitarian, with the blessings of Cambridge. Men say he is a Unitarian no longer ; but the manna, when it was kept two days, bred maggots, and the little worms that run about on the surface of corruption call themselves the children and representatives of Channing. They are only the worms of the manna, and the pulpit of Federal Street found its child at Music Hall. God's lineage is not of blood. Brewster of Plymouth, if he stood here to-day, would not be in the Orthodox Church, counting on his anxious fin- 424 THEODORE PARKER. gers the five points of Calvin. No ! he would be shoul- dering a Sharpens rifle in Kansas, fighting against the lihels of the Independent and Observer, preaching treason in Virginia, and hung on an American gibbet ; for the child of Puritanism is not mere Calvinism, it is the loyalty to justice which tramples under foot the wicked laws of its own epoch. So Unitarianism so far as it has any worth is not standing in the same pulpit, or muttering the same shibboleth ; it is, like Channing, looking into the face of a national sin and, with lips touched like Isaiah's, finding it impossible not to launch at it the thunderbolt of God's rebuke. Old Lyman Beecher said," If you want to find the suc- cessor of Saint Paul, seek him where you find the same objections made to a preacher that were made to Saint Paul." Who won the hatred of the merchant-princes of Boston ? Whom did State Street call a madman ? The fanatic of Federal Street in 1837. Whom, with unerring instinct, did that same herd of merchant-princes hate, with instinctive certainty that, in order that their craft should be safe, they ought to hate him ? The Apostle of Music Hall. That is enough. When some Americans die when most Americans die their friends tire the public with excuse*. They confess this spot, they explain that stain, they plead cir- cumstances as the half justification of that mistake, and they beg of us to remember that nothing but good is to be spoken of the dead. We need no such mantle for that green grave under the sky of Florence, no excuses, no explanations, no spot. Priestly malice has scanned every inch of his garment, it was seamless ; it could find no stain. History, as in the case of every other of her beloved children, gathers into her bosom the arrows which malice had shot at him, and says to posterity, " Behold the title-deeds of your gratitude ! " We ask no THEODORE PARKER. 425 moment to excuse, there is nothing to explain. What the snarling journal thought bold, what the selfish politi- cian feared as his ruin, it was God's seal set upon his apostleship. The little libel glanced across him like a rocket when it goes over the vault ; it is passed, and the royal sun shines out as beneficent as ever. When I returned from New York on the thirteenth day of this month, I was to have been honored by standing in his desk, but illness prevented my fulfilling the ap- pointment. It was eleven o'clock in the morning. As he sank away the same week, under the fair sky of Italy, he said to the most loving of wives and of nurses, " Let me be buried where I fall ; " and tenderly, thoughtfully, she selected four o'clock of the same Sunday to mingle his dust with the kindred dust of brave, classic Italy. Four o'clock ! The same sun that looked upon the half-dozen mourners that he permitted to follow him to the grave, that same moment of brightness lighted up the arches of his own Temple, as one whom he loved stepped into his own desk, and with remarkable coinci- dence, for the only time during his absence, opened one of his own sermons to supply my place ; and as his friend read the Beatitudes over his grave on the banks of the Arno, his dearer friend here read from a manuscript the text, " Have faith in God." It is said that, in his last hours, in the wandering of that masterly brain, he mur- mured, " There are two Theodore "Parkers, one rests here, dying, but the other lives, and is at work at home." How true ! at that very instant, his own words were sinking down into the hearts of those that loved him best, and bidding them, in this, the loneliest hour of their bereavement, " Have faith in God." He always came to this platform. He is an old occu- pant of it. He never made an apology for coming to it. 1 remember many years ago, going home from the very 426 THEODORE PARKER. hall which formerly occupied this place. He had sat where you sit, in the seats, looking up to us. It had been a stormy, hard gathering, a close fight ; the, press ca- lumniating us ; every journal in Boston ridiculing the idea which we were endeavoring to spread. As I passed down the stairs homeward, he put his arm within mine, and said, " You shall never need to ask me again to share that platform." It was the instinct of his nature, true as the bravest heart. The spot for him was where the battle was hottest. He had come, as half the clergy come, a critic. He felt it was not his place ; that it was to grapple with the tiger, ajid throttle him. And the pledge that he made he kept ; for, whether here or in New York, as his reputation grew, when that lordly mammoth of the press, the Tribune, overgrown in its in- dependence and strength, would not condescend to record a word that Mr. Garrison or I could utter, but bent low before the most thorough scholarship of New England, and was glad to win its way to the confidence of the West by being his mouthpiece, with that weapon of influence in his right hand, he always placed himself at our side, and in the midst of us, in the capital State of the Empire. You may not think this great praise ; we do. Other men have brought us brave hearts ; other men have brought us keen-sighted and vigilant intellects, but he brought us, as no one else could, the loftiest stature of New England culture. He brought us a disciplined intellect, whose statement was evidence, and whose affirmation the most gifted student hesitated long be- fore he ventured to doubt or to contradict. When we had nothing but our characters, nothing but our repu- tation for accuracy, for our weapons, the man who could give to the cause of the slave that weapon was indeed one of its ablest and foremost champions. THEODORE PARKER. 427 Lord Bacon said in his will, " I leave my name and memory to foreign lands, and to my countrymen, after some time be passed" No more fitting words could be chosen, if the modesty of the friend who has just gone before us would have permitted him to adopt them for himself. To-day, even within twenty-four hours, I have? seen symptoms of that repentance which Johnson describes : When nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust." The men who held their garments aside, and desired to have no contact with Music Hall, are beginning to show symptoms that they will be glad, when the world doubts whether they have any life left, to say, " Did not Theo- dore Parker spring from our bosom ? " Yes; he takes his place his serene place among those few to whom Americans point as a proof that the national heart is still healthy and alive. Most of our statesmen, most of our politicians, go down into their graves, and we cover them up with apologies ; we walk with reverent and filial love backward, and throw the mantle over their defects, and say, " Remember the temptation and the time ! " Now and then one now and then one goes up silently, and yet not unannounced, like the stars at their coming, and takes his place, while all eyes follow him and say, " Thank God ! It is the promise and the herald ! It is the nation alive at its heart ! God has not left us without a witness, for his children have been among us, and one half have known them by love, and one half have known them by hate, equal attestations to the divine life that has passed through our streets." I wish I could say anything worthy ; but he should have done for us, with the words that never failed to be 428 THEODORE PARKER. fitting, with that heart that was always ready, with that eloquence which you never waited for and were disappointed, he should have done for us what we vainly try to do for him. Farewell, brave, strong friend and helper ! "Sleep in peace with kindred ashes Of the noble and the true ; Hands that never failed their country, Hearts that baseness never knew ! " II. At the Memorial Service of the Twenty- Eighth Congregational Society, in Music Hall, on Sunday, June 17, I860. THE lesson of this desk is Truth ! That your brave teacher dared to speak, and no more. It is only two or three times in our lives that we pause in telling the whole merit of a friend, from fear of being thought flatter- ers. What the world thinks easily done, it believes ; all beyond is put down to fiction. I find myself hesitating to speak just all I think of Theodore Parker, lest those who did not know him should suppose I flatter, and thus I mar the massive simplicity of his fame. Born on the 24th of August, 1810, he died just before finishing his fiftieth year. He said to me, years ago, " When I am fifty, I will leave the pulpit, and finish the great works I have planned." God ordered it so ! He has left this desk, and gone there to finish the great works that he planned ! Some speak of his death as early ; but he died in good old age, if we judge him by THEODORE PARKER. 429 his work, full of labors, if not of years, a long life crowded into a few years ; as Bacon says, u Old in hours, for he lost no time." Truly, he lost not an hour, from the early years, when in his sweet, plain phrase, he tells us, " his father let the baby pick up chips, drive the cows to pasture, and carry nubs of corn to the oxen," far on to the closing moment when, faint and dying, he sent us his blessing and brave counsel last November, dated fitly from Rome. God granted him life long enough to see of the labor of his hands. He planted broadly, and lived to gather a rich, ripe harvest. His life, too, was an harmonious whole, "... when brought Among the tasks of real life, he wrought Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought." The very last page those busy fingers ever wrote, tells the child's story, than which, he says, " no event in my life has made so deep and lasting an impression on me. ... A little boy in petticoats, in my fourth year, my father sent me from the field home." A spotted tortoise, in shallow water at the foot of a rhodora, caught his sight, and he lifted his stick to strike it, when " a voice within said, ' It is wrong.' I stood with lifted stick, in wonder at the new emotion, till rhodora and tortoise vanished from my sight. I hastened home, and asked my mother what it was that told me it was wrong. Wiping a tear with her apron, and taking me in her arms, she said, ' Some men call it conscience ; but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen to it and obey it, then it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right. But if you turn a deaf ear or disobey, then it will fade out, little by little, and leave you in the dark and without a guide ! ' Out of that tearful mother's arms grew your 430 THEODORE PARKER. pulpit. Here in words, every day in the streets by deeds, during a hard life, he repeated and obeyed her counsel. Of that pulpit, its theology, and its treatment by Unitarian divines, manly and Christian lips spoke to us two weeks ago. It is not for me, even if there were need, to touch on it. Born in that faith, and nurtured in similar maxims of the utmost liberty and the duty of individual investigation and thought, I used it to enter other paths. Mine is the old faith of New England. On those points he and I rarely talked. What he thought, I hardly know. For myself, standing beneath the Gos- pel rule of "judging men by their fruits," I should have felt stronger in defending my own faith, could I have pointed to any preacher of it who as gently judged and as truly loved his fellowmen. As to doctrines, we both knew that " the whole of truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue ; " that, of course, a man's con- ception of truth is only his opinion, and not, necessarily, absolute truth. But it is always safe and wise for honest and earnest men to seek for truth everywhere and at all hazards. The results, if not wholly and only good, are yet the best things within our reach. The lesson of Theodore Parker's preaching was love. Let me read for you a sonnet still among his papers : " O Brother ! who for us didst meekly wear The Crown of Thorns about thy radiant brow, What Gospel from the Father didst thou bear, Our hearts to cheer, making us happy now ? ' 'T is this alone,' the immortal Saviour cries 'To fill thy heart with ever active love, Love for the wicked as in sin he lies, Love for thy brother here, thy God above. And thus to find thy earthly, heavenly prize. Fear nothing ill ; 't will vanish in its day ; Live for the good, taking the ill thou must ; Toil with thy might, with manly labor pray ; Living and loving, learn thy God to trust, And He will shed upon thy soul the blessings of the just.' " THEODORE PARKER. 