LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER //' u ADDRESSES DELIVERED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. WITH A MEMOIR By GEORGE F. HOAR. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1883. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, By a. G. Bullock, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. / ' CONTENTS. -♦- SPEECH AT A AVAR MEETING, page To aid and encourage the Formation of the Third Worcester County Regiment, at Mechanics' Hall, Oct. 14, 1861 ... 1 MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. Address in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, April 10, 1862 9 ADDRESS Before the Aliunni, at Amherst College, July 8, 1863 30 REMARKS On the Occasion of the Reception of the Twenty-first Massachu- setts Regiment by the Citizens of Worcester, Feb. 3, 1864 . . 40 RELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN WITH AMERICAN NATIONALITY. Address before the Literary Societies of Williams College, Aug. 1, 1864 45 SPEECH Before the Republican State Convention at Worcester, Sept. 15, 1864 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. A Eulogy before the City Council and Citizens of Worcester, June 1, 1865 76 Vi CONTENTS. PAGE A COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS Delivered at Koyalston, Mass., Aug. 23, 1865, at the Hundredth Anniversary of the incorporation of the Town 108 ADDRESS Delivered before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Associa- tion at Tremont Temple, Boston, Oct. 4, 1865 131 SPEECH At a Mass Meeting in Mechanics' Hall, in Worcester, Feb. 10, 1866, called to consider what action shall be taken by the City of Worcester to commemorate the service of Citizens who lost their lives in the War for the Union 151 SPEECH At a Meeting of Alumni of Amherst College, July 12, 1866, at Amherst 156 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION Delivered at Springfield, Mass., 1867 162 ADDRESS Before the Worcester Agricultural Society, Sept. 17, 1868, at the presentation of Resolutions in memory of the late Levi Lin- coln, ex-Governor of the Commonwealth, and for many years President of this Society 176 ADDRESS Before the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, Nov. 11, 1868 187 SPEECH At a Dinner given to General Dix, United States Minister to France, by Americans at Paris, in 1869 195 DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT At Worcester, July 15, 1874 202 CONTENTS. Vll Pi.O£ INTELLECTUAL LEADERSHIP IN AMERICAN HISTORY. An Address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Brown University, Providence, June 15, 1875 222 ADDRESS Delivered at Music Hall, Boston, Feb. 8, 1876, on the Character of Dr. Samuel G. Howe 248 THE CENTENNIAL SITUATION OF WOMAN. Address at the Commencement Anniversary of Mount Holyoke Seminary, Massachusetts, June 22, 1876 258 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Address at the Unveiling of the Statue in New York, Nov. 20, 1880 287 CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. Prepared at the request of the President of the American Antiqua- rian Society, and read at the Semi-annual Meeting of the Society, in Boston, April 27, 1881 298 JAMES A. GARFIELD. Memorial Observances in the City of Worcester, Sept. 26, 1881 . 344 INDEX 351 MEMOIR OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. The subject of this memoir, like many other of the eminent men of Massachusetts, never held any national office, and never was a candidate for any. The result of his life must be seen in the history of his native State, of the populous and wealthy com- munity where his life was spent, and in the speeches contained in this volume, and many others of equal excellence. Yet he had a high reputation through- out the country. He was, at the time of his death, justly regarded as one of the most brilliant orators in America, and the subjects with which he dealt in his public addresses are of permanent and national importance and interest. Alexander Hamilton Bullock was born in Roy- alston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, March 2, 1816. He was the son of Rufus Bullock and Sarah (Davis) Bullock. Rufus Bullock was born in Roy- alston, September 23, 1779, fourteen years after the incorporation of the town, was a school teacher in his youth, afterward a country merchant, until, in 1825, he engaged in manufacturing, by which he acquired a large and sohd fortune. He represented Royalstou X ■ MEMOm OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. for five years in the Massachusetts House of Repre- sentatives; was twice Senator for Worcester County; was a member of the conventions for revising the Constitution in 1820 and 1853 ; was Presidential Elector in 1852 on the Whig ticket; was a Trustee of Amherst College, to which he presented a fine telescope ; and left liberal bequests to three religious societies for the support of preaching, and to the town in aid of its common schools. He was a man of strict integrity and sound judgment, preserving the vigor and freshness of youth until his death at nearly fourscore, able to carry in his memory the details and accounts of a large and complicated business, so that it was said of him, " His mind was his office;" an interesting companion, patriotic and public-spirited, fond of reading, a deep student and reverent lover of the Bible, a cheerful and liberal supporter of the institutions of learning and religion, loving the old doctrines, but catholic, and tolerant of other men's opinions. Alexander was fitted for college in his native town and at Leicester Academy. He entered Amherst Col- lege in 1832, and was graduated in 1836, the second scholar in his class, delivering the salutatory oration at Commencement. Professor Tyler, in his " History of Amherst College," says of him: — " His tutor in mathematics has no recollection of particu- lar accuracy or brilliancy in that department. But he ex- celled in the classics, belles-lettres, and rhetoric ; and classmates and fellow-students saw the future Governor in his fine per- son, his courteous manners, his ambition and influence, and his decided bent for politics and public affairs." MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XI Mr. Bullock entered Amherst only seven years after the graduation of the first class which passed through the full course of four years. The excel- lence of the training given at that early day is mani- fested by the number of eminent men who were his contemporaries. This is especially true in the de- partment of oratory and elegant scholarship. The first scholar in his class was William Bradford Homer who died at twenty-four, only four years out of col- lege, after a ministry of four months, but whose writ- ings, edited by Dr. Park, show that he would have taken a high rank in his profession. The names of Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Bishop Huntington, Horace Maynard, Galusha A. Grow, Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, and Ensign H. Kellogg are found on the catalogue in Governor Bullock's time. He remained all his life a firm friend of his College. He was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1852 until his death ; president of the Alumni in 1864, 1871, and 1881 ; and chairman of the financial com- mittee of the Trustees for several years. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Amherst in 1865 and from Harvard in 1866. In 1871 he founded the Bullock scholarship of the class of 1836. He delivered an address to the Society of the Alumni on retiring from the presidency in 1863, and an ad- dress at the semi-centennial celebration of the found- ing of the College, at which he presided in 1871, both which are said by the historian of the College to be " not more remarkable for classic elegance and grace than for love and devotion to Alma Mater." xii MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. After graduating, Mr. Bullock taught school at Royalston and at Kingston, Rhode Island. He then studied law at Harvard Law School, under Story and Greenleaf. Leaving the Law School in 1840, he spent a year in the office of Emory Washburn, at Worcester, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. In 1842 he served as aid on the military staff of Governor John Davis. Mr. Bullock was a man of delicate taste and sensi- tive organization. He disliked personal controversy. While he possessed talents which would have rendered him a brilliant and persuasive advocate, the rough contests of the court house could never have been congenial to him. He was associated with Judge Thomas as junior counsel in one important capital trial, in which he is said to have made an elo- quent opening argument. He had a considerable clientage for a young man, to whom he was a safe and trustworthy adviser. But he very soon estab- lished a large business as agent of important in- surance companies, and withdrew himself altogether from the practice of law. His taste and genius led him to the paths of ht- erature and politics. It was hardly possible that a person of his parentage and education coming to manhood in 1840 in Worcester County should be anything else but a Whig. There were many things which tended to make that great political organiza- tion attractive to a cultivated and ingenuous youth, and to give it its strong and permanent hold on the people of Massachusetts. Its standard of personal character was very high. Its leading men every- MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. Xlii where in the State — Saltonstall, Reed, Lincoln, Briggs, Allen, Choate, Davis, Everett, and their as- sociates — were men whose private and public honor was without a stain. Mr. Webster was at the ful- ness of his great intellectual power. The series of speeches and professional and political achievements which began with the oration at Plymouth in 1820 was still in progress, and moved the youth of the State almost to idolatry. The Whig party possessed another advantage. Its political managers, who conducted its campaigns, made up its conventions, and largely directed its policy, were not its holders of office, or its seekers of office. It contained a large body of able and influ- ential men who wielded the power of absolute dis- interestedness. They were satisfied if they could contribute by counsel or labor to the well-being of the State by the advancement of their cherished po- litical principles, and asked no other reward. It was deemed unbecoming for a candidate for office to take part in the canvass either before or after his nomination. The essential difference between the two great parties that divided the country in 1840 was this : The Whigs were in favor of using wisely, but cour- ageously, the great public forces of nation and State to accomplish public objects for which private or mu- nicipal powers were inadequate. It may seem at first sight remarkable that the Democrats, who, with the exception of one term of four years, and brief fragments of two others, con- trolled the administration of the nation for sixty XIV MEMOIR OF ALEXA^^DEK H. BULLOCK. years, should have endeavored to confine within their narrowest limits the powers they themselves wielded. The Democrat was a strict constructionist both in the nation and in the States, — even in the Democratic States. The explanation is to be found in the fact that the Slave Power controlled the Demo- cratic party. The Slave Power saw that the national forces would in all probability one day be wielded by the Free States, which were growing so rapidly in numbers, wealth, and intelligence. It found its only security in pushing to an extreme the doctrine of State Rights as against the National Government, and in discouraging the promotion of education, man- ufactures, and railroads, even by State authority. The Whig demanded that the great powers of the Constitution should not lie unused. He wished to develop manufacture by national protection, to fos- ter internal and external commerce by liberal grants for rivers and harbors, to endow railroads and canals and other public ways by grants of public lands and from the treasury, to create a sound currency, to establish a uniform system for the collection of debts and the relief of debtors by a national bankrupt law. In the State, the Whig favored lending the State credit to railroads, the establishment at public charge of asylums for the blind and insane and deaf and dumb, gifts to colleges, and a liberal expenditure for schools. The strength of the Whig party was in the Free States ; that of the Democratic party wtis in the South. The Massachusetts Whig was the suc- cessor of the Federalists, whose leaders had abolished MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XV slavery here, and who had been overthrown by the Virginia dynasty. The Whig party, therefore, dis- liked slavery, and opposed the acquisition of new territory for its extension. Mr. Bullock soon became one of the most popular and successful of the younger public speakers of the Commonwealth. His voice was finely modulated, pleasant, and musical. He was slightly above the medium height, of graceful person and carriage. He prepared his public addresses carefully, but always spoke without notes. Worcester contained at that time many men of great ability, among them John Davis, Levi Lincoln, Charles Allen, Emory Washburn, Ira M. Barton, Pliny Merrick, and Benjamin F. Thomas. But no public speaker was preferred to him on literary or social occasions, and no political audience went away satisfied, if he were present and had not spoken. In 1844 Mr. Bullock married Elvira, daughter of Colonel A. G. Hazard, of Enfield, Connecticut, the founder of the celebrated company for the manufac- ture of gunpowder, Mrs. Bullock survives her hus- band. The children of this marriage were Augustus George ; Isabel, who married Nelson S. Bartlett, of Boston ; Fanny, who married Dr. William H. Work- man, of Worcester. March 1, 1842, Mr. Bullock became editor of the " National ^gis," a weekly Whig newspaper, pub- lished in Worcester. He retained this connection several years. This was a paper of remarkable abil- ity, and especially excellent in the department of its literary selections, which was due to Mr. Bullock's XVI MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. extensive reading and cultivated taste. It was worth more than many magazines. He was also editor of a campaign paper called " Old Massachusetts," issued from the '' JEgis " office for three months before the Presidential election of 1844, and of a like paper called the " True Whig," issued from the same office for three months before the Presidential election of 1848. Mr. Bullock represented Worcester in the Massa- chusetts House of Representatives in 1845, 1847, and 1848, and the county of Worcester in the Senate in 1849. He spoke not very frequently, and only on important questions, and usually with careful prepa- ration. Mr. Hadley, in his valuable work " Massa- chusetts in the Rebellion," says : — " The session of 1847 will be remembered as that in which Mr. Gushing, before the members were fairly in their seats, offered a resolution to pay twenty thousand dollars out of the treasury to the thousand, or more, volunteers for the war with Mexico. Mr. Gushing pressed the measure with great vehe- mence, and secured a favorable report from the committee to whom the subject was referred. Golonel Bullock, in behalf of a minority of the committee, opposed the resolve in a speech which the reports characterized as ' eloquent and mas- terly ; ' turning the scales of opinion against this most adroit debater, and winning for himself an honorable reputation throughout the State." "o^ His eulogy on John Quincy Adams, in 1848, was especiall}^ impressive. He was the recognized leader of the House the last two yeaTs, serving as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in 1848. He was Mayor of Worcester in 1859. His term MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. xvii of office was rendered memorable in the history of the city by the estabUshment of the City Library, of whose board of trustees he was the first president. He was appointed Commissioner of Insolvency for the County of Worcester by Governor Clifford in 1853. The jurisdiction of these officers was trans- ferred to the Court of Insolvency by statute of 1856. Mr. Bullock was appointed Judge of that court for the County of Worcester in June, 1856, and held the office until he resio-ned it in 1858. But a greater question than any question of State administration was destined to disturb the repose of the Whigs of Massachusetts. The annexation of Texas in 1844, and the events of the sixteen follow- ing years, brought about by the restless ambition of the same power, separated that great historic party into two divisions, which became more and more estranged from each other until the attack on Sumter united them again in one overpowering sentiment of patriotic devotion to their country in its time of peril. The time has come when the survivors of each of these divisions may understand and do justice to the other. Mr. Bullock agreed with Webster, Everett, Choate, and the elders among the Whig leaders of Massachu- setts, in the belief that if slavery were confined with- in the bounds fixed by the Constitution, the natural growth of the Free States would constantly diminish its power, and the interest of the Slave States would in the future put an end to its existence. They be- lieved it desirable that the Whig organization, w^hich embraced moderate men in both sections of the b XVIU MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. country, should be maintained. They dreaded the formation of a sectional party ; and they thought a party making opposition to slavery one of its dis- tinctive and avowed doctrines would surely be sec- tional. They opposed the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, the acquisition of California, and the aggressions upon Kansas. But they also op- posed the formation of a political party based on opposition to either of these things. Most of them agreed with Webster and Clay in their support of the Compromise measures of 1850, which they vainly thought would put the national discussion of slavery at rest forever. They believed the Southern men- aces of disunion were real and earnest, and dreaded the civil war which would follow the attempt to carry out these threats, as certain to be the most terrible of evils, and in all probability to result in the destruction of the nation. Two things must be conceded to these statesmen : First, that they were right in their estimate of the sincerity of the South in its threats, and the terrible nature of the war which followed them ; Second, that to the postponement of the struggle, caused by the Compromise of 1850, was, in all probability, due the success of the North in the final conflict. To Webster and Choate was denied the opportu- nity of testifying their devotion to their country when the civil w^ar came, and of showing that it was no lack of patriotism or love of liberty that deter- mined their action in the momentous period which preceded the war. Mr. Bullock, like Mr. Everett, was more fortunate. MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER 11. BULLOCK. XIX From the earliest breaking out of hostilities, there was no more zealous supporter of the Government. With the spring of 1861 began the most important and conspicuous portion of his public life. From 1860 until his death he was recognized by the com- munity in which he dwelt as the most fitting expo- nent of its feeling on all occasions of public joy or sorrow. After the death of Edward Everett, on the 15th of January, 1865, he would undoubtedly have been regarded by many good judges as having suc- ceeded to his place as the foremost orator of the Commonwealth. The events of the year 1860 satisfied Mr. Bullock of the hopelessness of any further attempt to com- promise the differences between Slavery and Free- dom. The purpose of strenuous resistance to the further encroachments of the Slave Power, at what- ever risk and whatever cost, which had been grow- ing stronger and stronger in New England since 185G, had at length taken full possession of the great Middle States and of the Northwest. The conven- tion which nominated Lincoln was controlled by a spirit determined to yield no further to threats of disunion. The Democratic party had split in two. The dele- gations of eight Southern States had withdrawn from its national convention at Charleston. They had demanded of the followers of Douglas, who had been the leader in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, what Yancey of Alabama termed " an advanced step in the vindication of Southern rights." Douglas and his supporters, while indifferent to Slavery, begged XX MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. in vain that their Southern associates should not " take a position which will be absolute ruin to us when we return to our constituents." The election of Lincoln by a minority of the voters of the country was rendered certain by this disunion. It became apparent that compromise and postponement of the issue between Slavery and Freedom were at an end. The sentiment of Massachusetts, of course, was uncompromising in its support of the position of the national Republican party. Mr. Bullock was in full accord with that sentiment. He favored the elec- tion of Mr. Lincoln, and the nomination of John A. Andrew, the representative of the more radical anti- slavery men, as candidate for Governor. He was himself elected to the House of Representatives of Massachusetts from Ward 8 of the city of Worcester. The Legislature met on the first Wednesday in January, 1861. The cloud of the approaching civil war was already visible to clear-sighted observers, by none more plainly seen than by the prophet's eye of John A. Andrew. Li his inaugural address Governor Andrew clearly indicates his belief that war was imminent. On the day -of his inauguration he despatched confidential messengers to the governors of each of the New Eng- land States, to urge preparation, and to concert meas- ures for joint action. January 16, General Order No. 4 was issued, requiring the commanders of all military companies "to examine with care their rolls, with a view of ascertainins: whether there are men in their commands who from age, physical defects, business, or family causes may be unable or indis- MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. XXI posed to respond at once to the orders of the Com- mander-in-Chief made in response to the call of the President of the United States, that they may be forthwith discharged ; so that their places may be filled by men ready for any public exigency which may arise, whenever called upon." Under the same inspiration the Legislature and the executive officers of the State set about preparing for the impending danger. But there were many persons still incredulous. Newspapers of wide circu- lation, conservative and timid citizens, disappointed politicians of all parties, threw ridicule on what they termed the foolish panic of the Governor. If Mr. Bullock, whose sympathies and affiliations had been for so many years with the political opponents of Andrew, and who might have been not unnaturally looked to as his rival and competitor for future hon- ors, had seen fit to throw obstacles in the way of the courageous policy of the State administration, great embarrassment and public injury might have been the result. But Mr. Bullock zealously and abl}^ sup- ported the great War Governor. He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and, as such, the rec- ognized leader of the House. With his friend and townsman, Attorney-General D wight Foster, of whom Governor Andrew said he was " full of the fire and hard-working zeal of Massachusetts," he w^as the organ of the patriotism and energy of Worcester at the seat of Government. Fort Sumter was fired upon on the 12th of April. The Sixth Massachusetts were attacked by an en- raged mob, on their passage through Baltimore, on xxil MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. the 19tli of April. The Legislature had adjourned, and later was reassembled in extra session on the 14th of May. Mr. Bullock was chairman, on the part of the House, of the special committee to whom the address of the Governor, with its accompanying documents, was referred. He reported the " Resolves concerning the present Crisis," which were adopted by the Legislature. The State was foremost among the loyal States in the promptness with which she pressed her soldiers to the front, and Worcester County was behind no other. Mr. Bullock was fully penetrated with the spirit of the time, and his eloquent voice spoke the feelino; which was in the hearts of the whole com- munity. On Tuesday evening, April 16, there was a mass meeting of the citizens of Worcester to take action for the equipment of the volunteer militia of the city. Mr. Bullock made a stirring speech in which he declared : " Under no circumstances will there be a yielding to submission and disgrace. Bet- ter that the earth should ingulf us than to yield our capital to the rebels who would seize it." August 23, he presented the colors to the Twenty- first Regiment in an admirable speech. On the 14th of October a great war meeting filled Mechanics' Hall to overflowing in aid of the formation of the Twenty- fifth Regiment, which was called, distinctively, " the Worcester Regiment." At this meeting Mr. Bullock made a speech which we might well be content to send down to the most remote posterity as a most beauti- ful and adequate expression of the spirit of the time. A few days later, on the departure of the Twenty- MEMOIR OF ALEXA.NDER H. BULLOCK. XXIU fifth for the front, he presented to Colonel Sprague, an officer than whom no braver or abler left Massa- chusetts for the field, a horse, the gift of a few friends, in a speech of great eloquence and beauty. The value of these speeches was very great. He said, in his speech at the great war meeting of October 14 : " All hearts are as one, palpitating with a common hope, melted together with an intensity of patriot- ism that comes only from the baptism of blood. The guns which were levelled at Fort Sumter, levelled all distinctions of party, and loyal men everywhere are brothers." But that this was to so great degree true, was due to the fact that representatives of the wealth and conservatism of the community were inspired by the same loyalty and patriotism which stirred the popu- lar heart. Mr. Bullock was at that time one of the wealthy men of Worcester. "■ Bring on your tax- bills and send out the regiment," he cried ; and in the same speech, " Every man or woman who has an^^thing to spare owes it to the country, this month and next, to place a portion of it, at least, in the public stocks. If the Government is saved, these will be our best estate ; if the Government is lost, these will be worth more than anything else, for we can bequeath them to our descendants as memories of our fidelity. Every dollar invested for the Gov- ernrtient will transcend in appreciation the annals of usury ; and even if it were lost, it will be riches to the losers, for it would be recoined in the wealth and treasure of the heart." The sound of the first gun fired upon Sumter was XXIV MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. heard by a people to whom the real sorrow and sacri- fice of w^ar had been unknown for eighty years. It was expected by most of those who enhsted or urged enhstment in the spring and summer of 1861, that a few months would end the struggle. That Avas the year of patriotic enthusiasm. The year 1862 and the two years which followed tested the greater quality of steadfastness in the endurance of a sacrifice of which the people of Massachusetts then fully appreciated the extent. There was hardly a family without its representative in the armies about Washington and Richmond. Mr. Bullock was re-elected to the House of Repre- sentatives in the fall of 1861. When the Legisla- ture organized in January, 1862, he was elected Speaker, receiving every vote cast. The duties of the Speaker of course were not consistent with that prominent share in controlling and discussing the business of the House which he had taken in the previous year. But he left the chair to advocate a bill for levying a special war tax of $1,800,000, a tax more than double any single State tax ever known to the people of Massachusetts. He did not seek to disguise the magnitude of the expenditure Avhich was to be demanded of the people by the State and National Governments. He declared that it was un- doubtedly far in advance of any example of which we have historical information. But he exhibited with great clearness the reason for beheving that the burden was one which a single generation could easily remove. The speech is a masterpiece of clear and comprehensive statement, calculated to remove MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XXV from the public mind all unreasonable apprehension of financial disturbance on the one hand, and to impress the necessity of severe retrenchment of all avoidable expenditure, on the other. The Legislature cordially supported Andrew through the entire war ; and in this support no man was more cordial than Mr. Bullock, as his re-election to the office of Speaker in 1863 by every vote but three, and in 18C4 and 1865 by a unanimous vote, bears witness. He had opposed the resolutions which passed the Senate, and but for an adjournment would have passed the House, at the special session of May, 1861, instructing the Senators and requesting the Representatives in Congress " to use their utmost efforts to secure the repeal of any and all laws which deprive any class of loyal subjects of the Government from bearing arms for the common defence." This was meant to remove all obstacles to the enlistment of colored soldiers. Mr. Bullock avowed " his wil- lingness to remove every vestige of disability from the colored citizens, and in a proper time he hoped to see it. This was not the time. Twenty-three sovereign States are a unit in this conflict. He who would now cast a firebrand among the ranks of the United North and West and the Border States will initiate a calamity the extent of which will be ap- palling and inconceivable." But in the summer of 1862 he was ready to strike at slavery as alike the cause and tlie support of the Rebellion. On the 11th of July, 1862, while pre- senting a flag to the Thirty-fourth Regiment, he said : — XXVi MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. " We hail the assurances that come from the capital that the Government and the people begin to think alike. The Government is in earnest in the war. The Government is resolved that henceforth whatever obstacles stand in the way of the unity of this people, whether they be batteries of cannon or barricades of plantations, they must be, and they shall be, swept away. As slavery idealizes, vitalizes, inten- sifies, the armies of the South, so let freedom idealize, vital- ize, intensify, the armies of the North. To renationalize the liberty of the Constitution, I understand to be one of the inevitable accompaniments of this war." Mr. Sumner had from the beginning been nrgent in his demand that the policy of emancipation should be adopted by the Administration. From the 21st of April, 1801, when he gave to Major Devens's battalion on their way through New York to the scene of action, the watchwords, ^' Massachusetts, the Constitution, and Freedom," from the fall of the same year when he made to the Republican Convention of Massachusetts the speech entitled '' Emancipation our best Weapon," he had everywhere pressed this policy. He was impatient of the President's desire to conciliate the Border States. In his great speech at the Cooper Institute, New York, November 27, 1861, on "The Rebellion, its Origin and Mainspring," he declared : " The enemy is before you ; nay, he comes out in ostentatious chal- lenge, and his name is Slavery. You can vindicate the Union only by his prostration." In his eulogy on Baker, December 11, 1861, he de- nounced in the Senate " that fatal forbearance, through which the weakness of the Rebellion is changed into strength, and the strength of our armies is changed into weakness." MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XXVll Andrew was in entire accord with Sumner, and urged the immediate enlistment of the negro into the armies of the United States. The President, for reasons now well known, delayed the proclamation of emancipation until events should demonstrate its military necessity to the large majority of the people of the North. Many persons believed that Lincoln meant to carry through the war solely for the restora- tion of the authority of the Union and the Consti- tution as they were when it began, leaving the condition of the colored race unaffected. They saw in this apparent difference between the President and Sumner and Andrew their opportunity to drive them and the opinion they represented from political power in Massachusetts. The strength and bitter- ness of this purpose can hardly be credited now. At a great Union meeting in New York a distinguished speaker said that, " in his opinion, the next man who walked up the scaffold after Jefferson Davis should be Charles Sumner." The correspondent of a Boston newspaper declared : " If Sumner is re-elected it may not be convenient for him to pass through New York." Governor Claflin, then President of the Senate, declared, as early as 18G1, writing to Mr. Sumner: — " The truth is, there is a desperate effort under the surface to drive you from the Senate next winter ; and if nothing is done, it is feared by many that the Conservative force will get so strong as to drive both you and Andrew from your seats." This feeling found abundant utterance in the press of Massachusetts during the gloomy summer and XXVlll MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. autumn of 1862. A call was put forth for a People's Convention at Faneuil Hall, October 7, whose main object was to defeat the election of Mr. Sumner, to which many persons of great influence and undoubted loyalty, who had till then acted with the Republi- can party, gave their sanction. It was a period of dulness and gloom. The advance upon Richmond by McClellan, almost every mile of which had been a separate battle-field, the retreat, the change of base, the pursuit by Lee, the desperate and doubtful battle of Antietam, had filled nearly every household in Massachusetts with mourning for its dead. But the people did not falter. The friends of Mr. Sumner determined to make the issue at the Republican State Convention held at Worcester on the 10th of September. Of this convention Mr. Bullock was elected president. In his opening ad- dress he said he " had learned many things during the past year, one of which was that African slavery on this continent is so intimately connected with the war, that the two things can no longer be considered apart." It was proposed to limit the resolutions of the con- vention to a simple pledge to support the President in putting down the Rebellion. This was met by the counter demand for an expression of opinion as to the policy of the war, and that it was "the duty of the people not only to sustain the general in the field, but the President in his seat, the Governor in his chair, and above all the legislator in his duty." After an exciting debate and much dexterous MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XXIX parliamentary management, the whole matter was referred to a committee appointed by the chair. President Bullock appointed a committee in which the supporters of Sumner were in the majority. They reported resolutions demanding the extermina- tion of slavery, approving the course of Mr. Sumner nnd commendino; him for re-election. These resolu- tions were triumphantly carried, and doubtless repre- sented the sentiment of the people of Massachusetts, on which they would have acted, no matter what convention or what official power had stood in the way. But the Proclamation of Emancipation came on the 22d of September, placing the Administration in full accord with Sumner and Massachusetts. This act inspired with new confidence the loyalty of the Commonwealth. The language of determination and endurance was now mingled with that of hope and exultation. Mr. Bullock was among the foremost to give ex- pression to the general feeling. He presided over an immense meetinof held in Mechanics' Hall on the 17th of October, which was addressed by Charles Sumner. On the 30th of the same month he ad- dressed another great meeting in the same place, which was presided over by Mayor Aldrich, assisted by a hundred vice-presidents. His speech is de- scribed, by the author of " Worcester in the War," as "strong in thought and ablaze with patriotic fire." He was elected Speaker again in January, 1863, receiving every vote cast except three for Caleb Cushing. The description which Hawthorne gives XXX MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. of his friend, Franklin Pierce, may well be applied to him : — "He had all the natural gifts that adapted him for the post, — courtesy, firmness, quickness and accuracy of judgment, and a clearness of mental perception that brought its own regularity into the scene of confused and entangled debate ; and to these qualities he added whatever was to be attained by a laborious study of parliamentary rules." Mr. Sumner said of him that he would " always be thought of as the Speaker." The successes of the year 1863, although they did not end the Rebellion, and were followed by many alternations of victory and defeat, removed from the public mind, to a great degree, the fear of national destruction. Men felt they were engaged in a gi- gantic war, requiring gigantic efforts, but efforts to which the republic had demonstrated its capacity. The ordinary occupations of life went on, and or- dinary topics resumed their interest. Mr. Bullock delivered an address before the alumni of Amherst College, on the 8th of July, on the occasion of his relinquishing the chair as their presiding officer. He was elected president of the Worcester Agri- cultm-al Society in the fall of 1863, and delivered the annual address before that society on " Massachu- setts the model productive State." In the year 1864 Mr. Bullock was again chosen Speaker by a unanimous vote. In taking the chair he made a graceful and eloquent address, in wdiich he described the great change which had come over the public feeling within twelve months. " When our predecessors met here a year ago the sky was MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. XXXI overcast. Ill fortune at home, and not altogether good omens abroad, impressed our hearts. It was a. period in which men of timid counsels, men in sym- pathy with the public enemies, availed themselves of the general gloom, and added to the distraction and discouragement which always follow military reverses." He was chosen by the Republicans of the State one of the delegates at large to the National Con- vention, held at Baltimore, in June, 1864, and acted as chairman of the delegation. When the time ap- proached for the nomination of a governor, in the autumn, some persons, not inconsiderable in numbers, desired to bring him forward as a candidate. But his friend and neighbor. Judge Foster, announced to the convention that, "^ some weeks ago, by his own decisive action, the name of Colonel Bullock had been withdrawn," and moved the renomination of Governor Andrew by acclamation, which was carried. Mr. Bullock was invited by the convention to ad- dress them, and delivered a speech of great vigor. His summing up of the difference between the two political parties shows a capacity for vigorous blows rarely equalled, and makes it apparent that his fail- ure to engage in the angry conflicts of debate was not owing to any want of ability for defence or aitacK. "And now, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, compare our work and that of our adversaries. Compare the platform of Baltimore with the platform of Chicago. I am not going to detain you with a recapitulation of the characteristics of either. For myself, I desire to go on appeal to the American XXXll MEMOm OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. people with no other issue than that which is presented by these comparative and diverse systems of political ethics. " The one breathes undying hostility to the public enemies, — the other inspires hostility only against its own Government ; the one swears to sustain the Government in quelling the rebellion by force of arms, — the other conceals the fact that there is any rebellion existing at all ; the one sustains the Government in the fixed and irreversible purpose, determina- tion to accept no compromise and to offer no terms of peace not based upon the conquest or the unconditional surrender of the armies of treason, — the other abjectly invites any com- promise whatsoever, however revolting to the manhood of the nation, and opens the ghastly doubt whether separation itself should not be accepted as the price of armistice and peace. " The Baltimore Convention resolves that the national safety demands the utter and complete extirpation of slavery from the soil of the republic ; the Chicago Convention, by its acquiescence, by its collateral issues, by its tone and temper, by all that it says, by all that it does not say, places Southern Slavery as the brightest sun in our coronet of empire, and would restore that dynasty, which before the war was a rule of unvarying humiliation, and which, if now replaced, would be a reign of intolerable despotism and disgrace. " Your delegates at Baltimore offered their thanks and yours to the soldier of the flag, and took the oath to stand by him unto the end, to the last of their treasure and of their hearts ; the delegates of Chicago offer their sympathy to the soldier in the one hand, and in the other hold forth to him a welcome to an infamy that would be traditional and perpetual here- after." From the time of the appointment of Charles Allen to the bench in 1858, and of the removal of Judge Thomas to Boston, Mr. Bullock was the chief speaker at all great public gatherings in Worcester, and con- MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. XXXUl stantly in demand througliout the Commonwealth, on all great public occasions. His beautiful eulogy on Everett, delivered in Fan- euil Hall, January 18, 1865, is one of the best of these occasional productions. He gave a brief but admirable analysis of the services, of the power as an orator, of the man to whose place he was him.self, so far as any man succeeded to it, to succeed. He showed also that he fully appreciated, what is not commonly appreciated, Mr. Everett's great diplo- matic ability. On the day following the death of Lincoln, April 15, 1865, Mr. Bullock presided over the vast as- semblage which gathered in Mechanics' Hall. The feeling of the people found adequate expression on that day in religious services only. But in obedi- ence to the proclamation of President Johnson, June 1st was devoted to funeral honors to the memory of Lincoln. Mr. Bullock was selected by the City Council to deliver the eulogy before the people of Worcester. His address, published in this volume, ranks among the very best delivered in the coun- try, and will hold a high and permanent place in literature. He also delivered an address before the Massachu- setts Charitable Mechanics' Association at its tenth exhibition, on September 20, on the " Relation of the Mechanic Arts to Liberty and Social Progress." Governor Andrew's work was finished. The Rebel capital and the Rebel armies had surrendered. The discussion of policies of war had given place to the discussion of policies of reconstruction. There was XXXIV MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. left to those who were intrusted with administration in Massachusetts to welcome the veteran survivors and victors on their return, to build monuments to the fallen, to pay the debt, and to re-establish the economies that belong to peace. In anticipation of the speedy ending of the war, Governor Andrew announced, in January, 1865, his purpose not to be a candidate for another re-election. Mr. Bullock was called upon to succeed him by the general voice of the Republicans of the State. He had no competitor in his own party. Pie was unani- mously nominated at the State Convention held at Worcester on the 14th of September, 1865, and was elected on the 7tli day of November, over General Couch, by a very large majority of votes. Mr. Bullock's term of office as Governor was quiet and uneventful. He favored the three amendments to the Constitution of the United States. In his ■first inauarural ddress he declared his belief that the questions of slavery and secession had forever been put at rest, and favored the speedy restoration to the South of her local self-government, insisting that it should rest on the free choice of all the people, and that the rights of the freedmen should be secured by all possible guaranties. He addressed himself at once to the task of bring- ing back the administration of the Commonwealth to its old ways. He paid a tribute to the victorious soldiery in a passage of rare beauty and eloquence, which the sol- diers delight to remember, and which has taken its place in the school books. MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H, BULLOCK. XXXV He received the Twenty-first and Twenty-fifth regiments on their return from the war with affect- ing and inspiring addresses of welcome. A most trying and painful duty descended to him from his predecessor. Edward W. Green, the post- master of the town of Maiden, also intrusted by the authorities of that town with the sale of school books and the moneys received therefrom, being a defiulter in both trusts, had murdered the teller of the bank (a boy of about eighteen years of age), at midday, by shooting him through the head, and robbed him of about five thousand dollars. He was arrested, and made a full confession and was indicted. When arraigned before the Supreme Judicial Court at a term held by a single judge, after being informed of liis rights and of the effect of his plea, and after ad- vising with able and experienced counsel, he pleaded guilty of murder in the first degree. The presiding judge, who had previously consulted with all his associates on the proper course to be taken, Avith their approbation and concurrence, received the plea and sentenced the prisoner to be executed. Murder in the first degree alone could be capitally punished under the law. The statute which defined the degrees of murder enacted also that the degree of murder should be for the jury. Upon this statute Governor Andrew doubted whether it was compe- tent for the court, especially when held by a single judge, to enter judgment against a prisoner and award sentence of death upon his own plea of guilty of murder in the first degree ; or whether they should not either render judgment of guilty of mur- XXXVl MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. der in the second degree, or impanel a jury to de- termine the question. He submitted this question to the Supreme Court under the provisions of the Constitution. The court repHed that the provision in question applied only to the case of a plea of guilty, or of guilty of murder in the second degree, and did not affect proceedings under the statute which provides that " a person indicted for a capital crime may be arraigned before the court held by one justice, and if he pleads guilty, such court may award sentence against him according to law." This opinion was afterwards reaffirmed on a writ of error in the same case. Governor Andrew's council declined to recommend a reprieve of sen- tence, but recommended a day for its execution, and again in the following year renewed their refusal. Governor Andrew still remained unwillinoj to issue his warrant for the execution ; and Green, who had been sentenced April 25, 1864, was left in prison awaiting executive action on Governor Bullock's accession, in January, 1866. His duty was a very plain, though very painful one. In discharging it he encountered much vitupera- tion, and was compelled to resist the solicitations of some very excellent and influential citizens. But in a clear and masterly statement he pointed out to the Council^ that to decline to execute the law for such reasons would be to invade the province of the Judiciary by the Executive, to decide a question be- longing under the Constitution and law exclusively to the court, and would also put it in the power of the malefactor to escape punishment altogether, by MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II, BULLOCK. XXXVll pleading guilty of the capital offence, the court hav- ing held that in such case no provision for a jury trial existed. The Council concurred with the Gov- ernor, and the law took its course. Governor Bullock always ftivored leaving to the direct action of the people the decision of important questions when practicable. He vetoed an act an- nexing Roxbury to Boston because it did not provide for submitting the question to the people of the two cities. He favored leaving the question of sale of liquor to be determined by the option of the locali- ties affected. He was by nature averse to strife. Probably no man of his time, or of any time, so conspicuous in public life in Massachusetts, encountered less of per- sonal controversy. But he knew well how to pro- tect his own dignity when invaded, as was shown by ai; encounter with the House of Representatives dur- ing the session of 1868. The Governor had, as authorized by the Constitu- tion, permitted a bill in regard to the sale of intoxi- cating liquors which had been the subject of angry public discussion, to become a law, by retaining it more than five days without his signature. He had sent a message to the Legislature stating his reasons for his course, which the House, deeming the mes- sage a departure from official usage, and disturbed by the Governor's attitude, directed to be returned to him by its committee. His courteous and quiet reply, made on the instant to the committee when it waited on him with the communication, showed the hand of steel beneath the XXXVm MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. glove of silk. The discomfited committee retired to their equally discomfited principals. Governor Bullock's administration, as has been already said, was an uneventful one. It was a time of progress and prosperity. The unnatural stimu- lant to business, caused by an inflated currency, had not vet beo;un to show its evil effects. The South was resuming its ordinary occupations, and the supply of its wants made the workshops of Massachusetts busy. Succeeding to the great place which Andrew had left vacant after the stormy and exciting days whose labors and anxieties he had so fully shared, it is praise enough for him to say that he was able and ready to guide the people of the Commonwealth in their return to the paths of peace. In addition to his performance of his proper offi- cial duties, he delivered, during the years 1866, 1867, and 1868, many public addresses, all showing his ac- customed scholarship and beauty of finish. Mr. Bullock was re-elected for the 3^ears 1867 and 1868. He declined re-election in the autumn of the latter year. AVhen Mr. Bullock laid down the office of Governor, in Januarj^, 1869, it seemed likely that a long career of brilliant national public service was before him. He was not yet fifty-three years old. He was in the full vigor of his faculties, both of bodv and mind. He was exempted from the necessity of Libor for support of his household. He Avas in accord with the large majority of the people of his State on the great public questions of the immediate past and the immediate future. His reputation was without a MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. XXxix stain. He had an attractive and elegant manner. He had no enemies. He was, more than any other of the men