431 Standing in the old ways, I cannot but suspect these Unitarian ] ml pits of some latent and cowardly distrust of their own creed, when I see that if one comes from them to our Orthodox ranks, and believes a great deal more than they do, he is treated with reverend respect; but let him go out on the other side, and believe a very little less, and the whole startled body join in begging the world not to think them naturally the parents of such horrible and dangerous heresy. But there is one thing every man may say of this pulpit, it was a live reality and no sham. Whether tearing theological idols to pieces at West Roxbury, or here battling with the every-day evils of the streets, it was ever a live voice, and no mechanical or parrot-tune ; ever fresh from the heart of God, as these flowers, these lilies, the last flower over which, when eyesight failed him, with his old gesture he passed his loving hand, and said, " How sweet ! " As in that story he loved so much to tell of Michael Angelo, when in the Roman palace Raphael was drawing his figures too small, Angelo sketched a colossal head of fit proportions, and taught Raphael his fault, so Parker criticised these other pul- pits, not so much by censure as by creation by a pulpit, proportioned to the hour, broad as humanity, frank as truth, stern as justice, and loving as Christ. Here is the place to judge him. In St. Paul's Cathe- dral, the epitaph says, if you would know the genius of Christopher Wren, " look around." Do you ask proof how full were the hands, how large the heart, how many- sided the brain of your teacher ? listen, and you will hear it in the glad, triumphant certainty of your enemies that you must close these doors, since his place can never be filled ! Do you ask proof of his efficient labor and the good soil into which that seed fell ? gladden your eyes by looking back and seeing for how many months the im- 432 THEODORE PARKER. pulse his vigorous hand gave you has sufficed, spite of boding prophecy, to keep these doors open ! Yes ; he has left those accustomed to use weapons, and not merely to hold up his hands. And not only among yourselves ; from another city I received a letter full of deep feeling, and the writer, an Orthodox church-member, says : " I was a convert to Theodore Parker before I was a con- vert to . If there is anything of value in the work I am doing to-day, it may in an important sense be said to have had its root in Parkers heresy, I mean the habit with- out which Orthodoxy stands emasculated and good for nothing, of independently passing on the empty and rotten pretensions of churches and churchmen, which I learned earliest and more than from an}' other from Theodore Parker. He has nry love, my respect, my admiration." Yes, his diocese is broader than Massachusetts; his influence extends very far outside these walls. Every pulpit in Boston is freer and more real to-day because of the existence of this. The fan of his example scattered the chaff of a hundred sapless years. Our whole city is fresher to-day because of him. The most sickly and timid soul under yonder steeple, hide-bound in days and forms and beggarly Jewish elements, little dreams how ten times worse and narrower it was before this sun warmed the general atmosphere around. As was said of Burke's unsuccessful impeachment of Warren Hastings, " never was the great object of punishment, the prevention of crime, more completely obtained. Hastings was ac- quitted ; but tyranny and injustice were condemned wherever English was spoken," so we may say of Boston and Theodore Parker. Grant that few adopted his ex- treme theological views, that not many sympathized in his politics, still, that Boston is nobler, purer, braver, more loving, more Christian to-day, is due more to him THEODORE PARKER. 433 than to all the pulpits thai, vex her Sabbath air. He raised the level of sermons intellectually and morally. Other preachers were compelled to grow in manly thought and Christian morals in very self-defence. The droning routine of dead metaphysics or dainty morals was gone. As Christ preached of the fall of the tower of Siloam the week before and what men said of it in the streets of Jerusalem, so Parker rung through our startled city the news of some fresh crime against humanity, some slave-hunt or wicked court or prosti- tuted official, till frightened audiences actually took bond of their new clergymen that they should not be tormented before their time ! Men say he erred on that great question of our age, the place due to the Bible. Perhaps so. But William Crafts one of the bravest men who ever fled from our vulture to Victoria writes to a friend : " When the slave-hunters were on our track, and no other minister, except yourself, came to direct our attention to the God of the oppressed, Mr. Parker came with his wise counsel, and told us where and how to go ; gave us money. But that was not all : he gave me a weapon to protect our liberties, and a Bible to guide our souls. I have that Bible now, and shall ever prize it most highly." How direct and frank his style, just level to the nation's ear. No man ever needed to read any one of his sentences twice to catch its meaning. None sus- pected that he thought other than he said, or more than he confessed. Like all such men, he grew daily, never too old to learn. Mark how closer to actual life, how much bolder in reform, are all his later sermons, especially since he came to the city ; every year a step - "... forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpassed." 28 434 THEODORE PARKER. There are men whom we measure by their times, content, and expecting to find them subdued to what they work in. They are the chameleons of circumstance ; they are ^Eoliari harps, toned by the breeze that sweeps over them. There are others who serve as guide-posts and land-marks ; we measure their times by them. Such was Theodore Parker. Hereafter the critic will use him as a mete-wand to measure the heart and civilization of Boston. Like the Englishman, a year or two ago, who suspected our great historian could riot move in the best circles of the city when it dropped out that he did not know Theodore Parker, distant men gauge us by our toleration and recognition of him. Such men are our Nilometers ; the harvest of the future is according to the height that the flood of our love rises round them. Who cares now that Harvard vouchsafed him no honors ! But history will save the fact to measure the calculating and prudent bigotry of our times. Some speak of him only as a bitter critic and harsh prophet. Pulpits and journals shelter their plain speech in mentioning him under the example of what they call his " unsparing candor." Do they feel that the strange- ness of their speech, their unusual frankness, needs apology and example ! But he was far other than a bit- ter critic ; though thank God for every drop of that bitterness that came like a wholesome rebuke on the dead, saltless sea of American life ! Thank God for every indignant protest, for every Christian admonition that the Holy Spirit breathed through those manly lips ! But if he deserved any single word, it was " generous." Vir generosus is the description that leaps to the lips of every scholar. He was generous of money. Born on a New England farm, in those days when small incomings made every dollar a matter of importance, he no sooner had command of wealth than he lived with open hands. THEODORE PARKER. 435 Not even the darling ambition of a great library ever tempted him to close his ear to need. Go to Venice or Vienna, to Frankfort or to Paris, and ask the refugees who have gone back, when here friendless exiles but for him, under whose roof they felt most at home ! One of our oldest and best teachers writes me that, telling him once in the cars of a young lad of rare mathematical genius who could read Laplace, but whom narrow means debarred from the university, " Let him enter," said Theodore Parker ; " I will pay his bills." No sect, no special study, no one idea bounded his sympathy; but he was generous in judgment where a common man would have found it hard to be so. Though he does not " go down to dust without his fame," though Oxford and Germany sent him messages of sympathy, still no word of approbation from the old grand names of our land, no honors from university or learned academy, greeted his brave, diligent, earnest life. Men can confess that they voted against his admission to scientific bodies for his ideas, feeling all the while that his brain could furnish half the academy ; and yet, thus ostracised, he was the most generous, more than just, interpreter of the motives of those about him, and looked on while others reaped where he sowed, with most generous joy in their success. Patiently analyzing character, and masterly in marshalling facts, he stamped with generous justice the world's final judgment of Webster, and now that the soreness of battle is over, friend and foe allow it. He was generous of labor, books never served to excuse him from any, the humblest work. Though " hiving wisdom with each studious year," and passion- ately devoted to his desk, as truly as was said of Milton, " The lowliest duties on himself he laid." What drudg- ery of the street did that scholarly hand ever refuse ? Who so often and so constant as he in the trenches, 436 THEODORE PARKER. when a slave case made our city a camp ? Loving books, he had no jot of a scholar's indolence or timidity, hut joined hands with labor everywhere, Erasmus would have found him good company, and Melanchthon got brave help over a Greek manuscript ; but the likeliest place to have found him in that age would have been at Zwingle's side, on the battlefield, pierced with a score of fanatic spears. For above all things, he was terribly in earnest. If I sought to paint him in one word, I should say he was always in earnest. I spoke once of his diligence, and we call him tire- less, unflagging, unresting. But they are commonplace words, and poorly describe him. What we usually call diligence in educated men does not outdo, does not equal the day-laborer in ceaselessness of toil. No scholar, not even the busiest, but loiters out from his weary books, and feels shamed by the hodman or the plough-boy. The society and amusements of easy life eat up and beguile one half our time. Those on whose lips and motions hang crowds of busy idlers submit to life-long discipline, almost every hour a lesson. Those on whose tones float the most precious truth disdain an effort. The table you write on is the fruit of more toil- some and thorough discipline than the brain of most who deem themselves scholars ever knew. Let us not cheat ourselves with words. But no poor and greedy mechanic, no farm tenant " on shares," ever distanced this unresting brain. He brought into his study that conscientious, loving industry which six generations had handed down to him on the hard soil of Massachusetts. He loved work, and I doubt if any workman in our empire equalled him in thoroughness of preparation. Before he wrote his review of Prescott, he went con- scientiously through all the printed histories of that period in three or four tongues. Before he ventured to THEODORE PARKER. 437 paint for you the portrait of John Quincy Adams, he read every line Adams ever printed, and all the attacks upon him that could be found in public or private collections. Fortunate man ! he lived long enough^ to see the eyes of the whole nation turned toward him as to a trusted teacher. Fortunate, indeed, in a life so noble, that even what was scorned from the pulpit, will surely become oracular from the tomb ! Thrice fortunate, if he loved fame and future influence, that the leaves which bear his thoughts to posterity are not freighted with words penned by sickly ambition or wrung from hunger, but with earnest thoughts on dangers that make the ground tremble under our feet, and the heavens black over our head, the only literature sure to live. Am- bition says, " I will write, and be famous." It is only a dainty tournament, a sham fight, forgotten when the smoke clears away. Real books are like Yorktown or Waterloo, whose cannon shook continents at the mo- ment, and echo down the centuries. Through such channels Parker poured his thoughts. And true hearts leaped to his side. No man's brain ever made him warmer friends ; no man's heart ever held them firmer. He loved to speak of how many hands he had, in every city, in every land, ready to work for him. With royal serenity he levied on all. Vassal hearts multiplied the great chief's powers. And at home the gentlest and deepest love, saintly, unequalled devotion, made every hour sunny, held off every care, and left him double liberty to work. God comfort that widowed heart! Judge him by his friends. No man suffered any- where who did not feel sure of his sympathy. In sick chambers, and by the side of suffering humanity, he kept his heart soft and young. No man lifted a hand 438 THEODORE PARKER. anywhere for truth and right who did not look on Theodore Parker as his fellow-laborer. When men hoped for the future, this desk was one stone on which they planted their feet. Where more frequent than around his bo^fd would you find men familiar with Europe's dungeons and the mobs of our own streets? Wherever the fugitive slave might worship, here was his Gibraltar. Over his mantel, however scantily fur- nished, in this city or elsewhere, you were sure to find a picture of Parker. But he is gone ! So certain was he of his death that, in the still watches of the Italian night, he comforted the sickening hopes of those about him by whispering, " I hear a voice you cannot hear, Which says I must not stay ; I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away." But where shall we stop ? This empty desk ! You may fill it, but where is lie who called it into being ? Who shall make it so emphatically the symbol of free thought ? To have stood here was, for most men, suffi- cient credential. Here the young knight earned his spurs. Around it has swelled and tossed the battle of Christian liberty. The debate whether Theodore Parker should speak in one place or preach in another, has been one of God's chief methods of teaching this land the lesson of what bigots style toleration, and freemen better call Christian liberty. He has passed on; we linger. That other world grows more real to us as friend after friend enters it. Soon more are there than on this side ; soon our hearts are more than half there. God tenderly sunders the few ties that still bind us. So live that when called to join that other assembly, we shall feel we are only THEODORE PARKER. 439 passing from an apprenticeship of thought and toil to broader fields and a higher teacher above. The blessings of the poor are his laurels. Say that his words won doubt and murmur to trust in a loving God, let that be his record! Say that to the hated and friendless, he was shield and buckler, let that be his epitaph ! The glory of children is the fathers. When you voted " that Theodore Parker should be heard in Boston," God honored you. Well have you kept the pledge. In much labor and with many sacri- fices he has laid the corner-stone. His work is ended here. God calls you to put on the top-stone. Let fear- less lips and Christian lives be his monument ! FRANCIS JACKSOK At the funeral services at Mr. Jackson's late residence, Hollis Street, Boston, November 18, 1861. HERE lies the body of one of whom it may be justly said, he was the best fruit of New England insti- tutions. If we had been set to choose a specimen of what the best New England ideas and training could do, there are few men we should have selected before him. Broad views, long foresight, tireless industry, great force, serene faith in principles, parent of constant effort to reduce them to practice ; contempt of mere wealth, that led him in middle life to give up getting, and devote his whole strength to ideas and the welfare of the race ; entirely unselfish, perfectly just ; thrifty, that he might have to give ; fearing not the face of man ; tolerant of other men's doubts and fears ; tender and loving, are not these the traits that have given us the inheritance we value ? None will deny they were eminently his. My only hesitation in describing him is lest I be thought to flatter. What men have themselves seen, they believe ; all further is set down to the blind par- tiality of friendship. Few have been privileged to know ii)4en like Francis Jackson. To such men, in fulness of ^ears, there is no death. There seems no place for tears here. Our friend has only laid down this body, the worn tool God lent him, and passed on to nearer FRANCIS JACKSON. 441 service and a higher sphere. He had fought a good fight, and certainly finished his work here. We have known him so long, looked up to him for so many years, trusted his judgment, leaned on his friend- ship, counted on his strength so constantly, that, like a child losing its parent, we seem left without some wonted shelter under the high, cold heaven, something we nestled under is gone. I said he was all that our institutions ought to breed, yes, having regard to his plans and purpose of life, he was one of the most thoroughly educated men I ever knew. All he professed and needed to know, he knew thoroughly. Though enjoying but scanty opportunities of education in early life, he was thoroughly dowered by patient training, carefully gathered information, and most mature thought ; he was in every sense a wise man, and wise men valued him. My friend Mr. Gar- rison has quoted Theodore Parker. All of you who knew Theodore Parker intimately will recollect that when he wished to illustrate cool courage, indomitable perseverance, sound sense, rare practical ability, utter disinterestedness, and spotless integrity, he named Francis Jackson ; and when in moments of difficulty he needed such qualities in a stanch friend, he found them in Francis Jackson. Every character has some pervading quality, some key-note ; our friend's, I think, was decision, serene self-reliance, and perseverance. He was the kind of man you involuntarily called to mind when men spoke of " one on God's side being a majority." Such a one sufficed to outweigh masses, and outlive the opposition of long years. Francis Jackson's will did not seem a mere human will or purpose ; it reminded you of some law or force of Nature, like gravity or the weight of the globe, hopeless to resist it. I cannot describe it 442 FRANCIS JACKSON. better than by quoting some sentences of John Foster's sketch of Howard, you will see how closely they fit our friend, u The energy of his determination was so great, that if instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a ve- hement impetuosity ; but by being uninterrupted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of an3*thing like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the in- dividual forbidding it to be less. . . . "The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained him a week after their final adjustment. The law which carries water down a de- clivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings toward the main object. . . . There was an inconceivable severit}' of conviction that he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to idle spectators, who live onl}' to amuse themselves, looks like insanit}'. . . . "As his method referred everything he did and thought to the same end, and his exertion did not relax for a mo- ment, he made the trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human agent ; and therefore what he did not accomplish, he might conclude to be placed be3*ond the sphere of mortal activit}', and calmly leave to the immediate disposal of Omnipotence." Add to this quality of decision his other trait, tire- less activity, and it explains his life. Indeed, he needs no words of ours : " His own right hand has FRANCIS JACKSON. 443 carved his epitaph." As Mr. Garrison has told us, he withdrew long ago from office, stood outside of the political machine. But when history records the strug- gling birth of those changes and ideas which make our epoch and city famous, whose name will she put before his ? And God has graciously permitted him to see of the labor of his hands. These walls said to the wave that beat down all law and authority in Boston, in 1835, " Thus far, no farther." That word of rebuke was the first faint sighing of the tempest that now sweeps over the continent, u scourging before it the lazy elements which had long stagnated into pestilence." Some men would say he flung away the honors of life. No ; who has reaped so many ? The roar of the streets, the petty inefficiency of mayors, never turned him one hair's- breadth from his path, or balked him of his purpose. Brave, calm, tirelessly at work, he outlived mayors and governors, the mere drift-wood of this Niagara, and wrote his will on the statute-books of States. Three years ago he brought me five thousand dollars, to be used in securing the rights of women. The only charge he laid on me was to keep the name of the donor secret until what has now happened, his death. Already that fund has essentially changed the statute- book of the Empire State'J altered materially the laws of two other Commonwealths, and planted the seed of radical reform in the young sovereignty of Kansas. This unseen hand moved the lever which, afar off, lifts the burdens of one half the people of great States. And you all know how every man, friend or foe, confidently expected to see his calm brow on every platform which advocated a humane and an unpopular idea. I remem- ber, years ago, at the very first meeting ever held in this city to abolish the use of the whip in the navy, a timidly conservative merchant refused to attend, saying, " Why, - V Vfc V - [ 444 FRANCIS JACKSON. I know whom I shall see there, just Francis Jackson, of course, and his set." But he was not only a reformer, nor wholly absorbed in what narrow men call useful. Our broad city avenue to Roxbury is half hid by noble trees, because thirty years ago he, a member of the city government, saw to it, unaided at first, that they were planted. And he found time to save for history a sketch of his native town, a volume the result of great labor, and which ranks among the best of our town histories. Rarest of all, this pitiless toiler in constant work, this tremendous energy of purpose, was wholly unsavored with arrogance. He was eminently tolerant. It was not only that his perfect justice made allowance, no, his ready sympathy helped to give fair, full weight to all that should excuse or make us patient with others. Indeed, his was that very, very rare mixture, iron will and a woman's tenderness, so seldom found in our race. Those who saw him only at work little knew how keenly he felt, and how highly he valued, the kind words and tender messages of those he loved. He not only served the needy and the fugitive slave, but his genial sympathy was as precious a gift as the shelter of this roof or the liberal alms he was sure to bestow. Some men are only modest from indifference, and the energy of some is only ambition in a mask. Mr. Jack- son's modesty had no taint of indolence ; his enterprise was no cloak for ambition. Highest of all, he was emphatically an honest man, in the full, sublime sense of those common words. " Bos- ton," as the Tribune says, " has lost her honestest man." If I speak again of the opposition he encountered, it is not because he cared for it. He took fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks, with a serene indiffer- ence. But it is just to him to consider that malignant FRANCIS JACKSON. 