conspicuous in his own party, a favorite with his pohtical opponents. His extensive histori- cal and literary studies had filled his mind with stores fitted for use and for ornament. Above all, he possessed, bej'ond any of his living contemporaries, that rare gift of eloquence which always has been and always will be a passport to the favor of the people where speech is free. But the honors he had enjoyed seemed to have filled the measure of his amljition. He visited Eu- rope in 18G9, and returned to devote Inmself to the duties, cares, and enjoyments of private citizen- ship. He was not an uninterested spectator of the great j^ublic events of the period of reconstruction, of the funding and payment of the public debt, of the return to specie payment, and the overcoming, by new and stricter administrative methods and an aroused and jealous public opinion, the tendency to waste and corruption which jdways follows a great war. But he gave no encouragement to the suggestion made from influential quarters that he should be a candidate for public office. He was more than once requested to consent to be a candidate for Congress, but refused. In 1874, when the writer had publicly signified his desire to withdraw from the representation of his dis- trict, Mr. Bullock wrote a published letter declining to be a candidate for a succession which was un- doubtedly within his reach. xl MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. On the 5th of January, 1879, the writer was authorized by President Hayes to communicate to Governor Bullock the President's desire to appoint him to the English Mission, then vacant. The fol- lowing is his reply : — Worcester, Dec. 8, 1879. My dear Sir, — I received yesterday your favor of the 5th inst., in which you kindly inquire, in behalf of the President, whether I would undertake the Mission to England. I have felt at liberty to take to myself twenty-four hours to consider this question, and I now apprise you of the conclusion to which my reflection has with much reluctance brought me. I am compelled, by the situation of my family, to reply that it would be practically impossible for me to accept this appointment. I particularly desire to express to the President my pro- found and grateful acknowledgment of the high distinction he has offered to confer upon me, and to assure him of my purpose in every way as a private citizen to uphold him in his wise and patriotic adnrinistration of the government. Your communication has been, and will continue to be, treated by me as confidential. I remain, with great respect and esteem. Truly and faithfully yours, Alexander H. Bullock. The Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, U. S. S. During these years, however, he was in constant demand ^s an orator at college festivals, by literary societies and on public occasions of every kind. His contributions to this class of literature during the last twelve years of his life are of great variety and value. The speech at the dedication of the Soldiers' Mon- MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. xli ument in AVorcester ; the address on "■ Intellectual Leadership in American History," before the literary societies of Brown University ; the address on the Centennial Situation of Woman, delivered June 22, 1876, at Mt. Holyoke Seminary ; his speech in New York, November 20, 1880, at the unveiling of the statue of Alexander Hamilton, — are admirable ex- amples of his power. They show that he was still growing. The quality of his style of thought and ex- pression is nowhere better exhibited than in the paper read before the Antiquarian Society April 27, 1881, entitled " Centennial of the Massachusetts Constitution." After Governor Bullock's last return from Europe, in 1880, he was disposed to yield to the earnest de- sire of his townsmen that he should take a large share in the management of the business institutions which had become so great and important. The experi- ence of some other communities of a kind from which we had not been altogether exempt had taught us that there is no safety for property but in the char- acter and fidelity of those who are intrusted with its manas^ement. Mr. Bullock was conspicuous for excellent judg- ment in the administration of business affairs. The community felt that any institution was safe which could secure his personal supervision. He undertook responsibilities of this kind which pledged him to a life of great labor and care. He was chosen presi- dent of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, director in the Worcester National Bank, president xlii MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. of the State Mutual Life Assurance Companj^, and chairman of the Commissioners of the Sinkino; Fund of the City of Worcester, and of the Financial Com- mittee of the Trustees of Amherst College. Every man felt that the invested property of Worcester was more valuable by an appreciable per- centage in consequence of his consent to give to it the aid of his sound judgment and the security of his integrity. These hopes were doomed to be disappointed. Governor Bullock, as it has been since disclosed, had for some time been conscious of symptoms which had led him to apprehend that a sudden termination of his life was not improbable. He had put his affairs in order. He had suffered somewhat from indii>:es- tion, and had been careful as to diet and exercise, but made no other change in his daily habits. On the 17th day of January, 1882, in the after- noon, he went down street and visited some of the offices where he was in the habit of calling;. He was returning home, and had just passed the corner of Chestnut Street, on his way up Elm Street, when a young man who was walking beside him, saw him turn suddenly, drop his cane, and seize the railing of the fence as if for support. Almost immediately he threw himself backward, and was prevented from falling by the young man at his side, Avho asked if he was hurt. He made no answer, and neither spoke nor gave any sign of consciousness afterward. He was taken into the house of Mr. C. W. Smith. Two physicians arrived almost instantly, but life was extinct. MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. xliii His death caused a severe shock, not only in Massachusetts, but throughout the country. The " Worcester Spy," of next morning, says : — " It was confidently hoped that in the full and rich ma- turity of his powers, unvexed by cares or ambition, he would continue for many years an ornament and honor to the city, serving his neighbors by his counsels, giving strength and credit to our financial institutions by his experience in affairs and the trust which his name justly inspired, and employing his leisure with those studies in which he de- hghted and which he made so fruitful in historical research, in wide suggestion, in eloquent warning and stimulus to high and heroic action. " Leisure so employed was spent in the public service, and this was the life which he had planned for his declining years. But the end has come with startling suddenness. And though the shock is painful, we cannot doubt that for him it is better so. We shall miss his familiar figure in our streets ; his absence will make a gap hard to fill in the direction of many local institutions. We shall lack an eloquent exponent of the popular emotion on occasions of public rejoicing or sorrow. His counsels will be wanting in public exigencies. But he has left behind him the memory of great trusts worthily discharged, of opportunities for usefulness well im- proved, of a private life honorable, beautiful, and without a stain." There was nowhere, it is believed, a dissenting voice from this judgment. This memoir has been designed only as a sketch, necessarily imperfect, of the public life and character of its subject, and of those moral and intellectual qualities which made, that life one of so great value in its generation. Mr. Bullock's refined and delicate nature found, as his xliv MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER H, BULLOCK. life advanced, its most congenial atmosphere within the walls of his home, and led him to shrink more and more from the rough strifes of politics. He delighted in days spent in literary pursuits in his library, and in evenings of hospitable welcome to neighbors, friends, and strangers. His strong domestic affections found most abundant satisfaction in his own family circle, " where," says a near neighbor and intimate friend, " his home life diffused all around it an influ- ence and charm, and by its high example elevated the standard of the domestic and moral life of a whole community." He was stainless, wise, patriotic, fit to be trusted with the administration of great interests, public or private. He was a lover of scholarship. He had the ear of the people during a time of great peril and trial. He never gave it dishonorable counsel, or uttered a word which would debase or degrade it. The place of the orator in a free state will ever be dignified and honorable. There is no artist who can o give greater or purer delight than this. A town, or city, or state is very human. In sorrow it must utter its cry of pain ; in victory, its note of triumph. As great events pass, it must pronounce its judg- ment. ^ Its constant purpose must be fixed and made more steadfiist by public expression. It must give voice to its love, and its approbation, and its condem- nation. It must register the high and low water mark of its tide, its rising and sinking in heat and cold. This is the office which Governor Bullock, from MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. xlv 1860 until his death, performed for the community in which he dwelt. The camerca of his delicate pho- tography has preserved for future generations what passed in the soul of ours, in the times that tried the souls of men. GEORGE F. HOAR. ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. SPEECH AT A WAR MEETING, to aid and encourage the formation of the third worcester county regiment, at mechanics' hall, oct. 14, 1861. Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens : If I had much to say, or if this were any ordinary occasion, I should deem it expedient to conciliate you by apology. But the able and excellent remarks of our friend, the Sena- tor, — himself the commander of regiments, — have rendered my duty absolutely a brief one, and the exercise of your patience comparatively easy. The objects of the meeting appear to me half accomplished if we apprehend the magnitude of the national crisis. This presence is itself an illustration of the exigency which sum- mons us. This attendance, these cheering countenances, we have seen here before, when the hall was lighted and its arches echoed for political success and party victories. But this bond and tie of unity, in which all hearts are as one, palpitating with a common hope, melted together with an intensity of patriotism that comes only from the baptism of blood, — this betokens another era and a new consecration. The contests, successes, defeats, and illuminations of the past are extinguished. The whole scene, all the thoughts and diversities of men, have been changed in an hour. The guns 2 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. wLicli were levelled at Fort Sumter levelled all distinctions of party, and loyal men everywhere are brothers. We are struoylino- for national life. The nation itself is in arms to maintain its unity and government. Hitherto slumbering in our prosperity, we have at last been awakened by the shock of open rebellion to contemplate the value of the Government, and the necessity, at all hazards and by every conceivable sacrifice, of rescuing it from the perils which are threatening to ingulf it. The meeting is called of " all who are in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war." I should like to see a meeting of all who are not in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war. Some few such have been attempted in the State of Connecti- cut, but they were instantly squelched by an indignant people. And^ sir, what citizen is not in favor of his own honor and his own existence ? AVhat citizen is base enough to covet for himself prematurely a grave so disgraceful that the worm which should prey upon his body would be purity itself iu comparison with the heart of its victim ? And yet such a man would be an angel of light in comparison with him who is willing that this Government should go down to an un- timely and ignominious tomb, so long as an arm or a dollar is left to defend it. Any doubt about a vigorous prosecution of the war ? Any doubt about preserving our capital, our Union, our liberty, the memories of the grand and solemn past, the glories of the present, the inheritance of our children ? Any doubt about our raising another regiment from the city and county of Worcester, when the earth everywhere is trembling under men who are uniting their hands and measuring their tread for the conflict ? Why, sir, at the expression of such hesitation, methiuks the bones of old Jackson are already reinvesting themselves with the habili- ments of life, and preparing to burst forth from his bed in his own dishonored Tennessee and walk forth for revenge among us. Are we hesitating when the living appeals of Lincoln and the dying testimony of Douglas are stirring up a SPEECH AT A WAR MEETING. 3 nation of volunteers in the West ? The blood of the brave Lyon is crying out to us from the ground. Our own sons and brothers are already in the field, and from the command of the gallant Fremont, and Eosencranz, and Wool, and heroic young McClellau, they are caUing to us for help. They can defend themselves as they are, but that is not enough. A quarter of a million more men are wanted to bear the flag into every inlet, and plant it upon every cape, from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the Mississippi ; new regi- ments are wanted to penetrate to tlie haunts of the Union- loving people of Tennessee and Xorth Carolina and Virginia, to carry our upholding sympathies to them at the point of the bayonet, and to extend over them the protection of the Gov- ernment until they can uphold the flag on their own soil. By our aid they can and shortly will do it ; without our helj-), timely and abundant, all may be lost. If money is wanted, it must be had. And let us make the beginning to-night by pledging our faith to the Government and our confidence in its securities. Some of our banks have alread}' done largely and well, and I honor their managers for the action. But we have yet to bring this subject to our own individual consciousness of duty. Every man or won^an who has anything to spare owes it to the country, this month and next, to place a j)ortion of it at least in the public stocks. If the Government is saved, these will be our best estate ; if the Government be lost, tliese will be worth more than anything else, for we can bequeatli them to our descendants as memo- rials of our fidelity ! If we cast our eye over the lines into the dark and bloody Confederacy, we behold a people receiv- ing only Confederate bonds for one of the richest crops of the world ; and when they ask whether these are of any value, Mr. Stephens tells them, No, if they shall be conquered, but that they are in that case worth as much as anything else to them. And they are acting heroically up to the injunction. Are we doing so well ? The man who at sucli a time as this withholds his surplus cash to shave a note or to pick up a 4 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. choice opportunity out of somebody's misfortune, and goes about the streets with a bowed head croakinsf and shivering in the wind, commend to go to his closet on the approaching day of humiliation and fast, that he may take a lesson from the woman who wasted the precious ointment upon the feet of our divine Lord and Saviour. She was saved ; he, if he persist, is already lost. Every dollar invested for the Govern- ment will transcend in appreciation the annals of usury ; and even if it were lost it would be riches to the loser, for it would be recoined in the wealth and treasure of the heart. It behooves us all to spare something, to save something, for the public securities. As somebody has said, it will prove to be the silver bullet which will penetrate the heart of the rebellion. And further than this, Mr. Mayor, and invoking your par- ticular attention to the point, I have the confidenee to say that if it be necessary that any money should be raised by the city of Worcester in order to secure the speedy enlistment of the new regiment under Upton and Sprague, it must he had. If I could see this matter reduced to a probable alternative trembling in the visible scales, — at the one end of the beam the question of sending out in thirty days a new regiment from the city and county of Worcester, and at the other end the question of an addition of thousands of dollars to the debt and taxes of the city, — I would strike the balance this instant, and as one citizen and one tax-payer say to you, Bring on your tax hills and send out your regiment. We have but just begun to drop the plummet to the depths of this question. It involves the issues of life and death. Whatever we may be called on to contribute, after all, it is only giving up a part for the preservation of the whole. And if all the treasure of the loyal States be necessary to carry this war against treason to its consummation, it must and it will be furnished ; for the great stake, the Union, is M-orth the sacrifice. Ah, we should be a generation that ought to covet the forgetfulness of all future ages if we could be willing to save our treasure by SPEECH AT A WAll MEETING. 5 losing our Government, carrying to our graves, if it were possible, an influence which had cost us the loss of our own self-respect and the scorn and contempt of our children I And as lives are necessary, they, too, must he freely offered. The soldier understands it. The feet of armies tread upon the margin of the dark valley of the shadow of death. And yet — such is the order of war, the experience of nations — the good and watchful providence of God brings most in safety away. Some must needs enter within the portals. But what is death, at the post of duty, in defence of our country, in the cause of liberty, with the flag of our country for a winding-sheet, and the assurance of a nation's grati- tude ? So slept the brave defender of Missouri, and awoke to immortal fame. So sleeps every true soldier who falls under his flag. " There is a tear for all that die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave ; But nations swell the funeral crj', And freedom weeps above the brave. " For them is sorrow's purest sigh O'er ocean's lieaving bosom sent. lu vain their bones unburied lie ; All earth becomes their monument. " A tomb is theirs on every page, An epitaph on every tongue ; The present hours, the future age, . Nor them bewail, to them belong. " A theme to crowds that knew them not. Lamented by admiring foes, Who would not share their glorious lot ? Who would not die the death they chose ? " I conclude that a vigorous prosecution of the war is to us a political choice of duty and patriotism, but it is also our necessity. The suggestion of peace at the present stage of the conflict is an impossibility. A man migiit as well apply for life insurance on his death-bed. Who and where is he that would think of compromise with an enemy thundering 6 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. at the gates of the capital ? We may as well, once for all, bring our minds to a contemplation of the dread reality. We may no longer talk as we would if it were a question of averting war. We are in civil war by no fault or act or responsibility of ours. We are in civil war, and somebody must conquer, and somebody else must be conquered, before there can be a possibility of peace. The great historic crisis has been cast upon us, — so strange, so sad, — and we cannot avoid it nor run away from it. It is Union, the whole or none. It is the Government, saved or lost. It is the national unity, preserved or extinguished. The decrees of Providence, the converging lines of history, the Eevolution, the Confed- eration, the Constitution, and seventy years of happiness and renown under it, AVashington and Madison and Jackson, all have stamped the seal upon the issue, and it is — One Country, One Constitution, One Destiny. It is this or nothing. The republic of the United States or the republic of the Con- federate States is to have the government of all this imperial domain. To this alternative has it come at last. So it appears to me now. And what an alternative is that ! The movers of this rebellion have for years been at this work to thrust this Government from its sphere of light, and send it like a baleful meteor through untravelled paths of darkness, to transform gradually but surely the Constitution of the American Union, the creation of liberty, into the embodiment of some of the worst features of a feudal and barbarous age, with only the allurements of an outward prosperity to decorate and mystify the appalling sacrifice. Failing at the last moment to attain their objects through the ordinary machinery of popular elec- tions, they have rushed precipitately to the accomplishment of their designs in another way, and have made open war upon the Government. And at the same time that they have been doing tliis, they have also organized a confederacy of their own, and promulgated a constitution of which the basis is the same exclusive and barbarous element which they had SrEECII AT A WAR MEETING. 7 aimed to incorporate into the government of this Union. You know what it is. And that constitution, founded upon that theory, they offer to us as the measure of their terms of peace. It is one of the marvellous disclosures of these times that these architects of treason appear to have hoped and expected tliat the monstrous doctrine of their confederacy sliould become the basis of a reconstruction of the American Union ; and that we, one after another, like lost and prodigal children found and restored again, — the great, free, and sovereign communities of the North and the West and the Centre, — would in due time be found knocking at the door of their confederacy, and asking permission to rest under the banner of the palmetto and the radiance of stars that never yet were lighted. Pitiable desperadoes ! Their history cannot be fully or justly written until science shall have recon- structed the classification of the human race. Sucli are the terms that are proposed. By accepting them we can have peace before another nightfall. And have you not sometimes thought that there are those at the North, — the Lord knows thetn if they exist at all, — in Massachusetts or in Connecticut, who, as the measure of their terms of surrender and peace, would accept the humilia- tion and shame, and pass under the yoke ? They spend the livelong day in complaining about the war, and liow easily it might have been avoided, and in hungerim; and thirsting after peace, when there are no parties to make a peace. Mark them well ! You will find them dissuading their neigh- bors from enlisting in defence of their country. Let such pass at an early day witliin the enemy's lines, and go at once to work at his guns ; then no longer will their countenances or their tongues deceive or betray our cause. But let us, fellow-citizens, rather rally around the patriotic and resolute and incorruptible President, forgetful of all party lines which have hitherto divided us, remembering only that he is, by the free choice of the American people and in the hands of Providence, the impersonation of the last hope 8 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. of constitutional liberty in the centuries. Let us rather emblazon over our dwellings the counsel of the departed Douglas, — that no man can be a true Democrat who is not loyal to the Union. Let us rather throw open our hearts to the inspiring admonitions of the noble and eloquent Holt, and, with our lives and our fortunes in our hands, exclaim to the President, Use them freely, use them boldly, but use them successfully. Let us rather bestow our approving sympathies upon the enthusiastic commander of the West, who is organ- izing her imperial army to bear the standard of the Union along the Father of Waters, with a proclamation floating from the eagle of every regiment, wdiich will make it no fault of his, nor of ours, nor of the Government, if every steamer from New Orleans to Cairo shall be crowded with two-legged con- trabands, thick as bees in swarming time. Let us rather follow with our prayers and benedictions those who have gone out from our own midst, counting not their own lives dear to them if so be they may die under the stars and stripes, and leave a country and a government behind them. Let us rather, in patriotic competition with other communities of Massachusetts, and with all possible despatch, set about the enrolment of another regiment from the city and county of Worcester, who, under the gallant and popular officers desig- nated by the Governor, and generously mingling the currents of Celtic and Teutonic and Yankee blood, shall bear the honor of the Government and the symbol of the Union to whatever field they may be ordered. Our cause is just, and time is fleeting. Make up the regiment, and the victory is won. MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. ADDRESS IN THE MASSACUUSETTS IIODSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 10, 18G2. Me. Speaker, — During a period of three months marked by events in the country which in other ages would have fur- nished history for a generation, involving, frequently, painful alternations of hope and doubt, — at one time darkened by general depression, but of late become luminous by a series of achievements which promise the happiest results, — it has been our duty, throughout the whole, to attend patiently to the interests of our own Commonwealth. That duty, I need not say, has been discharged with an unusual degree of har- mony among ourselves. One of the last of our public acts is now under consideration, and upon that we are all agreed, which is to levy the tax. All the other assurances of war have been spread out so long and so vividly, that our senses have become accustomed to the scenes passing around us. Without conditions we have urged tlie General Government to furnish appliances for the conflict; and upon the able, patriotic, and energetic Chief Magistrate of JNIassachusetts we liave conferred full authority for every form of expenditure which the service might require. We have met the exigency without reservation. But now it is that another evidence of a state of war confronts us, and demands our recognition and action. The bills are coming in ; the debt is to be provided for. The bills are many, and the debt will be large; but they are upon us, and must be met. 10 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. And here let me appeal to the Representatives, and through them to the people of the State, not to overlook one consider- ation which may well furnish a solace amid the public bur- dens. Since war has been forced upon us, — war of such dimensions that, in comparison with it, all our previous ex- perience passes into an eclipse, — we ought to regard it as some compensation for the sacrifices required of us, that the conflict is removed from our own doors. In the commence- ment of the contest, and in one of his last public addresses, Mr. Douglas, whose untimely death I am sure we all deplore, justly exhorted the Government to act with such vigor that it should be a war in the cotton-fields of tlie South, and not in the cornfields of the Xorth. That has been accomplished. And when the people of Massachusetts look about them, and contemplate their own condition, — their fields and marts and workshops comparatively undisturbed : the ordinary chan- nel and current of their life, if impeded, not closed up ; their institutions under free and full progress ; their domestic tran- quillity not molested, — and compare all this with the waste and desolation which have swept the field of operations in the States upon the border, certainly they cannot fail to ap- preciate the beneficent Providence which has tempered the severity of their burdens with a mercy of divine economy. The war produces embarrassments here; but there are States where it makes solitudes. In our discussions concerning the public debt and taxation, whether here or in the country, I deem it of high importance that we should avoid all extremes of sensation. Some there are who speak of national bankruptcy ; while others treat our unexampled expenditures as a light matter, not likely to pro- duce any ajipreciable inconvenience to the people. Both classes of persons are, in my judgment, equally unsafe guides. The accumulation of debt, which is now unavoidable, is un- precedented in its magnitude ; but it will he met, and we shall not become bankrupt. We ought not to attempt any disguise of the magnitude of MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 11 the present expenditures. They are undoubtedly far in ad- vance of any example of which we have historical informa- tion. "War, at all times expensive, has been rendered doubly extravagant in our case, by tlie surprise and the exigency which demanded immediate outlays, without the benefit of that order and system which can only be realized when there is time for deliberation and preparation. Waste and fraud, also, have doubtless done their full share to swell the amount. At this moment no man in the country can have any exact idea of the rate at which we are massing the debt. There is a discrepancy between the Secretary of the Treasury and the gentlemen of the Ways and Means, and I doubt if any two of the latter would state the matter in the same figures. Averaging these authorities, we might find that our expen- diture will amount to 8800,000,000 or $900,000,000 by January next, and to 81,200,000,000 by July following.i I see it stated by a member of the Senate, that we are expending at the rate of thirty dollars a head in a loyal population of 23,000,000, while England, at the lieight of her war with Xapoleon, did not go beyond twenty dollars per head. I do not know how such statements in detail may correspond witli the actual facts ; but it is certain that the accumulation of our disbursements is without a parallel. The greatest stride that was ever made in the British debt was from 1803 to 1815, a period of twelve years, during which Eng- land conducted the battles of the nationalities of Europe, in- creasing her debt in that time a little more tlian 81,500,000,000. And who of us all would not be willing to-day to close in ad- vance the final account of the present war, by estimating the cost of the subjugation of the rebellion, and tlie recovery of the public liberties, from April, 1861, to April, 1863, to be no more, after the lapse of two years, than that of Great Britain at the expiration of twelve years ? Such rapidity and extent of indebtedness as this would have baffled the powers of any 1 Mr. Stevens, the Chairman of Ways and Means, has since stated the expenditures at a much higher rate. 12 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. European government recorded in the annals of time. If, at the commencement of this century, the British Ministry had promulgated its intention to expend a thousand five hundred millions in resisting for two years the arch foe of the peace and stability of the island, solemn and profound as was the sense of danger and of duty which pervaded the minds of Englishmen, I verily believe the keys of office would have fallen from the hands of administration in thirty days. The American peo- ple, and the American people alone, could be called upon to cope with the great problem which in the foreknowledge of God has been reserved for our time and our country. Be- lieve not that we are to sustain these burdens, and not have care and thought engraved upon our faces. The day of se- vere fact is before us. Nevertheless, the analogies of our experience, the miracles of our history, the configuration of our land, richest of the earth and made for empire, the knit and compacted character of our people, Luilt up on Teutonic foundations yet flexible with the capacities of all choicest nationalities, the gloom and despair of our fathers turned to hope and fruition before they slept, move us forward with inspiring belief that what would have discouraged other na- tions is in our case a practicality which a single generation can crown with performance. We are entering, then, upon an era of national debt. Great wars always bequeath such a legacy to succeeding peace. This Government is running an account which cannot be liquidated in ten years, perhaps not in twenty ; and it is right that it should be so. We are struggling for the pat- rimony of our children, and some portion of the cost will justly descend to them with the blessings of the purchase. I hear it sometimes said in the street that a public debt is a public good ; but such remarks always appear to me as the impulse of unreflecting minds. It was never clear to my comprehension how a debt could be a benefit. In his opinions upon that subject, Hamilton in his youth possessed at least the wisdom of Burke in his age. And yet the history of MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 13 Great Britain, and of our country as well, has shown that a national debt, if it be a burden, is nothing more. We of this generation have been so long enabled to pay as we go along, that it is no wonder that the shadows of the present fiscal emergency darken the spirits of men whose life has been accustomed only to peace theories of finance. In this respect we are only reproducing the experience of those who have gone before us. It is now a hundred and seventy years since the first permanent English loan was made by Par- liament, inaugurating that policy which has astonished half a dozen generations of statesmen liy a debt constantly aug- menting and yet not visibly obstructing the prosperity of the empire. The historian who better than others has analyzed the domestic and social condition of the people — Lord Ma- caulay — has portrayed the alarm which seized upon business men and publicists as often as any accession was made to the debt of England : — " At every stage in the growth of that debt it has been seriously asserted by Avise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up tlie same cry of anguish and despair. Yet still the debt went on growing ; and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever." This apprehension reached the acme of discouragement in 1815, when at tlie close of the last of the wars with France the funded debt of England amounted to four thousand millions of dollars. " It was in truth a gigantic, a fabulous debt ; and we can hardly wonder that the cry of despair should have been louder than ever. But again the cry was found to have been as unreasonable as ever. The beggared, the bankrupt society not only proved able to meet all its obligations, but, while meeting those obligations, grew richer and richer so fast that the growth could almost be discerned by the eye." The same wTiter gives his explanation of the fallacy of those who prophesied nothing but general destruction : — 14 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. " They erroneously imagined that there was an exact analogy between the case of an individual who is in debt to another individ- ual, and the case of society which is in debt to a part of itself. They were under an error not less serious touching the resources of the country. They made no allowance for the effect produced by the incessant progress of every experimental science, and by the incessant efforts of every man to get on in life. They saw that the debt grew; and they forgot that other things grew as well as the debt." And the noble historian affirms without fear of contra- diction that England may in the next century be better able to bear a debt of eight thousand millions of dollars than she is at the present time to bear her existing load. It is quite possible that the love of the sparkle of antithesis, which marks the writings of the brilliant essayist and philosopher, may liave beguiled him into a somewhat extreme presen- tation of substantial truths ; but I think we must admit the soundness of the political economy which imparts strength to the silver nerves of his rhetoric. At all events, the views he has presented of the resources of the English nation as the solid basis for public debt, may be applied with redoubled and intensified force to the actual and prospective circum- stances of our own country. With a land affluent beyond comparison in the minerals which control civilization and supply currency and the useful arts, wanting literally nothing in the means of subsistence, overstocked with the products of diversified agriculture, a workshop and a granary for the markets of the world, teeming witli a population whose inventive genius and elastic industry as far exceed those of the older" countries as our ratio of progress has distanced theirs, and, above all, vitalized by personal freedom, which is the parent of productive power, — the United States, and ^ Massachusetts as a component part and for all her share, can bear and extinguish a debt of fifteen hundred millions with less suffering and less inconvenience than any other nation that has existed since the creation of man. MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 15 There is of course a limit to public credit. The extent to which we can safely pledge our own property and production and those of our children, cannot be very well defined. I suppose the point at which the debt of the country would cease to be secure and would begin to work national degen- eracy, would be reached whenever the debt should become so large that the productive industry of the country could not pay the interest and gradually sink the principal without stopping the general growth and progress. I have no ai)pre- hensions that we are destined to reach that point. I'irst, then, we must have sufficient revenues to meet the interest and reduce the principal. No State can e.xist and advance without adhering to this principle. It was inscribed upon the columns of the administration of Washington. At the commencement of our life, Hamilton, who brought order out of chaos, wished to see it incorporated as a fundamental maxim in the financial system of the United States, that the creation of a debt should always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment. This he regarded as the true se- cret for rendering public credit immortal. Our present neces- sities absolutely devote us to this principle. So soon as our revenues shall be seen to meet this requisition, whatever be the modes of taxation from which those revenues are de- rived, our securities will be in high favor and fe^'e^ish excite- ment will aive way to general confidence ; and until we settle that point, bank officers may visit the Secretary of the Treas- ury, and he may return the visits, all in vain. How this is to be accomplished, it belongs to Congress to study and determine. Whatever system of taxation may be at first adopted, experience will doubtless suggest improvements which can only be ascertained by exi)eriment. But for a stable credit, which shall leave men at liberty to pursue their business and labor to receive their rewards without the fear of disturbance, such measures of revenue must be as positively certain as they are unconditionally essential. And it is for the interest of every man, whether he be rich or poor, that 16 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. such taxes be at once established and maintained. Hesita- tion, doubt, uncertainty in this respect, has already produced many of our financial troubles. For nine months we have been illustrating the language of the Eoman orator, whose statesmanlike philosophy, with slight diversion from its pro- vincial and literal application, may be repeated with practical reference to our present necessities of taxation : — ^' Nam in ceteris rebus, quum venit calamitas, turn detrimentum accipitur ; at in vectigalibus, non solum adventus mali, sed etiam metus ipse, affert calamitatem." Second, this interest and sinking fund must be furnished without stopping the public growth. I do not believe we are to have that amount of debt which cannot be thus met. By the census of 1860 the value of real and personal property in the country is returned as somewhat over $17,000,000,000, and it appears that the increase since 1860 has been very much more than one hundred per cent. A sum, therefore, measured by one tenth to one fifth of the surplus or profits of this period of ten years, would liquidate the probable expenditures of the war. The property of the people of the loyal States alone is nearly $13,000,000,000. I am aware there is but little comfort to the tax-payer to be derived from this style of statement ; and yet it ought to nerve our faith and hope, to know, as well as we know anything, that if the authority of the Federal Government be re-established, our power be again asserted at home and abroad, the sea again be made to murmur with the keels of our commerce, and the vast and complicated machinery of our internal production be again set to its music, the fractional part of our annual in- crease will take care of the whole national debt before the cliild born to-day shall arrive at the age of citizenship. The property of the country is indeed the basis upon which its liabilities are upheld ; but not by that alone do I measure the certainty or time or facility of their payment. The property is the representative of production. And it is the production MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 17 of the people, it is their industry which moves on with such marvellous progression, it is the amazing vigor and versatility and self-development of their genius, which will bear a bur- den that would crush the pillars of any other government beside. In all these considerations Massachusetts is a party largely in interest. Whatever measures of taxation are to go into effect for the relief of the public treasury, the people of this Commonwealth, as a loyal and paying community, will be large partakers. They are offering their sons on the altar of the Constitution, and they expect to contribute their money and tlieir industry in the common expenditures. But there are some aspects of these financial relations, in which we of Massachusetts will appear prominently and conspicuously beyond the lot of other States. I have barely time to allude to the topic. I think it just that we should not conceal the fact that the people of Massachusetts will be compelled, by the circum- stances of their domestic condition, to pay an amount of the expenses of the war beyond their proportion of population. Any plan of internal taxation which is likely to be adopted will fall in a large degree upon the industry, upon the pro- duction and consumption, of the people ; in all of which there is no State which in proportion to its numbers presents so great a variety and luxury of life to be subjected to tribute, as this Commonwealth. The burdens of the debt cannot in any considerable measure be laid upon the lands of the peo- ple. It is not public policy that tliey should be. In Great Britain, where this matter of taxation has been reduced to almost a science, I understand that land pays directly not much more than one sixth of the whole tax. The condition of the real estate of a country is one of the standards of its civilization, and the stability and uniformity of its value must be maintained by all practicable legislation. It is therefore directly upon personal property, as one of the instruments of production, it is upon production and consumption, it is upon 2 18 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. labor and enterprise, that the next twenty years of taxation will greatly depend. In these respects Massachusetts is destined to become a prominent contributor. I find, by inspecting the statistics of the census of 1860, so far as I have seen them, that while Massachusetts returns one-seventeenth part of the real estate of the loyal States, she actually shows one-eighth part of the whole personal estate. In this particular no State is her equal, except imperial New York, and even that State is absolutely but a little in advance of us, while proportionately she is far behind us. For while New York shows considerably more than double the real property of Massachusetts, her personal is in excess of ours by a mere fraction, large and populous as New York is.^ These are striking facts. They place us far in the van of other States in respect to our personal prop- erty ; and personal property is peculiarly an exponent of •our industrial power, one of the chief instruments of our production, the tools of our industry and enterprise; and these agencies of production and industry are to a great • extent representatives of the proportion in which we shall be ibrought to bear the expenses of the war. If now you ask wdiether Massachusetts will not be called •upon to sustain burdens beyond anything she has experienced in the last forty years, I answer, certainly she will. If then it be asked whether she can bear the load, I answer, undoubt- edly she can. I invoke the testimony of her history and 'experience. Her people in days gone by have illustrated ^both the ability and willingness to support government and liberty by every conceivable sacrifice. I cannot forget that ■within two years after the engagement which is commemo- rated by yonder shaft, a tax of £100,000 was laid upon the State, "when few had a competency and none could boast of abundance." I cannot overlook the fact that in 1780 the Real Estate. Personal Property. » New York $1,069,658,080. $320,806,558. Massachusetts .... 475,413,165. 301,744,651. " MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 19 debt of Massachusetts was $5,000,000, or one-fourth part of the estimated vahiation of her property. I cannot speak of the present war without being reminded that during the Kevolution, and up to 1790, Massachusetts had actually paid towards the public expenses six and a half millions of dollars, and that this amount was afterward increased to ten millions by the incredible exertions of her small population. While I am discussing our present necessities, and the ade- quacy of our resources to meet them, a committee of the General Court of 1814 file in the area before me and report that, during the twenty-four years succeeding the adoption of the Constitution, the Federal treasury had received from Massachusetts alone thirty millions of dollars. And we are to remember that these amounts were paid when not only were our population and valuation comparatively small, but especially are we to remember that they were paid when the productive forces of the State were confined within the narrow limits of the old dispensation of her industry, which has since passed away and been succeeded by another and a better. Those great producers of the world, those great tax-payers of nations, — Arkwright and Crompton and Watt and Whitney, and their compeers in experimental science, — had not then waved their wand over the dead level of human employment. The field of our producing power presented at that period only the few original occupations of men, undistinguished and undiscriminating, plodding unconsciously towards that higher destiny of the division of labor which is blessing our day with a harvest of public wealth. Steam and water had not yet been tamed to fellowship with the click of the loom and the song of the spindle. Nevertheless, in all the simplicity of their pursuits, and in all the poverty of their resources, the men of that period responded at length to every public claim, redeemed at length every public levy, and transmitted to us the record of their sacrifices without the taint of repudiation, and without so much as the blemish of non-payment. The heritage which they bequeathed to us, and which for half a 20 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. century we have improved and embellished, this temple of our present Zion, ought now to fade away forever before our eyes, if with bold faith, if with exultant alacrity, we do not gather around it with all our hearts and devote all our resources to its defence. I have thus spoken of Massachusetts in the past, her con- tributions to the common liberties, when her financial abilities were thus restricted. But how shall I speak of her present capacity to grapple with the exigent demands of this crisis ? The glow of a new dispensation now pervades the domain of her art and labor and commerce. Under the impulse im- parted by machinery and the useful arts, she has thrown off the identity of the past age, and mounted to an elevation of productive power and wealth that finds no parallel among American communities. Since the payment of the last national debt, such progress as before would have been the measure for ages has been concentrated into the space of a single generation. Within a period of thirty years the prop- erty of the State has been increased from $208,000,000 to $842,000,000, or more than fourfold, i This valuation is a standard measure of our industry, and the consideration of it in connection with the returns of our production will justly inspire the highest hope of the future. I have already said that the ability of the people to respond to taxation is to be estimated chiefly by their producing ability, and in this respect Massachusetts is in a condition to disregard all the croakings of the sad or the disaffected. Fortunately we can point to a well-established system of statistical returns of our industry, which has already furnished volumes of facts upon which the credit of our securities defies the scrutiny of the markets of the world. The first of these volumes was issued nearly twenty-five years ago. When Mr. Webster was in London in 1839, certain English capitalists, wlio had been applied to for money upon Massachusetts bonds, the first ever issued in a ' State valuation returns. MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 21 foreign market, came to liim for information touching the credit of this parvenu on the stock list. " I went to my trunk," said Mr. AVebster, " and took out an abstract of the otticial returns of the amount of the productive labor of Massachusetts. I put this into the hands of one of these inquirers, and told him to take it home and study it. He did so, and in two days returned and invested $200,000 in Massachusetts stock." If to-day the State desired to raise five or ten millions upon six per cent stock at par, our last abstract of industry, published in 1855, woiild be the only agent we should need to negotiate the loan. With these returns in my hand, I plead our cause and our ability. If there be another com- munity of a million and a quarter of inhabitants which can place a catalogue of its industry by the side of this, expres- sive of such versatility of talent and diversity of pursuit, — so blending utility with taste, and comfort with luxury, — so intermino[linfT agriculture with what we term the useful arts, and stamping upon both the seal of a common interest and a common destiny, — so absolutely gigantic in some of its larger products, and in some of the smaller as deli- cate and attenuated as a woman's perceptions and a wo- man's fingers can make it, — so pervading the entire State, every town, village, hamlet, household, — I know not where it is to be found, certainly not on this hemisphere. Figures of speech are dwarfed by the figures of these statistics. They exhibit an annual specified production of labor in the State of three hundred millions of dollars ; and it was the opinion of the Secretary who compiled them that more accurate returns would swell the list to three hundred and fifty millions, or more than a million of dollars for every working day in the year. I have no doubt that similar returns in 1860 would have exhibited an amount of productive labor in the State of FOUR HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. It has been said that after the adoption of the Constitution, General Wasliington, at a dinner table in the midst of a party of friends, Northern 22 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. and Southern, expatiated upon the great results he anticipated for the South under the new order of things, with her rich productions and profitable exchanges, and, turning to one of his Northern guests, exclaimed, " But what will the North do ? " " We, sir," was the prompt reply, — " we will live by our wits." And the fulfilment of the prophetic reply has been consummated in our day, when a State that could be carved eight times out of the map of Virginia produces annually from her fields and workshops more than the ordinary value of the cotton crop of the United States, all counted from the ruins of Jamestown to the banks of the Sabine. It would have startled the Federal Convention of 1787 with a new sense of the grandeur of its work to have been told that, before all then born should pass to their sleep, the little Bay State, at that time without a spindle to respond to its waterfalls, should turn out in a year fifty millions in cotton and woollen fabrics ; that in 1850 it should produce one-sixth part of the aggregate manufactures of the Confederacy. Cotesworth Pinckney would have been amazed if he had been told that his State should so soon yield a cotton crop of thirty or forty millions ; but it would have been a greater shock to his nice sensibilities if he had been assured that Massachusetts would so soon give a boot and shoe crop of fifty millions. In a variety of phrase and comparison I might state the footings of the Massachusetts abstract by the side of the census re- turns of the United States in 1850, claiming for her one sixth of the iron works, two thirds of the fisheries, one sixth of the imports, and one tenth of the exports, one third of the whole ocean tonnage, and four fifths of the whale fisheries ; that while coijimercial circles are agitated every day to the year's end from New Orleans round to New York, in Liverpool, in London, by the quotations of cotton, there were a couple of hundred dealers in our own provincial Boston, whose quiet sales of raw and manufactured leather amounted to sixty millions. I might extend these facts and illustrations to the consumption of the State, and might show that there is not MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 23 probably on the face of the earth a community of equal numbers whose consuming habits and capacity make so large and constant demand upon every branch of production that yields sustenance or comfort or luxury. But I forbear. These are the glimpses of more extended views that might readily be furnished, but they are sufficient to indicate the variety and extent of our productive forces. It all comes from the division of our labor, the organization of our indus- try, the separation of our employments, the application of experimental science and the useful arts. It is this which makes our little territory imperial. The abstract to which I have referred discloses a wonderful multiplicity of occupations in every qiiarter of the State, united by constant and copious admixture of interests. It reveals production and exchange and consumption under almost every conceivable style and denomination of labor. The Commonwealth presents a scene of life and energy, of action and achievement, that possess all the interest of martial drama. Not an army has come upon the field, marshalled its squadrons, and contested its issues, each man ranging under his banner and responding to his bugle, with more of method and subordination than is dis- played by more than three hundred thousand men in Massa- chusetts as they come forth in the morning of every day, file off under their chosen pursuits, and lay down their trophies at nightfall upon the altars of home. Some three or four years since the Secretary of the State published a table of the numbers and occupations of all male persons in the Common- wealth over fifteen years of age ; and I find that they number three hundred and thirty-four thousand, a third of a million, and are classified under one hundred and fifty different occu- pations. As the eye passes over these printed columns, and the imagination follows these men to their various posts of employment, — to the tranquil fields of agriculture, to the resounding workshops, to the busy marts of trade, to the mysterious and prolific sea, — to the ponderous machine that is measured by a hundred or a thousand horses, and the subtle 24 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. conceptions of genius that work their honest ten hours in iron, brass, and copper, and never tire, — to the fine fashioning of rude woods, and the textiles wrought from the raw fibres of every land, — in short, through the vast laboratory of mortal skill which is ever at its work transmuting air and water, the earth and all that can be enticed out of it, aye, and thought and reason itself, into productions for the market and supplies for mankind, — with what a comprehensive signification does our idea of the productive labor of Massa- chusetts become invested. Such resources, capacities, developments, — such accumu- lations of stores, supplies, and wealth, — these sources and springs of our power, — are now brought to the test of con- secration for the life of the Government. I can have no doubt that they will bear us securely, independently, trium- phantly, through the struggle. They are now interrupted, but they cannot be destroyed. They will shortly, and with re- nfewed vigor, again assert their supremacy over the competi- tions of other States, over the vicissitudes and adversities of human lot. They will bear us again to fortune. Soon again the Commonwealth will resound with the echoes of industry through all her borders, and spread the sails of her commerce, the pride of the seas. The bill now under consideration especially invites our attention to the aspect of our local finances. It levies what I concede to be a large tax, $1,800,000. The nearest ap- proximation to this which we have before had in the present generation was in 1857, and that was only half the present amount. Some idea of the practical application of this bill upon tlie people of the cities and towns may be derived from a document sent in to the House by the Secretary on Sat- urday last, showing the aggi-egate of taxes assessed in the State in 1861 ; from which it appears that the total amount taxed for county, city, and town purposes, the last year, was $7,300,000. Assuming the same amounts to be raised the present year by the several municipalities for local purposes, MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 25 it will be seen that this bill will add nearly twenty-five per cent more to the public taxes. The necessity for this is cer- tainly to be regretted ; but let the people consider that it is part and parcel of the necessities of the war. Of the amount proposed to be raised by this bill, $700,000 is for the national tax assumed by the State, and nearly $500,000 is for reimbursina; to the towns their allowances to the fami- lies of volunteers. The people of Massachusetts need not be reminded that what amounts they expend in aid of the fami- lies of our brave volunteers wiU be recoiued to them in the wealth and treasure of the heart. I do not forget that the towns have incurred and will continue to incur still other expenditures on the war account, which will not be included in the reimbursements from the State treasury. The whole subject is prolific in suggestions of local economy to the peo- ple of every city and town in the Commonwealth. Severe and persistent retrenchment in municipal expenses is a para- mount duty and necessity which will have to be learned in the next twelve months. I have requested the Secretary to furnish me with a statement of the aggregate tax which will be paid into the treasury by the fourteen cities in the State, upon the basis of this bill of $1,800,000 ; and I find their proportion to be $1,006,297. I submit whether the legislative authorities of these fourteen cities, whose ap- propriations for the year probably are yet to be made, cannot save a considerable proportion of this million by measures of local retrenchment ; and the several towms might doubtless measurably follow the example. Such considerations are now suggested to the home authorities by every motive of local duty and public patriotism, and if not heeded this year, they are very likely to be enforced the next by the several constituencies. I pass now for a moment to the general condition of the finances of the State, present and prospective. The war found many of the loyal States under very heavy liabilities. It found Massachusetts substantially without a debt. I do 26 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. ^ not mean that we have not outstanding scrip to a large amount, at home and abroad ; but its ultimate and certain extinguishment has been provided for by ways and means that will involve no necessity of much taxation. The condi- tion of our public liabilities at the present time may be easily and satisfactorily stated. First, we have loaned the scrip of the State to certain railroad corporations to the amount of $5,825,000 ; but for the whole of this amount the State holds securities, and these companies may be relied upon to pay the debt. From this estimate the Troy and Greenfield Eailroad is not excepted, because, the State having given its confidence to the enterprise, I feel bound to believe that this confidence has not been misplaced. Second, we have issued upon the account of the Union Loan Fund of 1861, $2,217,500, which may be under the law carried up to $3,600,000 ; but this for the most part will be reimbursed to us by the General Government, a portion having already been re- funded. Third, we have outstanding scrip, issued from time to time upon sundry accounts of State charities and for other purposes, amounting to $1,589,000 ; and for these loans we have provided various extinguishment funds which will prob- ably in the aggregate be nearly or quite sufficient to redeem the debts at their maturity. Under this triad classifica- tion, then, I find our public debt may be stated ; and I find it also apparently provided for. Very likely there may be some deficiencies ; and it is not by any means improbable that our expenditures for national purposes and coast de- fences may not altogether fall within the legitimate rule of reimbursement by the United States. But such deficiencies cannot in any sense be a serious burden upon the State. With the amount which the present tax bill will supply, and with the added amounts of the annual revenue, we ad- vance in good condition up to January next. At that time I estimate that the State will have to provide for reimbursing the towns on account of military expenses, $2,500,000. Add to this, if you please, somewhat by conjecture, $1,000,000 MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAK TAX. 27 to cover all deficiencies before referred to, all local mili- tary claims, and unforeseen contingencies, and you have made up a debt of $3,500,000. This amount can readily be raised within two or three years ; while the ordinary revenue, increased by the measures of taxation proposed by the Finance Committee upon the funds of sundry corpora- tions, will be amply sufficient to meet our current expenses, large as they are or are likely to be. It is not a forced con- clusion, therefore, to say that the present and prospective financial condition of the State is, so far as can now be seen, free of embarrassment or apprehension. I advise every man who holds a dollar of Massachusetts scrip, to continue to hold it and cherish it. Our credit is second to that of no State in the world. As if to gild the very edges of our scrip, we have during the present session provided that both interest and principal shall be paid in coin. It has been stated with historic sanction, that when, loug ago, the little province of Holland owed a debt of $25,000,000, so just was her sense of national faith that the interest was always ready to the day, and whenever any portion of the principal was paid the public creditor received his money with tears. There is cer- tainly no good reason why the credit of Massachusetts should not now awaken similar emotions, provided only the sensibil- ities of the public creditors remain the same. Mr. Speaker, in these remarks I have confined myself to the financial relations of the war, and to our material ability to support the Government through this great crisis. The manner of conducting the war I have not discussed, because that rests in the discretion and conscience of those who have assumed the trust of guardians of our liberty. If through any fault of theirs the contest shall fall short of the sublime object which free and loyal men have at heart, the people will not be answerable. I cannot refrain from repeat- ing in this connection the language of Mr. Burke, uttered under circumstances of national peril and when appalling fancies disturbed his mind : — 28 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER 11. BULLOCK. " Tlie people [of Massachusetts] look up to that Government which they obey, that they may be protected. They have in all things reposed an enduring, but not an unreflecting confidence. That confidence demands a full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and undivided. The people stand acquitted, if the war is not carried on in a manner suited to its objects. If the public honor is tarnished, if the public safety suffers any detri- ment, the ministers, not the people, are to answer it, and they alone. Its armies, its navies, are given to them without stint or restriction. Its treasures are poured out at their feet. Its con- stancy is I'eady to second all their efforts. They are not to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure. The responsibility which they are to dread is lest they should show themselves un- equal to the expectations of a brave people. There is a responsi- bility which attaches on them, from which the whole legitimate power of this country cannot absolve them ; there is a responsi- bility to conscience and to glory ; a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity which men of their eminence cannot avoid, for glory or for shame ; a responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but even nations themselves, must one day answer." But I indulge in no such apprehensions. I have an undoubtinrr faith in the honest man who is at the head of the Government, that he will be just to all parts of his coun- try, and not forgetful of tlie principles upon wliich he was borne into office. The people of Massachusetts believe in no object worthy of exhausting their treasures and shedding their blood, less than the absolute and unconditional recovery of the authority of the Government, if that be possible. They believe that to be possible. And if, in the necessary train for the accomplishment of that purpose, any tradition or cus- tom or relation or domestic institution stand as an obstacle, — whatever it may be, — let it be swept away. The national life is the principal ; all other things are incidents. The war will terminate ingloriously for us if we reach any otlier than honorable peace ; and honorable peace is to be conquered, not purchased or compromised. MASSACHUSETTS AND THE WAR TAX. 29 It will come at last ; the war cannot continue any very- great length of time. And with peace, it is not difficult to foresee that humanity may assert her title to some share in the victory, though it be in the best of all the ways of human reform, by simple operation of natural causes rather than by prolonged violence. With peace, it is not difficult to foresee, as one of the consequences which may be evolved by Divine Providence out of this tragic epoch in the world's history, that Liberty — as we learn the word from the stately prose of Milton, from the serene benevolence of Washington, from the impetuous democracy of Jefferson — may vindicate her claim to the poet's numbers : — "More great than ever now, and more august, Now glorified, slxe from her fires does rise ; Her widening paths on new foundations trust, And opening into larger parts she flies." ADDRESS before the alumni, at amherst college, july 8, 1863. Gentlemex, Alumni of Amherst : I COULD not salute my honorable successor in the chair,^ M'ithout first felicitating you ujDon the occasion of your return to the scenes of our common attachment. Let us be happy in these reunited numbers. Having tasted the chalice of life, in whatever mixture of success and labor and care it has pleased Providence to pass the cup to our lips, we come back to these academic festivities to sweeten once more its brim with the dews of the fountain and the grove. It is true we cannot bring before us our own Commence- raent day precisely as it was. Too many of our companions already sleep. Each class especially bears a memory of its own departed. I can speak for myself ; hail, and farewell ! Some of the teachers here are strange to us. INIany of us recognize but few familiar faces among the people of the town, in which the manhood of our day has ripened into age, and the carnation of youth has given way to maturer beauty. Even these grounds and buildings liave been so altered that we are almpst compelled to inquire after the haunts of our boyhood. And yet all has not changed. The same outward nature ; the queenly Connecticut, with its valley, fairest of the in- tervales of America ; yonder masses of morning and evening mist, converting here and there patches of the broad alluvion 1 Hon. James Humphrey, of New York. ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI, AT AMHERST COLLEGE. 31 into silvery lakes, until such time as the panoramic curtain lifts before the sun and the mirage rolls away, like many a dream of our life ; the solemn configuration of this mountain range, upon which to the observant student no twilight nor moonlight has ever fallen and been forgotten ; Holyoke, and Tom, and Sugar Loaf; the undimmed crown of an Amherst sunrise ; the benediction of an Amherst sunset ; this vast am- phitheatre, with its divine garniture, vital with traditions and histories, peopled with a noble race, I have sometimes fancied bowing its mountain heads and turning partly thither the sparkling cincture of its river as if in recognition of this seat of learning as the divinity of all the scene ; — these, as we remember them, and as they have been since the morning of the creation, all these are still here, and they welcome us to- day as in the bygone times of our classic walks and contem- plation. AVhat returning and filial son, associating his alma mater with these inspiring memories of his youth, does not this morning respond to the rhapsody in which the sensitive poet upon a similar occasion gave vent to his emotions ? Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain ! Where once my careless boyhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain ! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss below, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth. To breathe a second spring. Each year as I revisit this institution I am more and more deeply impressed by the contrasts of its history. My thoughts run backward to the straits of tribulation through which the College was obliged to pass before she could assume a place in the community of letters ; to the conflict she was called to wage with principalities and powers, having no weapons for the unequal warfare, save justice, truth, and faith ; to her early but partial triumph ; to her protracted struggle with 32 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. poverty at home and prejudice abroad ; sending forth in the first years but small classes, with some such emotions as are shared by the depressed mother who commits her son to the cold charities of the world, trusting in God that he may achieve a condition better than her own. Passing then from that experience to the present time, I find the College liand- somely endowed, the monuments of her Willistons and Hitch- cocks and Searses and Walkers and Tappans, halls and temples of the school, rising from year to year on every slope ; her cabinets affluent with contributions from every clime, and I may as well say from every age of the world ; a learned and efficient corps of teachers who wear their robes proudly and well ; and a band of students thronging her avenues and corridors who do not look as if they intend ever to apologize for having been born. We may fondly believe that the insti- tution has passed the epoch of heroic struggle, and that hence- forth, sustained by economy, here and liberality elsewhere, she shall multiply her departments and extend her influence until her chaplet shall wear a leaf plucked from every field of renown or virtue. And the results are proportionate to the sacrifice and the struggle. These doors are open alike to the sons of fortune and favor and to those of ruder and less cultured surround- ings ; and by the latter, quite as frequently at least as by the former, have the harvests of the world been reaped. We invite for our system and our College public observation and comparison. The nymph of modern learning is neither coy nor enshrouded in mystery ; she is full-robed, stands out in the view of mankind, and mingles in the events of life. Our Arethusa follows no hidden channel of private luxury or pride to the objects of her love ; but rather her waters flow on with open current in the presence of the age, — in which all people may lave, from which all high causes may catch the cheer and sparkle of progress, for the healing of the nations, — enriching the coming and departing generations. The ancient mythology yields to modern action, and myth- ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI, AT AMHERST COLLEGE. 33 history gives way to practical annals. The classic story which represents a perfect youth to have been lulled to per- petual sleep that he might be bathed in the eternal kisses of the moon — which called forth from the fine though capri- cious genius of Keats his " Endymion " and masterpiece — is reversed in our time and is reproduced only in its counter- part. The model youth no longer sleeps, whether for private luxury or public example ; but, binding on the helmet of learning, and the breastplate of a virtuous purpose, and the whole panoply of the educated and practical man, he enters the arena in which all have an equal chance : he tills the land, he teaches school, he preaches the Word, he heals the sick, he acts the counsellor, he operates a machine, he writes books, he fights battles, he governs States, he is radical, he is conservative, he guides and tempers the practicalities of his public career by the sweet counsel of his private studies ; and when called to make his fellowship with the dead, he leaves behind him the track of a hero and a man. And who shall say that for actors in all this social scene and social des- tiny, the institution here present has not largely and richly contributed ? Cast your eyes around, and you behold the graduates of your College thickly scattered among all the high enterprises, the useful and the fine arts, the contempla- tive literatures, the beneficent humanities, the veiled and the unveiled glories of this and a better life. I hear of them afar teaching original languages, enlarging the boundaries of philo- logical science among the mosques and mountains and palm- trees, placing our local signet upon the literary standard of the Orient, and sending back the trophies of their research to our alcoves and cabinets, where they repose to-day. I count them to you everywhere spoken of, acknowledged, and felt among the forces and combinations that mould and guide American States, — entering the halls of the national council with the mace before them, — dressed in ermine, dispensing law and justice with ability unsurpassed, — by their power and individuality having already placed the pulpit of this land 3 34 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. in advance of all others beside, — associating the type and impression of this school with the fairest structures and high- est honors of our civil polity, — and, M-hile I am speaking, leading regiments in the field and bearing forward the eagles of the Union to victory in the sublime civil strife that is upon us. Surely, my fellow-students, wherever they are, in large numbers, in peace or war, among the living or the dead, they have annals and garlands for us, to illustrate the insti- tution whose name they bear. I feel prepared to say that Amherst has attained indemnity for the past and security for the future. Let us give her the filial all-hail. Salve, magna PARENS ! Gentlemen, a little beyond the period usually allotted to a generation of men has elapsed since our first class went forth from these halls. In all this time the number of those who have graduated here is one thousand five hundred. This, so far, is certainly an auspicious result. At the expiration of two hundred years from the foundation of Harvard, five thou- sand four hundred had received her diploma. In numbers, therefore, and for her age in years, Amherst has a title to the name of a public benefactor. Such a title, thus earned, you will appreciate if you think for a moment of the imperishable nature of mental influences. Applied to the mind and culture of a nation, which so manifestly makes and marks its history and transmits its names from age to age, we readily apprehend the truth that it is not its commerce or fields or fleets that can crown it with the assurance of immortal fame ; it is rather its genius, its mental essence, its conception of tmth and beauty and freedom and glory, that is borne in the written and spoken word to the latest time. I am afraid Cicero is a little too didactic for these days of martial events, but he uttered a significant truth for nations and individuals in declaring that but for the " Iliad " the fame of Achilles would not have been handed down through the ages. And so it is the subtle and poetic mind of Greece — surviving the oblivion which has overtaken achievements enough to ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI, AT AMHERST COLLEGE, 35 make a thousand histories since her day ; received this hour as lovingly in the schools of America as wlien it first burst upon that early civilization in the East, above even her arms and works of outward grandeur — which possesses a charmed life that cannot decay. Descending from nations to individuals, and directing our attention to the leaders of mind who have appeared at intervals in the centuries, we readily recosjnize the fact that the intellectual creations of Plato and Tully, of Bacon and Shakespeare, of Milton and Burke, first awakening the kindred inspiration of scholars and thoughtful men, thence passing into the common imderstandiug and common language of the world, acquire at last a range and circuit of power that can be measured by no finite or mortal standard. Such masters touch the responsive chord in the heart of the race; they stir into action the elements of human being as tliey exist in all countries and in all times ; and thus they themselves become ubiquitous and immortal. They realize to us the wish of the Eomau orator, that a man so accomplished as Hortensius might never die. Passing from these high examples to other gradations of cultivated intel- lect, to such positions as the greater number of educated men must be content to hold, we behold them also exercising the same exalted prerogative ; in humbler sphere, it is true, but with like quality of effect, — upon the table-land instead of the mountain top, but with the same boundless horizon. A pebble dropped in mid ocean is felt on the farthest shore ; and though this is a less striking manifestation of power than an earthquake which ingulfs a city or a navy, yet the same law of physical disturbance gives effect to both occurrences. Consider now the case of a thousand men trained in the development and discipline of liberal studies ; follow them as they go into all states, all positions, all walks in life ; behold some advancing till they become guides in statesmanship and administration, in whom large numbers, perhaps generations, place their trust ; see others mounting to the sereuest altitudes of a clergyman's empire, which comprises our entire social 36 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. condition, from " the proud man's contumely " to the pathos of a child ; look yet further to the large multitude of others, whether solacing the heart of humanity by noble words and deeds, or dispensing instruction to a rising race, or speaking a new hope in the ear of labor, or revolutionizing the tables of mortality, or adding higher intelligence and higher honor to commerce, — in whatever calling and place, all and everywhere diffusing over the scene in which they move, and therefore diffusing over the fields of time, imperishable thoughts, ideals, forms of moral excellence, of purest truth, of sweetest art, of generous patriotism, of genuine philanthropy, of Divine Love, — all and everywhere quoted, some by a continent, some by a state, others by a town, — all and everywhere reproducing themselves in the next generation by the influence they have upon their own, so that after death their lives are renewed to the end of the world. Ah, my friends, this mental influence, whether of the individual educated man or of the college that sends him forth on his mission, is an eternity. *' On, like the comet's way througli infinite space, Stretches the long untravelled path of light, Into the depth of ages ; we may trace, Afar, the brightening glory of its flight, Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." Yes, companions, " lost to human sight ; " not lost to the Omniscient Eye, not lost in the august reckoning in which institutions and persons will be called to account, not lost in the distribution of palms, not lost in the award of crowns and jewels. Gentlemen, our anniversary comes to us for the third time amid general convulsion. Our reflections, which under other circumstances^ would have been mostly those of merely per- sonal fellowship, are toned and shaded hy the shifting scenes of the national drama. The groves and fountains and temples, all the grand old histories and dreamy mythologies, the stately lAoman and the picture Greek, with wliicli the returning alumnus would gladly associate the festive hours, are now to ADDRESS BEFOKE THE ALUMNI, AT AMHEKST COLLEGE. 37 US chiefly sources of inspiration in the support of our dis- tressed country. If I were looking for the truest conceptions of loyalty and freedom, I could not pass by the colleges of New England. If by possibility there can be extenuation for him who, in the engrossments of -mere gain or mere ambition, has learned the way to give one half of his heart to his country and the other to its enemies, no door of pardon for such a crime is open to him who goes from the privileges of liberal studies to the transcendent responsibilities of present action. From civilization in its dawn, communicated to us by yonder library ; from the exalted sentiments of classic and heroic authors, among the most manly ; from the lessons thundered in our ears by the great orators, dear to every enlightened student ; from the old and the middle ages, that are swept by his memory ; from the philosophy of the mind, and from the teachings of his holy religion, — one voice only at this moment emerges ; it is the voice of the congregated past, it is the voice of the shades of the mighty dead, — Be thou TRUE, AND FAITHFUL, AND VALIANT FOR THE PUBLIC LIBERTIES. Let others, if they will, bow their heads before adverse reports when they come from the field ; the patriot scholar, enlightened, inspired, — whether the tidings come from Fredericksburg or Gettysburg or Vicksburg, — fixes a steady gaze upon the triumph of his principles. Let others, if they will, disguise disloyalty with superstition, and give up all for lost when " the birds of wide-spread wing fly to the left, towards the darkening west," — though now, thank Heaven, they all " fly to the right, towards the sun and the morning," — the patriot student turns his Homer to better use ; he invokes the spirit of the chivalric Hector, " And asks no omen but his country's cause." And we may well take pride in being enabled to say, that from the origin of this Government to the present hour the educated men of the country have taken a lead in organizing and upholding republican liberty. I am not to repeat to you 38 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. the thrice-told tale of the Revolution, emblazoned by such graduates as Otis, and two Adamses, and Warren, and Han- cock, and Witherspoon, of coequal fame. Sufficient unto us are the illustrations of our own day ; and in this great struggle I call you to witness the conduct of our own gallant boys. Nearly or quite one hundred of our undergraduates, or more than one quarter of the whole number, have within the two past years enlisted in the military service. How many of the graduates of the College are in the war I know not, but the number is large. The youths of Amherst are not second to any senior institution in the numerical force or the intelligent patriotism or the irresistible valor with which they bear up the radiant flag. They are on every field. Wliile you are trimming the lamp, they are lighting their camp fires ; while you preach truth and freedom, they practise and defend it ; while you are threading the academic walks, they are marching along the margin of the valley of the shadow of death. In exposure or sickness or battle they do not forget these scenes of their love ; let us not forget them. If they shall fall, we will reclaim their ashes if we can ; but if other- wise it must be, "the most precious tears are those with which heaven bedews the unburied head of a soldier." In the autumn of 1861 it was my privilege, as the mouth- piece of the ladies of the city in which I reside, to present to the Twenty-first Massachusetts their colors. Borne through many appalling vicissitudes, riddled by shot and stained with blood at Roanoke, and Newbern, and in other hard-fought conflicts, they received their last and enduring baptism at Fredericksburg, and have now been assigned a place in one of the rooms of the State House, where they may henceforth be seen. He who received the standard from my hands, after commanding the redment in some of the most san^ui- nary engagements of the war, and winning by his equal valor and discretion unfading laurels, honors us by his presence to-day, and affords me the opportunity of extending your OTeeting and mine to Colonel and Professor Clark. Another ADDRESS BEFOKE THE ALUMNI, AT AMHERST COLLEGE. 39 fair son of Amherst, in the dew of his youth, buoyant with the enthusiasm of a Christian hero, was present upon the occasion to which I have alluded. Side by side with Clark, young Stearns ^ went to the crest of battle, and fell in the arms of victory. Eecorded honors cluster over his grave, and the academic shades of Amherst in which his dust reposes have been consecrated for ever and ever to the country for whose government and liberty he laid down his life. 1 Adjutant Stearns, son of the President of the College, and who fell in the battle at Newbern. REMARKS on the occasion of the reception of the twenty-first massachu- setts regiment by the citizens of worcester, feb. 3, 186i. Mr. Mayor, Officers and Men of the Twexty-first, and Fellow-Citizens : On the 23d day of August, 1861, one of the sweetest and brightest of our skies, when the sun was descending behind the curtain of these Western hills, the Twenty-first Eegiment was drawn up in line on yonder camp ground to receive its regi- mental colors and the public greeting of the vast assemblage which had convened to bid them hail and farewell. More than a thousand men, freshly from their homes in Worcester and Hampden and Franklin and Berkshire, stood expectant for the last word of our fraternal sympathy and the bugle- note of their departure. The ceremony was quickly over; they filed through our streets, and were lost to our sight until to-day. But in the interval we have heard from them, Massachu- setts has heard from them, the world has heard from them ; — on the tedious voyage, on the long marches, amid the silent watches and camp fires, in the hospital, on the picket, in many a skirmisli, in nine pitched battles, — Roanoke, New- bern, Camden, Bull Run 2d, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Knoxville, — wherever the flag has called them, wherever the enemy of their country could be found, wherever God has opened the portals of glory to wel- come the soldier of liberty. KECEPTION OF THE TWENTY-FIRST MASS. REGIMENT. 41 And now, fellow-citizens, follow these men from their camp in Worcester to Annapohs, to North Carolina, back to Vir- ginia, to Maryland, to Tennessee, through four States in rebellion, — everywhere patient, enduring, triumphant ; never despairing of their country, never dishonoring their States never losing their flag; all and everywhere the same, — at the morning drum-beat, in the shock of battle, in the funeral procession to the bed of a comrade's rest; — remember that all but twenty-four have re-enlisted to see the end of the war and the end of its cause, and tell me if they do not make their history on their march and carry it with them, if their reward is not in all your hearts, and if their praise shall not be known and heard on earth till it shall merge in the reveille of the resurrection. And now they return to us. But of all whom I had the honor to address two years and a half ago, only one-fourth part are here. In the history of the wars of Europe we read of the decimation of armies. This war, between men of the same race and of the same national fraternity, tells a sadder story than that. Of those who went forth from Worcester as members of the Twenty-first, ten officers have passed to their sleep. One hundred and sixty enlisted men have, while in service, transferred their names to the roster of another life. Three hundred men have fallen by wounds which proved not to be mortal. Forty men have been taken prisoners, — only forty, for these men prefer not to be captured. Count those disabled, discharged, worn out, then add the gallant present, and the tale of the Twenty-first is completed. But not with- out a word for those who sleep in death. Ye blessed men, of enviable lot ! The dews of heaven shall keep ever verdant the turf that covers your ensanguined dust ! Earth has no higher honor, music no tenderer dirge, freedom no loftier hallelujah, than those which accompany your names to im- mortality. Of the officers to whose fate I referred, Adjutant Stearns fell at Newbern, Lieutenant Holbrook at Antietam ; all the 42 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. others, save one killed by accident and one who died by disease, — Lieutenant-Colonel liice. Captain Frazer, Captain Kelton, Lieutenant Bemis, Lieutenant Hill, Lieutenant Beck- with, — were killed in the slaughter of Chantilly, where, almost without any general commander at all, the Union boys of the ranks saved the capital from the hands of the enemy. Adjutant Stearns is not more lastingly embalmed in the hearts of the regiment than in the heart of all patriotism and all piety. Late in the afternoon of the 20tli of July, 1861, when the dismal tidings of the first Bull Run vibrated over the wires through the towns of ]\Iassachusetts, Clark and Stearns, the one a professor and the other a student in the College at Amherst, joined their hands and united their oaths over the disaster, and within six hours they turned the keys of their doors on the outside, and gave themselves to the bloody fortunes of the Union. The living is here to speak for himself ; I speak only for the dead. Stearns was in the dew of his youth, in the enthusiasm of the love of God, of his country, of human nature. He fell at Newbern, in tlie victory of your arms. No purer spirit has been added to the sublime oblation of war. In kindness, in justice to his father, my friend, and in tender respect for his own heroic sacrifice on the altar to which we all may come at last, I offer him the ineffectual tribute of my farewell. " Blest youth ! regardful of thy doom, Aerial hands shall build thy tomb, With shadowy trophies crowu'd ; "Whilst Honor, bathed in tears, shall rove. To sigh thy name through every grove, And call her heroes round." Lieutenant-€olonel Ilice is well remembered in this county of Worcester. He was, I believe, an honorable mechanic in tlie town of Ashburnliam. He long commanded as Colonel our old Ninth Eegiment of the volunteer militia, and was one of those representative military men who served in time of peace to keep up the organization and preparation for the EECEPTION OF THE TWENTY-FIRST MASS. REGIMENT. 43 time of war. And when the war blast came, without pride of rank, without hesitation, counting the cost, and knowing the venture, he stepped forth from his peaceful pursuits and gave up his life that his country might live. Men of the Twenty- first ! on the day in August, 1861, already alluded to, in behalf of the women who now fill these galleries, I handed to you your colors. I tlien said to you, "Eeverence this flag in the hour of security, and honor it in the clustering battle." Brave men, you promised to do it, and you have kept your pledge. The thunders of Roanoke and Newbern, the horrors of Chantilly and Freder- icksburg, the blazing glories of Antietam and Knoxville, — the soil of four States stained by your blood, — the evidence of Burnside and Reno and Magi and Clark and Hawkes, — the spirits of the unsheeted dead you have left in rude graves behind you, whispering in your ears to-day from the galleries of the sky, — your own presence here, — this color-bearer before me [Sergeant Plunkett], whose plucky soul still marches on custodian of the flag, — these streets, this hall, crowded to honor and bless the present and to revere the departed, — all, all bear a testimony as conspicuous and enduring as if lettered over the heavens from pole to anti-pole, that you have kept your pledge. No further proof is wanted, but one other proof remains. It is your own dear, tattered, blood-stained flag ! Brave men of the Twenty-first, behold your flag ! It has conducted you through the storm and fire and smoke and blood of battle ; cheer it now that it has left you and taken its place in history. Look upon it, ye men and women of Worcester, — behold it riddled with ball and bullet in seven memorable conflicts, beginning with Roanoke and ending with Antietam, — then look again, and behold the ghastly rents made by the shell at Fredericksburg, and see the stripes of red and white merged in crimson by the blood of the fallen brave ! Look upon it, ye who gave it, and strew the paths of these brave boys with the beauty and fragrance of flowers ! Look upon it, ye men of Worcester, who have done but little 44 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK, and could have done more, and ye who have done much and could do no more, — look upon it, according to your con- science, with satisfaction or with repentance, — and resolve that henceforth the life of the Eepublic shall engross our hearts, our fortunes, and, if need be, our blood and our lives. Look upon it, Colonel Pickett and men of the Twenty-fifth, and behold what reward awaits you when the residue of your great re-enlistment shall come home and be received in tliis heart of Massachusetts. Look upon it, ye men of the Fifty- seventh, and behold what exalted honor is in store for those who go forth for Union and Liberty and Humanity. And now, Mr. Mayor, men of the Twenty-first, and fellow- citizens, let us not forget our destiny and our dependence. For the approaching end, and for the result, already apparent, which shall thrill the heart of humanity to the end of time, not unto ourselves, but unto Thee, Almighty God of our fathers, shall be all the praise, forever and forevermore ! THE EELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN WITH AMEEICAN NATIONALITY. / ADDRESS BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE, AUG. 1, 1864. We have no choice of theme. If we seek a thesis for this hour in the circles of thought wont to be our privilege and our charm, — among the curiosities of literature or abstract speculation, or in the ages of men and events remote from our grasp, and yet hitherto all the more attractive for the dim twilight through which the scholar followed them up to the sources of their life and power, — it is in vain, and our heart comes back to this our own America, to this the day of her trial, and goes out into all the scene of her epic action. The train of our reflections is peremptory. Isolated by the decrees of Providence, shut out from the galleries of history to the necessity of vindicating our own, compelled to drop the tone of exultation and to hold glory and hope in abeyance, until — yeoman, student, and soldier alike — we fight our way back to our imperiality, our contemplations are shaped and controlled by our situation. And yet let not your speech or mine be of a lost Pleiad, or an expiring nation, or Capi- toline ruins, or unbelief, or despair. You who are about to pass through the gateway of the school to a larger respon- sibility and action more grand, you who remain a little longer for preparation more ample, and those of us who have preceded you many years, — all of us, — all of us, — let our thought be hopeful, let our speech to others give the sound of a conscious- ness of national life to be continued and renewed, of victories 46 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. yet to be won, of a future that shall challenge nations to the prize, whether of fleets or armies or peace or humanity. That is the only omen for us. That is the only picture for a student, — in the darkest and most uncertain day, if govern- ment and prophecy and arms seem to fail, still let him gaze upon that picture and no other ; animum pictura pascit inani. We are here, then, to give the passing hour to the rela- tions OF THE educated MAN TO AMERICAN NATIONALITY. I might speak of the country, or national life, but I use rather NATIONALITY as comprehending the whole, — not as a rhapsody or sentimentality, but as comprising the inward sentiment and the outward form of all that which most interests us to-day. 1. In the first place, think how great a thing a nation is. Do not regard it as only the aggregate of individuals, but try to apprehend it as a power and a life, an agency, the agency and instrumentality among the providences of God and the designs of his glory. We are indeed a part of it, but only for a moment. We live not our lives merely, but we live a state of consciousness that runs back and prefigures among the "eternities, blending with the ages past and bidding the next ones hail. Continental geography is its handmaid, but not its name, and would be nothing without it; the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, from their frozen source, over all their majestic flow, till they mingle with the outer world, are obscure streams save as they waft the parental idea and promote the parental renown. These mountain ridges, gulfs, bays, which divide us and yet unite us, whose prodigal beauties and profitable commerce make a part of our boast, our literature, our song, might as well reclaim their pi-imeval solitudes, if they respond to no common heart, no one sweet jurisdiction, no one protective flag. This mixture of races, source of our invigoration, elasticity, and stimulation beyond what has been seen on the globe, — let them dissolve and revert to the fogs of Great Britain, the factions of Ger- many, the snows of Swedeland and Norway, if for them THE KELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 47 and for us we are to have no common chord, no national melody. The organism of a nation ! It infolds and blesses races ; it perpetuates traditions, ideas, examples, principles ; it is full of the germs of the growth of cities, great industries and prosperities ; it vibrates to the step of tlironging masses of men who march like an organized army to culture and power; it is sealed to the purposes of God's creation by temples and schools, social aesthetics, the purities and the beatitudes on earth, the ties which connect generations, the life of poetry and art, the sacred custody of the ashes of the dead, the assurances of progress which shall encircle the next age with the fruit and shade of a better condition, the guardianship of worship which since the harp of the Orient was strung to the cadences of national success and woe has joined the comfort of patriotism to the solace of religion ; it is the sleepless sentinel of life and liberty and property to coming and going millions ; it is the schoolhouse of rising generations ; it is the august arbiter of justice ; it is the peaceful angel of our tastes and humanities ; it is government, without which, in obeyed and felt majesty, there is no development for man, no mission for woman, no sleep for children. How sublime the life of a nation ! and how, according to modern experience and conception, it is the offspring of the continuity of the centuries. It is the treasury of histories. If it fall, the inspirations of vast annals perish with it ; for national life is the illuminated chain connecting all annals with the popula- tions and welfares to come. It is a great loss to lose a country. In this stage of the world we cannot afford any- where to begin anew. The preservation of the past — of the past realized, of our own past — is essential to the hopes of the future. There can be no such death as the death of the animating, the teaching, the inspiring history of a nation ; and yet, saddest of catastrophes, when a country dies, its annals lose their mission, its historic unities pass away, afloat on the viewless air ; men will continue to play with them as 48 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. antiqiiaries for their amusement, but with the loss of their home and abiding-place, their life and instruction are gone forever. For the extinction of its historical lessons, traditions, exhil- arations, it matters not much whether a nation perish outright, ingulfed by an earthquake, undermined by rapid decay, or disappear by disintegration and new constructions. The greatest gap, the most ghastly chasm in the progressions of the race, comes of the rupture of historical connections. The moment national existence terminates, the philosophy of its examples becomes shadowy, fabulous, lost. When Sj)arta and Athens disappeared from the map like a dream, how surely and how quickly the pall of uncertainty dropped on the mighty power of their lesson. Mist and darkness, myth and fable, followed in their track. Eead Herodotus and Plutarch and Grote, and compare them with all the Avriters, for the instructions of that day ; observe what doubt hangs over the whole scene, — as to who fought those battles and how, as to who WTote many of those orations and songs, as to who lived and led those states. The practical connection is lost : and for most of the good that comes to the consummation of man and the glory of God, with the departure of Greece from the list of nations living lier lessons and traditions departed also. If you doubt this, M'hich I assert as a sad truth, try it among your earliest efforts of public oratory ; draw your historical parallels from Greece, or Eome, or tlie Italy of somewhat later date but now gone to the shades, and then take your illustrations from England or America ; and while your auditory will yawn and sleep over the former, they will give to the latter open ears, rapt and suffused eyes. Washington went to Philadelpliia in 1V87 to preside over the Constitutional Convention, carrying