445 opposition in another light. The pitiless storm of public hate beat upon him for thirty years. Malice personal, political, religious watched his every act, dogged his every step, and yet no breath of suspicion ever touched his character. Out of that ordeal he comes with no smell of fire on his garments ; the boldest malice never gathered courage to invent an accusation. Son, brother, husband, father, neighbor, friend, reformer, in private life, in business, or holding office, no man ever suspected him of anything but the bravery of holding opinions which all hated, none could confute, and of acting them out at the risk of property and life, and the actual sacrifice of all common men love. How few have such an epitaph ! We who knew him, when we read of Hamp- den resisting ship-money, or Sidney going to the block, feel that we have walked and lived with their fellow. Scholars watched him, and thought of Plutarch. Narrow sectarians scrutinized him, and wondered how one lack- ing their shibboleth wore so naturally graces they only prayed for. Active, stanch friend, wise counsellor, lib- eral hand, serene worker, like the stars, " without haste, without rest ! " Let us thank God for the sight, for the example ! He would tell us to spare our words, saying, he had only tried to use his powers honestly. His best praise is our following his example, and each fearlessly obeying his own conscience, and doing with his might whatever his hand finds to do for his fellowman. Let us so do him honor; and as the great Englishman said of his friend : " There 's none to make his place ,good, let us go to the next best," so of thee, dear comrade and leader of many years, thy place is sacred forever to thy memory ! We go to the next best, till God gives us to see thee once again, face to face ! ABEAHAM LINCOLN. Address after the assassination of President Lincoln, Tremont Temple, Boston, April 23, 1805. HTHESE are sober days. The judgments of God have -1 found us out. Years gone by chastised us with whips ; these chastise us with scorpions. Thirty years ago how strong our mountain stood, laughing prosperity on all its sides ! None heeded the fire and gloom which slumbered below. It was nothing that a giant sin gagged our pulpits ; that its mobs ruled our streets, burned men at the stake for their opinions, and hunted them like wild beasts for their humanity. It was nothing that, in the lonely quiet of the plantation, there fell on the un- pitied person of the slave every torture which hellish ingenuity could devise. It was nothing that, as husband and father, mother and child, the negro drained to its dregs all the bitterness that could be pressed into his cup ; that, torn with whip and dogs, starved, hunted, tor- tured, racked, he cried, " How long, Lord, how long ! " In vain did a thousand witnesses crowd our highways, telling to the world the horrors of this prison-house, none stopped to consider, none believed. Trade turned away its deaf ear ; the Church gazed on them with stony brow ; letters passed by with mocking tongue. But what the world would not look at God has set to-day in a light so ghastly bright that it almost dazzles us blind. What the world refused to believe, God has written all over the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 447 face of the continent with the sword's point in the blood of our best and most beloved. We believe the agony of the slave's hovel, the mother, and the husband, when it takes its seat at our board. We realize the barbarism that crushed him in the sickening and brutal use of the relics of Bull Run, in the torture and starvation of Libby Prison, where idiocy was mercy, and death was God's best blessing ; and now, still more bitterly, we realize it in the coward spite which strikes an unarmed man, un- warned, behind his back, in the assassin fingers which dabble with bloody knife at the throats of old men on sick pillows. God, let this lesson be enough ! Spare us any more such costly teaching ! This deed is but the result and fair representative of the system in whose defence it was done. No matter whether it was previously approved at Richmond, or whether the assassin, if he reaches the Confederates, be received with all honor, as the wretch Brooks was, and as this bloodier wretch will surely be wherever rebels are not dumb with fear of our cannon. No matter for all this. God shows this terrible act to teach the nation in unmistakable terms the terrible foe with which it has to deal. But for this fiendish spirit, North and South, which holds up the rebellion, the assassin had never either wished or dared such a deed. This lurid flash only shows us how black and wide the cloud from which it sprung. And what of him in whose precious blood this momen- tous lesson is writ ? He sleeps in the blessings of the poor, whose fetters God commissioned him to break. Give prayers and tears to the desolate widow and the fatherless ; but count him blessed far above the crowd of his fellow-men. [Fervent cries of u Amen ! "] He was permitted himself to deal the last staggering blow which sent rebellion reeling to its grave ; and then, holding his darling boy by the hand, to walk the streets of its sur- 4-48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. rendered capital, while his ears drank in praise and thanksgiving whicli bore his name to the throne of God in every form piety and gratitude could invent ; and final- ly, to seal the sure triumph of the cause he loved with his own blood. He caught the first notes of the coming jubilee, and heard his own name in every one. Who among living men may not envy him ? Suppose that when a boy, as he floated on the slow current of the Mississippi, idly gazing at the slave upon its banks, some angel had lifted the curtain and shown him that in the prime of his manhood he should see this proud empire rocked to its foundations in the effort to break those chains ; should himself marshal the hosts of the Al- mighty in the grandest and holiest war that Christen- dom ever knew, and deal with half-reluctant hand that thunderbolt of justice which would smite the foul system to the dust, then die, leaving a name immortal in the sturdy pride of our race and the undying gratitude of another, would any credulity, however sanguine, any enthusiasm however fervid, have enabled him to believe it ? Fortunate man ! He has lived to do it ! [Ap- plause.] God has graciously withheld him from any fatal misstep in the great advance, and withdrawn him at the moment when his star touched its zenith, and the nation needed a sterner hand for the work God gives it to do. No matter now that, unable to lead and form the na- tion, he was contented to be only its representative and mouthpiece ; no matter that, with prejudices hanging about him, he groped his way very slowly and sometimes reluctantly forward : let us remember how patient he was of contradiction, how little obstinate in opinion, how willing, like Lord Bacon, " to light his torch at every man's candle." With the least possible personal hatred ; with too little sectional bitterness, often forget- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 449 ting justice in mercy ; tender-hearted to any misery his own eyes saw ; and in any deed which needed his actual sanction, if his sympathy had limits, recollect he was human, and that he welcomed light more than most men, was more honest than his fel- lows, and with a truth to his own convictions such as few politicians achieve. With all his shortcomings, we point proudly to him as the natural growth of demo- cratic institutions. [Applause.] Coming time will put him in that galaxy of Americans which makes our his- tory the day-star of the nations, Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Jefferson, and Jay. History will add his name to the bright list, with a more loving claim on our grati- tude than either of them. No one of those was called to die for his cause. For him, when the nation needed to be raised to its last dread duty, we were prepared for it by the baptism of his blood. What shall we say as to the punishment of rebels ? The air is thick with threats of vengeance. I admire the motive which prompts these ; but let us remember no cause, however infamous, was ever crushed by punish- ing its advocates and abettors, all history proves this. There is no class of men base and coward enough, no matter what their views and purpose, to make the policy of vengeance successful. In bad causes, as well as good, it is still true that " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." We cannot prevail against this prin- ciple of human nature. And again, with regard to the dozen chief rebels, it will never be a practical question whether we shall hang them. Those not now in Europe will soon be there; indeed, after paroling the bloodiest and guiltiest of all, Robert E. Lee, there would be little fitness in hanging any lesser wretch. The only punishment which ever crushes a cause is that which its leader necessarily suffers in consequence 29 450 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. of the new order of things made necessary to prevent the recurrence of their sin. It was not the blood of two peers arid thirty commoners which England shed after the re- bellion of 1715, or that of five peers and twenty com- moners after the rising of 1745, which crushed the House of Stuart. Though the fight had lasted only a few months, those blocks and gibbets gave Charles his only chance to recover. But the confiscated lands of his adherents and the new political arrangement of the Highlands, just, and recognized as such, because necessary, these quenched his star forever. Our Rebellion has lasted four years. Government has exchanged prisoners, and acknowledged its belligerent rights. After that gibbets are out of the question. A thousand men rule the Rebellion, are the Rebellion. A thousand men ! We cannot hang them all ; we cannot hang men in regiments. What, cover the continent with gibbets ! We cannot sicken the nineteenth century with such a sight. It would sink our civilization to the level of Southern barbarism. It would forfeit our very right to supersede the Southern system, which right is based on ours being better than theirs. To make its corner-stone the gibbet would degrade us to the level of Davis and Lee. The structure of government which, bore the earthquake shock of 1861 with hardly a jar, and which now bears the assassination of its chief magis- trate in this crisis of civil war with even less disturbance, needs for its safety no such policy of vengeance ; its serene strength needs to use only so much severity as will fully guarantee security for the future. Banish every one of these thousand rebel leaders, every one ,of them, on pain of death if they ever re- turn ! [Loud applause.] Confiscate every dollar and acre they own. [Applause. ] These steps the world and their followers will see are necessary to kill the seeds of ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 451 caste, dangerous State rights, and secession. [Applause.] Banish Lee with the rest. [Applause.] No govern- ment should ask of the South, which he has wasted, and the North, which he has murdered, such superabundant Christian patience as to tolerate in our streets the pres- ence of a wretch whose hand upheld Libby Prison and Andersonville, and whose soul is black with sixty-four thousand deaths of prisoners by starvation and torture. What of our new President ? His whole life is a pledge that he knows and hates thoroughly that caste which is the Gibraltar of secession. Caste, mailed in State rights, seized slavery as its weapon to smite down the Union. Said Jackson, in 1833, " Slavery will be the next pretext for rebellion." Pretext ! That pretext and weapon we wrench from the rebel hands the moment we pass the Antislavery amendment to the Constitution. Now kill caste, the foe who wields it. Andy Johnson is our natural leader for this. His life has been pledged to it. He put on his spurs with this vow of knighthood. He sees that confiscation, land placed in the hands of the masses, is the means to kill this foe. Land and the ballot are the true foundations of all governments. Intrust them, wherever loyalty exists, to all those, black* and white, who have upheld the flag. [Applause.] Reconstruct no State without giving to every loyal man in it the ballot. I scout all limitations of knowledge, property, or race. [Applause.] Universal suffrage for me ; that was the Revolutionary model. Every freeman voted, black or white, whether he could read or not. My rule is, any citizen liable to be hanged for crime is entitled to vote for rulers. The ballot insures the school. Mr. Johnson has not yet uttered a word which shows that he sees the need of negro suffrage to guarantee the Union. The best thing he has said on this point, show- 452 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ing a mind open to light, is thus reported by one of the most intelligent men in the country, the Baltimore cor- respondent of the Boston Commonwealth : " The Vice-President was holding forth very eloquently in front of Admiral Lee's dwelling, just in front of the Wai- Office in Washington. He said he was willing to send every negro in the country to Africa to save the Union ; na}*, he was willing to cut Africa loose from Asia, and sink the whole black race ten thousand fathoms deep to effect this object. A loud voice sang out in the crowd, ' Let the negro stay where he is, Governor, and give him the ballot, and the Union will be safe forever ! ' ' And I am ready to do that too ! ' [loud applause] shouted the governor, with intense en- ergy, whereat he got three times three for the noble senti- ment. I witnessed this scene, and was pleased to hear our Vice-President take this high ground ; for up to this point must the nation quickly advance, or there will be no peace, no rest, no prosperity, no blessing, for our suffering and dis- tracted countr}*." The need of giving the negro a ballot is what we must press on the President's attention. Beware the mistake which fastened McClellan on us, running too fast to in- dorse a man while untried, determined to manufacture a hero and leader at any rate. The President tells us that he waits to announce his policy till events call for it, a wise, timely, and statesman-like course. Let us imi- tate it. Assure him in return that the government shall have our support like good citizens. But remind him that we will tell him what we think of his policy when we learn what it is. He says : " Wait. I shall punish ; I shall confiscate. What more I shall do you will know when I do it." Let us reply : " Good, so far good ! Banish the rebels ; see to it that, beyond all mistake you strip them of all possibility of doing harm. But see to it also that ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 453 before you admit a single State to the Union, you oblige it to give every loyal man in it the ballot, the ballot, which secures education ; the ballot, which begets char- acter where it lodges responsibility ; the ballot, having which no class need fear injustice or contempt ; the bal- lot, which puts the helm of the Union into the hands of those who love and have upheld it. Land, where every man's title-deed, based on confiscation, is the bond which ties his interest to the Union ; ballot, the weapon which enables him to defend his property and the Union, these are the motives for the whii^e man. The negro needs no motive but his instinct and heart. Give him the bullet and ballot ; he needs them, and while he holds them the Union is safe. To reconstruct now without giving the negro the ballot would be a greater blunder, and considering our better light, a greater sin, than our fathers committed in 1789 ; and we should have no right to expect from it any less disastrous results." This is the lesson God teaches us in the blood of Lincoln. Like Egypt, we are made to read our lesson in the blood of our first-born and the seats of our princes left empty. We bury all false magnanimity in this fresh grave, writ- ing over it the maxim of the coming four years, " Treason is the greatest of crimes, and not a mere difference of opinion.'* That is the motto of our leader to-day ; that the warning this atrocious crime sounds throughout the land. Let us heed it, and need no more such costly teaching. [Loud applause.] HELEN ELIZA GAREISON. Remarks at the funeral services of Mrs. Garrison, 125 Highland Street, Roxhury, Thursday, January 27, 1876. HOW hard it is to let our friends go ! We cling to them as if separation were separation forever ; and yet, as life nears its end, and we tread the last years together, have we any right to be surprised that the circle grows narrow ; that so many fall, one after an- other, at our side ? Death seems to strike very fre- quently ; but it is only the natural, inevitable fate, however sad for the moment. Some of us can recollect, only twenty years ago, the large and loving group that lived and worked together ; the joy of companionship, sympathy with each other, almost our only joy, for the outlook was very dark, and our toil seemed almost vain. The world's dislike of what we aimed at, the social frown, obliged us to be all the world to each other ; and yet it was a full life. The life was worth living ; the labor was its own re- ward ; we lacked nothing. As I stand by this dust, my thoughts go freshly back to those pleasant years when the warp and woof of her life were woven so close to the rest of us ; when the sight of it was such an inspiration. How cheerfully she took up daily the burden of sacrifice and effort ! With what serene courage she looked into the face of peril to her own life, and to those who were dearer to her than HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. 455 life ! A young bride brought under such dark skies, and so ready for them! Trained among Friends, with the blood of martyrdom and self-sacrifice in her veins, she came so naturally to the altar! And when the gallows was erected in front of the young bride's win- dows, never from that stout soul did the husband get look or word that bade him do anything but go steadily forward, and take 110 counsel of man. Sheltered in the jail, a great city hunting for his life, how strong he must have been when they brought him his young wife's brave words : " I know my husband will never betray his principles ! " Helpmeet, indeed, for the pioneer in that terrible fight ! The most unselfish of human beings, she poured all her strength into the lives of those about her, without asking acknowledgment or recognition, unconscious of the sacrifice. With marvellous ability, what would have been weary burdens to others, she lifted so gayly ! A young mother, with the cares of a growing family, not rich in means, only her own hands to help, yet never fail- ing in cheerful welcome to every call ; doing for others as if her life was all leisure and her hands full. What rare executive ability, doing a great deal, and so easily as to never seem burdened ! Who ever saw her reluct at any sacrifice her own purpose or her husband's made necessary ? No matter how long and weary the absence, no matter how lonely he left her, she cheered and strengthened him to the sacrifice if his great cause asked it. The fair current of her husband's grand purpose swept on unchecked by any distracting anxiety. Her energy and unselfishness left him all his strength free for the world's service. Many of you have seen her only in years when illness hindered her power. You can hardly appreciate the large help she gave the Antislavery movement. 456 HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. That home was a great help. Her husband's word and pen scattered his purpose far and wide ; but the comrades that his ideas brought to his side her welcome melted into friends. No matter how various and dis- cordant they were in many things; no matter how much there was to bear and overlook, her patience and her thanks for their sympathy in the great idea were always sufficient for this work also. She made a family of them, and her roof was always a home for all. I never shall forget the deep feeling his voice almost breaking to tears with which Henry C. Wright told me of the debt his desolate life owed to this home. And who shall say how much that served the great cause ? Yet drudgery did not choke thought ; care never nar- rowed her interest. She was not merely the mother, or head of the home ; her own life and her husband's moved hand in hand in such loving accord, seemed so exactly one, that it was hard to divide their work. At the fireside ; in the hours, not frequent, of relaxation ; in scenes of stormy debate, that beautiful presence, of rare sweetness and dignity, what an inspiration and power it was ! And then the mother, fond, pains- taking, faithful ! No mother who bars every generous thought out from her life, and in severe seclusion forgets everything but her children, no such mother was ever more exact in every duty, ready for every care, faithful at every point, more lavish in fond thoughtfulness, than this mother, whose cares never narrowed the broad idea of life she brought from her girlhood's home. Who can forget her modest dignity shrinking!)' modest, yet ever equal to the high place events called her to ? In that group of remarkable men and women which the Antislavery movement drew together, she had her own niche, which no one else could have filled so perfectly or unconsciously as she did. And in that HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. 