a synopsis of the ancient republics, his own preparation and study ; but there is no evidence that in all the long session he ever unrolled his manuscript. And so it is and will be. When you extinguish a nationality, you commit to forgetfulness the guides of ciy- THE llELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 49 ilization ; you quench the lights of a common literature ; the luminaries which liave conducted generations of men to accu- mulative fame become obscured ; the masters of thought are jostled out of their living sanction and lie evermore in the haze which increases as it gathers over a lost people. If you were to break up the union of Great Britain, tlie worst of all calamities w^ould be that you would dissolve the spell of names wliich have flamed in all the heavens ; a hun- dred years would not elapse before Chatham and Burke and Pitt and Canning, and their great compeers, would cease to be felt as living authorities, would have no home-bound charm, no awful sanction of empire or country, and would speak to the hereafter with voices scarcely more audible than those which echo from, her dark-aged abbeys. If you break up the union of America, that lettered glory of the Eevolutionary period which has stimulated three genera- tions, that learning and eloquence of the constructive period which followed, that valor of fathers and sons which has sheeted so many a State and sea with flame, that honor of our neutrality and dignity of our diplomacy, tliat wealth of record and biography and legend, that continuous vic- tory of peace which has set our stars as signets on every mountain, valley, or ocean, that renown of the wise men, that wisdom of Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and Adams and Webster, in which we live each day and rise to heroic purpose, — before this class now gradu- ating should go to its sleep, these, with all their associate values and attractions, would pass away from gaze and love, and the image of Washington, the great and venerable, would be veiled forever and forever. " The great historical hour " menacing such a catastrophe is upon us. The mission of some of you begins wdiile the great shadow is passing over us. Never had the heart of youth such fascination before it for a solemn study and a happy self-sacrifice and a radiant life. The classic spirits of ancient and modern days combine to light your path and to 4 50 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. inspire your conduct. That rich legacy which the early Quincy, dying on shipboard under our Eastern projecting headland, in the first hour of his country's agony, bequeatlied to the infant son, who, almost a century later, and only last week, took the elegiac honors of Harvard, — how fit an inheritance for every boy of the free North in this day of fate : — "I give to my son, when he shall arrive to the age of fifteen years, Algernon Sidney's Works, John Locke's Works, Lord Bacon's Works, Gordon's Tacitus, Cato's Letters. May the spirit of Liberty rest upon him ! " 2. In the next place, as you step forth to action, consider American nationality in its unity and in its diversity. And first, its unity. Never before has any nation exhibited such apparent unity and design in the relations of Providence and historic development. Eecall the growth and consolida- tion of other empires, and observe over what broad fields of time they range, and with how little of rounded completion or connection. The historical threads which connect the past with the present of England or France run in confusion of inextricable maze over a thousand years ; and it has seemed to me that there is more of ingenuity than good sense in the modern tlieory which attempts to trace through all these convolutions any appreciable current of unifying processes, as if one of the stages liad a palpable connection of logic or sequence with a remote century preceding or following. At all events, the periods are too long, there is too much mystery and monkery and darkness over them all, too many petty squabbles and great strifes without sufficient cause or intel- ligible result, too much that seems accidental, too many reversals of policies and epochs, to make it easy for you or me to take in tlie idea of the rational, logical, distinct growth of a national unity from Alfred or Charlemagne until now. ;More conspicuous and inferential, — in part, perhaps, because more recent, — certainly more striking and impressive, is the THE KELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 51 idea of causation and unity running through our national life. There appears to be a marvellous beauty of design from our beginning. God kept America unknown to Europe until old things should have passed away and all things become new. This nationality was not to be vexed by the old schoolmen, their alchemy and astrology, their pursuit after the philoso- pher's stone, their outlawry of the arts and inventions which elevate the race, their cruelties and impracticabilities. The generations devoted to " trimming the lamps of ancient sepul- chres " were to go to their burial before the Western nationality should be born. A new leader was to appear, and a new philosoj)hy, to usher in the eras of which we were to become at once partakers and ultimately the masters. Bacon, rising in full-orbed splendor, and America, mounting in the hori- zon, — these were to be contemporaneous occurrences. The one was to furnish the world with instructions and examples as mucli more magical in their effect than anything preced- ing, as the vitalized English of John Bunyan surpasses the Latin mockeries of St. Peter's and the Vatican ; the other was to accompany the new dispensation on its mission and conduct it to its divine results. And it has sometimes seemed to me, as one of the coincidences of history which imply a Providence, that the same year (1620) which witnessed the conclusion of one of Bacon's great works, which more than any other of them all and great was destined to turn the current of the human mind to the achievement of that social progress of which we more than any people are sharing the benefits, was also witness of the establishment on the shores of this continent of a new political power in the earth, — another nationality, — whose destiny it lias been to apply and expand his lessons with results that cast all the experience of former time into an eclipse. If that original founder of our opening era could have foreseen how his instructions would, ere the lapse of two centuries, spread their roots over a country then reposing in the sleep of unawakened nature, his prescient genius would have anticipated the lyric prophecy of Bishop 52 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. Berkeley, uttered a century later at Newport, — our talisman, our watchword of America, — ' ' There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empiiie and of arts." And so our nationality started, out of the unities of Provi- dence, to accept and develop the new and wise philosophy which was to apply social progress to the welfare and freedom of mankind. And so it has proceeded and succeeded. It has made tlie age of industry an age of power ; has crossed all mountains and all seas ; has borne our influence to the Ganges and the Amazon and the Andes; has made California and Columbia and Australia to glow in our diadem ; has estab- lished the electric current from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; has furnished ships and steam-engines for the Sultan and the Czar ; has taught the world to build iron-clads, and to destroy them ; has consecrated genius and art to a million-handed machinerv. which draws out the treasures of the earth and moulds them into all the conceptions of a grand civil econ- omy. What an epic of national unity is this of our art and power ! And how it mantles on the cheek of American life and American nationality ! Who of you does not love to gaze in the fires of ancient mythology, and recall the olden chivalry of the sea ? But this our epic breathes a loftier and more heroic romance. It furnishes no commercial Argonauts to feel their lazy way over the Euxine for a golden fleece, but it beats music to a thousand steam-engines traversing three temperatures of its inland Nile ; it keeps the waters of five Mediterraneans murmuring with its argosies ; it has founded States on both sides of its imperial mountain, and laves them with waters from the same springs that flow to either ocean ; it has thrown t)pen Japan, and is at work upon the temper of the Celestial Empire ; it has strewn the shores of the Polar seas with the graves of its maritime martyrs ; and, since some of you commenced your studies, it has discovered and opened the golden gate at Panama, and interpreted the dream which oppressed Columbus in his dying hour. THE RELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 53 Take a further glance at the uaity of our historic stages. You will begin with the early discoveries, settlements, coloni- zations. You see the Puritans rearing the ensign of a religious organism in New England ; the real and shabby gentlemen starting on a speculation in Virginia ; the French, of all re- ligions and of none, encamping in the West ; the Huguenots, of a Christian chivalry, planting a hope in the fartlier South ; — and you behold them extending and expanding over a hundred years towards a common centre of colonial power. Then comes the next and more appreciable era, — the colonial period, — full of individualities, and yet of commonalty and unity. The story is too familiar for repetition : how for fifty years and more these peoples, religions, interests, races, from their various sources and quadrangular settlements, gradually, but with all the prestige of destiny, were constantly drawing nearer and nearer to a centralization of colonies ; how the parentage of England guided and protected them, and while it thought of their limitation, acted all the while for their exaltation, — impressing the colonists into European wars, but thus educating them for another war which was to come, — giving us the Washington and adjunct heroes that no other discipline could have made. And then comes another stage in the historic continuity, — the Revolutionary period, — about which, as this hour is short and is no part of the Fourth of July, I will not say one word. Once more, and we reach the historical crystallization in which under a con- stitutional Union the free provinces became one, — as the individualities of Greece endeavored not quite effectually to be when Philip and Alexander threatened them like a dark gathering cloud, — as the provincial individualities of Italy at times have tried all in vain to become. The work was accomplished ; the States became a unit ; the drama was vindicated : — ' ' The foul" first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day." And SO, ever since, this miracle of the world has gone for- 54 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. ward. In seventy years the Alleghanies have receded to the Father of Waters, the Rocky Mountains have bowed before the spirit of the Union as it advanced to the great serene Pacific ; a broad, active, violent nationality, free, impetuous, resistless, conscious of the power of unity and therefore ambitious, has brought us — I need not say how, for it is too familiar — to the situation of the homogeneous re- public. And thus your democratic nationality, whether you con- sider it as a birth under the new pliilosophy of Bacon, or a growth under four eras of logical development since, stands before you isolated from all the analogies of history, — a colossal product out of tbe cycles of Providence, — an essen- tial flower out of the germinations of the conflicts and fatigues of the race, — a grand national personality, moving easily, naturally, consciously, to its destiny, — a unity in its origin, and knitted to closer unity by the absolutism of its own situation and the lapse of its time and its strifes. It has recognized at all times its members and its parts, but has acted at all times as a whole. Its vitality, instinct, hope, are all its own; and these, combining with its fleets and armies, with the thunders of its ordnance and the vespers of its religion, have never ceased to give that challenge which virtue and independence offer to every foreign in- terloper or intruder, — whether the continental jailer of France or the great Insular hypocrite, — to every traitor leader, whether movimf under the standard of the Palmetto, or the Pelican filthy and odious. Against them all we have an inheritance to defend. Think next, and briefly, of this nationality in its diversity. All leading nations are heterogeneous. The identity of a nation is always more or less disturbed by a variety of sub- ject races, alien populations, and discordant tongues. France is not without this element, and the British Empire is alive witli its perturbations. Her drum-beat around the globe strikes the ear of every religion, her crown has to be adapted THE EELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 55 to every form of law, and the pavement of her court is tessel- lated with memorials of every species of humankind. We encounter this element here, but it masters itself under the influence of that spirit of personal liberty which welds all classes and races. Other and greater causes of diversity are a part of our peril. You have thought — and I hardly ought to remind you — how great a trouble it has been, that these States were all separate in their origin, and have been so over the whole range of their history, some of them two hundred and forty years ; that in all this time provincial idiosyncra- sies have become indurated, the pride of local annals and the passion of a local attachment have grown to be a first nature, — counties, boroughs, towns, being the only thing known to many, and the individual State being the idea consecrate of even great and cultured men ; tliat over all this period, save only the space of two short foreign wars, these millions of people in their daily thought and life, whether they were establishing their schools or building their churches, or mus- tering their militia or cultivating their arts, or paying their taxes or burying their dead, have felt chiefly the visible, gentle, guiding hand of the home-provincial government as a tutelary divinity, but have seen the overshadowing national parentage only afar ; that even in war the State flag holds its place, and asserts its speciality, and vaunts its particular renown, while the national bugle gives the only peal to the strife. All these details, and many more, belong to the fact which stands imperishable, strikes its roots farther back and lower down than the Constitution, and drops its fruit, some- times bitter and sometimes sweet, over the whole plane of our historic union, — the fact that the State is older than the nation, that it attracts to itself the first thoughts, the ten- derest memories, the most palpable allegiance. We think we can forget this fact now when all the tribes are in arms for a common cause ; but it is not quite forgotten yet, when comparisons or jealousies pass now, even now, between the West and the East, whilst the sons of both die side by side, 56 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. in the same trenches. Our fathers could not escape it while they were passing through the first terrible baptism. At that early day ^taiism was the bane of nationality ; it reared its crest among the conscript fatliers of the Continental Congress, as John Adams and others have told us too well. And how it broke out in the presence of the sorrowful countenance of Washington in the Constitutional Convention, one State de- daring itself ready to appeal to a foreign sword for its rights, and how the adjustment came at last only from the connsels of Madison and Franklin, the journals and traditions apprise us too sadly ; and how it has under one form or another continued since to vex the whole and humiliate the North, our memo- ries are laden to repletion and our hearts to aching. These diversities have taken their afdnities and have crystallized at length around two forms, — State rights and chattel slavery, — the latter gradually drawing to itself the former, and now confronting the unit of our power for the last time. To rec- oncile these diversities with a conceded nationalism, concession and compromise li^xve levied their tribute on the ingenuity of statesmen, and more than once have dropped the plummet to the depths of human degradation. The test will be applied again. We have now reached the ultimate struggle between unity and diversity in our system of national life. The choice is before us. Compromise, which between right and wrong means the surrender of the right, if assented to in the super- lati\'e degree to our shame, might possibly yet herald the old Union back, and set our nationality moving again in the sphere of its weakness, and crown slavery with the national jewels, and place the architects of treason on their accus- tomed tripods in the Senate Chamber, and confer upon the free millions a'bricf term of peace, in which to contemplate America arched with the graves of their sons to accomplish sucli a result. Rather than that, please God ! welcome any other fortune which war may bring in its sad, long train. Some of you pass into the activities of life while the heavens over us thus frown. The love of peace is natural ; THE KELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 57 and peace is greatly needed. But you do not doubt that peace must have virtue and honor, or confusion and war are better. You will not forget a lesson of your classics, that humiliating compromises and corrupt coalitions have sometimes marked a nation in the later stages of its degeneracy. I feel sure that you will be brouglit to this trial. Two or three times during the war, signs have appeared in the sky. I do not know how much of exact authenticity may be attached to recent nebulous movements and nebulous characters ; but when Mr. Jefferson Davis sends his vicegerent to seek diplomacy at Washington, and the arch-traitor of New York proposes in Congress an armistice and a mission to Richmond, and from the rookery of unclean birds on the Canadian cliff beyond the cataract a new brood starts forth to shriek and decoy, we may well enough suppose that there is some meaning in it all. These seeming questions of amateur diplomatists, whether cunning or foolish, we may safely trust to the sagacity and intuition of the President of the United States ; and all else let us meanwhile confide to Grant and Sherman. And yet, these tests of seductive and delusive compromise, meaning either a dissolution of this Confederacy, or the restoration of the old masters to intensified despotism, are likely to try you, I pray leave to remind you of one of the parallels of history ; for you will quite surely see in such demonstrations, when they occur, the presence of men of your own section and men of States in rebellion. You will not forget that Octavius was marching to encounter Antony and Lepidus at the very moment when a meeting for a coalition between them had already been con- certed. The show of war went on, while the preparations had already been conceived to apportion the provinces and the honors ; the illustration is apparent and the analogy needs no explanation. They met and accommodated on an island of the Ehenus, as the modern conspirators would meet and ac- commodate on the Potomac or the Eappahannock. The last of the terms of compromise agreed upon by the Triumvirate was the proscription and death of certain prominent friends ; 58 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCIL it was difficult, but each at length consented to tlie sacri- fice of some of the best of his adherents, as our compromis- sorial ambassadors would consent to impale tlie liberties of their country and apply the attainder of proscription to the representative men, if not the representative States, that have stood by the just cause. It behooves you to mark the fate of a scholar who hesitated and vacillated, — who believed in Eome and her liberty, but thought too much and too long of the honors of office. The head of Cicero was fixed upon the rostra between the two hands, — "a sad spectacle to the city, which drew tears from every eye." And now permit me to recall you to the common duty of maintaining the unity of this empire. The difficulties are grave and many. They are enhanced by the philosopliy of our system, which is freighted with fraternal loves and fra- ternal antagonisms ; by a long history and a large experience which liave taught us too frequently a discordance of attach- ments and of policies, but mainly, and as a whole, the ne- cessity of one life, one hope, one glory. Above and around all these civil diversities stands tlie majestic edifice of Ameri- can nationality, raised by the valor and wisdom of our fathers, and connecting these provincialities and dependencies with one supreme whole, more powerful, more free, more happy, than the separate fragments could hope to be if living to the end of time ; and it is to the subordination of provincial independencies that the grandeur of American citizenship all over the globe owes its existence. In the name of that right to NATIONAL UNITY we accept the necessity of the hour ; and, perceiving the nucleus around which all these elements of diversity and mischief have gathered at last, we will direct our policies of peace and of war to the end that it shall be removed forever from all connection with the government which it has contaminated and the nationality which it has put on the peril of its life. Nearly two years ago this policy was pronounced by the President. Prior to that event the national spirit faltered and relucted. Piut the appearance of THE RELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 59 the first Proclamation of Freedom, while it chained the thrones of Europe to their neutrality, electrified and saved the heart of America. Her nationality at once beat to the instincts of courage and hope, and " Suddenly embued with holy grace. Like the transition of some watery cloud In passing o'er the moon's refulgent disc, Glowed with new life." The firm President adheres to it, with no retracing steps. To the astonished vision of the wretched cabal of the Clifton House, his purpose, his promulgation, shines forth in all the radiance of the rainbow, which sways only to take the rays of the sun and lives among those eternal thunders. " Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of Slavery ! " Be this our ritual and our liturgy. Do you tell me we cannot succeed under it ? I tell you we cannot suc- ceed under any other. Let us take the decree and with the old colors wrap it to our heart. Better this Nationality should wander among the spirits of the lost republics, and go through the ages to rustic music with the uncomplaining shade of John Brown, with not another victory on earth, if only it may die here within the pale of the favor of God, — rather than it should sell its liberty, its honor, and its con- science to a rebel in arms or to an enemy wearing the garb of a friend nearer home. 3. It remains that I speak of the special duty of the edu- cated man, as a controlling popular agency, to enlighten and preserve the national spirit. Has not Washington said that, "in proportion as the Union rests on public opinion, that opinion must be enlightened " ? Under the laws which govern that opinion, your instrumentality begins early, and increases as the sphere of your life enlarges. Wilberforce wrote for the public press at the same time that "he excelled all the other boys in his scholarship ; " and at tw^enty-seven he said his mind was oppressed with "the great scenes of CO ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. bondage," and that " God liad set before him the reformation of his country." The very boys in Home were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, carmen necessariuvi. The sons of the universities, all who think, speak, write, — to them a free and intelligent people offer the attentive ear and the confiding mind. In the complicated action of society we are directed largely by our positive knowledge, yet perhaps in a greater degree by our confidence in others. Faith, — shall I say ? — more fre- quently than philosophy, governs the conduct of states. Our venerable religion lives upon so simple a I'act as that. The analogy extends and pervades all life. Thus it becomes a law of our social progress, that the leaders of the general mind wield their influence by a twofold rule of efficacy. The first is that by which electric thought, sentiment, inspiration, pro- ceeding from those who constitute the intellectual advance guard, descend through the medium of print and speech to the current of mind below, — " brightening and i^urifying throudi the air of common life." The other rule is that which impels men, on their instinct and experience, to accept others as their guides, their standards. This is of more ex- tended application among a free people than a favorite theory of public flattery is willing to proclaim. That is a public opinion in health and vigor which, while it thinks for itself, also follows the light of its lawgivers, scholars, statesmen. Such a public opinion moves with power. Greatly has this appeared in those countries of such popular organization that educated mind has come into immediate contact with the rank and file of the state. On the one hand, this faith in others, and on the other, this frequent direct intercourse of elevated minds with the common understanding, gave to the gallant little republic of Athens her seal of renown. Eeceiv- ing in trust the lessons of her noble lawgiver, and bringing her ear to the voices of those who in public speech expounded them, she became great as she was free, and ascended rapidly the pathway of fame. For a century and a half her proud THE KELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 61 and lofty head never drooped. And in the gradual with- drawal of her trust in the exalted genius and patriotic spirit which remained steadfast longer than she, we must date the decline and decay from which at last the wisdom of her Phocion and the startling notes of her Demosthenes sought in vain to arouse her. Ours is a frovernment of Grecian model. This heritage has come to us out of the master spirits who commanded the confidence of the people in the early days. The Eevolutionary period first dawned in their souls. Adams, Lee, Witherspoon, others, trained in the conflicts of the university, strengthened on all the fields of professional labor, moulded, directed, or- ganized, the reason and the passions of the colonists to their final determination. In the constitutional period which fol- lowed, Madison in Virginia, Hamilton in New York, Ames in Massachusetts, known as masters of the collected wisdom of ages, were taken in confidence as pilots on a stormy sea. Always has it been so here. Americans — no people more — respect the closets and alcoves and galleries ; and those whom they behold coming out of them, with modesty but heroism, with learning but not pedantry, with dead languages but living sympathies, with bosoms heaving not with the dry cough of damp and mould but with sentiments generous enough for nations and humanity, — scholars, orators, thinkers, men, soldiers, — all such they clasp with hooks of steel, and perish never but in their embrace. These are the men who do more than their own thinking, wherever assigned, — often quite as effectually in private as on the grander public stage. Cicero at Tusculum exercised the finest influence of his life ; Everett in his retirement furnishes inspiration for loyal mil- lions at home and in the field. Never in any country, as in ours, has the educated mind been such a "bright, particular star." Never in any country, as in ours, has the heart of a people turned to liberalized and lettered men. I have alluded to the epoch of the Revolution which was guided by them, to the epoch of the Constitution 62 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK which rested so chiefly upon them. But after that, when parties formed, and the Eepublic divided altogether and in- tensely under two, Jefferson did the thinking of the one, and Hamilton of the other, as no men before by only intellectual efficiency controlled a people having a government. Of Jefferson — so vital to-day is this country with the authority of his learning, his philosophy, and his politics, all now re- flected from his nine printed volumes and a thousand tradi- tions beside — I need speak no more ; but of Hamilton, one word. You know how he commenced, coming out of Colum- bia College, almost without a beard, and firing New York to arms before his name was known. That prescient intuition, that great judgment, that clear reason, that cultured soul, went onward and upward, counselled Washington for twenty years and till he passed away ; and when Hamilton died, a young man still, in thirteen States men wrote and spoke and wept as if they had lost faith in their understanding. He was out of office when he fell, sixty years ago, the finest genius of all American generations thus far, second perhaps to Edwards as a dialectician, but first of publicists. The tidings of his untimely death in its rapid spread cast a pallor over half a people who leaned upon his intellect and believed in his conclusions. The command of an intellectual lead- ership had been terminated. He was scholar and student to the last. Tradition has said that, when preparing the Treasury .papers which placed his fiime by the side of Necker and Pitt, his early studies were still his guide, — that he held in one hand his coffee for a stimulant, and in tlie other the old thumbed Euclid for the trimmer of the celestial light. I am speaking of the power of educated mind in a couutry like ours. Pass-to a generation later, and think how two oth- ers ruled their period, and educated our nationality, through a term of thirty years, down to the brink on which we stand and shrink at this moment. A scholar of the South, student of history, in utmost mastery of the mental processes, darting his thought like the THE RELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 63 flash of the lightning into the mind of all that geographical section, espousing theories never to abandon them, and im- pressing them upon the large school of his admirers with a clear, frosty, crispy logic, — Calhoun has brought half the geography of this Union to confront us in arms. Lesser lu- minaries have reflected his light ; but the source, the power, is his. For myself, I never read his published works without yielding an unwilling admiration to the charm of the fasci- nation. Their influence on the mind and heart of millions in the South has been supreme. This war is his war. Turn now to another luminary in the constellation of the North, — our own Webster. From the same discipline of studies, of more learning, of equal logic, of larger compre- hensiveness, less demonstrative but more convincing, not forgetful of the members of his country but thoughtful rather of the whole, regarding this Union not as a compact of fragments but as a nation of parts transmuted and transfused into one nationality, he too has been the teacher of a people. Perceiving in him such a consummation of qualities as comes only of the triad union of learning and statesmanship and jurisprudence, and that only in the intervals of ages, — as here and there a solemn cathedral stands apart, rich witli the spoils of time, — the people of the North have taken a large part of their education in public law and civil study from his lips. In his own language applied to another, they have received his statement as argument, and his inference as demonstration. They have been convinced, and have be- lieved and assented, because it has been gratifying, delightful, to think and feel and believe in unison with an intellect of so evident superiority. He has been our instructor for the Union. As to the relations of the citizen with the govern- ment he has taught a generation of the Eepublic, though received chiefly by a generation of the North. Those in- structions have flowed through the general mind upon such a current of deep nationality and pellucid order and beauty of language, — the highest style of poetry playing all the G4 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. while amonc: the oaken branches of his immortal Saxon, — that they affect the mental habitudes of our time long after his eyes have been sealed, and are mirrored forth from all our minds, as the Northern skies from the forest lakes. There can be but one Hamilton, Calhoun, or Webster. But thousands have formed their character within the same halls and groves as these our leaders, have brought their mind into subjection to the same stern studies and severe techni- calities of the schools, have cast their thought and expression in the same mould of those languages which hold the rich mines of the world, have wrestled the faculties with mathe- matical struggles, have opened their imagination to the ennobling impulses and stimulations, and have crowned the whole with the choral harmonies of the Christian faith. These make the scholars and the men. Their prudent coun- sels, their winged words, will be immortal. Practised in the gymnasium of exact science, plucking riches from the illuminated halls of the classic ages, chaining their thought to the medium of a precise language in which words are things, reaching out over years of mental labor to apprehend the mutual relations of all knowledge, mounting to the sublime theorems engraved in the heavens, and coming back to toil and study and struggle among men, — thus informed, fur- nished, liberalized, exercised, invigorated, — these are they who are wanted for an intellectual heroism fitted for the shocks of this present time. Gentlemen, I cannot see far enough to define the boundaries of the educated man's influence. But I have thought that we could bring to these revisited halls a united testimony to the imperious necessity, in the present aspect of our public affairs, of the aid which is to be found in tlie authority and influence of literary character. The whole boundless continent is ours, and belongs to us and our flag. In its azure and starry glories it is — it is a fit object of the scholar's homage, worthy of his life and his death. Ours is a nobler heritage than ever cast its shadows upon the iEgean or Adriatic. In the hearts of THE RELATIONS OF THE EDUCATED MAN, ETC. 65 its yoiitli let this Union be enshrined forever. Convened upon this occasion of our fellowship, let us pledge ourselves to its preservation. It is on the perilous ridge of battle. When others shake their heads or smother their speech, let us in preference adopt the grand words of the Grecian orator, whom you love so well, in tlie great oration which survives the ruins of Grecian art : "No man ever saw me smile at the success of the Lacedaemonians, or sorrow over that of the Atlienians." This American nationality ! Let the marvels of its divine origin, the patriotic interpositions that have pre- served it, become endeared to us like classic song. Let us prove true to it in our own brief time, and invest its future, to us all unknown, with the ideal forms of life and hope and beauty. Let us this evening — our last wish, our last prayer — invoke around it the triune divinities that have watched over it thus far, — Eeligion, Liberty, and Law, — and, under the providence of God, may it be preserved in its integrity and its grandeur for us and for the generations that shall come after. SPEECH before the republican state convention at worcester, sept. 15, 1864. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : Your kindness embarrasses me. I could not do justice to my own sensibilities, and at the same time give expression to them in a public manner with decorum and propriety, and in a way adequate to your kindness. First of all, gentlemen, permit me to congratulate you, as many a time within the last two weeks I have felicitated myself, that here in Massa- chusetts we are in harmony among ourselves. Speaking merely in a local or personal sense, this would be, at the best, of only transient account, and therefore of secondary importance. But since we are a part of the grand national confederacy of this Union, whose independent existence hangs suspended at this moment not only from the point of the bayonet but upon the wisdom of counsel as well, I hail it as among the best portents of this hour, that here, at' the present moment as in times past, our Union is perfect as our cause is just. What though there be some slight discrepancies between the counsels of Richmond and the Clifton House and Chicago, and a little straggling along their whole line, — what though there be some sliglit divergences of opinion among them as to whether the loyal armies should ignominiously surrender before an armistice or afterward, — what tliough they slightly differ among themselves as to whether their candidate should SPEECH BEFORE THE KEPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 67 stand upon an open, undisguised peace platform, or on a piece of framework and joinery over wliicli the palmetto shall float at the top and the Union jack at half-mast below. Let them adjust all these questions among themselves. Be it our duty, as I understand that it has been your pleasure and mine this morning, to close up our ranks here, to resist the foe at every stage and in every degree, to snuff the scent of treason everywhere and at all times, whether it shall be palpable and visible like a cloud, or spread like an impal- pable poison in the shadowy forms of speech all the way from the wigwam (which they have counterfeited) round to New York. I rejoice, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, that if we ever had any differences, of which I have had no knowledge, we have assembled here to-day not to revive but to bury them in the depth of paramount patriotism and a common interest. In the overwhelming exigency that is upon us, union among ourselves is the highest of all duties, in the most solemn of all causes ; and to this sublime account of nationality, to this august reckoning of the friendships of loyal men, I desire in the most cordial manner to unite with you in welcoming to our standard, to our association, to our attestation, the influence, the name, and the patriotism of Edward Everett. Gentlemen of the Convention, honored some three months ago by the Union Eepublicans of Massachusetts as one of their delegates to the convention at Baltimore, and by my colleagues there as their chairman, for myself, and in their behalf, I can stand here now and look you in the face, and proudly challenge your approval of our doings. I call upon my colleagues, many of whom are present, to bear me witness that no convention ever assembled on this continent, of the same popular characteristics or organization, more free from official or personal influences, or more clearly reflecting the heart and the judgment of the American people. No assembly ever convened upon this continent under a more impressive sense of public accountability and responsibility, 68 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. and none certainly ever manifested greater indications of harmony and of enthusiasm. Sir, history records no such harmony except in connection with the dark houi's of im- pending national fate. It was grateful to our hearts as Massachusetts men to mingle our chorus and vours with the voices that came up to us from twenty six or seven States of this Union, in that city whose streets had been stained by the blood of our own citizens, — in that city, sir, whose gates having been closed had also been opened, never again to be closed, by Massachusetts arms. It was especially grateful to our hearts as your delegates that we sat by the side of the delegation from the State of Maryland, whose votes in every instance were recorded in unison with ours. You will not think it strange, my friends, that I thought of the 19th of April, 1861, and that it seemed to me and my colleagues upon that occasion, in the lan- guage of the poet of nature, that the " whirligig of time had brought round its revenge." It was one of those revenues which sometimes follow in the train of war, and which bless the corning and the departing generations of mankind with the glory and the immortality of freedom ; because, my friends, while your delegates were deliberating there in quest of the best methods and the best men that should conduct this Union to a triumph over all its present troubles, Mary- land, nay, the city of Baltimore herself, was at that moment deliberating at Annapolis over that universal emancipation which, awaiting only the verdict of her peojile a few weeks hence, has been consummated by the people of that Common- wealth. I said to a citizen of Baltimore, a native of Massa- chusetts, but a long time a resident of that adopted State, " Sir, the blood of Massachusetts has wet your pavements not in vain." And his reply to me was, "Tell the people of Massachusetts " — and I now cive the message to vou, men of Lowell and men of Lawrence — " tell the people of Massa- chusetts that those monuments to the early martyrs of the war for the restoration of the Constitution and the Union, SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 69 to be erected by the joint enterprise and liberality of the Commonwealth and of the people of her cities, will, in all the future ages of this Eepublic, bear the same radiant inscription with the monuments of the capital city of Maryland." And now, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, compare our work with that of our adversaries. Compare the platform of Baltimore with the platform of Chicago. I am not going to detain you with a recapitulation of the cliaracteristics of either. For myself, I desire to go on appeal to the American people, with no other issue than that which is presented by these comparative and diverse systems of political ethics. The one breathes undying hostility to the public enemies, — the other inspires hostility only against its own Govern- ment ; the one swears to sustain the Government in quelling the rebellion by force, — the other conceals the fact that there is any rebellion existing at all ; the one sustains the Government in its fixed and irreversible determination to accept no compromise and to offer no terms of peace not based upon the conquest or the unconditional surrender of the armies of treason, — the other abjectly invites any com- promise whatsoever, however revolting to the manhood of the nation, and opens the ghastly doubt whether separation itself should not be accepted as the price of armistice and of peace. The Baltimore Convention resolves that the na- tional safety demands the utter and complete extirpation of slavery from the soil of the Eepublic ; the Chicago Con- vention by its acquiescence, by its collateral issues, by its tone and temper, by all that it says, by all that it does not say, places Southern slavery as the brightest gem in our coronet of empire, and would restore that dynasty which before the war was a rule of unvarying humiliation, and which, if now replaced, would be a reign of intolerable des- potism and disgrace. Your delegates at Baltimore offered their thanks and yours to the soldier of the flag, and took the oath to stand by him unto the end, to the last of their treasure and of their hearts ; the delegates of Chicago offer 70 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. their sympathy to the soldier in the one hand, and in the other hold forth to him a welcome to an infamy that would be traditional and perpetual hereafter. No wonder, fellow-citizens, that the people of the United States are rising to an appreciation of the differences between these diverse systems of political ethics. Witness the result in Vermont, witness the result in Maine ; stand ready to witness all those that will follow. No wonder that the brave men in arms repudiate with scorn a system and a creed which would place a stigma upon the name of every Union warrior living, and would consign the name of the dying to the execration and the contempt of his children to the remotest posterity ! Sir, in the language of the lamented Douglas, — the last public words ever addressed by him to mortal ears, spoken to his fellow-citizens in the wigwam in Chicago, in which Abraham Lincoln was originally nomi- nated to the Presidency, and which, as I have before re- marked, these gentlemen have ridiculously counterfeited, — in the lano;ua2;e of the lamented DouGjlas, " There are but two parties in this controversy ; every man must be for the United States or against it ; there can be but two sides, — patriots or traitors." And though we have not the pleasure and the honor to listen to the power of his living lips, let us rise to the lofty appreciation and apprehension of the language of the great commoner of the West, — his dying testimony. None in this country but patriots or traitors ! Eepublicans of Massachu- setts, your name is a good one ; but the course of our adver- saries is rapidly making it ob.solete, for it is not so much henceforth a Republican, or a Democratic, as it is a Union party, and a party for disunion of this confederacy. It is henceforth a party for the Government of this country or a party against that Government. . . . And so, Mr. President, as there are many things to be done, and but a little time before us, only one word more. We endeavored to consummate your wishes by selecting an SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 71 instrumentality at Baltimore which would carry out the pur- pose of the people of this Eepublic. And here I desire to say that, in my apprehension, if the convention had been postponed to July or to August or to September or to Octo- ber, it would have been all the same, there would not liave been the difference of a vote whatsoever, for Abraham Lincoln was in the hearts of this people. I do not stand here in behalf of your delegation to discuss the question whether there may be or may not have been undoubted errors in his administration. I only know that, if there had not been, he were not subject to the condition of mortal lot. This much, however, I do know, that President Lincoln ascended to the responsibilities of his momentous trust at a juncture of public affairs which has no parallel in the annals of popular government. It is familiar to you all. The events of that administration, sufficient in their number, in their magnitude, in their consequences, to constitute a century of record for other countries and for other ages, beginning .h his mildness, and his familiarity, and his kindness toward those who assumed the sword of the Rebellion against the Government, culminating at last in war, the bloodiest of the foulest of recorded time, are too many, too vast, to leave it capable for the mind of any man to make a calm survey and to form an unqualified judgment upon the history of that administration. That, my friends, will be the testimony of History in years to come, when her muse shall become the calm mistress of the record. But we may now here, as at Baltimore we did, poise and rest our mind even amid the turmoil and the conflict of civil administration, even among the reverberations that come to us from all quarters of the field, and form a generally satis- factory judgment in regard to the character and the quality and the policy of the President of the United States ; and that judgment is (as I believe you will indorse the judgment of the convention to which I refer) that, as a whole and as a summary of the whole, Abraham Lincoln, according to the 72 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. estimation of every candid, fair, intelligent, and loyal man in the United States, has pursued for his object and purpose only the salvation of this Government. I do not pause here, fellow-citizens, to discuss with you those questions of diversity and difference between us which may have existed in times past, within the last twenty-four months, as to whether he was too rapid or too slow. It is enough for me to know that Abraham Lincoln has always lived up to the exigencies of the times and the necessity of the country as it appeared to an impartial mind. Sir, I offer to you no written speech, but I like sometimes to have an authority by my side ; and in the language of one of the greatest and most philosophic masters of thought in the whole range of English mind, Edmund Burke, " A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish society otherwise constituted than he finds it, but a good patriot and a good politician always considers how he shall make the most of the existing material of his country. A disposition to pre- serve, an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman." " A statesman," says Mr. Burke, " never losing sight of principle, is to be governed by circum- stances, and judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment he may ruin liis country forever." Therefore, adopting that as my basis of predication, I say, sir, tliat I pause not here to raise or decide the question already raised between those who thought, eighteen months ago, that Abraham Lincoln had been too slow or too rapid in the policy which he had enunciated. I pause not here to settle the question between those who, during the first eighteen months of his adnnnistration, would have held him back to a more laggard policy, or those who would have thrust him forward to a more rapid policy, toward the espousal of that theory which, in the judgment of all, only qualifying it as to the question of time, was the final fate and destiny of this empire. But I do say, sir, in regard to the President of the United States, that it is sufficient to me that whenever he has taken a step or a stride forward, the Lord SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 73 has seemed to irradiate and illuminate the path before him. It is sufficient for me, and for you, that he has struck the epoch bell of the ages at just and exactly such times as the people of this country and of other countries were most ready to receive the sound, and to echo it in their hearts. It is sufficient for me, and for you, fellow-citizens, that whether, according to your estimation or mine, the procla- mation of freedom came early or came late, when it came at all it found the people of the North as it could not have found them before, — ready to stand by it and to die for it. It is sufficient for me, and for you, that the policy enun- ciated in two proclamatious, while it has sealed the issues here at home, has a power abroad at this moment, in the presence of which there is no crowned head in Europe that dares appeal to its subjects or to the tribunal of the moral senti- ment of mankind against the cause of the Union in this country. And so in his prosecution of this war. I see him ascendinsf to his office without the education or the instincts of a soldier ; I behold him trying every expedient, after every preceding expedient had failed, as every wise man would do. I behold him adopting one policy when another policy had proved abortive. I behold him taking one commander after another, until at last, under the favor of Almighty God, he has found two who are the right ones. I behold him determined from the outset that 3^our flag and mine should float over every inch of the territory of this Eepublic. And I behold him at length determined, in good and ample time, that that flag should float through all the zones of this empire over no creature of God in manacles. And therefore I say, in accordance with the spirit and with the declaration of that Baltimore Convention, that in Abra- ham Lincoln I behold the ablest, the wisest, the most accept- able, and the most efficient man among all the millions of his countrymen that could have been selected for this imperial crisis of the Eepublic. Ah, Mr. President, you know too 74 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. well, — for your familiarity has been with the legislative department of the Government of the United States, while ours has been here at home, in humbler but not less trust- worthy capacity, with the heart and judgment of the people in their primary relations, — you know too well, sir, as we do, that when our hearts have failed and we have approached the verge of despair, when our arms have seemed reticent of their thunders and seemed to be unequal to their mission of victory, all that was left to us was the buoyant and hopeful spirit of the President of the United States. And, sir, for these reasons, and many others which time will not permit me to detail, I believe, as I have before re- marked, that this same Abraham Lincoln has a deep place in the hearts of the people of this country; and I believe that, whether you had called your convention one month or two months later, there was but one thunder voice which would have demanded that nomination, and which will respond by his election. Sir, I remembered while you were deliber- ating this morning so wisely and so well in arranging the affairs of this Commonwealth, — I remembered that a great and departed statesman of Massachusetts had given to us a key to the appreciation by the people of this country of the qualities and the characteristics and the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln. I transcribed it while you were here. Pardon me while I read it. " I beheve," said Mr. Webster, in speaking of President Tay- lor, " that, associated with the highest admiration of those miUtary qualities possessed by him, there was spread throughout the com- munity a high degree of confidence and faith in his integrity and honor and uprightness as a man. I believe he was especially regarded as both a firm and mild man in the exercise of authority ; and I have observed, more than once, in this and in other popular governments, that the prevalent motive with the masses of man- kind for conferring high power on individuals is often a confidence in their mildness, their paternal, protecting, and safe character. Tlie people naturally feel safe when they feel themselves to be SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 75 under the control and protection of sober counsels, of impartial minds, of a general paternal superintendence." This is the language of Mr. Webster in regard to a departed President. I adopt it as better than any which I can command or frame upon this occasion, as expressive of the estimation in which I believe this convention holds the characteristics and qualities of the President of the United States. And now, sir, to detain the convention no longer, for I have already spoken longer than I intended, I desire to remind you that but a few weeks will elapse before the Ides of November will be upon us. They may disappoint you, but if they should, it will be by the universality and the magnitude of the majorities for the loyal arms of this country. Under the administration of Abraham Lincoln the storm of war will cease, and its desolation will be succeeded by the graceful bloom of j)eace ; and under his administration and under the councils which he will call and gather around him, be assured, my friends, it will be a peace of honor, of virtue, of independence, and of freedom. It will be a peace which shall leave to all the generations that shall come after us a great and an irresistible Ptepublic, because it wiU be a Ee- public that is regenerated and free. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. A EULOGY BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS OP WORCESTER, JUNE 1, 1865. It would be a painful suppression of one of the finest of human instincts, and an unbecoming disregard of the official proclamation of the Chief Magistrate, if this city were not among the foremost to accord its voice to the funeral cry of the nation. Never before, in high joy or deep grief, has the normal simplicity of America given way to such pageant grandeur. The great fountains of public sorrow have been broken up, and a whole people have turned out to herald their President returning in silence to the dust of the prairie. I look back over forty centuries for the like of this. My eye discerns no tit resemblance in anything which the conceits of heathen mythology liave transmitted, — not in that myth- ical sympathy of the Tiber for Marcellus, fortunate recipient of such honor, — nor in the many memorial Italian marbles and temples, — nor in all the tasteful pomp which has con- ducted French kings to their imperial sleep, and has made their capital a vast lettered monument to its one great departed, — nor in the drum-beat, and cathedral service, and royal guard, which have escorted English monarchs from the palace to the Abbey. The earliest and latest age alone meet now in comparison of mournful pageantry. The Orient and the West, the third of Hebrew patriarchs and the six- teenth President, four thousand years apart, are pictured before us to-day in the same spectacle and lesson of a nation following a just and true ruler to his tomb. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 I do not suppose that in all the intervening period, fretted and gilded as it has been with art and culture, anything like the passage of the herald corpse of Jacob from his death-bed to the field and cave of his fathers, in public turn-out, and general lamentation, and sincerity of grief, has occurred be- fore until now. To the two thousand dependants of that deceased, to all those sent forth by his premier son, the most munificent of the line of Egyptian kings ordered all the public men of his country to report for additional escort on the long and patient and solemn march. Chariots and horse- men, men and maidens, the grim visages of age and the dusky beauty of youth, in lengthened procession, with palms and music and benediction, in behalf of that early world paid the last tribute to a great and just benefactor, to a builder of empire. Measuring the days by their solemn tramp and their halts for local condolence, the swarthy column moved on over two hundred miles, and laid their treasured hero in the august depository of the first and second of his line. That Oriental retinue of bereavement and sublimity has been matched and eclipsed within this last lunar month. Dying without the consciousness but amid all the pathos of his Eastern exemplar and progenitor, the foremost man of this Western world has been carried to his rural rest beyond the mountains and near the great river. Awhile he lay in state at the capital where he fell, that all classes might gather about, to learn the lessons of historical providence and wit- ness the presence of God. His dust, garnered beneath richest canopies, preceded by raven waving plumes, and flanked by reverse arms of the flower youth of the land, has been borne on triumphal route through the chief cities of a continent. The Monumental City opened her gates in love, which four years before would have closed them against him, if she had known his coming. Independence Hall struck its bell, and the dismal undulations spread through half a mil- lion of hearts as he passed by. The great emporium of the 78 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. North, which had made a jest of much of his life in office, bowed as a unit, like a stricken child, and paid such honors to his passing shade as nowhere have been witnessed on the earth. Still onward and westward, a thousand miles yet to go, surrounded by vast throngs, all and everywhere reveren- tial, all and everywhere casting choicest flowers upon the pathway of the dead, — as if twenty millions had assembled to make ovation before the corporeal symbol of a benefactor, — your President was taken to his last abode, where he shall rest till the dead shall rise at the call of the archangel. The first shock of our calamity, the deep sensation of hor- ror which pervaded all our hearts when the " couriers of the air" told us at midnight how suddenly and in what manner President Lincoln had a few hours before been snatched away, has now subsided, and we naturally pause and deliber- ate upon those qualities of character and service which, in the apparent judgment of this country, have already assigned him a place only second in the long lineage of its magis- trates. However simple this analysis may seem, it falls entirely outside the common range of our study of public men and events, and does not belong to the usual analogies of biography or history. It would be scarcely more irrational to compare the developments and stages through which we have just passed with any or all the unlike periods be- fore, than to measure him who has been the central figure in these civic and martial achievements by the personalities of the past. He will be known and judged by the next age, not indeed without regard to his abstract quality, but more conspicuously and vividly as the one man who, in' the un- folding of the panorama of these four years, everywhere appears in front and in chief. Under the limitations of a single Presidential term he must pass to his 2)lace among critics and annalists ; but that Presidential term was enough to have encircled an historic generation in other ages, and to have circumscribed the life-long renown of other statesmen. Safely then may we trust him to that judgment which shall ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 fall upon his own brief career of rule. Never any man, without public thought or remembrance of his youth or early life or disciplinary training, has mounted so quickly to the empyrean of fame. Think, for example, in what manner we usually estimate Napoleon or Washington. Their dis- tinction dates from the beginning. The genius of Napoleon is nearly the same to us whether we remember him as a child playing with a cannon, or as a youth in the Academy, or at twenty-eight dazzling the nations with his unprece- dented victories. Washington the youth is familiar to our schoolboys, appears great in the French war, only greater in the Eevolutiouary and Constitutional period which followed. But here is a plain man, since April opened, gone into the alcoves of all generations to come and of every race, as to all of his life save the last five years unknown to half his countrymen and to the whole world beside. Such and so exceptional is our country and our time, such and so excep- tional is Abraham Lincoln. And yet he had a childhood and a youth. In that which I call the first stage of his life, ending when he settled down as a lawyer in Springfield, I think we may see that fitting, that preparation, that nascent destination, which was the providen- tial prelude to the ultimate work. Cast into a sparsely in- habited wild at eight years, fulfilling the measure of maternal ambition when at ten he could read the sacred volume, exercising his first conscious power in writing to his moth- er's travelling preacher to come and preach over her grave, writing letters for the neighbors, attending the first school in that country clad in buckskin, only too happy at length when he could count as his property a copy of Bunyan and ^Esop, a life of Washington and Clay, behold him whose death forty- five years later brought autograph letters from every crowned head of Europe. His library might have been larger, but could it have been better? To his apprehension of the Divine Word, learned when that was the only volume in the cabin, we may owe the Cromwell-like second Inaugural, 83 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. which was only half appreciated by his countrymen until the praise of it came from the other side of the water. Did a man ever reflect better the light of youthful studies, than the President reflected ^sop and Bunyan ? No books are more likely to be remembered than they ; Cowper said that his child-readings of the "Pilgrim's Progress" would abide with him till memory should perish. And I confess it is to me a grateful fancy, in looking back for the formative influences in the life of Lincoln, to perceive in these two masterpieces of inventive and natural conception such sources of thought and impression as would be best calculated to produce that combination, which he so remarkably illustrated, and which was not unrequisite for our time, the Puritan and tlie Hoosier. Then we are to remember that in this school of Western life, with books so few but so good, he acquired what Mr. Burke would call " the rustic, manly, home-bred sense of this coun- try," — to have polished whose ingenuous roughness would have cost us half the power he has had during this war over the mass of his citizens. They have liked him all the better, that his wisdom and speech were elementary and enabled him to speak directly to their hearts. They have liked him so much the more, that he did not pretend to be learned, while they knew him to be original and wise. Paucity of opportunities in youth favored modesty in high position. Ho\v many members of Parliament, asked an English jour- nal, would imitate the modest honesty of the President and acknowledge that they had never read all parts of Shake- speare ? But he understood and remembered all that he had read. And now, before he opens his office of law, we catch a glimpse of the young man of nineteen floating as supercargo on a flatboat to New Orleans. It was his last act of rusticity and adventure. He was now unconsciously completing that democratic type of character which in its subsequent expan- sion and use has contributed so largely to save the union of these States. It was indeed a typical enterprise, for that ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 81 voyage represented the unity of interest and welfare which connects the Northwest with the Gulf, and all the States together from the Crescent round to Malabar. Upon his re- turn he would enter the gates of productive life, how eventful he then knew not, nor any one of you. Suppose that in one of those transition hours, as he was borne lazily on the great currents and by the solemn forests, his unlettered mind rapt in the rhapsodies of the Prophets, or the dreams of Bun- yan, or the wit of ^sop, or the grandeur of Washington, the angel of this dedicated youth had raised the curtain and re- vealed to him, that before he should pass the ordinary prime of life he should be elevated to the highest trust of this empire, lifted on the shoulders of the people in ecstasy at the thought his own words had kindled of making it all free, — that un- der his presiding the issues of life and death to this Union should be unrolled on every field of a continental war, — that he himself should sit in control over larger armies than Europe, north or south, had ever seen, — that his hand should touch the electric wire which should awake four millions of the children of men to liberty and immortality, — that the Government of his country should at last be sealed in his own blood to eternal security and glory, and that he, almost yet young, should return to sleep with his fathers, leaving to both hemispheres a name that shall be hailed with that of Washington, whose history he was even then reading, till time shall be no more ! He would have fallen prostrate before the vision ! And yet, under the beneficence of our institutions, if this was to happen at all it was as likely to happen to him as to any other, and he lived to behold it, and died in an untimely hour at fifty-seven ! Upon the second period, that which I call the brawn in his life, these exercises will not permit me long to dwell. It bears the journals of twenty years, from the raising of the attorney's sign in '37 till he gave himself without reclamation to his country at the opening of '58. They tell us he was an able lawyer, and I can believe that ; but he must have been 82 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK, elementary, not learned. They give us good accounts of his professional successes, but other and greater scenes make us forget them. The jurisprudence of the West in his day has entitled few men to enduring distinction. We know, how- ever, that he distinguished himself in his own cases, and that he was a favorite sought to manage the causes of the clients of others. In the leoislature of his State he measured lances with the rising Douglas, and there for the first time cauglit the gleam of his own future. Once he went into Congress, and left it without great distinction, — but that should not be counted largely against him. Yet it was then that he became considerably known in the country. At that time I met him in the streets of Worcester. Congress had just adjourned when our Whig State Convention assembled here in 1848. As the chosen head of the city committee of the party with which he acted, I had called a public meeting in yonder hall for the evening preceding the convention, and had invited several arentlemen of note to make addresses. None of them came. But as the sun was descending I was told that Abra- ham Lincoln, member of Congress from Illinois, was stopping at one of the hotels in town. I had heard of him before, and at once called upon him and made known my wish that he would address the meeting in the evening, to which he readily assented. I further suggested to him that as the party in whose cause we were then united was largely in the minority here, and as there was an unusual bitterness in the antago- nistic politics of this community, he should practise much discretion, and leave our side as well in its prospects as he could. His benignant eye caught my meaning and his gentle spirit responded approval. His address was one of the best it has ever been my fortune to hear, and left not one root of bitterness behind. Some of you will remember all this, but not so distinctly as I do. I never saw him afterwards. The next day the convention came ; the genius-eloquence of Choate, of blessed memory, was applauded to the echo, and the stately rhetoric of Winthrop received its reward; but the member ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 83 from Illinois, though he remained in town surrounded by- associate Congressmen, was that day and in that body un- known and unheard. But where are they all now, and where is he ? — in the benedictions of his countrymen, in the grati- tude of an enfranchised race, in the love of mankind ! In 1858, only seven years ago, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the Eepublicans of Illinois as the competitor of Mr. Douglas for a seat in the Senate of the United States. Thus opened the third and last period of his life. How strong he was at that time in the Empire State of the West is well shown by his having received every vote in a ballot of twelve hundred chosen delegates in a State convention. That was the hour of his consecration, of his sacramental vow, in the service of the country. Then and there he became the representative man. And now, after reading for the second time his discus- sions with his eminent rival in that canvass, I can declare my conviction that to the clear analysis which he constantly presented of the purposes and the teachings of the founders of this Government, to the reverence with which he impressed the people for the humane and benevolent intent of the Constitution, to the exalted moral reasons upon which he predicated the new coming era, we are more largely indebted, than to any other person, for the firm purpose and high re- solve which, two years later, united and inflamed the free States against the further encroachments of slavery in this country. You will consider the honorable courage of the man in the positions he then took. The laws, the traditions, the systems, of Illinois, her Southern geography and settle- ment, tlie memories and prejudices of her people, were all acjainst the theories and humanities which he determined in the fear only of God to proclaim. But his soul was ablaze with the enthusiasm of a Christian statesmanship, and he went forth in the panoply of immortal truth, which neither the timidity of friends could strip from him nor the darts of opponents could penetrate. He sounded at the opening the bugle note of omen which rang through the land : "A house 84 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Govern- ment cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." Many else- wliere, some there, hesitated over the high doctrine ; large numbers of Eepublicans in the North were not unwilling to see Mr. Douglas successful as a reward for his brave contest with Buchanan. I confess that I felt so myself. But the newly invested champion looked over the fleeting hour and the mere question of a senatorial chair; he saw farther than times or localities, and pierced beyond the veil which too often shuts off administrations from the vision of the beati- tudes and the ages ; he knew the importance that the banner of a new party, which bore the name of Freedom, should carry radiant inscriptions, and over all the State, from her frozen springs to her Egyptian heats, he upheld " Th' imperial ensign, wliich, full high advanced, Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind." By this unwavering fidelity to his convictions, his hour having not yet come, under the overruling of Providence he accom- plished both more and less than he set out for, — he made his rival Senator, himself President, and his country Free. As I look backward over the events of that year which he so largely controlled, — as I follow him sixty times to the hustings and hear him in language not one w^ord of which, so far as I can judge, he w^ould wish to blot, urging those lessons which the nation must then have received or have passed beneath the yoke of perpetual humiliation, — as I see him rising, from the autumn of '58 to the spring of '60, to an ascendency over all others as the advocate of the primal principles of a free republic, and so recognized across the whole northern belt, from the great plains to the Atlantic frontier, — I not only count him most fortunate of men in the lieidit to which all these things soon after conducted him and us, but I con- clude that if he had gone then to the sleep in which he now ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 85 reposes, he would have been embalmed statesman-father of a new dispensation. The year 1858 had established him. " The boundless prairies learned liis name, His words the mountain echoes knew ; The Northern breezes swept his fame From icy lake to wann bayou." Our greatest Olympiad opened in 1860. I need not sketch the preceding or attendant circumstances of the convention and the nomination. Our first choice was another, and Massachusetts followed the fine arts of New York to give it success. They have a better and larger way at the West. While the men of the East were ciphering at the hotels in Chicago, the men of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Wa- bash were packing the wigwam and filling the square with a myriad of large hearts and brazen throats ready to sound another and a loftier chant. Their candidate took the votes, and the voice of all rose to the sky like a chorus of nature. It was the echo of the voice of God. Fortunate, providential selection! Any other apparently would have shipwrecked the Ark of the Covenant. If you consider how inevitable are the jealousies of the West towards the East, — to which we must always submit, and which we must always palliate, since we cannot prevent or remove them, — if, especially,, you reflect what a bond of fate that Father of Waters is to us all, and how we must keep peace and conciliation with those river gods if we expect unity, pros- perity, and glory, — if you freshly remember how, since this war began, the people of the West, though their sons were dying in the same trenches and in the same hospitals with ours, have thought and said that we were reaping the gTeater benefits of the sacrifice, — you will agree with me that none but a Western President could have kept our armies, our voters, and our hearts united amid the afflictions and reverses that have rolled their thunders and their floods over us. And so the hand of our fathers' God interposed against our calcu- lations five years ago at the City of the Lakes. 86 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. Our departed hero accepted the nomination in written words which are a model for practical religion and modern statesmanship. In language which shows that the Spirit of the Most High was upon him, he wrapped the resolutions around his heart, and in terms which should have won every citizen from Key West to Eichmond, he gave himself to the issue now so triumphant and so sad. It was an issue worthy of the best days of any nation. As he received it from the convention that framed it, and as he stated it in his letter of acceptance, it was a system of policy and statesmanship which Daniel Webster, even on that memorable 7th of March, would have rejoiced to acknowledge, — which Henry Clay, in any of his later and brilliant years, would have gladly made resound as out of a trumpet from the borders of Virginia through the length of Kentucky to the Eiver. It was a broad and gener- ous platform, such as Jefferson would have decorated with an hundred theses of his philosophy, such as Washington would have stood upon and invoked the blessings of the Al- mighty. And I have the honor to say here — to be sure it is now after the fulfilment of the declarations and the proph- ecies — that if Abraham Lincoln had not felt warranted to justify and stand upon the resolutions, then the North American Republic was not deserving of salvation. But he thought, as we thought, that there was a divinity in the im- pending struggle, and we entered upon it together, all of us rejoicing to have such a leader, and he only too willing to stake his life on the support of such friends and on such a sublime restoration and reconstruction of nationality. He was chosen ; tlie men in the South of our country had decided that he should be chosen, and that the precipitation of their designs should attend with equal promptness the humanity and patriotism of the North. The work of seces- sion began at the instant, and before the President elect had reached the capital, so many of the slave States had already declared themselves out of tlie Union as to make it certain that nearly all the others intended to follow. Thougli ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 87 Buchanan had remained in office four months since the elec- tion, let the curtain drop over all that he did and over all that he neglected to do, and let us behold the new President approaching the frowning scene which confronted him. Such work was his as no man had ever put hand to. A nation was dissolving, and half its territory was bristling with the arms of revolt. In the loyal sections there was universal despondency, and among those upon whom he must rely there was every variety of counsel, from that which would permit the wayward sisters to depart in peace, to that which would thrust the arm of the Government in the moment of its greatest weakness against the thick bosses of a rebellion of thirty years' preparation. The czar, the emperor, the king, would marshal and march out his army and crush insurgency before the next moon ; but the constitutional republic had no army. Foreign nations caught at the defect in a moment as fatal to our existence, and adapted tlieir own policy to the expectation of seeing the North American Union disappear like a dream. In the general gloom which shut down over the whole horizon good men everywhere were ready to ex- claim, HAIL, HOLY LIGHT, — if only it might come from any quarter. What kind of statesmanship or learning or expe- rience could make a magistrate equal to such a work ? Di- plomacy could not save the flag then, eloquence could not start a throb beneath the ribs of that death, an arm of flesh could not hold a charm over the ingfulfincj waters and the dismantling ship. History, civilization, nay, almost the mer- cies of Heaven, we thought, were baffled in that day. Again* then, I ask, what kind of a President was needed, and would prove best appointed ? You know how, for many months, before this man had got rightly into the work, and before we could properly measure him, some of you sighed for a Jackson and others for a Webster to take the helm ; yet we now all believe that we have had the man raised up by God for this particular epoch, that few could have accomplished this mis- sion at all, and none so well. 88 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. For he came to it devout, wise, patieut, forecasting, and rich with insight. I read his Inaugural as a key to his whole policy for this strange time, and there I discern the dawn of the lustre of his qualities for administration, which blended a certain Eoman firmness with a Christian mediatorial talent. His wisdom began in this, that he knew he could not foresee all that might happen, and so he would gather the arms of his countrymen around him, and would keep step with the majestic marches of Providence. Never doubting that our jurisdiction would be recovered, always believing the conflict would be long and varied, he promised just enough to keep the element of hope uppermost in the country, and not too much to unfit the masses for their own great part. Clay or "Webster in his chair might have restored the old Union a little sooner, with the loss of the moral sense of the world and with the cost of another revolt hereafter ; Jackson might have struck quicker and heavier blows, but an untimely blow then might have shivered this Union like glass. Our man had that tact and knowledge of men which only his training could have imparted. He knew his own West, and kept his hand constantly on her pulse ; he was in sympathy with the conscience of the East, and honored her culture and power ; and by his cultivation of the one and the other he kept them both in harmonious action to the end. The ancient countries affected delight and amusement at the sight of this son of the prairies succeeding to the work of kings, and putting his hand to an undertaking which comprised the destinies of a hemi- sphere. They could not understand that the question he had to deal with could receive little aid from statecraft or the previous education of a public man. They could not believe that new men are best for great crises ; that for such a ruler and for such a period Bunyan is a better master than all the Georges, and JEsop a keener teacher than both the "Walpoles ; that in a trial of the national spirit and the national forces involving the issue of deatli at once or life perpetual to a nation, the study of Washington is higher than the schools ; ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 89 that in such an emergency a single Cromwell is greater than a dozen earls out of Eton and Oxford. They forgot the con- solations of their own history, — that Marlborough had never read Xenophon or later martial historians, but somehow managed to triumph over veteran armies of France ; that Wellington was counted dull in his early life, and rose to victory and fame only by the buffet of trial, — and they did not stop to consider that Lincoln might ascend as conspicu- ously, and bring with him a Grant, a Sherman, a Sheridan, as quickly and as triumphantly. All history, all examples, all instructions, are at fault in revolutions ; and our enemies at home and abroad were making ihockery of the mysteries of providential interpositions all along the century processions of mankind, when they hesitated about our success, because our chief had no title save that which the Almighty had given him, no signet save that of the cabin, no learning save that to which the evening torch and the celestial orbs had lighted him. But he disappointed them all, passed beyond the boun- daries they had set for him within four years, — the shortest space ever illustrated by such distinction, — triumphed over a civil war of imperial proportions, and left a name to be re- corded and repeated in the courts of St. Louis, St. James, and St. Peter, among the inscriptions of a thousand years past and to come. So simple and rudimental in his origin and prepa- ration, not learned by the side of the masters, and not ignorant of himself, he came to a supremacy over the grandest epic of all countries, and gave triumphant direction to the greatest war of human annals. It will be the task of the historian and biographer to classify and present these high themes hereafter, but a few words ought to be said about them now over his new-made grave. Having neither the taste nor the education of a soldier, he so practised his intuitions as to become master of the field of war. If you consider how extended and complicated the objective field soon became, and how in consultation and oversight he was its director, it must occur to you, in reading 90 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. liis correspondence with the commanders, that his perceptions were clear and his judgment elementary and profound. How many toilsome and anxious hours he passed in the War Department, and how well he understood all that M'as trans- piring and all that ought to transpire, is made apparent in the letters he himself wrote to General McClellau during the fifteen months of his command. Eead them and re- read them, and you will agree that they evince, in a re- markable degree for a civilian, the military sense. Having committed to that officer an army of the flower of the land, he followed it with an interest alike parental and patriotic, studying the map of its marches and its hopes, breasting back while he could the impatience of the country, at all times suggesting his advice kindly to its chief, and finally, in those dark days which have made the name of the Chickahominy historical, transmitting a series of despatches from his own pen which could not have been better if he had possessed the genius of a soldier. He saw through the objective and the consequential of campaigns quite as clearly and quite as far as most of the generals who wore his stars. Under the pressure of military repulses he rose large as the occasion, and when his commanders were changing their base he held hopefully to his own. When retreat and disinte- gration had destroyed the last chance of entering Eichmond that season, and his chieftain called many times again for reinforcements, he telegraphed back a volume of present his- tory and future destiny in a few short, sharp, kind, hopeful words : " If we had a million of men we could not get them to you in time. We have not the men. If you are not strong enough to face the enemy, . . . save the army at all events, even if you fall back to Fort Monroe. We still have strength enough in the country, AND will bring it out." He had a large power of patience, which this war required. The people of the Nortli demanded a change of generals after each misfortune, but he saw difficulties they could not see, and tried one after the other long and tolerantly tiU he ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 91 found the right one. That is the highest proof of adminis- trative talent, in war, which disregards a clamor, rejects instrumentalities only after they have been exhausted, and feels its way along the rounds of failure till it finds the choice that can sound the awful charge of victory. And though his arch-rival at Eichmond had the consummate education and prestige of a soldier, the murmurs which swelled from his councils and his fields against him had double the volume of those which rose to the ears of your President from the fretful loyalty of the North ; and I venture the prediction, that if that history can ever be fully written, as ours will be, in military comprehension and appreciation, in that gift of insight which is the product of nature quite as much as of art or the academy, which reduces the involu- tions of armies and campaigns to . simplicity and analysis, even in this, all this, which belongs to arms, our plain civ- ilian will be proved to have outwitted the other, educated soldier though he was. Then I cannot help thinking that, as a part of the military questions he had to treat, there were such grave matters of what I may call legislative jurisprudence as had not been thought of before. To weaken the rebellion by the destruc- tion of its civil rights, and this alike for purposes of punish- ment to treason and of strength to loyalty, — this, under our Constitution, which never contemplated such a crisis as the present, and under the mutual relations of national and State sovereignty, the delicacy of which had not been apprehended until now, required a statesmanship scarcely less than judi- cial. Would Heaven that our own Webster could have lived for this, to have sat as premier by the side of Lincoln, to have illustrated with unprecedented effect his colossal gifts ! It was a great thought — of withdrawing from half a people the rights of a national citizenship and of indefeasible republican immunities. The Congress and the President did not alto- gether agree. This is not the time to decide between them. Congress spoke the policy of prompt and final deliverance 92 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER 11. BULLOCK. from the hateful aristocracy whose alleged rights, if not ut- terly extinguished in war, might prove a clog to freedom and nationality in peace. The President endeavored to blend and reconcile the supposed elements of the discordant rights of rebels under the Constitution and of loyalty in war. I only allude to the subject to call your attention to the depth of the matter which underlay the military policy of the Ad- ministration, and to solicit your attention to the message of President Lincoln, July, 1862, in which, while he deferred in modesty to the representatives of the people, he stood upon his own responsibility, and displayed in bold relief the abilities of a technical lawyer and a constitutional jurist. There has been no better passage in his life by which he could have illustrated his capacity for the comprehensive field of an in- terstate and national war. And then I reckon it another striking feature of his mili- tary administration, that under all circumstances he took accountability and censure to himself We may acknowl- edge, once for all, that there was a modest, conscious power in that ; for no empirical experimentalist would have trusted himself to such a test, and the man must be well grounded in the popular confidence who can bear it. Point me to any one person in the British Administration who was willing to stand out solitary and responsible when the people criticised the campaigns of their generals in the peninsula of Spain or the Crimea. Pather than that, the responsibility could only be found distributed amoncr the unknown and mvstical im- personalities of the Cabinet and the Privy Council. Your President, on the other hand, sought no shelter from criticism. In the first year of the war, when Congress passed a vote of censure upon one of his Department Secretaries, he sent them a message assuming the responsibility to himself; Jackson would have done the same, but no other man since his day. In the second year, when another Secretary of War was ar- raigned by large numbers of the people for having enforced the failure of McClullan in the Peninsula by withholding ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 93 reinforcements, Mr. Lincoln came gallantly to tlie response and claimed that the attack should be pointed against his own breast ; and his despatches to that General, since pub- lished, show that he could M^ell afford to receive the attack. He wrote his own messages, generally directed his command- ers, not regularly consulted his Cabinet, and, I believe, fre- quently overruled them when he did. He felt that he was personally accountable to the people for the triumphant de- fence of the Union. He, and no other, before his election, and in his Inaugural, had drawn the outlines within which the glory of his country might be found, and now like a wise man he relied on his own prayerful study and on his own keen instincts for ability to fill out the outlines with the colors that shall give eternal beauty to the picture of united America. In this I admire equally his magnanimity and his courage. Fortunate for us, that he was willing to take such responsibility. Many and many a time, when cypress instead of laurel bound the eagles of the army, happy and hopeful were we all if onlv we mis:ht believe that Mr. Lincoln had ordered the risk and the shock ; we cared little for his min- isters, but we trusted unsuspectingly in him ; when our re- proaches rose almost to mutiny in the North, if only he would say, in me, in me vertite tela, from that moment as by a charm the tumult subsided. It is a great relief in the discourage- ments and troubles of war, to rest upon the one man who is above all the others ; it is a greater thing if that man can justify and warrant such a rest and solace. In this power of impressment is a good part of a ruler's greatness. And thus we trace to him even the brilliant conduct of others; for since he willed it, they performed it. It is the eulogy of Lincoln to say that much which others performed he sug- gested, and was willing to be held responsible for it. Said the ablest of Englishmen, " The minister who does those things is a great man ; but the king who desires that they should be done is a far greater." How can I within the Kmits of these remarks speak fitly 94 ADDKESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. or sufficiently of the part he bore in the cause of emanci- pation ? Think what height and depth stood in tlie way, — how history and Providence only shed darkness over his ap- proaches, — how the free States were rent by conflicting opin- ions, — how he had to institute a new policy, which, if it might succeed, would invest the Government with immortal life, but if it should fail, would wreck the nation and shroud his own name in ignominy forevermore. It was a necessity which he had not anticipated. It took fifteen months of war to discover the strength of the rebellion and the weakness of the Government ; and when the alternative came at length, it presented sombre and frightful proportions. To destroy slav- ery he had not been elected, nor for that had he called the people to arms ; the only duty for him, and that which he judged most pleasing to God, was to save this Union from dissolution. You remember how, after our flag had begun to trail in defeat, voices here and there raised this issue upon him in terms alike beseeching and threatening. Still what could he do better or more than balance the conflict of magis- terial ethics, study the contradictory omens of the sky, feel the heart of his country, and search after the will of the last arbiter ? Undoubtedly, he thought the necessity of emanci- pation miglit come, probably it would come ; but it would come as a question of arms and must be supported by public opinion. That was the day of aU Avhich tried him as a statesman. In the presence of such a question, large enough to occupy the thoughts and agitations of a generation, behold the unam- bitious practical statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln. No age has been blessed with a better. "We are constantly looking back through the coloring medium of distance to the brilliant lights of the past, and desponding over the present and the future. But the statesmen of one age are unfitted for the requirements of another. Peel was as great for liis time as Chatham or Bolingbroke for theirs. From the magnificent success of our late President we have learned the right defi- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 95 nition of a "wise ruler. If it be Lis labor to initiate a measure that shall stand out among the beneficent acts that mark historical periods, it is his still more painful and vexatious work to commend it to public approval ; he has to enlighten the ignorance of some, and to convince the intelligence of others ; he has to combat honest prejudices, and modify in- terested opposition; if he would move with strength and certainty towards the success which is ahead, he has to halt in his steps, and clip his propositions, and qualify his words, and emasculate his theories ; if he would be strong to place his country among the positions his genius has pictured for her, he must apparently enfeeble his policy to conciliate one class and clog it with burdens to satisfy another. The mod- ern statesman must combine patient temper, persevering will, and sound knowledge of men ; he must discern the present tone and probable direction of public opinion ; he must dis- tinguish between intelligent and unintelligent censure, and he must know how much of public outcry can safely be dis- regarded, as well as that amount which he cannot afford to withstand. Such statesmanlike qualities Mr. Lincoln illustrated in those many months of hesitation, anxiety, seeming then al- most inability to act, which ushered in that day on which he emerged from his closet, bearing in his own arms the efful- gent guidon of EMANCIPATION. I religiously believe that he was right, all along, from the stammering beginning to the clarion-like finality. You goaded him too soon, too often, and too long; : he was the while in consultation with the counsellors around him, with his little learning and his large reflection, with all of history he had read, with the fathers and the prophets. While editors and orators stirred strife and commotion in the country and in the Senate Chamber over his long withholding of the decree, he continued im- passive in his purpose, and remembered that one of the instructive characters in his favorite Bunyan was "a grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion." And so I conceive 96 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. that lie was right upon this question in that whicli some of us thought his dalliance with the States of the border, rig-ht also when he countermanded Fremont's military order of freedom, right again when he recalled the similar rescript of Hunter, right as well in his letter to Mr. Greeley, and right at last when the angels announced the hour and he sent forth the Decree of Emancipation triumphant and irrevocable while the earth shall stand. Then he said : " I have done this after a very full deliberation, and under a very heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God I have made no mistake. It is now for the country and the world to pass judgment." Yes, yes, that judgment his country and the world have already passed. His returning armies share their laurels with him and pay their resounding fusillade over the turf which covers their father and their friend ! But higher hon- ors await him ! A nation rescued from the tyranny whose roots have spread over two centuries, never relenting, never appeased, a race delivered from thraldom and elevated to the hopes of civilization and Christianity, shall w'alk to the beat of peaceful marches about his tomb till the resurrection ! And wherever Freedom shall have a home, or America a name, or Washington a praise, over the whole globe, mankind shall revere the memory of him who sealed the baptism of emancipation with his own blood ! And I desire for myself to express the opinion that no monument- that may be erected to commemorate his name can rise so high or endure so long as that whose foundations shall be laid in those immutable and universal rights of man for which he gave his life. As the emancipation of four mil- lions became the necessity of his policy for the preservation of the Union, so let us extend to the emancipated race all the rights of citizenship, if we would make our safety certain and final. If, under a democratic government, universal suffrage is worth anything in the Nortli, then is universal suffrage a paramount necessity in the South. Is it republican, demo- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 cratic, or safe, to exclude from the polls a majority of the loyal population of the Southern States ? Your sons have been maimed and slain in vain if the aristocracy which was the cause and support of the w^ar shall not be shorn of every dis- tinction, if the oligarchy shall not have its roots plucked to their uttermost fibre out of the land. I do not forget to-day that probably one half of all those who now help to extend the funeral train have, at one time or another in four years, pronounced their complaint that Mr. Lincoln was too much the follower, not sufficiently the leader, of public opinion. The stern tribunal of history adjusts all such accounts as that. The immortal Washington opened his mission at Cambridge under the same necessities of limitation that have bounded the horizon of Lincoln. He entered the war in advance of the issue, and had to await the develop- ments of events wdiich made separation and independence the sublime ultimatum. I concede that the late President waited on public opinion ; and when you reflect how abnormal and stupendous was the cause he had to manage, I will thank you to tell me if waiting on public opinion was not waiting on Providence itself. Tell me if the success or loss of the whole, to us and to distant generations, did not depend on the spirit of the people. Public sentiment is the arbiter of republican destinies. But public sentiment, — what is it here with us but the product, not precisely the average quantity, but the result and the product of the intuitions, instincts, sagacities, and reflections of the millions of America, — the crystallization of the myriad forces of democracy, — to be ascertained by the President only after incessant labor and study and retrospection; then, when with satisfactory cer- tainty ascertained, to be not only consulted but to be received and accepted as in the nature of inspiration and decree to the magistrate. He who keeps pace with this requisition is neither quite a leader nor quite a follower, but a representa- tive, administrator, and executor, — all and everything which a democratic constitution will ask for or can permit. Mr. 7 98 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. Lincoln understood and adopted this construction of states- manship better than I can analyze it. He sought neither to lead jniblic opinion nor consented to follow it. No man could, with greater force or justice than he, repeat the remark which Edmund Burke made in his own justification to his constituents, — that he did not follow public opinion, but only went out to meet it on the way. This alone gave your President his power. I do not forget that there are occasions in which the statesman, like the leader in the field, may organize and direct the strategic movements of public action. But in the march of civilization issues ripen, events come, and men advance to the conflict. A man, an accident, a trifle, hastens or retards the battle, but the single man does not make the revolution nor quell the storm. In the signifi- cant epochs of history or final clash of arms, the statesman can discern the occasions, the opportunities, and the neces- sities of the hour, but his greatness and glory are largely the product of the times. An English journalist has just said of the lamented Mr. Cobden, that " his limitations as a states- man constituted his greatness as a representative thinker." I like the expression and the philosophy of it. I could coin no better phrase with which to define the wise statesmanship of Mr. Cobden's friend on this side of the water. Seeking NOT TO TRANSCEND HIS LIMITATIONS AS A STATESMAN, HE MADE HIMSELF THE REPRESENTATIVE THINKER OF HIS COUNTRY AND HIS TIME. That is his glory to-day, and can never become his weakness or his shame. Of course such an understanding of the policy and the duty of a national magistrate subjects him, as Mr. Lincoln for a time was subjected, to the imputation of over-cautious timidity; but a just posterity, nay, the sagacious present generation, M'ill expunge the criticism and open to him the pathway to justice. So, if I remember correctly, the policy of Fabius was by some called cowardice, or at least timidity, in his day ; but I believe it prepared the way for the avenging armies of Scipio. So, as I have read, the vene- rated Washington was characterized and criticised in his time ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 also ; but I have the impression that Yorktown and the Con- stitution and eight years of magisterial glory constituted his vindication. So, as I have observed, Lincoln was summoned to submit to the same test of fame ; and so we all see this day that his name ascends henceforth among the stars. His speech, though not uniform, was not unworthy of his action. Consider liow opposite are the requisitions in this respect which empires make upon their rulers, and take the two leadiug powers of the East and the West for the illustra- tion. The Czar of Russia, — blessed be his fortunes evermore for that early and timely friendship which he bestowed upon our country and our President, when the cabinets on either shore of the fitful and vengeful Channel offered us only the scowling welcome of intimidation and hypocrisy, — to whom, some day, in the alternations of our internationalities, the shade of assassinated innocence shall stalk in terror and retribution over all the seas they arrogate, — that Czar of Russia, all the way from Peter or Catherine to the latest Alexander, wields dominion with action and without words. That is the condition of his rule, nor is it our business or our pleasure to find fault with it there. The genius of America is another. Here the President is the selected agent of the people, and must respond whenever they call for his reasons. No President before Lincoln ever had so many and such calls. They came from Congress, from every State, from associations, from delegations, from individual men, from spontaneous assemblages under a hundred moon- lights on the lawn around the executive mansion. He had a word for them all. True it is, he had still that greatest gift of a magistrate, — the power of reticence, the masterly talent of suppression, whenever the occasion required it. He let them off with his joke and his Western wit whenever that was all they ought to have. In this sometimes, and too fre- quently, he reduced the dignity of his office ; but it was the relief-valve which he had received from his Maker. Yet, beside all this, so many were his necessities of public speaking, 100 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. tliat no one of his predecessors had been tried in that way so often. He spoke good things from the windows of the White House, as he had spoken them before on the prairies. They shall be handed over to you and to your children, and you shall say that I do not praise them too highly. You shall find some shade and beauty beneath their pine and oaken leaves. You shall say that he spoke and wrote witli much of the simplicity, quaintness, and power of Franklin, and the elemental mastery of our tongue. Many were his occasional speeches, and one of them at least will be imperishable for its felicity and brevity. Lord Macaulay assures us that Bar- rister Somers, in a speech of five minutes in the Court of King's Bench, established the enduring fame of an orator. Mr. Lincoln, by a speech of only that duration at Gettysburg, divided the honors of the day with the transcendent Everett, and inscribed his name on the tombstone of every soldier whose ashes there await the rising of the quick and the dead. His state papers are more lasting than these. His messages to Congress have already passed into the national literature ; they were read at the time in the courts of France and Eng- land ; and though they may have been obliterated or obscured there by royal art, they will reappear for luminous and pro- phetic reading when Europe and America shall settle their accounts. In these state papers posterity will recognize a style of power that is not more unique in its form than in its pro- duced effect. It is in sympathy with the national character- istics and with the traditional choice of the people. His mind was acute, logical, and subtle ; and that they appreciate. In the time of her casuistry and refinement the public teach- ers of Greece found no heartier reception than wit and reason find now in America from Maine to Nevada. Mr. Lincoln had studied the first and second sight of his countrymen, till he could address them with a direction that seldom failed. Then he secured their favor, and I may say pleased their senses, by a geniality and humor which smoothed their asper- ABEAHAM LINCOLX. 