457 rounded life no over zeal in one channel, no extra ser- vice at one point, needs be offered as excuse for short- coming elsewhere. She forgot, omitted nothing. How much we all owe to her! She is not dead, she has gone before ; but she has not gone away. Nearer than ever, this very hour she watches and ministers to those in whose lives she was so wrapped ; to whose happiness she was so devoted. Who thinks that loving heart could be happy if it were not allowed to minister to those she loved ? How easy it is to fancy the welcome the old faces have given her ! The honored faces, the fa- miliar faces, the old tones, that have carried her back to the pleasant years of health and strength and willing labor ! How gladly she broke the bonds that hindered her activity ! There are more there than here. Very slight the change seems to her. She has not left us, she has rejoined them. She has joined the old band that worked life-long for the true and good. The dear, familiar names, how freshly they come to our lips ! We can see them bend over and lift her up to them, to a broader life. Faith is sight to-day. She works on a higher level : ministers to old ideas ; guards those she went through life with so lovingly. Even in that higher work they watch for our coming also. Let the years yet spared us here be a warning to make ourselves fit for that companionship ! The separation is hard. Nature will have its way. " The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and for a while loves to dwell on it. But the hour is just here, knock- ing at the door, when we shall thank God not only for the long years of companionship and health and exam- ple which she has given us, but for this great relief: that, in fulness of time, in loving-kindness, He hath broken the bond which hindered her. No heaven that is not a home to her. She worked with God here, and 458 HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. He has taken her into His presence. We are sad because of the void at our side. It is hard to have the path so empty around us. We miss that face and those tones. But that is the body ; limited, narrow, of little faith. The soul shines through in a moment, sees its own destiny, and thanks God for the joyous change. We draw sad breaths now. We miss the magnet that kept this home together. We miss the tie that bound so lovingly into one life so many lives ; that is broken. We peer into the future, and fear for another void still, and a narrower circle, not knowing which of us will be taken next. With an effort of patience with half submission we bow to God's dealings. That is only for an hour. In a little while we shall remember the grand life ; we shall thank God for the contribution it has made to the educating forces of the race, for the good it has been prompted to do, for the part it had strength to play in the grandest drama of our generation, and then with our eyes lifted, and not dimmed by tears, we shall be able to say out of a full heart : " Thou doest all things well. Blessed be Thy name ! Blessed be Thy name for the three score overflowing years ; for the sunny sky she was permitted finally to see, the hated name made immortal, the perilled life guarded by a nation's grati- tude, for the capstone put on with shoutings ; that she was privileged to enter the promised land and rest in the triumph, with the family circle unbroken, all she loved about her ! And blessed be Thy name, Father, that in due time, with gracious and tender loving-kind- ness, Thou didst break the bonds that hindered her true life, and take her to higher service in Thine immediate presence ! " WILLIAM LLOYD GAEKISON. Remarks at the funeral services, Boston, May 28, 1879. IT has been well said that we are not here to weep, and neither are we here to praise. No life closes without sadness. Death, after all, no matter what hope or what memories surround it, is terrible and a mystery. We never part hands that have been clasped life-long in loving tenderness but the hour is sad ; still, we do not come here to weep. In other moments, elsewhere, we can offer tender and loving sympathy to those whose roof-tree is so sadly bereaved. But in the spirit of the great life which we commemorate, this hour is for the utterance of a lesson ; this hour is given to contemplate a grand example, a rich inheritance, a noble life worthily ended. You come together, not to pay tribute, even loving tribute, to the friend you have lost, whose features you will miss from daily life, but to remember the grand lesson of that career; to speak to each other, and to emphasize what that life teaches, especially in the hearing of these young listeners, who did not see that marvellous career, in their hearing to construe the meaning of the great name which is borne world-wide, and tell them why on both sides of the ocean, the news of his death is a matter of interest to every lover of his race. As my friend said, we have no right to be silent. Those of us who stood near him, who witnessed the secret springs of his action, the consistent inward and 460 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. x^ outward life, have no right to be silent. The largest \ contribution that will ever be made by any single man's / life to the knowledge of the working of our institutions/ will be the picture of his career. He sounded the depths of the weakness, he proved the ultimate strength of republican institutions ; he gave us to know the perils ) that confront us ; he taught us to rally the strength that / lies hid. To my mind there are three remarkable elements in his career. One is rare even among great men. It was his own moral nature, unaided, uninfluenced from out- side, that consecrated him to a great idea. Other men ripen gradually. The youngest of the great American names that will be compared with his was between thirty and forty when his first Antislavery word was uttered. Luther was thirty-four years old when an infamous enterprise woke him to indignation, and it then took two years more to reveal to him the mission God de- signed for him. This man was in jail for his opinions when he was just twenty-four. He had confronted a nation in the very bloom of his youth. It could be said of him more than of any other American in our day, and more than of any great leader that I chance now to remember in any epoch, that he did not need circum- stances, outside influence, some great pregnant event, to press him into service, to provoke him to thought, to kindle him into enthusiasm. His moral nature was as marvellous as was the intellect of Pascal. It seemed to be born fully equipped, " finely touched." Think of the mere dates ; think that at some twenty-four years old, while Christianity and statesmanship, the experience, the genius of the land, were wandering in the desert, aghast, amazed, and confounded over a frightful evil, a great sin, this boy sounded, found, invented the talisman, " Immediate, unconditional emancipation on the soil." WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 461 You may say he borrowed it true enough from the lips of a woman on the other side of the Atlantic ; but he was the only American whose moral nature seemed, just on the edge of life, so perfectly open to duty and truth that it answered to the far-off bugle-note, and proclaimed it instantly as a complete solution of the problem. Young men, you have no conception of the miracle of that insight ; for it is not given to you to remember with any vividness the blackness of the darkness of igno- rance and indifference which then brooded over what was called the moral and religious element of the Ameri- can people. When I think of him, as Melanchthon said of Luther, " day by day grows the wonder fresh " at the ripeness of the moral and intellectual life that God gave him at the very opening. You hear that boy's lips announcing the statesman-like solution which startled politicians and angered Church and people. A year afterwards, with equally single- hearted devotion, in words that have been so often quoted, with those dungeon doors behind him, he enters on his career. In January, 1831, then twenty-five years"^ old, he starts the publication of the Liberator, advo-/ eating the immediate abolition of slavery ; and with theS sublime pledge, "I will be as harsh as truth and as\ uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not \ wish to speak or write with moderation. I will not / equivocate ; I will not excuse ; I will not retreat a single inch ; AND I WILL BE HEARD." Then began an agitation which for the marvel of its origin, the majesty of its purpose, the earnestness, un- selfishness, and ability of its appeals, the vigor of its assault, the deep national convulsion it caused, the vast and beneficent changes it wrought, and its wide-spread, indirect influence on all kindred moral questions, is with- 462 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. out a parallel in history since Luther. This boy created and marshalled it. His converts held it up and carried it on. Before this, all through the preceding century, there had been among us scattered and single Abolition- ists, earnest and able men, sometimes, like Wythe of Virginia, in high places. The Quakers and Covenanters had never intermitted their testimony against slavery. But Garrison was the first -man to begin a movement de- signed to annihilate slavery. He announced the princi- ple, arranged the method, gathered the forces, enkindled the zeal, started the argument, and finally marshalled the nation for and against the system in a conflict that came near rending the Union. I marvel again at the instinctive sagacity which dis- cerned the hidden forces fit for such a movement, called them forth, and wielded them to such prompt results. Archimedes said, " Give me a spot and I will move the world." O'Connell leaned back on three millions of Irishmen, all on fire with sympathy. Cobden's hands were held up by the whole manufacturing interest of Great Britain ; his treasury was the wealth of the mid- dle classes of the country ; and behind him also, in fair proportion, stood the religious convictions of England. Marvellous was their agitation ; as you gaze upon it in its successive stages and analyze it, you are astonished at what they invented for tools. But this boy stood alone, utterly alone, at first. There was no sympathy anywhere ; his hands were empty ; one single penniless comrade was his only helper. Starving on bread and water, he could command the use of types, that was all. Trade endeavored to crush him ; the intellectual life of America disowned him. My friend Weld has said the Church was a thick bank of black cloud looming over him. Yes. But no sooner did the Church discern the impetuous boy's purpose than out WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 463 of that dead, sluggish cloud thundered and lightened a malignity which could not find words to express its hate. The very pulpit where I stand saw this apostle of liberty and justice sore beset, always in great need, and often in deadly peril ; yet it never gave him one word of approval or sympathy. During all his weary struggle, Mr. Garri- son felt its weight in the scale against him. In those years it led the sect which arrogates to itself the name of Liberal. If this was the bearing of so-called Liberals, what bitterness of opposition, judge ye, did not the others show ? A mere boy confronts Church, commerce, and college ; a boy with neither training nor experience ! Al- most at once the assault tells , the whole country is hotly interested. What created such life under those ribs of death ? Whence came that instinctive knowledge ? Where did he get that sound common-sense ? Whence did he summon that almost unerring sagacity which, starting agitation on an untried field, never committed an error, provoking year by year additional enthusiasm, gathering, as he advanced, helper after helper to his side ! I marvel at the miraculous boy. He had no means. Where he got, whence he summoned, how he created, the elements which changed 1830 into 1835, 1830 apathy, indifference, ignorance, icebergs, into 1835, every man intelligently hating him, and mobs assaulting him in every city, is a marvel which none but older men than 1 can adequately analyze and explain. He said to a friend who remonstrated with him on the heat and se- verity of his language, " Brother, I have need to be all on fire, for 1 have mountains of ice about me to melt." Well, that dungeon of 1830, that universal apathy, that deadness of soul, that contempt of what called itself in- tellect, in ten years he changed into the whole country aflame. He made every single home, press, pulpit, and senate -chamber a debating society, with his right and 464 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. wrong for the subject. And as was said of Luther, " God honored him by making all the worst men his enemies." Fastened on that daily life was a malignant attention and criticism such as no American has ever endured. I will not call it a criticism of hate ; that word is not strong enough. Malignity searched him with candles from the moment he uttered that God-given solution of the problem to the moment when he took the hand of the nation and wrote out the statute which made it law. Malignity searched those forty years with candles, and yet even malignity has never lisped a suspicion, much less a charge, never lisped a suspicion of anything mean, dishonorable, dishonest. No man, however mad with hate, however fierce in assault, ever dared to hint that there was anything low in motive, false in assertion, selfish in purpose, dishonest in method, never a stain on the thought, the word, or the deed. Now contemplate this boy entering such an arena, confronting a nation and all its forces, utterly poor, with no sympathy from any quarter, conducting an angry, wide-spread, and profound agitation for ten, twenty, forty years, amid the hate of everything strong in American life, and the contempt of everything influential, and no stain, not the slightest shadow of one, rests on his escutcheon ! Summon me the public men, the men who have put their iiands to the helm of the vessel of State since 1789, of whom that can be said, although love and admiration, which almost culminated in worship, at- tended the steps of some of them. Then look at the work he did. My friends have spoken of his influence. What American ever held his hand so long and so powerfully on the helm of social, intellectual, and moral America? There have been giants in our day. Great men, God has granted in widely WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 465 different spheres; earnest men, men whom public admi- ration lifted early into power. 1 shall venture to name some of them. Perhaps you will say it is not usual on an occasion like this ; but long-waiting truth needs to be uttered in an hour when this great example is still abso- lutely indispensable to inspire the effort, to guide the steps, to cheer the hope, of the nation not yet arrived in the promised land. I want to show you the vast breadth and depth that this man's name signifies. We have had Webster in the Senate ; we have had Lyman Beecher in the pulpit ; we have had Calhoun at the head of a section ; we have had a philosopher at Concord with his inspira- tion penetrating the young mind of the Northern States. They are the four men that history, perhaps, will mention somewhere near the great force whose closing in this scene we commemorate to-day. Remember now not merely the inadequate means at this man's control, not simply the bitter hate that he confronted, not the vast work that he must be allowed to have done, surely vast, when measured by the opposition he encountered and the strength he held in his hands, but dismissing all those considerations, measuring nothing but the breadth and depth of his hold, his grasp on American character, social change, and general progress, what man's signet has been set so deep, so planted forever on the thoughts of his epoch ? Trace home intelligently, trace home to their sources, the changes social, political, intellectual, and religious, that have come over us during the last fifty years, the volcanic convulsions, the stormy waves which have tossed and rocked our gen- eration, and you will find close at the sources of the Mississippi this boy with his proclamation ! The great party that put on record the statute of free- dom was made up of men whose conscience he quickened and whose intellect he inspired, and they long stood the 30 466 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. tools of a public opinion that he created. The grandest name beside his in the America of our times is that of John Brown. Brown stood on the platform that Garrison built ; and Mrs. Stowe herself charmed an audience that he gathered for her, with words which he inspired, from a heart that he kindled. Sitting at his feet were leaders born of the Liberator, the guides of public sentiment. I know whereof I affirm. It was often a pleasant boast of Charles Sumner that he read the Liberator, two years before I did ; and among the great men who fol- lowed his lead and held up his hands in Massachusetts, where is the intellect, where is the heart that does not trace to this printer-boy the first pulse that bade him serve the slave ? For myself, no words can adequately tell the measureless debt I owe him, the moral and intel- lectual life he opened to me. I feel like the old Greek who, taught himself by Socrates, called his own scholars " the disciples of Socrates " This is only another instance added to the roll of the Washingtons and the Hampdens whose root is not ability, but character; that influence which, like the great Master's of Judea (humanly speaking), spreading through the centuries, testifies that the world suffers its grandest changes not by genius, but by the more potent control of character. His was an earnestness that would take no denial, that consumed opposition in the intensity of its convictions, that knew nothing but right. As friend after friend gathered slowly, one by one, to his side, in that very meeting of a dozen heroic men to form the New England Antislavery Society, it was his com- pelling hand, his resolute unwillingness to temper or qualify the utterance, that finally dedicated that first organized movement to the doctrine of immediate eman- cipation. He seems to have understood, this boy without experience, he seems to have understood by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 467 instinct that righteousness is the only thing which will finally compel submission ; that one with God is always a majority. He seems to have known it at the very outset, taught of God, the herald and champion, God- endowed and God-sent to arouse a nation, that only by the most absolute assertion of the uttermost truth, with- out qualification or compromise, can a nation be waked to conscience or strengthened for duty. No man ever understood so thoroughly not O'Connell, nor Cobden the nature and needs of that agitation which alone, in our day, reforms States. In the darkest hour he never doubted the omnipotence of conscience and the moral sentiment. And then look at the nnquailing courage with which he faced the successive obstacles that confronted him ! Modest, believing at the outset that America could not be as corrupt as she seemed, he waits at the door of the churches, importunes leading clergymen, begs for a voice from the sanctuary, a consecrated protest from the pul- pit. To his utter amazement, he learns, by thus prob- ing it, that the Church will give him no help, but, on the contrary, surges into the movement in opposition. Serene, though astounded by the unexpected revelation, he simply turns his footsteps, and announces that " a Christianity which keeps peace with the oppressor is no Christianity," and goes on his way to supplant the re- ligious element which the Church had allied with sin by a deeper religious faith. Yes, he sets himself to work, this stripling with his sling confronting the angry giant in complete steel, this solitary evangelist, to make Christians of twenty millions of people! I am not exaggerating. You know, older men who can go back to that period. I know that when one, kin- dred to a voice that you have heard to-day, whose path- way Garrison's bloody feet had made easier for the 468 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. treading, when he uttered in a pulpit in Boston only a few strong words, injected in the course of a sermon, his venerable father, between seventy and eighty years, was met the next morning and his hand shaken by a much-moved friend. " Colonel, you have my sympathy. I cannot tell you how much I pity you." " What," said the brusque old man, u what is your pity?" " Well, I hear your son went crazy at * Church Green ' yesterday." Such was the utter indifference. At that time, bloody feet had smoothed the pathway for other men to tread. Still, then and for years afterwards, insanity was the only kind-hearted excuse that partial friends could find for sympathy with such a madman ! If anything strikes one more prominently than an- other in this career, to your astonishment, young men, you may say, it is the plain, sober common-sense, the robust English element which underlay Cromwell, which explains Hampden, which gives the color that distin- guishes 1640 in England from 1790 in France. Plain, robust, well-balanced common-sense. Nothing erratic ; no enthusiasm which had lost its hold on firm earth ; no mistake of method ; no unmeasured confidence ; no mis- calculation of the enemy's strength. Whoever mistook, Garrison seldom mistook. Fewer mistakes in that long agitation of fifty years can be charged to his account than to any other American. Erratic as men supposed him, intemperate in utterance, mad in judgment, an enthusiast gone crazy, the, moment you sat down at his side, patient in explanation, clear in statement, sound in judgment, studying carefully every step, calculating every assault, measuring the force to meet it, never in haste, always patient, waiting until the time ripened, fit for a great leader. Cull, if you please, from the states- men who obeyed him, whom he either whipped into sub- mission or summoned into existence, cull from among WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 469 (hem the man whose career, fairly examined, exhibits fewer miscalculations and fewer mistakes than this career which is just ended. I know what I claim. As Mr. Weld has said, I am speaking to-day to men who judge by their ears, by rumors ; who see, not with their eyes, but with their prejudices. History, fifty years hence, dispelling yonr prejudices, will do justice to the grand sweep of the orbit which, as my friend said, to-day we are hardly in a posi- tion, or mood, to measure. As Coleridge avers, " The truth-haters of to-morrow will give the right name to the truth-haters of to-day, for even such men the stream of time bears onward." I do not fear that if my words are remembered by the next generation they will be thought unsupported or extravagant. When history seeks the sources of New England character, when men begin to open up and examine the hidden springs and note the convulsions and the throes of American life within the last half century, they will remember Parker, that Jupiter of the pulpit ; they will remember the long unheeded but measureless influence that came to us from the seclusion of Concord ; they will do justice to the masterly statesmanship which guided, during a part of his life, the efforts of Webster, but they will recognize that there was only one -man north of Mason and Dixon's line who met squarely, with an absolute logic, the else impregnable position of John C. Calhoun ; only one brave, far-sighted, keen, logical intellect which dis- cerned that there were only two moral points in the universe, right and wrong, that when one was asserted, subterfuge