101 ities, conquered their prejudices, and attracted their hearts to him and his cause. Even in the winter of their discontent, when arms were unsuccessful and taxes were high, he led them, as through the gorgeousness and serenity of an Indian summer, to new campaigns and heavier burdens and coming victories. From '62 to '64 such was the power of his written and spoken words. In statement and argument he struck deeper and richer veins than his supposed education would have suggested. I think we are quite apt to be in error as to this whole matter of education. When and where did Ham- ilton acquire his ? — for he left college a boy, before his time, and saw no schools afterwards save the camp, the cabinet, and the bar ; yet he proved the finest intellect of his time. In- form me, if you can, whence came the education of Lincoln, who never trod the floors of a college. I only know that we do not know what may have been his study in a lazy, unlim- ited, unconditioned Western life. I do know, what he stated when last he was in New England five years ago, on the eve and in the expectation of his honors, that, after he had tried the study of the law and had found himself cornered, he went into retirement for some mouths, and studied Euclid till he understood it from root to outermost branch. And so doubtless he went through more than we know of the strus- gle and ecstasy of educating himself However tliat may have been, and whenever or wherever he may have acquired the power, you and I know that he could reason with a straightforwardness and incisiveness which Harvard or Princeton might be proud to honor. This is not the extrava- ganza of eulogy ; peruse, as I have perused, his written and spoken addresses, from Illinois in '58 to his last and singular Inaugural, and you shall say the same. I will not particular- ize out of them all, save one. Take up and read critically his published letter to Erastus Corning and his committee, covering the whole question of the suspension of the habeas corpus and the subjection of the civil to military law, and it shall be your impartial judgment that in a broad statement 102 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. of public safety and historical law it is not unworthy of Hamilton, in jiurity and legitimacy of style it is scarcely in- ferior to the papers of the same master, and in just com- prehensiveness and ingenuous patriotism it would reflect credit upon the tender heart and robust nationalism of Washington. I admired it when it first appeared, and now after a second and third reading I think it to be tlie best of all his papers. The moral and humane qualities of the good President set off and gilded his term. Did you ever know a potentate whose rule bore such blazonry of events, civic and martial, and whose daily life was so simple, plain, and temperate ? I believe tliat not Sir Matthew Hale kept sterner vigil over private and official hours, over the shrine of the domestic sanctuary. Success was his aim and duty his guide, and he saw little time for display or amusement or ostentation. In four years of labor, which would have broken like a reed any man of less iron cast, he not once got time to revisit the State and city of his love, seldom left the cajiital unless to visit the tents, hospitals, or graves of his soldiers, and once only came so far as the North to consult on the national safety with a retired chieftain. He gave attentive ear to humblest men and women, was as faithful in small acts of kindness as in great acts of justice, as amiable in little things in private as in high matters of state. His magnanimity became proverbial. His soul was no nursery for a brood of resentments. He conferred the bars and stars and eagles of war generously upon those who had not given him a vote or a sympathy, if only they were true to the flag. He bared his own breast to the brunt of many an assault aimed at Cameron or Stanton or McClellan, al- lowed them the honors, and took to himself the swarming reproaches. In a serenade on the evening after his second election, when the impassioned majority would have dishon- ored the name of his rival, he spoke for him gi'and words of charity and justice. A specific instance of his trutliful mag- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 103 nanimity I must unfold to you, as it has been related to me upon the best of authority. On a certain morning many months before Chief Justice Taney died, his immediate de- cease was pronounced in Washington as certain. In anti- cipation of the supposed impending death our senior Senator called upon Mr. Lincoln and discussed with him the impor- tance of appointing Mr. Chase to fill the expected vacancy. The President at length gave the assurance. But the Chief Justice renewed his lease of life, and many months lapsed away. Meanwhile, between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Chase, in the council of administration, divergences arose. At length in July, '64, the latter laid the key of the exchequer upon the President's table. He accepted the resignation without hesitation. Then came Senators to his room to urge the re- appointment or restoration of Mr. Chase to the Treasury, — for that juncture reflected dark shadows over our finances. " No, no," said Mr. Lincoln, " for between him and me there is an incompatibility for the same council. But this, you will bear in mind, would not prevent me from honoring Mr. Chase in any other high sphere of the Government." Half a year afterwards the Chief Justice died, but not before Mr. Chase had sprinkled along his travels in New England sharp and disparaging words of criticism upon the President. And yet the same President, faithful to his promise and his duty, forgetful of wrong and injustice to himself, conferred upon his late secretary the appointment, and placed the jurispru- dence of the United States and the rights of human nature under perpetual obligations to his magnanimity. He believed in God. You know how he left his home for Washington in February, '61, in his parting words requesting that his neighbors would array in his support the mysterious power of the legions of prayer ; and after he had assumed his high trust at the capital he cultivated that religious life which is the best guaranty of a nation's triumph. While war, according to its prescriptive laws, opened all the avenues of inconsideration and levity to others, he drew his consola- 104 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. tions and refreshed his courage at tlie never-failing fountains of Divine mercy. It M^as this, added to his humorous and sunny views, which Lore him upward and onward through such a r^(/i))tc of four years as never had been allotted to a head that wore a crown. And therefore all the people believed in him. More distinctly than any other President since Wash- ington he irradiated the official pathway at all times and in all places with the conspicuous publicity of Christian ethics. When Canning in Parliament opposed the humanity of slav- ery abolition, he declared in classic words that it was imprac- ticable to apply to politics those pure abstract principles which are indispensable to the excellence of private ethics. That was English, and almost worthy of a court whose official philanthropy is now proved to have been another name for the amljition of commercial and political ascendency. Ac- cordingly Great Britain could not conceal surprise at the novelty of Mr. Lincoln's theory of Christian ethics as a rule for official conduct ; and the difference between us will have to be postponed to the adjustments which are yet to come of American and European ideas. Your President was kind and tender to a fault. This led him into some mistakes, but his magnanimity corrected tliem. So he yielded somewhat to the rebel Campbell at Eichmond, and gave what might have proved a fatal order to Weitzel, but revoked it on the last day of his life when he discovered his error. I suspect that if he had lived for the reconstruction, he would have made several such mistakes ; but I know that he would have rectified and retrieved them. I do not think he would have executed the traitor who set up as his rival for history. Yet, after all, as the morning of victory opened on his siglit, and as the hour of his own translation drew nigh, I love to recur to the benignity of his purposes towards the most wicked of men. In his last consultation with his Cabinet, a few hours before his departure, his heart melted before the appalling claims of Justice. I think, how- ever, he only meant to say, — ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 105 " I shall temper so Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfied, and thee appease." Nay, more, I catcli the language of his hist Inaugural for his eulogy, — "WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL." Lofty words ! He knew not what those men had in preparation for him, and the Lord in his infinite mercy was preparing him to go at their bidding, whispering as he as- cended, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" As you look backward along the galleries of history, you are surprised when you think how few are found whose fame has outlived their period or country, how few have passed into the constellations of immortal light. Those only are privileged with that imperishable distinction whose record gleams forth above the wreck of contemporary annals, whose labors place an entire nation, or many generations, or all man- kind, under the remembrance of debt and obligation. To that judgment, ubiquitous and everlasting, AVashington passed sixty-five years ago. Prom that day to ours, out of the long list of American Presidents, however marked their own talent or their own period, no one of them all before has, in the full sense of universal humanity and fame, given special dignity, or unlimited praise, or immortal renown, to America through time and space. But such has been the mission of Abraham Lincoln. However we should have estimated him four years ago as to the limitation of his previous life, or his natural parts, or his acquired culture, now that the four years have passed it has become apparent that Almighty God had se- lected him for world-wide honor and benignity. I appropriate to him the language of our own fellow- citizen and historian, Mr. Motley, which he applied to Wil- liam of Orange : — " No man was ever more devoted to a high purpose : no man had ever more right to imagine himself, or less inclina- tion to pronounce himself, intrusted with a divine mission. lOG ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. There was nothing of the charlatan in his character. His nature M'as true and steadfast. No narrow-minded usurper was ever more loyal to his own aggrandizement than this large-hearted man to the cause of oppressed humanity. Yet it was inevitable that baser minds should fail to recognize his purity. Tt was natural for grovelling natures to search in the gross soil of self-interest for the sustaining roots of the tree be- neath whose branches a nation found its shelter. What could they comprehend of living fountains or of heavenly dews ?" But his untimely hour had come. You remember the fatal evening only too well already, and I do not desire to disturb your sensibilities by anything more than this allu- sion to it. In our poetry and art and annals, that 14th of April shall hencefortli be known and remembered as the noclie triste, — the sorrowful night. The just and good magistrate then went away out of our sight. The flag on spire, pinnacle, and cottage had scarcely been restored from its depression of mourning, nor the nmffled drum had ceased to beat, when the rival of the dead, the rep- resentative cause of our sorrows, was overtaken by retribution. He enjoys this evening his reflections upon history and providence and judgment in the hospitality of the noblest fortress of the Union, on a bed around which the sliade of the murdered President would fain marshal " angels and niin- isters of grace " to protect him. AVho in all the earth cares now what shall become of him ? But whenever or wher- ever or however his time shall terminate, between him and the vile dust to which he shall descend there is only the brief hour of tlie life of a criminal, to be succeeded hy tlie re- proaches of liis contemporary countrymen, ISTortli and South, the heavy-pressing judgments of all posterity and of the eternal God. No matter when or where or how Jefferson Davis shall die, his death cannot be less ignominious than that of the assassin who performed his purpose, and all generations shall welcome him to the immortality of the representative Traitor of the race ! ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 107 But another guerdon awaits our President. He sought to save, not to destroy. He labored to uphold the pillars of the Temple whose grace and beauty, if magistrates prove faithful, can never decay. He studied policy and wisdom day and night in a civil war which cost him his life, that his country might live, and fought treason on every line and in every trench over half tlie States, that democratic government in America might shine forth to cheer and animate and guide mankind to the remotest bounds of the world and of time. He ransomed four millions of his own countrymen from the thraldom of two hundred years, and died under the blow of slavery in the ecstasy of the sight. No matter when or where or how death should come to him, — for Abraham Lincoln has completed the work which George Washington began, — to his victories, great and unapproachable, he has added such triumphs as war never contemplated before, to the broad field of his civic glory he has imparted a still broader radiance ; and he now goes from our presence into the presence of other ages, garlanded with the double honor of Eestorer and Liberator ! A COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS delivered at royalston, mass., aug. 23, 18c5, at the hundredth anni- versary of the incorporation of the town. Natives and Relatives of Royalston, — Friends and Fellow-Citizens : Under this spacious awning, on this church lawn and training-field of the fathers, we have assembled to commemo- rate the birthday of our native town. After the lapse of a century from its first chartered existence, when the men who made the beginning have so long rested from their labors that the same mould of time has gathered over their names and over their dust, and their heroic courage and Christian endurance have been partially forgotten for the want of an- nals, and this rolling territory has passed out of its forest infancy into the maturity of cultured fields, ample dwellings, and an elevated social life, we meet, not so mucli for tlie re- cital of a scanty history, as to indulge in the emotions of the anniversary, and to bid the next generation hail ! And yet, whatever the contrast may be of the past with the present, this hour witnesses the homage of a people plain like their ancestors, among whom the conventionalities of civilization have introduced but little of artificial rule, or thought, or custom of life, — around whom the hills and valleys still echo the ancient simplicity. Our home and birthplace offers no boast of tlie early or later days. Our town has only moved without eclat in the paths of an hundred years of allegiance to Christ and tlie State, — has without pretence to fame responded to every requisition of peace and war, — has con- COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 109 stantly kept its step, sometimes feebly, but at all times according to its ability, in the marches of public growth and enterprise, until in the grand results of this day it appears in the sisterhood of the municipalities, asking no higher renown than to be credited with having been in every emergency honest, truthful, and faithful. The just man can rest upon such a foundation ; the just town can erect its centennial banner upon a ground so simple and broad as that. With such claim to historical justice and historical participation this ancient municipality now calls us all back under the shade of her roof-tree ; and we are proudly satisfied to cele- brate the day. I have alluded to the paucity of our annals. The records of the town are considerably meagre, inexplicit, and unsatis- factory. Many reasons might possibly be assigned for this ; but that which seems to be most conclusive is also most creditable to this community. The town and the church have from tlie beginning been exempt from those civil and ecclesiastical controversies which have left upon the records of most otlier communities of New England full and volu- minous materials for history. I find nothing of that sort in your public chest. The life and action of these generations here have been so peaceful and so regular that the clerk has had little to enter upon his book. I apprehend that scarcely an ancient town of the State can present a parallel with this. Such has been the uniformity, the harmony, the serenity, of this smooth current of population, from the commencement until now, that the present occasion is furnished with little that is eventful and with nothing that is dramatic. A town far away from the sea, and therefore without the inspiring excitement of ocean commerce, — a precinct that bears no vestiges of the aborigines, and is in this respect so unlike the more southerly towns, which had half a century of life crowded with Indian traditions, that I cannot find that those original lords ever lighted a pipe or a fire here, — a church without a schism in a century, — a ministry that never knew 110 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. how to quarrel, — a people that have walked the paths of unambitious duty, — these make our record uninteresting for the public address. But these also make our claim to the highest distinction of municipal fame. This equable progi'ess of four generations, without anything that is startling in savage or civilized adventure, has made our history comparatively tame ; but it is the tameness of beneficence, of a people who have been content without observation to pour the ceaseless tributaries of a small and distant town into the swelling vol- ume of the growth, the power, and the renown of tlie State. And yet, simple and unpretending as is the connection of this town with the origin and development of the whole of America, the founders of these local habitations were allies and partakers in the great scheme of the settlement of a new world. In accordance with the law of colonization their names share the radiance of the sun from the east. They moved under the star of empire to glorious co-operation in the possession of the noblest inheritance of the race. The municii^alities of Massachusetts have an honor altogether tlieir own as a part of the instrumentalities which have borne the standard of Christian republicanism to the west- ern limits of the continent. Our own ancestors had a share in that blessed lineage, and in that dark and bloody expe- rience of a century and a half, of which this age enjoys the marvellous fruition. The divine beauty of the present has come to us out of the inappreciable sufierings of the past. The angel choirs which have accompanied the divinity of modern liberty, which sang amid the sighing pines around Geneva, and chanted as escort to a representative state and a representative church in the first settlement of this ancient colonv, and sweetened those first vears of want and famine and pestilential terrors, have passed over these fields in their coming. All the days of the Puritans, all the scenes of their pilgrimage, — Plymouth out of Leyden, Massachusetts Bay out of Plvmouth, all the towns of Worcester North out of Mas.sachusetts Bay, — from the landing on the rock to the COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. Ill war of King Philip, thence to the French wars, and onward to the Revolution, and the Constitution and all the glories under it, — over the long track, everywhere, it is a unity, a connection, one providence, one succession, one agency, in which they who lighted their camp fires in the face of Indians in Lancaster and Brookfield and they who cleared fields in the presence of wild beasts in Tenipleton and Eoy- alston were pursuing a common destiny for the success of a republican church and an American liberty. And so we have a part to-day with the founders of the New England polity, whose mark is over the whole continent. There was a natural order in the settlement of these towns. English colonization in America wisel}'' adopted the seaboard as its base and extended its operations to the interior. In this order of the possession and clearing of the country our own town came late, being more remote than any other in the county from the seminal sources of the State. Some of the towns in the southerly part of the county were occupied by the Anglo-American an hundred years earlier than this. In- deed, of the entire territory of Worcester County, as the same was disposed of by grants and charters, our own town is the junior of all by many years ; for although our neighbors, Templeton and Athol, were both incorporated on the same day, only about three years before us, and Winchendon pre- ceded us by only a single year of its charter, yet, as to all those towns, grants of lands and settlements had been made much earlier, varying from twenty to thirty years. The wave of occupation seemed to pause immediately below our border for some years. This being frontier territory, an outside row was left for a long time unplanted. Nor was this fact without its advantages ; for though our late coming into the family of charters has cut us off from some of the excitements of early traditions, which I greatly appreciate as stimulations to public character, it gave to the early set- tlers here the benefits of the maturity of the possessions surrounding them. So that while the first occupants of o 112 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. Atliol were obliged to maintain a garrison against the In- dians who had kept a seat there to a late day, the triumph and success which followed were appropriated to the security of the first comers in Royal-shire. But the special advantage of coming after our sisters of the county is better illustrated by the fact that the novitiate of colonization, the interim be- tween settlement and municipality, was thus made so brief that between the first planting and the first fruit there was scarcely an appreciable space of time ; for while it occurred in other parts of this county that thirty and forty years elapsed after settlement before municipal incorporation, that intervening period was represented here by only the interval of three years. These lands were scarcely known as a value to the first shrewd proprietors at Boston before the town itself took a place in the provincial records as a living community, a political power, a participator in the fortunes of the Commonwealth. Thus there was no infancy here ; it was robust manhood from the start. The territory of this town has undergone many changes, and indeed was a subject of some uncertainty at the outset. June 4, 1752, a vote was approved in Council ordering a sale of the lauds north of Pequoig, now Athol, and onward to the province line. The purpose was to clear the map; and so effectually was this accomplished, tliat the surveyor's chain swept in a strip of several miles in length lying along the whole northern boundary of Winchendon, separating it from the province line, which had been inadvertently omitted in the survey of that town, and this was afterwards called the " Eoyalston Leg." For obvious reasons the limb proved an encumbrance, and was severed in 1780, when these many acres, which had come to us like an estray, were transferred to Winchendon. Under the sovereignty of our king the township was sold at public vendue. This form of procedure, under which the country itself had been ceded by cliarters and was afterwards parcelled out, was a part of that policy which, following up tlie law of discovery and conquest by COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 113 internal settlement and improvement, has made England the great power of the earth, under which she even now plants her authority and extends her civilization alike in India and in North America. The purchasers and first proprietors of our town were men of exalted names and characters. And although they were proprietors only, not settlers, yet I cannot doubt that association with so much of fame and virtue left impressions of manliness and honor upon those who came and remained here. Samuel Watts, Thomas Hubbard, Isaac Iloyal, James Otis, Isaac Freeman, and others, for the consideration of £1,348, took the title to 28,357 acres, exclusive of former private grants. These grants, amounting to 1,700 acres, are known in the archives at the State House as Pierpont's, Priest's, and Hapgood's. In accordance with the wise policy of the government of that day, — a policy which has been continued by the General Government since our independence in every time of war, and at no time so liberally as in our recent conflict with the Rebellion, — the sovereign power had bestowed these grants as bounties for military services ren- dered. I call them military services, for such they were, whether rendered in the field or at home in support of the field. The name attached to one of these grants has become a part of the local geography and daily life of the town. The name of Priest, who received 300 acres as a recognition of his loyalty in extending the hospitality of his half-way house, near the easterly line of the town, to all those who passed that way to and from the French wars, will endure while the beautiful river which bears his name shall continue to flow. And so lono- as the calm How of its waters shall continue, so long shall live the memories of that service which associates your town with the pioneers and the rangers, with the Lily of France, with Louisburg, with that fidelity to the crown of our king in those days which I cannot but like, with those wars for our royal Georges which prepared and educated our fatliers afterward to overwhelm all kings in the Revolution. I have lived in this town long enough to have learned that in the 8 114 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK, trade of land we can calculate as closely as other men ; and let me remind you that we inherit the talent from an honor- able ancestry. I find in the Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XLVI., that the same Watts, Eoyal, and Otis at length discov- ered that, as far hack as 1737, the Court had made a private grant of 600 acres to Benoui Moore and others, afterwards assigned to one Hunt, and thenceforward known under his name, and that the location had been taken by him in the very heart of tlie best land, 200 acres of which, however, had somehow been relinquished ; whereupon they claimed other acres as good somewhere else in the province, or an equivalent relief. Certainly this seemed a very plausible land claim, and the allowance was voted. Subsequently it appears, by the report of a committee, that after the allowance of the claim, a correct survey disclosed that these proprietors had originally taken 500 acres more than their deed expressed, and more than they paid for, leaving them quite largely in debt to the province, which I cannot see that they ever made good, though probably the advantage does not inure to any present landholder of Royalston. And so your town began under a tenitorial j^roprietorship of 30,577 acres, the private grants included. In 1780 the unmanageable Leg, estimated at about 2,000 acres, was set off to Wincheudon. In 1783 several thousand acres were ap- propriated to Orange when that town was incorporated. In 1799, 300 or 400 acres were added from Athol and Gerry (now Phillipston). In 1803 several hundred acres were added from Athol. In 1837 not far from 200 acres were taken out of Phillipston and annexed to your jurisdiction. The title and charter muniments, therefore, now assign to this municipality not far from 2G,000 acres. It has the disad- vantage of remoteness from the sea and of a northern frontier contiguity, which is considerable ; but it enjoys tlie compen- sations of a soil submissive to cultivation, rigorous to the sight, but yielding generously to the stroke of the earnest arm, — of benignant drifts and ranges, of the affluent waterfalls COMMEMOKATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 115 of Miller's and Priest's rivers, and of the simpler Lawrence and Tully, which give richness because they give plenty, — of rural beauty, worthy of historic record, at the royal falls of Forbes and of Doane, — of the sparkling mineral gems which the official geologist of Massachusetts once told me he had gladly set in his family seal, — of an atmosphere that inspires youth and enlivens age, — of territorial possessions, simple indeed, but glistening with the authority of the names of tlie fathers of American Independence, — of a planting in the mountain air, — of a history studded with patriotic associa- tions, — of a religious connection that shall bear your children to the heights of a happy remembrance of the names of their fathers, — of a place on the sweet, broad plain of this civili- zation of Worcester North, stars encircling overhead, and a simple robustness of character sustaining the people. And so you will adhere to the territorial vestments dropped upon you and around you by your ancestors, clinging to your acres and yielding them not to other calls. Your town is symmetrical and compact, — large enough and small enough, — and bears a just proportion to the prescriptive idea of a Massachusetts township of six miles square. I would not diminish it nor enlarge it. Let other municipalities nibble around your borders, but let them nibble in vain, and you will hold fast to that which is good and which is none too much. And now, if we revert to the proceedings of these purchasers of our soil, we discover from their journals that they held proprietors' meetings from 1753, over a period of thirty-four years, until 1787, when their records were closed and sealed. To James Otis, Isaac Eoyal, and their original associates, John Hancock w^as added as an owner in 1765. No town can assert a better beginning or a more reputable heritage of name and blood. The proprietors held their meetings in Boston, " at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern." At the first meetino- it was " motioned that the land aforesaid be called Eoyal-shire, and they unanimously agreed thereto, whereupon IIG ' ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. the Hon. Isaac Eoyal generously gave his word to give the partners £25 sterling towards building a meeting-house for said town." Here we first find our name. The Hon. Isaac Eoyal was a citizen of Medford, a gentle- man of great spirit for public enterprise, devoted in admiration for his king, and generous and munificent for his time. He was a member of the General Court and of the Council for twenty-two years. The pulpit Bible which was used in this First Congregational Society for seventy-five years was a gift from him. He also gave 2,000 acres, a large part of which was in this town, to found the professorship of law in Harvard University, wliich still bears his name. He promised to give a full lot of land in this township to the first male child that should be born here ; but, several girls taking the precedence of birth, Royal Chase, named after him, came too late on the stage, and died too early to make the proffer availing. For in the mean time the elements of the Revolution gathered and broke, and our benefactor and friend, Isaac Royal, who could not give up his king, passed over to the Tories, sailed for England in 1776, and never returned. It is related in the history of the refugees that after his departure even his beau- tiful estate at Medford refused cultivation, that the scythe refused to cut Tory grass, and the oxen to plough Tory soil. The tone of his letters from England, in 1779, written before independence was by any means assured, indicated his yearn- ing desire to return to Massachusetts, and to make his last bed by the side of his relatives and friends. But the desire came too late; for, by the sweeping act of October 16, 1778, passed by the House of Representatives and approved in Council, he whose name we bear received the indelible char- acter of an exile and an outlaw. But let not that which was a political necessity of the time perpetuate his reproach ; and this, I perceive, was the judgment of our fathers. No town was more patriotic than this in the Revolution ; but I rejoice that its citizens appear never for one moment to have thought of giving up their corporate name because their benefactor COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 117 had estranged himself from their political opinions. The name of this town and the title of the Cambridge law profes- sorship may honorably be retained in his remembrance. The first possession of this soil by our ancestors dates from 1752, but the French war of 1756 — the most dramatic and enorossino- contest on this continent prior to that of the Eevo- lution — threw all the arts and labors of peaceful enterprise into suspense and abeyance for several years. You will ap- preciate how and why the clearing and culture of the glebe was suspended here to make way for the practice of the bayo- net, if you recall that the whole population of the province was drawn into the vortex of that war. Not in the Revolu- tion, not in the late Eebellion, of which the pressure is still heavy on your hearts, were the young men, who settle the land, so disproportionately called into the field of arms. In that conflict of seven years we are informed that Massachusetts alone sent to the field thirty-five thousand of her sons, and seven thousand for each of three successive years. Every nook and corner of this province was exhausted by the uni- versal call. As the war approached its end the permanent settlement of these lands began. In sympathy with the policy of the fathers of New England, the proprietors of Eoyal-shire laid our foundations in moral and mental education. At their first meeting in 1753 they had directed the land to be laid off into sixty lots for settlers, and three others for a minister, for the support of worship, and for a school. Their com- mittee came here and personally superintended this work, and selected the wild spot so familiar to us on the Lawrence stream for the mills. The church and the school, the saw-mill and the grist-mill, were the early handmaids of our civiliza- tion. They are so to this day in the West, beyond the Mis- sissippi, where our example is repeated. In 1761, the war having spent its fury, deeds had been granted to twenty-one settlers. In the next year these ten acres near which you have pitched your pavilion were sol- 118 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER IT. BULLOCK. emnly consecrated for the meeting-house, the training-field, and the nurial-ground, tlie last of which was subsequently by- exchange removed a little farther to the south, out of what is now this comely village ; and a contract was made for the mills. In the following year, 1763, a meeting-house was con- tracted for at £200, which was completed in 1764. Still another year witnessed the prompt execution of the wise policy of the founders, in setting apart 231 acres for the first minister, 424 acres for the ministry, and 420 acres for the school. To procure sixty settlers the proprietors offered to each man 100 acres, with the condition of set- tling a clergyman, clearing six acres, and building every one a house. No higher wisdom than this ever initiated a town or a State. And then the remaining lots were divided among the proprietors by drawing; and that was the profit which they deserved. In this year, 1765, February 16, the act of incorporation of the town, under the name of Royalston, was approved in Council. No copy of the act appears among your files. Ac- cordingly, I have availed myself of the kindness of the pres- ent obliging Secretary of State, the Hon. Oliver Warner, and have procured a literal transcript of the charter, handsomely engrossed upon parchment and bearing his attestation, which the town clerk will please faithfully preserve. It is the titu- lar charter of the last and youngest of all the towns of this ancient and noble county in the days of the province and of the royal arms. It is worthy of preservation, for under it j^our fathers have kept the public name nntarnished, and you will see to it that no blemish shall alight upon the life of the present gen- eration. The active settlement of this town began in 1762, when six families moved in, some of Avhose blood still circulates among your residents. I tliink we may estimate higldy the soundness of the stock of these sturdy pioneers, since it ap- COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 119 pears that the average age of these six heads at their death was not less than seventy-six years. So rapid was the influx of new-comers, that very soon after the French war had closed as many as seventy-five heads of families had become established liere, many of whose names help to fill your vot- ing-list in the present day. Time will not allow me to make use of the long list which is in my hands as I should like. Theirs was a wilderness life under a degree of hardship, of toil and deprivation, which only strong arms and hearts val- iant in Christian faith could have sustained. No imagination of this day, no preserved traditions of the past, can do justice to those early labors. Many of these men who came hither from Sutton, as was illustrated in the in- stance of Captain Sibley, would clear a piece of woodland here, go back to look after haymaking in Sutton, and return in time to sow a rye-field in Royalston. Prior to the erection of the first mill by Isaac Gale, bags of grain were carried on the shoulders of men to a neighboring town to be ground and brought back in the same manner. No wonder that they, who thus opened the pathway in this town with humble means and patient labor, were the same that confronted boldly James Otis and John Hancock, a committee of the proprietors, and insisted before the Legislature upon the justice and equity of taxing the lands of non-residents for the support of the Gospel ; and no wonder that they suc- ceeded against even those overshadowing names. I desire not to appear invidious in selecting out of so many who were prominent in their day. The three selectmen chosen at the first town-meeting, May 7, 1765, — John Fry, Timothy Eichardson, and Benjamin Woodbury, — bore names which have descended in other rep- resentatives of their blood through the records of a century, and which still live in honor and respect among you. The limitations of my address will only permit an allusion to the first of these. John Fry, a lineal descendant in the fifth generation of 120 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. one who came from England and settled in this country, moved from Sutton to lloyalston and resided on yonder emi- nence. He was called here the Esquire, but he brought with liira a distinction of arms. I have had placed at my use by one of his kinsmen the original commission under the king which he received as First Lieutenant from Governor Shirley in 1745, and under which he fought before Louisburg and entered the fort to the music of the same drums which thirty years later beat still better sounds at Bunker Hill. Ten years afterwards he bore royal commission as Captain for service at Crown Point. He was past the time for military activity when the Eevolution opened, and was obliged to suppress his soldierly instincts in the home life of a good deacon and model citizen. He lived here nearly fifty years, and died at ninetv-six. As I look over the memoranda concerning those men of the last century which have been gathered from traditions and placed in my hands, my admiration is excited for tlieir en- durance and their whole character. It was the best of stock with which to build up a town. I have also been impressed by the uniform fact of their remarkable longevity, which attests the purity and contentment of their lives. For small gains, but many large and virtuous rewards, tliey struggled manfully in the infancy of American civilization ; they drove out wild beasts and subdued the wilderness ; they opened the paths to a better condition for those who came after them, to more comfortable homes and a larger affluence ; worn out at last they lay down to their rest in the track their own hands had made, and they left to the present gen- eration a heritage of works in which all ages mny discern the beauty and the strength of religion, subordination, and patriotism. Aided by the mimificence of Colonel Royal the proprietors erected the first meeting-house in 1704 near the centre of this public ground. It was left in a rude state of unfinished interior and without pews. Upon one side of the broad aisle COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 121 were seated the males and upon the other the females, as was then usual in country houses of worship, which custom appears to have continued during a period of nearly forty years. There being no distinctive seats assigned to the sing- ers, the tuning-fork and deaconing off by lines came to the rescue of church harmony. Thirty-three years after, in 1797, the old house was removed, and another more commodious took its place. This remained with some alterations till it was destroyed by fire in 1851, when the present appropriate ed- ifice was reared. These changes have been very marked, and the contrast is striking. I can conceive that if John Fry, Tim- othy Eichardson, and Benjamin Woodbury were to come back in the flesh and be ushered, along the present aisles and by darkened windows, to carpeted slips and cushioned seats, and this new organ of yours were to practise upon their ears the imitation of a few of its flutes and its fiddles, and should wind up witli a swell or two of the grand diapason, they would call upon their leader of 1765 to draw the sword which he flashed at Crown Point, and to di'ive out of the house a congregation of worshippers who could tolerate such innovations. But we must remember that each age has its standard, and that in nothing else do men become so sacredly attached to their custom as in matters relating to Christian worship. I have spoken of the first condition imposed by the pro- prietors upon the landholders, — that they should support a minister. During the first three years of incorporation the temporary services of several clergymen were secured, but it is not important to recite tlieir names. At length, in April, 1768, the town extended a call to the Rev. Joseph Lee to settle. You will bear in mind that this was then what has been since termed by the courts a poll-parish, the town and the religious society blending under the law. He was offered for settlement £400 "old tenor," in addition to the 231 acres granted by the proprietors for the first settled minister, and in lawful money a salary of £46 13s. Ad. per annum for the first three years ; £53 6s. 8d. per annum for the next three 122 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. years ; and £G0 each year thereafter, and thirty cords of wood to be drawn annually from his own land to his door. The church of sixteen persons had been formally organized two years before. The call was accepted, and the pastoral office was filled by ordination, October 19, 1768. His life, his services, his eulogy, are in the dim letters upon that familiar tablet-stone in the neglected graveyard, which time will soon render illegible, unless you shall chisel them or color them anew. And now I cannot refrain from felicitating the inhabitants of Eoyalston over a fact which becomes at this point pertinent and impressive. As to all the central portion of the town, and by far the larger part of its whole population, after the expiration of one hundred years, you start on this second century with only the fourth clergyman and the fourth physi- cian since the origin. This is indeed a striking circumstance, and it has had much to do in forming and sustaining the character of the people. Everything stable, tried, approved, and held fast, — nothing fitful, violent, or rushing, — has en- tered into the public policy or general life or private action of this municipality among the hills of the frontier. From father to son, without tlie intermittent fevers which have racked many other communities, familiarity with the same faces, with the same principles, with the same professional and dominating influences, has descended through the years of a century, and made the very name of lioyalston a synonym for stability, tranquillity, and contentment. This is an inheritance to you worth your continued care to preserve. The patriotic history of the town is in proportion with all its other features. Those early settlements were made amid the rumblings of the approaching Eevolution, and your first proprietors were among its chief actors. They divided, and Chandler and lloyal went off to the loyalists. They were better known to our forefathers than were Otis and Hancock at that day, for Eoyal they cherished as their benefactor, and COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 123 Chandler had been active and fair in laying out their primeval lands. But they subordinated personal gratitude to public patriotism. I do not know that there was a single Tory among them all. Not even their poverty opened a door to the seductive blandishments of crowns and thrones. They had those among them who had borne the commission of their kinsf, and who had fought for his diadem on the line of the ocean and the lake ; but they cast all these pleasant memories behind them, waited not to know which side should win, and threw them- selves, their town, their all, into the breach with the struggling colonists for independence. Through the town records of the Eevolutionary period I find, loosely scattered and poorly preserved, sufficient proof of the exalted patriotism of those good men. It cannot be necessary that their votes and acts should be here set forth in detail. During all this time the first settlers were continually going themselves into the service, — the last two men marching off in 1782. There was no call from Philadelphia to which they did not respond, nor a drum-beat heard from Bunker Hill or Saratoga or Bennington with whicli their hearts did not keep music. When Burgoyne in the North spread abroad such terror, the men of this town and of all Northern Worcester rose to arms and marched forth for the encounter. All this occurred when more than half these acres were covered with the original forests, when the settlements were in their in- fancy, when the currency was perplexing all the relations of life, and when lioyalston had only between six hundred and seven hundred inhabitants. Other and older and richer towns did more, but I humbly submit that none did better than this. It is a source of increasing regret that the records of the town in its primitive period have only partially preserved the names of the Eevolutionary soldiers. From the books, ini- 124 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. perfectly kept as tliey were, I derive the names of Xahum Green, Samuel Earton, Esquire Davis, John Whittemore, Nathaniel Jacobs, Timothy Armstrong, Michael French, lioger Chase, Moses Walker, Joel Stockwell, Eliphalet Eichardson, B. Woodbury, Eleazer Burbank, Bezaleel Barton, Isaac Nichols, and Silas Cutting. Others there were, many and as good, but their names liave not been saved. The last named of these was one of the first six settlars of the town in 17G2, and died in the military service of the M^ar. But the remainder of them had come here a little later than 1762, in the shoal or drift of settlers who floated in this direction so rapidly from the southern towns. One of them, Nahum Green, was the delegate to the second Provincial Congress of JMassachusetts in February, 1775. He appears to have gone from that Congress into the first army gathered for independence at Charlestown, and was probably engaged in the battle of Bunker Hill ; he returned here in July and died of the small- pox, which he had contracted while in the service. This first martyr which Eoyalston contributed to the Revolution was privately buried near his own home, about a mile southerly of this spot, and the soldier's resting-place can now barely be identified by the remaining cobbles that make his headstone. Cannot this town afford, by some simple, appropriate, and enduring memorial, to rescue from oblivion the gory bed of the aboriginal patriot whose name yet survives without a tablet the scene of the first mortal sacrifice offered in lier be- half to the immortality of the American Union ? Pardon me for asking you to think of this, and to act either by private subscription or in open town-meeting. Another of them, Nathaniel Jacobs, as it appears, unintentionally, in the quaint language of the papers in your chest, " did a tower of duty in lihode Island." All of these, and many otliers whose names are lost to our sight, struggled throughout the conflict, and some died in the battles, that they might write the honor of their young municipality upon the shining bosses of the Re- public of the world in the West. And I am proud to be able COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROY ALSTON, MASS. 125 to stand before you and to say that of all who enlisted into that service from this town, not one — not one was ever recorded as a deserter. We meet to-day upon their ancient training-ground to render ascriptive gratitude for the honor of their robust virtues, for the example of their marvellous sacrifices, for the fame of their glorious death. Let us in our day cherish the memories of our ancestors in that war, and transmit every syllable of their names encircled with reverence to the last posterity. Our patriotic journal is as continuous as it is creditable. In the war with Great Britain in 1812-15, our fathers were alike Federal in politics and steadfast in their patriotism. They believed throughout in the policy of Hamilton and Ames and Strong, but they never stood away from the national colors. Accordingly they sent a fine, large company of grenadiers for coast defence to Boston under circumstances of departure which made the scene to be remembered as pathetic and impressive. Those men all returned without a casualty, and nearly one half of their number live to-day to celebrate tlieir Federal and bloodless campaign. Other citizens of the town, however, went out into the active service and mingled in the engagements of that war on distant fields. In the late war of the Eebellion the conduct of this town has been such as I am proud to record. Her people stood early and constant by the Government, and by the prin- ciple of universal liberty. In the defence of them they have strained every energy under circumstances of embarrassment not shared by many other sections of the State. Tlie opening conflict found the place considerably exhausted of its young men, whom more exciting fields of enterprise had drawn away from their hillsides, and the second year of the strug- gle greatly increased that exhaustion. But still upward and onward to the last victories our people answered to the calls of the country, filled their quotas, and never fell below the example of their Eevolutionary sires. Several of the native- 126 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK, born sons of Royalston have been promoted as general officers to high commands in the national army. When I consider that the population lias been declining within the last decade, and that this decline represents chiefly the departure of those who are within the age of military requisition, I confess my surprise and admiration over the role of those who have borne the name of our birthplace on the many fields of this war. The great cost to the manhood of the Union in defence of its life becomes solemn to our senses when we examine in detail the account of the several towns of Massachusetts. From this little comnmnity alone one hundred and ten men have enlisted in the sublime work of saving their country by arms. Of this enlistment an uncommon proportion have fallen to their last sleep. They fell in the deadly night-shades of Carolina ; in the early battles which cheered every loyal heart by the tidings wafted from Eoanoke and Newbern ; in the conflict with an armed foe and with a more fatal climate on the Lower Mississippi ; in the terrible and unavailing slaughter at Drury's Bluff and Cold Harbor; on guard and in the trenches and along the blazing lines, whenever and wherever they were called ; in Libby, which is yet unavenged ; in the stockade of Andersonville, from which the voices of thirty thousand Union boys, starved, tortured, murdered, now break the silence of death in a chorus cry for justice. The soldiers of Eoyalston have lifted their souls to the contemplation of duty and to tlie heights of courage, have offered up their lives to the sudden death of the field and the slow death of the prison, and have perpetuated the name of the town which enrolled them in annals of immortal lustre. So long as we and our children shall enjoy the blessings of Union which they died to save, and shall bless the God of our ancestors for sealinrr with -their sacrifices the freedom of all races in America, their names shall be cherished by us, and sluill de- scend to everlasting remembrance. Let those names, every one of them, be attached to this commemorative address, and be engrossed in your official records for endurance till these COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 127 hills shall melt away. Ye gallant survivors, welcome to-day ! Ye crallant dead, hail and farewell ! From this I might easily diverge to speak of the prominent men whom I learned so greatly to respect as sources of radiat- ing influence from this central common. The minister, Mr. Perkins, of grave yet pleasant memory, — how I remember him, in his long floating summer toga, driving us in at the eight o'cloclv bell on every Saturday evening ; Esquire Joseph Estabrook, our first postmaster, our first gentleman, our first Senator, to my perceptions blending the old and the new school of manners, who began as a trader, and adopted in later years the pleasant vocation of a grazier, having a genius for noble cattle as quick and intuitive as Daniel AVebster ever possessed, whose blood, whether remaining here or transferred in honorable connections to other places, honors the parent stock ; Dr. Batcheller, absolutely august in his proportions, always riding rapidly and smoking as fast, with a short genial nod and a happy word for everybody and especially for the young of both sexes ; ]\Iajor-General Franklin Gregory, who succeeded to Estabrook on the other side of the street, gentle- man by nature, taking by instinct to the military, in which he excelled all others and in that capacity presided at one of the festive boards in reception of Lafayette, the most enter- prising merchant this town ever had, and inaugurating here her largest trade, whose untimely death in 1836 at forty-four was a public loss irreparable ; and one other, who far out- lived all these his associates, whom as exemplar of a long, simple, successful, and virtuous life, whom as many times your llepresentative, twice your Senator, your delegate to the Constitutional Conventions of 1820 and 1852, your honored townsman in his lifetime, and benefactor in death, I should proudly describe, but that the inheritance of his name for- bids, — these, and others, challenge my memories in this hour and hallow the spot of a youthful love. They have all gone, and with most of their day and generation they repose 128 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. in these burial-grounds and almost in our presence. And so on this occasion the past comes back to me in the memorials which are treasured but fractured, leaving to me this morning the melancholy pleasure of uniting my heart with the friends that survive. The industrial characteristics of the town have changed with the exigencies of the age. The water-falls have been re- claimed, and the ever-varying arts and industries inaugurated by the use of steam as a practical agency and by the division of labor have come in here as elsewhere, and have somewhat transformed that which was formerly a rural life. There was very early in its history a quite respectable use of M'oollen machinery, which under the new dispensation of industry has been greatly increased, until no small part of the local market for consumption and values is now found in the wheels and cogs and spindles which make South Eoyalston the central point of active enterprise and production. While that busy hive on your southei'ly border, having the double advantage of the river and railroad, must henceforth maintain its suprem- acy, let us indulge the hope that only fraternal relations shall subsist between the sections, and that all together will con- tinue for generations to be contented and united under the patriarchal banner. To the agricultural identities of the population I mainly ascribe its almost stationary numerical peculiarity. From 1790 to 1860, a term of seventy years, the number of in- habitants only varied from 1,130 to 1,486, from one decade to another, sometimes gaining a little and sometimes losing nearly the same. Your annals are not of the prizes of fortune and affluence, nor contain they any modern chapter of poverty. Those annals tell us of systematic toil, and patriotic struggle, and patient endurance, and the Christian faith. The economies of industry and the riches of the heart are the pride and solace of the record. This town should never be forgotten COMMEMORATIVK ADDRESS AT ROYALSTON, MASS. 129 by her sons wheresoever they may wander. For myself, as here the first breath was drawn, so liere the last word should willingly be uttered. If the sons and daughters could abandon and forget her in pursuit of more exciting scenes, even in larger numbers than they have yet gone, — if the country simplicity of the early days should settle down like the clouds of the province over her fields and her farms, — my last remembrance should still revert to the happy hills and pas- tures of childhood, and I would still address her in the lan- guage of mingled encouragement and admonition, worthy of the poet of the " Deserted Village," — "Aid slightest truth witli tliy persuasive strain ; Teach erring man to spare tlxe rage of gain : Teach him, that towns of native strength possest, Though very poor, may still be very blest, That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labored mole away. While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows of the sky." Friends and fellow-citizens, tliis imperfect tribute to the qualities and the labors of our ancestors must be brought to a close. At the end of one hundred years, we, tlieir descen- dants, have assembled to contemplate in brief review their lives and achievements. I submit it to impartial judgment, that their conduct in the early settlement, in the manage- ment of the town, in the cultivation of the fields, in their relations with the great events of the country in all the duties of Church and State, in the salutary examples which have passed from one generation to another, — in religion, industry, politics, and daily life, — has been such that we may rehearse it with pride and commend it to those who shall come after us. This congregation of the living is equalled in numbers by those who sleep in this town in the quiet en- closures of the dead. They speak to us out of their silence and repeat the lesson of their lives. As they were bound together by the ties of friendship in the primitive period of their trials, and have kept the councils of peace and unity 9 130 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. through all the stages of this history, so let that spirit con- trol another age, and the felicities of social life go hand in hand with public stability and prosperity. As they adapted themselves to the changing requisitions of the general indus- try and economy, so let the tides of occupation, as they come and go with you, bear onward a community never behind but always advancing. As they never failed to uphold the honor of their country by their hearts, by their declarations, and by their arms, so let the American Union and the Common- wealth of Massachusetts find in this town forever most con- stant friends and most gallant defenders. As they have transmitted to our keeping the institutions of worship and education, by them at all times well endowed and well sup- ported, so let the endowments be multiplied and the support be enlarged till the bells of the churches and the schools shall sound a welcome in every ear. And when, after the passage of another century, your successors shall meet over your dust to celebrate their day, may it be the happiness of the inter- vening generations to have provided for them as little for reproach and as much for devout thanksgiving as we our- selves have received from our fathers. ADDRESS delivered before the massachusetts charixable mechanic associa- tion at tremont temple, boston, oct. 4, 1865. Mr. President and Gentlemen: I CONGRATULATE the members of the Massachusetts Char- ital:)le Mechanic Association that with the return of peace the opportunity for resuming their periodical exhibition is restored under circumstances so gratifying. While the war lasted your seasons of ovation to the useful arts were indeed suspended amid the pathos and pageantry of arms ; but the arts themselves suffered little abatement ; rather they took from the excitations of the time new intensity to themselves, and repeated the lesson taught by other countries, that war periods are quite apt to quicken and invigorate the national "enius. Accordin^lv, while the late conflict was ravins, and all classes, all interests, all welfares, were to some extent swept into the vortex, the records of the Patent Office prove that the inventive wits of the country kept steadily at their work under the highest tension, and the income list de- monstrates, what we all knew before from our personal observation, that the mechanic arts and manufactures were reaping a golden harvest. Nay, even more than this, and pertaining to the rationale of our military success, these creative and constructive forces had not only prepared the free States for the war when it came, but tliey became them- selves the nerves and sinews of the Treasury which shares with the soldier the honors of victory. The glistening col- lection of ordnance which is packed in yonder hall — let 132 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. US hope not soon to be needed in the field — derives its highest interest and largest instruction from the bright array of its peaceful companionship, the engines, the fabrics, the textiles, which almost seem conscious of their sovereignty amid martial implements and martial deeds. But now it is that the war having subsided the arts as- sume once more their control in the state, and sway all the classes and all the employments of men. We are soon to be in statu quo ante helium, — a generation pushing the origi- nalities of motive power and the artificial combinations of forces to the farthest verge of empire. This is an age and ours a country of mechanism. The mechanical arts, with which for all purposes of discussion manufactures are sy- nonymous, bear the rule in our time. The prizes of fortune, which formerly fell almost exclusively to commerce, now aliglit more frequently here ; and without these agencies agriculture would never have awaked from the sleep of the earlier periods. The institutions of education, without aban- doning the classic fields, recognize and apply this fact ; and Boston, as much a city of mechanics as of merchants, through her Lawrences, father and son, and more recently her Hooper, has conferred upon the neighboring University new and practical departments of contemporary power and lasting beneficence. And so I take up the condition as we find it, and for these remaining moments will consider tJie relations of the Meclianic Arts with Liberty and Social Pro- gress. No lesson of modern history has been more clearly defined than that the growtli of these utilities has been the herald of a larger freedom than was before enjoyed. It is difficult indeed — so imperfect have been historical writers in their delineation of domestic custom — to point out the exact con- nection which one improvement after another has borne with the general results ; but we cannot recur to the record of those days in which manufactures, and commerce, which would be of little consequence without them, first caught the BEFORE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 133 influence of the pulsations which startled the people of Europe from their torpor, without becoming ourselves admir- ing witnesses of their quickening and regenerating effect upon the tyranny of a thousand preceding years. If we go back to what under our classificatiou of periods is called the Middle Ages, we find that the institution of feudalism, half patriarchal and half military, held everything in subjection until artisanship, manufactures, and trade loosed forever the chain and the grasp. The triumph at Eunnymede, to which we are in the habit of referring the landmarks of freedom, was chiefly the success of feudal lords over a feudal crown ; it brought but little of practical liberty to the nine tenths of all, who still continued under a baronial despotism. It was not till the mechanic arts, few and small as they were, — manufactures dawning faintly and at intervals in a long dark period, dying out in one place only to take new life in an- other, — and commerce, depending upon these for its support, always sharing their fortunes and keeping place only with their progress, — had varied the broad dead level of the pub- lic condition, had liberalized the ranks above and quickened the masses below, had opened the way for the fusion of the social classes, and penetrated their mutual relations with those aspirations which have beat higher and higher till now they control the Western nations, that anything which can be called popular freedom had a genuine and transmitted existence. In the descent and diffusion of liberal ideas, in the promulgation of common rights, in the establishment of systems of justice and equity, towns and cities have proved to be the most effective agencies ; but these have sprung up only in sympathy with manufactures and commerce. The mediaeval landed proprietor conferred no such benefits upon the race ; he held his artisans under the limitations of a quasi- white servitude, and for all the purposes of reforming social abuses and redeeming men from vassalage their relation was almost of as little value as that of the mechanics of Greece and Eome, who were slaves. If the annals of mankind 134 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. chronicle anything with a point and a moral to it, it is that for centuries there were no considerable and enduring manu- factures which were popular in their origin, popular in their uses, and popular in their relations. I allow that among the memorials of early time, partly rescued and partly entombed beyond our knowledge, there are sublime traces of lost arts. Wonderful to this generation, marvels to the modern science of mechanics, they loom out from Nineveh and Babylon and Jerusalem, and Egyptian pyramids, and later cities even now under the process of exhumation, full of interesting disclo- sure to the antiquary and the scholar, but bringing little instruction as to the advancement and enfranchisement of the world, and scarcely coming at all within the circuit of the golden links which in our da}' bind the productions of genius and art to the welfare of humankind. They are splendid encomiums upon the skill of the past ; but they furnish not much aid to the progressive lessons of our political economy, which builds up Boston and Lowell and Lawrence and "Worcester, and infuses them with the springs of immortal life. Such a benign mission was reserved to a later period of popular arts. Those were feudal times, having an abundance of rural life, protected by the castle, the turret, and the port- cullis. In classifying the periods and the causes of the deliver- ance of Europe, a philosophical historian (Mr. Hallam) lias ascribed one of the first degrees of progress to the introduction of woollen manufactures into Flanders, nearly six hundred years ago. So magical was the effect that the wings of trade opened wide and far, that little district became a market of renown, and merchants from seventeen kingdoms besides strangers from almost unknown countries were domiciled m the inconsiderable capital of West Flanders, that palpitated under the new dispensation of industry. How infectious are these examples ! They spread immediatel}' througli the free cities of Germany, and wherever tlie most mechanical skill and production was developed, there the greatest civil liberty BEFOKE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCLiTION. 135 was enjoyed. England invoked the charm ; and as if real- izing the glory of the title which subsequent history has Sfiven to him, of the "father of English commerce," — "a title by wliich he may claim more of the gratitude of his countrymen than as the hero of Crecy," — her great Edward opened a stream of emigration from the manufactures of the Continent which continued to pour its life-giving influences into his realm for an hundred years afterwards. The com- merce of the Baltic sprang into existence, and Northern and Southern Europe greeted each other for the first time in peace and on shipboard ; ships of nearly a thousand tons astonished the god of the sea ; maritime law and the law sys- tem of nations took form and expression ; international comity and freedom rose to influence and respect ; banks started into life, the repositories of so many hopes, and bills of exchange were invented, those fictitious cords which bind together re- mote nations in faith and confidence ; the desolation of the wars of the Eoses was quickly repaired; manufactures and trade obtained a place in the Statutes of Parliament, and from that day down they have swelled the volumes of its proceed- ings with the record of their fraternal progress, their equal be- neficence, their indissoluble glory. Those who were engaged in these occupations became respectable before the law, and be- gan to assume an equality with the landed proprietor ; for by a statute it was provided that an artisan or tradesman, — you will bear in mind that the two have travelled in company together on the same benevolent mission to the race and to its now conceded honors, — if possessed of real estate of tlie value of £500, should be permitted to dress himself like a squire of £100. The struggle between arbitrary power and the rising classes was protracted in its duration and varied in its vicissitudes of success and defeat, but every generation brought it nearer to its termination. The hue of change was passing over the social condition, and the power of landholders was yielding to the free spirit of the towns. It was not in the tent, but in 136 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. the workshop, that modern liberty was dreaming of her com- ing joys ; it was not in Gothic halls, but in the marts of trade, that equality of rights was panting with a new-born con- sciousness ; it was not in rural but in nrban life, in the smoke of cities, in the din of ports, that the reforms were maturing that shonld strike the century l^ells with the last note of the Middle Ages and awake mankind by the click and whirl and thunder of the arts to the amazing scenery wliich is now unfolding before us without exciting our surprise. There it was that new ideas of profit and of property, new conceptions of creative power and artistic combination, disturbed the stag- nation of all previous time ; and it was there in the con- sciousness of common strength, and invigorated by a more rapid circulation of thought, that the stubborn spirit of free- dom first made its roots broadly and profoundly. The king became disquieted at the rapid increase of London ; but arti- sanship, trade, and shipping found their way into Parliament. The democratical interest, distinguishing the orders of industry from the territorial aristocracy, was steadily diffusing itself and accumulating its power, running in even flood with ideas of equality and independence. Aided by the practical arts it gained the first modern triumph ; for while in an earlier day Wat Tyler could only summon a powerless rabble around his standard, who fell easily before the knights in their armor of steel, Cromwell afterwards gathered his heroic numbers from the houses of mechanics and merchants, Puritans in their religion and workmen in their lives, and a new era was opened at Marston Moor. The first conflict and the first victory of the arts you cele- brate this evening were waged and won in the land of our ancestors, whose history is strewn with choice memorials of the sources of- our own freedom. The progress of Great Britain, since she emerged from the middle period, has been the gradual yet constant growth of a nation of mechanics. The constitution of England — her unwritten law, deejjly em- bedded in the customs of her people — relates back for its BEFORE THE CHAKITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 137 derivation through all the stages of her advancement in these utilities. The stern features of feudalism, which first gave to it an ascendency over the crown, have received in successive periods the softening influences of the arts, which have made her system of industry a nursery of liberal ideas. Their imperial life, their enfranchised individuality, from which we at first derived our own, have grown up from her wharves and warehouses and workshops until now they have become tlie first estate of the realm. That no tax should be extorted without the consenting voice of the legislature, has come from the early traders and mechanics whose defiance spoke in the cause of John Hampden ; every representative reform has been the achievement of the towns rising over the ruins of baronial towers ; that no man sliall be imprisoned by the royal will is one of the flowers, not of regal dispensation, but of the new classification of labor; religious freedom to the dissenter has gushed out from the wealth and influence of dissenters who run machinery and watch the hustings ; the independence of the judges is a fruit of the middle interest of the nation which can disrobe the ermine when it becomes impure ; the limitation of parliaments is the decree which is heard from the Manchesters, the Sheflields, and the Liver- pools ; the liberty of the press is the inspiring utterance that rises from a thousand fields, on her land and sea, in which a roar of water-falls mingles with a myriad of steam-engines in tones which all the kings of the earth cannot silence. In the whole round of her drum-beat her conquests have been the conquests of these arts. If it be true, as it has been said, that Arkwright, who placed cotton spinning in the weird sisterhood of national powers, bore the English nation triumphantly through the wars of the French Eevolution, it is equally true that neither Pitt nor Wellington, but Watt, who organized the steam-engine, was the conqueror of Napoleon. And witliin our own memory the final disinthralment from an overshadowing aristocracy was secured in a single day by the brilliant triumph of the " untaught, inarticulate genius " of 138 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK, George Stephenson, when he gave the first start under high pressure to tlie express train that made over the Liverpool and ]\Ianchester road the grand trial trip of the age of pro- gress ; tlie inventor and engineer being the plain Northum- berland mechanic, — the witnesses, Brougham and Wellington and Huskisson, ladies, court, and people, — and the freight, all the interests and all the hopes of civilization. Truthfully and philosophically did Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, exclaim, as he stood upon one of the bridges and watched the train flasliing throuuh the fields belonging to lords w^ho had done their utmost to thwart the experiment, " I rejoice to see it, and to think thoi feudality is gone forever ." It wovdd be pursuing a topic already too familiar to discuss at any length the relations of the mechanic arts with the development of public liberty in this country. They were, more distinctly than other interests, the causes and agencies of its independence. About the middle of the last century manufactures acquired an importance in Europe whicli dis- tanced all former example, and spread rapidly to this side of the water, where they found a population in the Northern colonies wlio for many years had been trying their hands at the same kind of work. Under the new impulse which now began everywhere to stimulate these pursuits, the people of Massachusetts and of other colonies eagerly caught at all suggestions which came from Europe, and quickly added to them their own originalities of invention. Then came the repressive and at times prohibitory policy of Great Britain, having all the power of Parliament to support it, aiming to destroy these hives of skilled labor while they were yet forming, and before they should be able to compete with those of the mother country. The purpose was the impover- ishment of the colonies in the departments of handicraft; and, as Mr. Burke said in his great speech on Conciliation, the English nation seemed to act upon the thought that America Avas becoming her rival in this class of production. Such legislation aroused a responsive spirit of resolution on BEFORE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 139 our side, and the men who were pursuing these labors, and were imparting to the life of New England a vigor and elas- ticity she had never before possessed, became restive under the restraint, resentful to tyranny, and ready for independence. So that, when the time came for rupturing the tie of empire, the question of taxation was rather the occasion than the primary cause of the war. The Revolution was a necessity out of years of accumulating measures of despotic vigor and repression, all directed to shattering the arm of art and skill in these Northern communities. The last blow which evoked the spark that burst into the blaze of conflict fell ostensibly indeed upon commerce ; but the thousands who had been struodinG: at the infant manufactures of the time, whose manly liopes and sinewy arms had been kept down by legis- lative oppression, dictated from a throne three thousand miles away, now outnumbered the merchants and helped them to spread the flame. These were the men, the mechanics and artisans of Boston and the seaboard, who made up the con- stituency that stood behind Samuel Adams as he walked these streets, watching and directing the rising storm. There was something in their experience under the British colonial system that urged them on to the contest ; there was some- thing more in their occupation, as creators in the system of political economy and in the domain of art, which elevated them to lofty conceptions of manhood and made them fit for earnest service in the struggle for liberty. Singularly and especially, after the Eevolution, were your interests instrumental in organizing peace under a constitu- tional union of the States. The name of the early president of this association, Paul Revere, worthily retained in our da}'' in the relations of hospitality, of trade, and of manufactures, remembered in connection with all that he accomplished for the establishment of our National Government, at the first mention of it snatches from my lips everything I could say, if I ought to say even a word, upon a branch of my theme so interesting as this is. It has always appeared 1-iO ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER U. BULLOCK. to me the wonder of our history, how, out of the chaos of tlie individualities of States, out of commercial diversi- ties and political antagonisms, out of the idiosyncrasies of climate and domestic institutions, out of conflicting remi- niscences of origin, settlement, and race, any union at all ever came to us. But the wisdom of the God of our fathers was higher than ours. Then rises before me the beauty, the mys- tery, the harmony, of the States and the classes wliich from so great diversity united in framing and confirming the Con- stitution. Our own New England was divided, so that if Massachusetts had an interest and a patriotism which over- came some of her theories and gave her among the earliest to the Union, Ehode Island had a revenue policy and perhaps some other reasons which kept her out until a little after the eleventh hour. In the conventions of New York and Massa- chusetts I suppose that question, so vastly interesting to the generations of America, to have been decisively settled for the whole confederation ; and in both of these States it is not too much to say now, in the light of tradition and history, that if it had been left exclusively to the landed interest, the Government under whose flag your exhibition illustrates alilce the victories of arms and of arts covdd scarcely have been established. Here in ]\Iassachusetts the communities in which manufactures allied to commerce had made most progress turned the trembling scales in favor of its adoption ; and I believe it is a fact now well understood that when emi- nent men, who led the councils of those days in this State, hesitated about the ratification, the manufacturers and me- chanics, animated by the fire and patriotism of Revere, pressed them up to duty and enforced the decision of the convention. Quite similar were the circumstances which attended the result in New Tork, in whose convention the constitution received the vote of only tlie slightest majority of delegates. To the genius and efforts of Alexander Hamilton, which never shone more conspicuously than in the convention at Pough- keepsie, that conclusion will forever be attributed. He was BEFORE THE CHAEITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 141 a delegate from the commercial metropolis, but his election may be traced to the meeting of the mechanics of that city who assembled at the house of William Ketchum and deter- mined that he should be elected. History, that selects her heroes, whether in peace or iu war, from the number of those whose speech rules the forum or whose command propels squadrons on the field, and cannot pause to inquire who chose the orator or who fought under the order and the bu- gle, awards to Ames and his associates in Massachusetts, to Hamilton and his associates in New York, the honors of the adoption of the Constitution and of the ages of glory under it. Inquiry and analysis disclose to us the antecedent detail, — how the manufacturers and artisans of Boston and New York furnished to Ames the inspiration of his eloquence, and to Hamilton the opportunity for the amazing display of his in- tellect and his demonstration which carried the day for all coming time. The fame of your association culminates this evening in the bare mention of their renown. The limitations of this evening's exercise will not permit me to consider with any detail the influence of the mechanic arts upon social progress ; that would be a task for history and for volumes. It will surely be sufficient for the lighter pur- poses of the present occasion to treat the topic rather by illus- tration than by narrative or argument, especially since our own experience and observation supply all needed argument. An eminent English writer, Mr. Carlyle, who has not been at all satisfied with us in war, has criticised our condition as severely under peace, — claiming that we have lost our belief in the invisible, and that we live and hope and work only in the visible, the practical, and the mechanical. The theory is, that our best days are over, that our spirit has become tame and enfeebled, and that under the prevalence of the material, the commercial, and the mechanical, our social tone and temper has lost its higher energy and sentiment. No argument can satisfy this theory, but historical illustrations scatter it to the imperceptible winds. This transcendental 142 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. ideal of life, in its contrast with the later and experimental ages, is illustrated in the type of the earlier centuries which gave the trial to that doctrine and opened the way for the trial of ours. I invite you to the comparison. During the long period which closed when modern history began there was no lack of philosophy, but a vast want of mechanical utility. Great masters filled the world with syllo- gisms, but with no new tools for workmen. They were rich in brilliant conceits, fine abstractions, and keen dialectics ; but few new inventions, or practical improvements in morals or social existence, had a place in their barren fields. The conveniences and comforts of life were esteemed too vulgar for that philosophy. Alike in the night of the pagan schools and in the dim twilight of a corrupted Christianity, men dis- puted in never-ending cycles of abstract conceptions, of ideal good, of the essence of things ; and where one left off, an- other began and ended. The useful was undignified; and while true wisdom might well be found in reasoning after the organization of the soul, it could not come down to the idea of windows through which men might see and of pipes that should warm their freezing bodies. Angles of thought were polished to more than Damascan lustre, but angles of iron in its thousand styles for use would have been a scandal to the Grove and the Portico. Even the imperial intellect of Aris- totle might have been pleased by the suggestion of a swinging pendulum, as illustrative of the action of the human mind, but the intimation of its application to a Yankee timepiece would have ruffled his proud spirit. The idea of the electric fluid would have been accounted sublime as an abstraction, but the sight of Franklin flying a kite to evoke an eternal law from the skies to protect our houses and barns would have wrung a pang from many a Grecian philosopher. Those were great times and great men, but there were few benefac- tors in the larger sense pertaining to the whole of time. There was little of progress, for all that was taught died with the disputant, and there was nothing left to be transmitted BEFORE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION". 143 to the next age for adoption or improvement. Even down to the hearing of modern ears this subtle philosophy held its control ; alchemy, astrology, and the vain pursuit after the philosopher's stone, were in highest favor, while the arts and inventions that supply and elevate the race were in scholastic outlawry. During all this philosophical millennium, govern- ments were treated as ingenious agencies for conducting men to the ideal of virtue, and not as the splendid structures of experimental wisdom for enriching the people in all that art and wealth and morals can provide for the nmltiiDlying -wants of social man. Unpractical schoolmen rose in proud suc- cession, and through their gigantic intellectual machinery furnished dogmas enough to tlie State and the Church for generations even now unborn ; but, viewed from the obser- vatory of a modern living age, they appear in some respects not unlike those massive windmills which formerly amused summer hours at Newport, whose ponderous arms revolved with fearful momentum even after the last kernel of fruit had departed from the hopper. But at length, in the fulness of time, our new producing powers acquired possession of the field. Their rapid devel- opment has been commonly ascribed to the change which Lord Bacon introduced to the studies and pursuits of men, under which physics, arts, utility, progress, have for centuries ruled over the circuit of human thought. Certain it is that within a century after his accession to the mastery, the toiling and patient philosophy of induction and experiment, of investigating step by step and process by process for the laws which guide mankind in their efforts to subdue matter and combine forces, was held in highest favor. Agriculture started from its slumberous bed as if touched by the wand of a charmer. The disputations of the schoolmen receded, and governments and morals and arts began to be judged by their effects. Alchemy and astrology fled with their lost dignity, and the study of natural elements and the arramzincf and ad- justing of natural forces took their places. Kings had their 144 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. laboratories, judges studied water-courses, and fine ladies turned some of their patronizing glances from the halls of courtiers to tlie hitherto vulgar labors which make tradesmen, artisans, and farmers. Architecture began to be contemplated in its bearings upon the common ranks of life ; houses to be ventilated ; lands to be drained ; machinery to be invented and set to work ; trade to become respectable ; and the pur- suits of man to receive that direction which has continued in an ascending scale until now our civilization is largely a record of these practical studies and these multiplied powers. Suppose now that Lord Bacon could come back in the flesh, accompanied, if you please, by some of those masters in nat- ural science and mechanical construction who have become familiar to us as public benefactors, and could tarry long enough to survey this vast convolution of results which sweeps the globe in its circle of blessing, — what a scene would meet their astonished gaze ! They would behold hundreds of millions of people engaged in occupations which in the old time had not been thought of, — such a panoramic view of enterprise and production and consumption as would have startled their own vivid im- agination in their lifetime. They would witness coal-fields and iron mines reclaimed from long neglect and become the very bases of modern civilization, without which nations can- not be opulent or independent, — the earth kindly opening its depths to receive myriads of men who by the light of science and the aid of arts bid defiance to its darkness and its gases, pump away its water and its refuse, and extract the ores and metals which are wrought to fit a thousand utilities and to become objects of inspiring beauty ; agriculture re- stored to the honor of the time of the patriarchs, goaded by energies unknown before, enlivened by modern machinery and modern markets and in return conferring upon them its victorious sheaves. They would behold "Steam, that fleshless arm, "Whose pulses leap with floods of living fire," BEFORE THE CHAKITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 145 chanmnGf the features of the world, — commingling the flags of countries in the dance of the sea, — darting great ships in de- fiance of the winds and the breakers, and railroad cars where before no horse had penetrated, — operating more machines than the hour would permit me to enumerate if I knew them, — sending out from this city every morning before the cock crows thrice an hundred thousand printed sheets which cabinets read before they decide, and all New England before it approves, — facilitating intercourse, acquaintance, refinement, joy ; in Great Britain alone twenty thousand steam-engines driven day and night with a power equal to two millions of men; the artificial and mechanical forces of our land exceeding all the hands of the four continents of the globe a century ago, and two fifths of our male population over fifteen years of age employed in manufactures, the mechanic arts, commerce, and mining ; bays and rivers and gulfs spanned with a strengtli that shall never fail and with a beauty that shall survive the decay of the Parthenon ; the wilds of the country reclaimed, cities starting up as by enchantment, crowded with order and intelligence by day and lighted up by a flame that never goes out by night ; in our own empire thirty thousand miles of railroads making peace always ready for war and converting war into peace with a quickness and a quittal which other times never knew ; in this same America twenty-five thou- sand miles of wires, — I dare say there are more, — mute yet eloquent, talking up to the high noon of night of wants and supplies, of trades and battles, ever flashing with the messages of the living and the dead ; a commerce taking the products of the land and of the machines to the side of the sea and there committing them to another country, another world ; a system of credit and exchange founded in religious truth, sustained by honor and faith, blessing him who gives and him who receives ; a civilization they would behold and admire and pray for, which places it in the power of man to " wield these elements and arm him with the force of all their legions." 10 / 146 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. This photograph Lord Bacon and his associates would ac- cept as the picture of a portion, and only a portion, of the fruits of the tree of modern utility, which he assisted in planting, whose roots are intrenched in every well-ordered state to-day, whose pendent boughs canopy our time. These they would recognize as the trophies which are sometimes characterized as the material successes of commerce and the mechanic arts. Nor material successes only. For the survey would be in- complete which should not perceive the average duration of human life lengthened out, alleviations of suffering discovered, some diseases eradicated ; these steam-presses opening a flood of literature and scattering the Holy Scriptures like leaves for the healing of the nations; the English language per- vading the earth with exquisite thought and immortal char- ity ; schools made free, universities accessible, and churches thrown open, where but recently solitude reigned supreme ; institutions of benevolence sending up to Heaven their thanks- giving and spreading their benefactions through society for the ills of the body and the mind ; history at her work clearing up the mysteries of time ; poetry sending its deep-toned vibrations through the heart of the age; the fine arts awak- ening the soul in its daily toil to the eternities of love and beauty ; and the body of law and order breathing with a free spirit and laying a kind restraining hand upon the wayward- ness of our nature. Who is the man so unbelievinsr in the very presence of this world-wide exhibition which is passing before him, as to say that this mechanical period has not out- stripped every former period in the generality of its progress and in the loftiness of its ethics ? So also, gentlemen, the area of the hall of liberty and the market house which you have thrown open to the public for three weeks of holidays and for universal instruction, is crowded with proofs that your department of industry is alive with the his/her taste and sentiment which becomes a part of aesthetic culture. There I behold inert substances transformed from their own mute creation into the properties BEFORE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 147 and activities of mechanical life, — that which was dead in nature made by skill and art to speak in a language felt and understood hy the great circle of humanity, — the wood, the metal, and the ore so changed as to become a charm to the eye, music to the ear, and an awakening medium to all the sen- sations which are undying in the heart of man. I see the rude sands scooped from the natural beds of Berkshire fused with alkalies, and unified into forms which, if they were less common, would be valued as the rarer diamonds. I witness that model steam-engine under action, which was brought hither from our county of Worcester, out of a shop where I have seen three hundred loyal and lordly men pounding their intelligence into the work of their hands ; my eye ranges over the textures made up out of the fleece from the Western prairies, or the white ball from the Southern savannas, so fine that they recall the fact which has been recorded that a pound of cotton has been lengthened and attenuated into a thread of a thousand miles. These are the works, but whence has come the conception ? These are the arts, but who are the artists ? Is it according to the analogies of our knowledge that they who perform these things can be coarse and rude in their natures, unresponsive to taste and sentiment and humanity ? The modern artificer is the creator of beauty, and lives amid its forms and its suggestions. The soul of mechanism is animate with poetry. The ideals first exist in the mind of the mechanic, and are next transferred to wood and metal, and then are applied under the laws of time and space and fluids, and at length are invested with a perpetual life of motion that finds its type in the revolving spheres of the lieavenly world ; and tell me, can these things be so and not awaken all the capacities of his nature to the pleasures of culture and refinement and sensation ? The social life of our time is pervaded by the sesthetics of the mechanic arts. The eye, the sense, the soul, of the state finds a school larger and freer than municipalities ever founded, so long as men, women, and children throng their way to the splendid machine, gaze 148 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. upon its unwonted style, its Gothic strength, its columnar supports, witness the balances of its action, the awful and mysterious silence with which it works, the ideal of propor- tion that makes it " the glass of fashion and the mould of form," and retire with plaudits for its architect and with blessings on his head. And if you follow out the thought, and apply it to the endless diversities of mechanism, and consider how extended the subdivision of this labor and art becomes, and how it individualizes the man and starts his nascent tastes, — and how it unfolds on another plane and in another grade, and produces a Powers, a Story, a Clevenger, a Ball, a Hosmer, — I cannot believe that you will hesitate to reckon this field of study as a part of the higher culture that places upon this age a brighter coronet than any that was ever worn by mediaeval kings. These arts impart to our country and to our generation the qualities of an epic age. The English traveller spoke the truth who returned home after his tour in America, and published his declaration that, far from being destitute of the poetic element, our country is itself one grand national poem. The spirit of tliat poem is beyond every Oriental example. It is not content to float lazily in sharp-nosed gondolas to the music of " flutes and soft recorders," but it asserts a loftier mission, — it breathes through all the arts at home, and utters itself from our " Flying Clouds " and " Howling Winds " and all other clipper ships of whatsoever name over the zones of the earth. And thus, approaching the manly arts wdiich your association represents, and in my brief hour only by allusion touching, not tracing, their mysterious origin and their unrecorded growth, their effect in developing the resources of the earth, their relations to the liberty and the progress of man, and their connection with the popular genius and the popular educa- tion, I know not how better to express, in a few words, their beginning, life, and results, than by quoting the lines of a charming poetess : — BEFORE THE CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 149 " There walks a spirit o'er the peopled eartli ; Secret his progress is, unknown his birth : Where'er he turns the human brute awakes, And roused to better life liis sordid hut forsakes ; He thinks, he reasons, glows with pnrer fires, Feels finer wants, and burns with new desires. Obedient nature follows where he leads, • — The steaming marsh is changed to fruitful meads ; Then from its bed is drawn the ponderous ore. Then commerce pours her gifts on every shore ; Then kindles fancy, then expands the heart. Then blow the flowers of genius and of art." Gentlemen, I conclude as I began, by felicitating yon over the present condition of your association, and by adding my appreciation to that which you must have of your position in the great confederacy of arms and of arts. Your exhibition represents the power of New England in war and in peace. The mechanics of Massachusetts bore a leading part in the opening scenes of the recent struggle. This is well illustrated in what General Butler has told me, — that when, in the dark days of the memorable April which shut off Washington and the good President from communication with the country, he was on liis way with one of our regiments to the relief of the capital, and at Annapolis found the only remaining locomotive dismembered by rebel hands, he inquired of his men whether any of them could restore it ; upon which a half-dozen stepped forth from the ranks, saying that they had helped build that engine in one of the shops of Massachusetts and they could put it together again ; scarcely sooner said than done, and the Massachusetts machine speedily took a thousand Massachu- setts bayonets and Massachusetts hearts into Pennsylvania Avenue, and saved the Government from the abyss which was already yawning to receive it. This patriotic and effec- tive example was sustained by the producing classes of the State throughout the war, alike here at home in the prepara- tion of supplies and by the gallantry of her serried files in the field. And now, when martial scenes have disappeared, the same high duty rests upon the people of the Commonwealth, 150 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. and the same lofty triumph will reward them. This pros- perity and happiness among ourselves, this influence, this credit, this renown in all our relations with the country and the world, plead trumpet-tongued that these arts, without which there can be no sceptre for us, may be developed and extended until they shall diffuse their benignity over all states and over all ages. Happy are you in the privilege of enjoying so conspicuous a share in advancing the civilization and the power of your native laud. SPEECH at a mass meeting in mechanics' hall, in worcester, feb. 10, 1866, called to consider what action shall be taken by the city of worcester to commemorate the service of citizens who lost their lives in the war for the union. Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens : I SCARCELY think it prudent in me or kind towards you that I should step aside this evening from the presence of other duties that have left me no hour to weigh a thought worthy of your occasion and your object. You will therefore accord to me acquittal, if, after having made the journey solely to redeem a promise to be present, I make my words as brief as the purpose of the meeting is simple. The subject of your deliberations transcends the limitations and the possibilities of the time. Within a few moments of mutual exhortation we are compelled to compress a contem- plation of events, results, and duties whicli are sufficient for an ordinary generation. Think how great they are. They comprise the preservation of the nation and the ark of its covenant, — the extinguishment of the first and the last great American rebellion, — the emancipation of four millions of the children of God, — the setting of our ensign on every continent and every sea, foremost and highest forevermore, — and now some inadequate yet cordial tribute to tliose, our own, who by their arms have achieved the work, and by their blood have sealed it till the earth shall give up its dead. It is not new, the building of monuments. That is ancient as the instincts of human nature, and antedates the historic 152 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. periods. Such memorials cover the earth, and have become the hindmarks of traditions and annals. History is full of the questions that relate to tliem ; poetry reproduces them in new beauty ; and the fame of heroes breaks in immortal lustre from the cloud and mystery that hangs about them. But it is the olorv of monumental structures that the men and the events they commemorate are by this instrumentality made to live on after the symbols have crumbled back to dust. The names and the deeds of public crises, which otherwise might fade and become uncertain, take a new life from these inscriptions, they thus become fixed in the heart of the world, and survive ever after. They who fell at Thermopylae — are they not this day better known, and will they not always be better known, for the memorial inscrip- tion of Simonides, though the material letters have long since passed away ? ' That high occasion is as fresh and as inspiring now, after the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, as when the renowned Greek laid his inscription there. The people who are capable of living through great eras, like that from which we have just emerged, with- out raising some tablet, some shaft, some memorial, grand as the battle and the victory, prove themselves incapable of enduring and patriotic virtue. The recent war has taken from our streets, our shops, our dwellings, two hundred and fifty souls, the fiower of our homes, forever. In the dew of their youth, or in the prime of their manhood, they laid down tlieir lives for a cause. Let us set apart something from our prosperity to commem- orate the victory of the cause. Let him who talks largely his belief in the destiny of democratic representative government now render his trib- ute to those who had the courage of their opinions and carried them down to untimely graves. Let him who has spoken anti-slavery years in and out, safely at liome, now relax the strings of his heart and his purse, that both may open in the presence of the entire de- SPEECH AT A MASS MEETING IN WORCESTER. 153 structiou of slavery, and in the presence of the ghastly death of his townsmen and brothers, who buried it with their own bodies. Let him who cheers the flag on all festal days now con- tribute the income of one day in the year, to inscribe conspicuously in the public square the names of those who bore proudly that ensign in every battle from the Potomac to the warm bayous, who felt it fanning their cheeks as they died, and gave it back triumphant to their countrymen for a thousand years to come. Let him who looks complacently on the attitude of his country in tlie group of all the nationalities of the globe — that attitude never so majestic as now — remember them, the young and the brave, who stood fearless before the combined menaces of France and England, whose present disappoint- ment wails around their headboards. Let him — if one such there be in this city of humanity and patriotism — who recollects that he gave during the war as little as possible save the cold shoulder to his country, make henceforth his amnesty with the shades of the departed, and drop the repentant tear on the monument his own hands shall help to raise. Mr. Mayor, I am not master of that propriety which would enable me to speak fitly and personally of the slain of our city. Of the two hundred and twenty-three non- commissioned officers and privates, I knew many ; of the twenty-six commissioned officers, nearly all. I cannot without exposure to misconstruction indulge in discrimination. Yet especially one, in our joint civil service, had made me his friend. Parker called to give me his hand when he first went forth at the early reverberation from Fort Sumter, and each time afterwards. Li the later interviews I learned more than all I knew before, of the field, from him. As you thought then, he need not have gone ; high honors at home were in store for him ; he ought not to have died, — for there was unfortunate practice. But all the brighter the crown of 154 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. his service. His last imcomplainiug words were told me, the dirge which heralded his returning body through this broad avenue has long since subsided, and it only remains for me that I may unite with his fellow mechanics in carv- ing a wreath around his name. And so I pass by the sons of my neighbors who have left them, and mention one other less known to most of you. When the Twenty-fifth Eegi- rnent, after its re-enlistment, came home on a furlough, in the absence of the commander-in-chief it was assigned to me, as a Worcester Representative, to receive them in Fan- euil Hall. I recall Captain O'Neil, at the head of an Irish company, even then numbering seventy men, of whom all but four had re-enlisted. His martial bearing impressed me. His muscle was hard, his face was bronzed, and the wliole contour had the handsomeness of a picture. I forced him upon the platform, and insisted on introducing him to the floor and the galleries, that received him with cheers and waving white. The next time I heard of him, he had gone. When he received the stroke which was to be speedily fatal, he exclaimed, " Hold the flag over me, and tell my mother I died for my country." And thus that sacrifice was quickly completed. Tell me, ye who read the light romance, and ye who seek inspiration in classic ages gone by, what have you learned more noble or more touching than that ? Ah, my friends, there is something in the death of soldiers, in the battles or prisons or the diseases of war, that comes over our sensibilities with mingled pathos and mystery and awe. I know that death is the same thing in all times and places ; and yet there is no other death like that of the soldier. Wherever brave boys offer up their life amid the din and tumult of a battle over a righteous cause, I feel sure the Heavenly Father sends special angels there. Your vision and mine cannot pass beyond the horizon of the revealed and the known ; and still, while I linger over such scenes with a baffled knowledge, and cannot penetrate the veil, a voice whispers to me that there is a particular mission of SPEECH AT A MASS MEETING IN WOKCESTER. 155 mercy, and a grace and peace for those who do battle for the right and die in the cause of Freedom and of God. All these, our martyrs, have gone away in a manner others do not go. As we who stayed at home and live at home trace their flight, may we not break this monotony of ours with the utterance, — "I see them walking in an air of glory Whose light doth trample on my days, — My days, which are at best hut dull and hoary; Mere glimmerings and decays." For this cause and this victory, for these men and these actions, the monument should go up. For myself, I would have it altogether and exclusively a soldiers' monument. I would not have it connected with any other institution or purpose or utility whatsoever. As their deeds on fields re- mote from us were all their own, as tlieir death was unlike that which ours shall be, so the tribute accorded to them should be isolated utterly from our ordinary thoughts and pursuits. As they separated themselves from the studies and avocations at home for a higher life and a grander death, so should the memorial of them be set apart from the jostle and distraction of the town; their monument should be ideal, separate, conspicuous. It should be such, and so located, that their kindred and friends and all the people may ap- proach it, and behold it, and behold nothing else. ISTo shade should obscure it ; the sun should visit it with the circling hours, and the winds play perpetual music over its solemn inscriptions. Such, I trust, it shall rise. It shall cheer and animate the sorrowing. It shall inspire all citizens with thoughts of country, and shall quicken the currents of youth- ful blood. It shall be a fit memorial of every soldier son departed. The words of Milton shall be fulfilled : — " Thither shall all the valiant youth resort, And from his memory inflame their youthful breasts To matchless valor and adventures high; The vii'gins also shall on feastful days Visit his tomb with flowers." SPEECH AT A MEETING OF ALUMNI OF AMHERST COLLEGE, JULY 12, 186G. AT AMHERST. Mr. President and Brothers of Amuerst College : This call, so cordial and fraternal, before which every thought of official relation gives way and disappears, bids my local and academic loyalty to respond and unbosom itself in this presence of the comrades and friends of the earlier and later days. It may be well enough that you should take whatever pleasure can come from a gratified sentiment of college relationship, or personal friendship, in offering welcome to the Chief Magistrate of the State coming hither out of the alumni of our common alma mater ; but for me, and to-day, the only thought is that of gratulation, that we hail and salute her in the period of her largest prosperity, — when endowments from Williston, Walker, and all the others make her independent, — when a good personal administration makes her attractive, — when her many sous prove faithful to virtue and to her. Never before has she been able to welcome the return of Commencement day with such queenly dignity as now, when she beholds her influence spreading like the waters of irriiration over the globe, when she is herself no longer a public suppliant, when she receives the sacred kiss from a thousand living and grateful lives. It has been my opportunity to observe the stately rise of this College. The class of 1836 have been witnesses of her ascending fortunes. After the State, speaking through SPEECH AT MEETING OF ALUMNI, AMHERST COLLEGE. 157 the misdirected voices of the Legislature, had sent away tliis child of its charter, not only without the pittance which was asked for, but- with angry and reproachful words, and after the people in response to this unkindly conduct had quickly raised fifty thousand dollars for the institution, it was my privilege, then a freshman, to co-operate with two hundred and fifty other undergraduates in lighting the can- dles of illumination at every pane of every window upon this hill, and to stand with them ankle-deep in the snow, bidding all hail to those lights that should never go out; bidding defiance to the Boston lawyer who had struck his cold and poisoned fangs, all uuavailingly, only in the outer garments of our alma mater. His bitterness of the charge of "pious fraud " only roused her resolute soul to that purpose of great and sweet revenge which lay in the Christian determination to appeal to the hearts and to the churches of New England, and to work on with devout confidence for the good of man- kind. Some of us boys of sixteen said then, if God would spare our lives, we would again test the heart of Massachu- setts in the days of our manhood, and would ask her to reverse the unkind decree of that day. And eight years afterwards it was my opportunity, with my fellow alumni, among whom were Lord of Salem and Kellogg of Pittsfield, to try the question over again in the same House of Eepresentatives, and to witness the willing grant of the Commonwealth from its treasury to our cause. That was a day which I shall ever remember. Then^our College stood for the first time vindi- cated and triumphant under the august sanction of the State, — her seal being then added to ours ; her treasury then coming to the aid of ours ; her recognition of Amherst in the com- panionship of Harvard being then established, never after to be repudiated. It was my pleasure to communicate the tidings of this act, so important for Amherst, to the president of my own college days then surviving. I allude to the late Dr. He- man Humphrey, now passed to the fellowship of the saints. 158 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. He was, of all others, the patron friend and defender of this College. No language which I can command could convey to you the delight with which he received the intelligence of that victorious day. I stood near him ; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, was as if it had been the face of an angel. Hope elevated and joy bright- ened his crest. I do not know how others feel ; but if I had stood in that situation, I would not have exchanged it for all that kings or people could bestow. I like to associate the name of Humphrey with all the triumphant days of Amherst. He had left a wide and prosperous pastorate to come hither, suc- ceeding the first president, Moore ; and he walked steadfastly with us all through the dismal times, never faltering but al- ways leading on to effulgent success. God was over him and with him. God conferred renown upon him here, and out of his loins gave to our alumni those who have since honored the country. One of these, the Hon. James Humphrey, has but recently left vacant by his death a desk in Congress, and has left us all mourners of his Christian spirit, of his pure virtues and manners that were never corrupted by the touch of public affairs, of his culture and his talents that are now all lost to the republic. But another son survives, the Eev. Dr. Edward Humphrey, who through the recent war has conducted the Presbyterian Church of the West to loy- alty and to freedom. I could not permit this occasion to pass without one word of tribute to the third president, the late Dr. Edward Hitch- cock. His biography will be written, and will be among the annals of American letters. He was my teacher and my friend, and I knew him better than all the others. He was the greatest genius of AVesteru Massachusetts, and he was the most modest that ever was known. He had the fine spirit of Henry Martyn, all his enthusiasm and all his sweetness. He came up, at the time unobserved, out of the alluvion of the grand Connecticut ; but he left his great tracks after him, more marked and more enduring tlian those which he had SPEECH AT MEETING OF ALUMNI, AMHERST COLLEGE. 159 dug out of the hidden strata of your royal river and had placed in yonder cabinet, — miracle of the past and lesson to the future of the divine science which he loved and served. I rejoice to-day, aside from all personal friendship, to recall him among the archives of the Commonwealth. Under the appointment conferred upon liim by my oldest surviving predecessor, and my honored neighbor at home, Governor Lincoln, he mapped out and unfolded the geology of Massa- chusetts. In his first noble volume and its supplements lie joined his own fame with the first geological studies of America, which were not more official in their character than they were perpetual in their renown. But the crowning successes of our alma mater were reserved for the time of the presidency of him, the Eev. Dr. Stearns, who presides over these present festivities, and who has brought here the culture of Harvard and the cornered hat of Oxford. I like these, both of them ; and I know that I but speak the impulses which are mounting for expression from your own lips, when I say that we greet him in his official chair to-day because we esteem, honor, and love him for his own accomplished virtues, and for all that he is doing on this high field of learning. In his time the College enjoys in reality all that any ideal could hold out or express, and his is the enthusiasm and genius which shall connect the still higher ideal of our aspirations into the most certain and practical achievement. And now, Mr. President and friends of Amherst, I am before you in official relations, not to speak the words of banishment which were uttered against you more than thirty years ago from the State House, and which have long since become obsolete, but to bid you welcome to the heart and the hearthstone of Massachusetts, that is the patron of piety and learning. I come before you especially, as one of your own number, to unite with you in laying whatever measure of success or distinction we may have achieved upon the graves of these departed teachers, and at the feet of the living. IGO ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER IT. BULLOCK. Above all, I come to relieve the din of public life by the sound of this chapel bell ; to bathe fevered temples in the holy atmosphere that comes from yonder mountain range and pervades these halls ; to search for solace among the dewdrops that have sweetened this classic valley and have refreshed two thousand students on their toiling way to immortality. I behold this College in the prime of her usefulness and fame. Her sons are abroad over the earth, — wherever the Church has posted its sentinels, wherever the State' has chosen a jTuardian or an advocate, wherever the veil of human woe can be lifted, wherever the lot of humanity can take fresh felicity from the administration of education and religion. I behold this institution green to-day with the laurel of war, planting her own banner by the side of the banner of her country, and pointing proudly to the services and the deaths of her sons who have united the two upon a hundred crimson fields. I meet her alumni here all eager to reinforce the securities of the union of States, to repair the desolation of the American Zion, to place the imprint of our alma mater beneath every good word and work, whether at the hustings or in the court room, whether in the churches or in the halls of learning or in the national councils. I give my heart back to her this day, and only wish that a tliousaudth part of her reward may be mine. I meet here also my associates, the Trustees. One of these, and only one, the Eev. Dr. Vaill, appeared before me in the same capacity thirty years ago, when I came here an utter stranger, not knowing an inmate of the College. Others have since come to the Board from the body of our alumni, fresh in youth or manhood, strengthened and adorned by all that their profession and art and culture could add to native genius and youthful study. Tlie Legislature, at its recent session, supplied the place left vacant by Mr. Calhoun, of blessed memory, with a new ally, — one who, though not of the alumni, brings to our support an influence and a power which only modern America has appreciated and understood, SPEECH AT MEETING OF ALUMNI, AMHERST COLLEGE. 161 an influence and a power that reaches " across the continent," — Mr. Samuel Bowles, our colleague and our friend. Into the hands of these, whose term covers the period of a genera- tion of men, and to the Divine Head of all our fortunes, I ask you to unite with me in committing our beloved College, with hope and faith and courage. 11 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION delivered at springfield, mass., 1867. Fellow-Citizens of Springfield: In no year before, since the achievement of independence, has this day been publicly celebrated in so few places, and in no year before ought it to have been commemorated in so many as now. Your voluntary public spirit makes yours, to-day, one of the exceptional communities. It is creditable that you thus mark your appreciation of the historical lessons and duties of this particular year. And where else could this exception better occur than here, in the city of Springfield ? Now two hundred and thirty-one years old, incorporated when all of Massachusetts westward was an unincorporate wilderness, associated forty years later with those heroic romances of the border in which the stout old founders of this hamlet by their wits and their valor prevailed over the aborigines, bound to the cause of the Revolution by the hearts and the arms of its best and bravest men, conspicuous in the first and last insurrection under our State Constitution which ended in the triumph of law and order over anarchy, religiously faithful according to its con- victions in the second war with Great Britain, early among the foremost in the last great contest and the last great con- quest of American unity over separatism, — just, benevolent, progressive, as I believe, in all the periods, wliether of peace or of war, Springfield is surely entitled to color the observance of a national holiday with the tints of her own history. FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 163 Another fact of your situation commands my mention. Eemoved one hundred miles from the easterly and half that distance from the southerly gateway of ocean commerce, — only second in any sense, and in many respects first, among the communities of this long alluvial valley, — your town is peculiarly the representative of the class which, ninety years ago, led the way to independence. The historian of the United States, in his last volume, richest and best of all, has characterized the action at Saratoga as the battle of the hus- bandmen, in which men of the valley of Virginia, of New York, and of New England fought together with one spirit for a common cause. We may go one step farther. The whole of the Eevolution was largely a war of the husband- men. In the hearts of the yeomanry the Eevolution took its inceptive fires and found its steady endurance and support. From the head-waters to the mouth of the central river of New England, rich in all its intervals and slopes, your town is the capital of the husbandmen. The unity of that stock has been best preserved and developed upon this alluvium, and the story and the moral of the Eevolution ought to be longest treasured in its descent and blood. To-day all those traditions and lessons are most fitly contemplated in this place, in holiday celebration, beneath these elms of the valley, which have been the companions of tlie generations and the witnesses of the periods. I have said tliat, if others neglect the day, you do well to observe it in thought of the particular lessons of this time. They are peculiarly lessons of this time. Ours is a history of growths. If, for example, you take France, which may be regarded as at present the foremost nation in power after our own, or if, for a smaller scale, you take the wretched and pitiable nation of Mexico, and compare them with the United States, they seem rather to be historically represented by the casualties of volcanic eruption than by those regular and steady developments which we term natural processes. Altogether different is our own situation in the intelliLrible 164 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. line of events. No man on horseback has carved out by his sword any one of our eras. Our historical harvests have all come from the planted seed and germ, and not out of any accident. The order of providence, of nature, and of develop- ment is so perspicuous in our annals tliat we may take our station at any point in the narrative, and see each lesson, understand it, and establish it in our hearts. Thus, at the end of these last seven years as distinctly as at the end of the seven years of the Eevolution, there are instructions, clear as human voices, which it is easy to apprehend and which it is a duty to heed. The late conflict, whose results we are now adjusting and bringing into unity for future empire, in its comparison with all our former struggles, I designate as the war of the vindication. It has vindicated, established, and fixed that which the wise patriots had thought before. It has brouglit into practical and imperial result all that our own best idealism had conceived before. I judge it to be the primary thing we have learned from tlie recent war of vindi- cation, that the sovereignty of the nation dominates over the sovereignty of the States. It has required the civil experi- ence of almost a century to try that question, and only an organic war, blazing over the States, could have settled it. Out of the struggle of the colonies for independence, out of the deep trials of the period of the Confederation, after the lapse of seventy years of the Constitution, the consummation has come at last, but not until now. It needed the chymic flame of this hottest of wars to clear American nationality of the clogs which had impeded it since the first start ; to burn away the limitations which the Confederation and tlie Con- stitution had partially denied in theory, but had generally conceded in practice ; and to set this Western -unity above provincialities and restrictions. You cannot fail to think how to reacli this achievement we have had to conquer the instincts of the national beginning and the prejudices of the national growth. For these have been against it down to this time. FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 165 It is an anomalous fact that, of all the considerable nations now existing, ours is the only one which has lived from the beoinnina under a written constitution. That constitutional period would be short for the Old World, but is long for the New. But the seeds of American nationality lie further back than that. The Declaration of Independence, the Confedera- tion, the Constitution, do not tell the whole story. Prior to all of them were the hundred and fifty years of settlement, of mutual colonial approaches and affiliations, of border wars, of the coming of common provincialities. These were preparing us for the necessities of union, but did not provide for it, as they could not foresee the mode of attaining it. That came afterward in defiance of all which had preceded. So that, when the Eevolution came, it was despite the colonial individualisms which had prevailed through four generations. That military union of the colonies was for a present necessity of defence, but did not, for it could not, appreciate the wants of the next generation for government and empire. The Declaration of Independence was grand as a war-cry, but was no bond of imperial government. The Articles of Confederation, which followed, were framed in the fear of central power and amid local jealousies. All were united against the king, but all were afraid of placing any- where a common overshadowing sovereignty. The sparseness of plantation life in the South shrank from giving power to the compactness of the North, tending toward commerce and the centralization of authority necessary to protect commerce. Slavery there, even then, showed its fear of freedom here. The Confederation proved only a joint-stock association liable to dissolution at any moment, because it conferred no central power for raising taxes or soldiers, for enforcing a treaty abroad or compelling a State at home. It was rich in pro- visions for individual liberty, but it was poverty itself as a unit of sovereignty. It sprung out of provincialism, and it came only to statism, and not to nationality. It was a grand stage of progress, but it could not be a consummation. 166 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. Then, as a consequence, the Constitution came next. If you read Madison's journal of the convention which framed it, you will see how, through four months of deliberation, the jealousy between freedom and slavery, the attachment of sep- aratism, and the dread of unity constantly impeded and nearly defeated the last and only hope of one constitutional government. Even the little pocket State of Delaware threat- ened to break up the deliberations, and to appeal to some foreign sword for protection against sister States. By a won- der of wisdom, scarcely below a miracle, the Government whose banner floats over us to-day was agreed upon ; and by another marvel, which only the transcendent genius of Ham- ilton and Madison could have achieved, it was confirmed by the people. It is the only written constitutional government of a great nation worthy of mention in all the M'orld at this time. Its greatest apparent weakness was in its forbearance to del- egate the power of the States to the central sovereignty. We have learned that in the late war. The necessity of that for- bearance was inevitable. The jealousy of the small States relative to the large, — the complications and the animosities of the sections, — slavery, the touchstone of all trouble in America from 1620 until now, — these compelled the great omissions in the Constitution. Those omissions were concentred in the lack of an ex- pressed authority of the central unity over the separate parts. According]}^, from the commencement, while Washington was the first President, and Adams was the second, even thus early, the centrifugal powers of this Government began their motion and effect. All action, all tendencies, moved from the centre toward the several States. Jefferson helped on the tendency, even before he had got home from France. Madison was caught by it ; and the champion of the Con- stitution gave to it the most enfeebling construction by the Virginia resolutions of '98. Those resolutions have been, next to African slavery, the cause of our war. When, long afterward, Webster, in reply to Ilayne, endeavored to state FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. , 167 the only coustriiction of the Constitution under which the Union could survive, Madison, then an old man, explained away the resolutions of '98 ; but it was too late, the mischief had begun its work. The school, of which Hayne was put forth as first modern preceptor, but which Calhoun reorgan- ized and kept in the ascendant in the politics of the country for thirty years, outlived the demonstrations of Webster, the denunciations of Clay, and the invectives of Adams. It was the school of nullification, of secession, of setting at defiance the central Government because it could not by its terms enforce its decrees. The envious world beyond the flood took up the cry of federal weakness in America with delight. The wish of one half of Europe and the fear of the other half said that the American Union contained the ele- ments of disunion and of several ultimate commonwealths. That thought was common abroad, and not by any means uncommon here at home. And though Hayne and Calhoun had passed away, their theory and construction of this Gov- ernment remained, and took animate form, and found artic- ulate expression in Buchanan ; who, in the expiring hours of 1860, opened the war of solution and vindication by promul- gating to the world, once more and for the last time, that the national sovereignty could not compel the sovereignty of the States. That was his last legacy of statesmanship ; those were his parting words, as he passed from the capital to his eternal retreat. He closed the doors of the old scliool forever ; and it became the lot of Abraham Lincoln to open the doors of the new. And now, fellow-citizens, after these seven years of the mingled strife of opinions and of arms, we have come to the first opportunity of gratitude and of joy for the establishment beyond all cavil or question of the central power of the Union, of the sovereignty of the unity over its pafts, of the oneness and indestructibility of American nationality. That has been an open question before. The people of Europe and the peo- ple of the United States were in doubt upon this question 168 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. before. But the question has now been settled for the first time, and for the coming centuries. It never could have been settled until the disputants at the South should, after the ordeal of fire and blood, acknowledge it to be settled. That time has come. They who resisted the idea of superior central power, by a war of words for seventy years, and by a war of arms for four years, which seemed longer than all the seventy before, agree with us in accepting trial of battle as tlie finality. Tliey enter with us upon reconstruction with acknowledgment of the Federal authority ; disputed before, but conceded now ; claimed by Hamilton and denied by Calhoun, demonstrated by Webster and surrendered by Buchanan, but established now for all time to come by the hearts and the arms of the people. Nothing in human history exceeds in grandeur the settlement of this disputed question. It proves that the silence of the Constitution, which has been accounted all over the world as its weakness, is its strength ; and that whatever shall be the number of the States between the Atlantic and the Pacific, they shall live and rule under one common authority and under one common flag. A second benefit we have derived from this war, which three generations of peace had failed to secure, and which ap- parently many generations more of peace would fail to give. I mean the acknowledgment of the equality of men, and their riyht to enfranchisement. We started in the career of nationalism with demanding of the crown the equal lights of mankind ; but having achieved a national independence under that masfical tocsin, we weakened and frittered tlie principle under the suj)posed necessities of the compromises of the Constitution. Madison, the guiding genius of the Con- stitution, nobly denied the abstract right of man to liold property in man, and kept its expression out of the charter ; but lie conceded it in disguise, under the fallacious belief that it could not last long as American practicality. In that he and his associates deceived themselves, and harassed the next generations. Slavery, as a part of the social and polit- FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 169 ical organism of the Uuited States, became the principal force instead of the decreasing incident in the elections and administrations of the Government. It was kept under, as to its offensive and aggressive forms, through the terms of the first four Presidents ; but its glittering sword came out of its sheath during the administration of the quiet Monroe, and under the claim of national necessity pointed itself against the heart of the Government, demanded its surrender and got it. That is the historical fact of 1820. The jjacificatory and splendid patriotism of Clay stood there, midway between the right and the wrong. He did not yield to the shock, for he was too great for that ; lie did not breast it outright, for neither he nor the people saw the need of that. And so the emergency was glossed over, and the Government went on as before. Twelve years afterward, Jackson, in the deficiency of his education, but in the richness of his instincts, saw through the error of the past and pointed out the coming peril. He first told this people — after he had suppressed the incipient rebellion of Calhoun — that negro slavery would be the next and great occasion of nullification, secession, and revolt. Let us award credit for the warning to the soldier President. And Jackson was right. How would the final trial of slavery be likely to come ? Its predominance was now manifestly complete, and had been complete from the first inauguration. It had been quiescent under Washington, who was too great for the approach of evil ; it had been in expectancy under Adams and Jefferson and Madison ; it had had its own way under Monroe, not understood by him ; it had kept out of sight under the second Adams and Jackson; and under the succeeding administrations it had been ostensibly subordinated, but in reality ascendant in the politics of those periods. Again, then, I ask, how would this fearful test be likely to meet us ? Surelv it must come in some form at last ; for the whole past had told us that. The hopefulness of some had put the heart of the country for a time at its ease. Of 170 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER 11. BULLOCK. these was Henry Clay, — always greatest among orators, and often greatest among statesmen. He had a theory, which neither he nor anybody else could prove in the presence of millions of black slaves increasing quite as rapidly as white freemen, that the African would in time disappear from the stage. From 1820 to 1860, a lapse of time that witnessed the death of a whole generation, so far as I know, only one man completely foresaw and foretold the event which has now become historical. That man was John Quincy Adams. Shortly before his death he declared to one who afterward became the builder of a new party, that negro slavery in the United States would disappear in the next quarter of a cen- tury, not peaceably, but by a revolutionary war. Those prove truthful words. As we read all human experience and all providential disposal of human affairs, this institution, stand- ing between the people and their peace and glory, never would, never could, have been abolished save by war. The war has not only relieved the nation of the conflicts of servitude by establishing universal emancipation, but it has given us the assurance of a homogeneous people by establish- ing universal suffrage. Monarchies may exist with the limited franchise, but in a democratic republic the franchise must be shackled bv few restrictions. This result has been now sub- stantially accomplished, with the general consent. Politicians may continue to make their dalliance over whatever yet re- mains of this question ; but the demand of the North and the acquiescence of the South, the moral sense of the nation which has been made more keen by war, the judgment of the world, the visible tokens of the Divine will, all assure us that this organic reformation cannot stop short of absolute completion. It could never have been attained by the policies of measures of peace. It required the tramp of armies to break down the prejudices rooted by the vicious overgrowths of two centuries and twining around the very body of the Constitution. Again, we have learned from the war of vindication that an overrulincr Providence has cruided us throufrh all the devious o O O FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 171 ways. The Supreme Architect has builded for us better and higher than we knew. I recognize the Divine Hand in the parallelism of the war of the Eevolution with the war of Freedom. In two eras alike, a Higher Power baffled the temper and the policy of the people. For the space of two years after the shedding of blood at Lexington, it was perhaps in the power of Great Britain to have effected a reconciliation with the colonies without conceding their independence ; and even so late as 1778, the approach of commissioners of pacifi- cation was deemed so seductive that it needed the nervous words of Washington, Clinton, and Morris to brace the people, of whose nature it is to love tranquillity. George the Third was converted by his Maker into a Pharaoh, that America might not have a premature and fruitless peace. In the late war of enfranchisement, I have not doubted that at any time within two years after the adoption of the first ordinance of secession by South Carolina in December, 18G0, the insurgent States could have obtained peace and retained the system of slavery unbroken. There was enough of division in the North, there had been enough of defeat in the field, to make that result possible and attainable. But there was a divinity which shaped our ends. Instead of one, a score of Pliaraohs loomed up in defiance, — ministers of Providence, — to keep the goad still stinging the North on to freedom. If, before this conflict opened, there were any who were sceptical as to the direct interposition of the Almighty in the administration of human affairs, there ought to be none such at its close. A deist, now, is beyond imagination worse than those before the flood. Against our will and despite our plans the war was made to go on with all that change from success to reverse, from reverse back again to success, from elation to depression, from depression to the last desperate cry to charge along the whole line, — witli all that dreariness of time, hope deferred, and sickness of the heart of a people, — which have characterized most of the organic reforms of the human race. We hear it said, that if McDowell in the early 172 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. day had pushed from Bull Hun to Richmond, that if in the next season McClellan had flashed from Malvern Hill into Richmond, peace would have bloomed with the roses of 'Gl or 'G2. Then, in the language of Washington, it would have been "a peace of war." No, fellow-citizens, for the work would have been unfinished. We might as well suppose that after months of torrid heat and vapor, rolling vegetable life to a scroll, the God of nature would make it his rule to clear the air without the agency of electric sublimity and destruction, as to believe that the current of national vice of an hundred years could be changed, and the institutions rooted in the mercenary passions of three generations could be overturned, without the vicissitudes and agonies of pro- tracted war. We cannot be patriotic to-day without being also devout. And I am sure you will not neglect, in these hours of rejoicing, to render gratitude for the personal agencies in which was invested the control of the two decisive wars of our nationality. In all the great contests of civilization, some leader has appeared, recognized afterward as the agent of the epoch. In the American Revolution the man Avas Georo-e Washington, in the war of vindication the man was Abraham Lincoln, — raised up both, as Witherspoon said, for the great purpose. While Washington far tran- scended Lincoln in the majesty and dignity of personalism, which wins universal applause, his successor in many par- ticulars resembled him, and was in all respects scarcely less the personal necessity of his own time. You must re- member that distance lends enchantment to the view, and that one hundred years hence it well may be, and is likely to be, that Lincoln will rise then among the shades of his- tory as Washington rises now. Generally, in the judgment of maidvind, lapse of time is needed for the estimate of per- sons. So Washington, as it has seemed to me, was not thoroughly and religiously appreciated as an historical char- acter, even in the United States, until the echo of European FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 173 eulogy came back to us from the lips of Lord Brougham, And if we may judge by this standard, aud by the prefigura- tions of the European press, Lincohi is quite as sure to take the next rank in the criticisms aud disquisitions of the whole Eastern world in time to come. Certainly this cannot fail to happen if Lincoln shall find in the future historian half so generous a chronicler as Washington has found in Bancroft. At all events, evident it is that God raised up these two men for a control and management of the destinies of their periods. The last was as great, as important, as characteristic, for his time as the former was for his own. Both were essen- tial, because both had been not only chosen by the people, but had been appointed from above. If the first went beyond the second in the breadth and magnitude of his individual scope, the second equalled him in faithfulness to his own mission. As to each of them, the crisis of his appointment and destination needed his own peculiarities and his own powers. In Washington aud in Lincoln alike, the qualities predominant, the qualities which determined their epochs, were those of prudence, of caution, and of foresight. These are not merits of merely temporary eclat, but they are merits of historical and enduring fame. The prudence and the patience of both commanded the confidence of the people. Washington was surpassed in brilliancy by men of his staff; Lincoln was exceeded by his civilians and generals in the qualities attributed to genius, But both, equally the agents of Divinitv, were the enorossing figures of their times. Before Washington the splendors of Greene, Hamilton, and La Fay- ette pale their military and civic fires ; and before Lincoln the renown of Seward, Grant, and Sherman takes a secondary light and reflects back upon him their own as a borrowed flame. Both excelled as students and warriors in the schools of continental struggles. Both were the instruments of na- tional felicity, and the two will pass down tlie lengthening lines of posterity equal benefactors, — the one, the father of independence ; the other, the restorer and liberator of his 174 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. country. This present Fourth of July solemnizes their mutual fame, and confidently, tenderly, and sacredly transmits their names in fellowship to the future ages. The consummation of the past and the security for the future are greatly in our own hands. We have had an ideal country before ; but henceforth, if we and our cliildren be true, humble, and brave, we shall have the realization of all that was ideal before. We have boasted heretofore of being the benevolent and free republic. Now we are to be such in fact. The personal liberty of man, and the freedom of the elective franchise to all, are the rich fruit of the war, and will constitute the strength and grandeur of the future republic. No other country in either hemisphere can assert an equal claim ; no other could have attained to it by peace or by war. We are to be a unity of national strength hereafter, to which all the parts acknowledge their subordination. That we have talked of, but that we have never had before. We are to have it in all the time to come, as the spirits of the brave Union dead, and Grant and Sheridan on the one side, and Longstreet and Thompson on the other, among the living, and Congress and the people, support the declaration. We are to have it for enjoyment, for power, for glory, — one central national authority, no longer to be assailed at home, forever invincible from abroad. Not much longer have we any quarrels to adjust among ourselves. If we have any questions to settle abroad, we can now afford to offer the example of our past as the guaranty of our future, and hold forth the flag of the indivisible union of the States, now strengthened, as the source of inspiration to our sense of justice and equity, and of our confidence that we can and will maintain the credit of American nationality. Already we survey the fields upon which the patriotic energy of our countrymen now seeks diversion and employ- ment. The desert is overcome, the Indian retreats as the rail is extended, valleys bid welcome and the mountains are FOURTH OF JULY Or.ATION. 175 obeisant, and the national pathway from the Atlantic to the Pacific will shortly be completed and connect the peoples of the two shores of the continent. The sj^irit and the muscle which conquered revolt and restored union, which rooted out servitude and builded enfranchisement, will make the States of the North American Union, present and to come, one cita- del of a common nation, one abode of a common people, one farm and workshop of a common prosperity and happiness. Permit me to share with you, of the city of Springfield, in this happiness and this renown which shall belong to us all. Permit me to rejoice with you that the time of peace has come, and with it universal enfranchisement and invincible unity. Henceforth let us fondly believe that for indepen- dence, for humanity, for all imperial functions, the boundless continent is ours. Portland and San Francisco, Springfield and Omaha, are neighbors in the august fraternity whose banner we salute this morning. It is M^ell that we salute that banner here. It is here that the old traditions survive, and it is here that some of the old blood remains. No other spot, for local or general history, can lay higher claim to con- spicuous rank in this holiday commemoration. Here patriot- ism and humanity liave from the beginning found a shelter and a home. Here then, to-day, in this capital of the far- stretching alluvium, it is fit that the descendants and repre- sentatives of the husbandmen should assemble in patriotic purpose. I deem it high honor to meet with you in such cause and memorial beneatli these ancient sweeping elms of Hampden, — more affluent in traditions, more exhilarating, grander by far than " Groves whose rich trees weep odorous gums and balms. Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hang enviable." ADDRESS BEFOUE THE WORCESTER AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, SEPT. 17, 1868, AT THE PRESENTATION OF RESOLUTIONS IN MEMORY OF THE LATE LEVI LIN- COLN, EX-GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH, AND FOR MANY YEARS PRESIDENT OF THIS SOCIETY. Mr. President, — In