and evasion would be sure to end in defeat. Here lie the brain and the heart ; here lies the statesman-like intellect, logical as Jonathan Edwards, brave as Luther, which confronted the logic of South Carolina with an assertion direct and broad enough to 470 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. make an issue and necessitate a conflict of two civiliza- tions. Calhoun said, Slavery is right. Webster and Clay shrunk from him and evaded his assertion. Garri- son, alone at that time, met him face to face, proclaim- ing slavery a sin and daring all the inferences. It is true, as New Orleans complains to-day in her journals, that this man brought upon America everything they call the disaster of the last twenty years ; and it is equally true that if you seek through the hidden causes and unheeded events for the hand that wrote " emanci- pation " on the statute-book and on the flag, it lies still there to-day. I have no time to number the many kindred reforms to which he lent as profound an earnestness and almost as large aid. I hardly dare enter that home. There is one other marked and, as it seems to me, unprecedented element in this career. His was the happiest life I ever saw. No need for pity. Let no tear fall over his life. No man gathered into his bosom a fuller sheaf of blessing, delight, and joy. In his seventy years there were not arrows enough in the whole quiver of the Church or State to wound him. As Guizot once said from the tribune, " Gentlemen, you cannot get high enough to reach the level of my contempt." So Garrison, from the serene level of his daily life, from the faith that never faltered, was able to say to American hate, " You cannot reach up to the level of my home mood, my daily existence." I have seen him intimately for thirty years, while raining on his head was the hate of the community, when by every possible form of expression malignity let him know that it wished him all sorts of harm. I never saw him unhappy ; I never saw the mo- ment that serene, abounding faith in the rectitude of his motive, the soundness of his method, and the certainty WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 471 of his success did not lift him above all possibility of being reached by any clamor about him. Every one of his near friends will agree with me that this was the happiest life God has granted in our day to any Ameri- can standing in the foremost rank of influence and effort. Adjourned from the stormiest meeting, where hot de- bate had roused all his powers as near to anger as his nature ever let him come, the music of a dozen voices even of those who had just opposed him or a piano, if the house held one, changed his mood in an instant, and made the hour laugh with more than content ; unless indeed, a baby and playing with it proved metal even more attractive. To champion wearisome causes, bear with disordered intellects, to shelter the wrecks of intemperance and fugitives whose pulse trembled at every touch on the door-latch, this was his home. Keenly alive to human suffering, ever prompt to help relieve it, pouring out his means for that more lavishly than he ought, all this was no burden, never clouded or depressed the inextin- guishable buoyancy and gladness of his nature. God ever held over him unclouded the sunlight of His countenance. And he never grew old. The tabernacle of flesh grew feebler and the step was less elastic. But the ability to work, the serene faith and unflagging hope suffered no change. To the day of his death he was as ready as in his boyhood to confront and defy a mad majority. The keen insight and clear judgment never failed him. His tenacity of purpose never weakened. He showed noth- ing either of the intellectual sluggishness or the timidity of age. The bugle-call which, last year, woke the nation to its peril and duty on the Southern question, showed all the old fitness to lead and mould a people's course. 472 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Younger men might be confused or dazed by plausible pretensions, and half the North was befooled ; but the old pioneer detected the false ring as quickly as in his youth. The words his dying hand traced, welcoming the Southern exodus and foretelling its result, had all the defiant courage and prophetic solemnity of his youngest and boldest days. Serene, fearless, marvellous man ! Mortal, with so few shortcomings ! Farewell, for a very little while, noblest of Christian men ! Leader, brave, tireless, unselfish ! When the ear heard thee, then it blessed thee ; the eye that saw thee gave witness to thee. More truly than it could ever heretofore be said since the great patriarch wrote it, " the blessing of him that was ready to perish " was thine eternal great reward. Though the clouds rest for a moment to-day on the great work that you set your heart to accomplish, you knew, God in his love let you see, that your work was done ; that one thing, by his blessing on your efforts, is fixed beyond the possibility of change. While that ear could listen, God gave what He has so rarely given to man, the plaudits and prayers of four millions of victims, thanking you for emancipation, and through the clouds of to-day your heart, as it ceased to beat, felt certain, certain, that whether one flag or two shall rule this continent in time to come, one thing is settled, it never henceforth can be trodden by a slave ! HAKEIET MAETINEAU. Remarks at the Uuveiliug of Miss Anne Whitney's statue of Miss Martiueau in the Old South Meetiug-House, December 26, 1883. This was the last public utterance of Mr. Phillips. WEBSTER once said, that " In war there are no Sundays." So in moral questions there are no nations. Intellect and morals transcend all limits. When a moral issue is stirred, then there is no Ameri- can, no German. We are all men and women. And that is the reason why I think we should indorse this memorial of the city to Harriet Marti neau, because her service transcends nationality. There would be nothing inappropriate if we raised a memorial to Wickliffe, or if the common-school system of New England raised a memorial to Calvin ; for they rendered the greatest of services. So with Harriet Martineau, we might fairly render a monument to the grandest woman of her day, we, the heirs of the same language, and one in the same civilization ; for steam and the telegraph have made, not many nations, but one, in perfect unity in the world of thought, purpose, and intellect. And there could be no fault found in thus recognizing this counsellor of princes, and adviser of ministers, this woman who has done more for beneficial changes in the English world than any ten men in Great Britain. In an epoch fertile of great genius among women, it may be said of Miss Martineau, that she was the peer of the noblest, and that her influ- ence on the progress of the age was more than equal 474 HARRIET MARTINEAU. to that of all the others combined. She has the great honor of having always seen truth one generation ahead; and so consistent was she, so keen of insight, that there is no need of going back to explain by circumstances in order to justify the actions of her life. This can hardly be said of any great Englishman, even by his admirers. We place the statue here in Boston because she has made herself an American. She passed through this city on the very day when the father of my honored friend was mobbed on State Street. Her friends feared to tell her the truth when she asked what the immense crowd were doing, and dissimulated by saying it was post-time, and the throng were hurrying to the office for the mail. Afterwards, when she heard of the mob and its action, horror-struck, she turned for an explanation to her host, the honored president of a neighboring uni- versity ; and even he was American enough to assure her that no harm could come from such a gathering ; said it was not a mob, it was a collection, or gathering. Harriet Martineau had been welcomed all over Amer- ica. She had been received by Calhoun in South Caro- lina, the Chief-Justice of Virginia had welcomed her at his mansion. But she went through the South conceal- ing no repugnance, making her obeisance to no idol. She never bowed anywhere to the aristocracy of acci- dent. This brave head and heart held its own through- out that journey. She came here to gain a personal knowledge of the Abolitionists, and her first experience was with the mob on State Street. Of course she ex- pressed all the horror which a gallant soul would feel. You may speak of the magnanimity and courage of Harriet Martineau ; but the first element is her rectitude of purpose, of which was born that true instinct which saw through all things. We have had Englishmen come here who were clear-sighted enough to say true words HARRIET MARTINEAU. 475 after they returned home ; but this was a woman who was welcomed by crowds in the South, and about whom a glamour was thrown to prevent her from seeing the truth. It is easy to be independent when all behind you agree with you, but the difficulty comes when nine hun- dred and ninety-nine of your friends think you wrong. Then it is the brave soul who stands up, one among a thousand, but remembering that one with God makes a majority. This was Harriet Martineau. She was sur- rounded by doctors of divinity, who were hedging her about with their theories and beliefs. What do some of these later travellers who have been here know of the real New England, when they have been seated in ceiled houses, and gorged with the glittering banquets of social societies ? Harriet Martineau, instead of linger- ing in the camps of the Philistines, could, with courage, declare, u I will go among the Abolitionists, and see for myself." Shortly after the time of the State-street mob she came to Cambridge ; and her hosts there begged her not to put her hand into their quarrels. The Abolition- ists held a meeting there. The only hall of that day open to them was owned by infidels. Think of that, ye friends of Christianity ! And yet the infidelity of that day is the Christianity of to-day. To this meeting in this hall Miss Martineau went, to express her entire sym- pathy with the occasion. As a result of her words and deeds, such was the lawlessness of that time, that she had to turn back from her intended journey to the West, and was assured that she would be lynched if she dared set foot in Ohio. She gave up her journey, but not her principles. Harriet Martineau saw, not merely the question of free speech, but the grandeur of the great movement just then opened. This great movement is second only to the Reformation in the history of the English and the 476 HARRIET MART1NEAU. German race. In time to come, when the grandeur of this movement is set forth in history, you will see its grand and beneficial results. Harriet Martineau saw it fifty years ago, and after that she was one of us. She was always the friend of the poor. Prisoner, slave, worn out by toil in the mill, no matter who the sufferer, there was always one person who could influence Tory and Liberal to listen. Americans, I ask you to welcome to Boston this statue of Harriet Martineau, because she was the greatest American Abolitionist. We want our children to see the woman who came to observe, and remained to work, and, having once put her hand to the plough, persevered until she was allowed to live where the pa3an of the emancipated four millions went up to heaven, showing the attainment of her great desire. THE END. RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW APR 2 4 ZOOS t NOV25199/ Cl 1-tB 1 1 1999 MOV 3 2003 :Y Bs 20,000 (4/94) GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY BDOD75flSbS , THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY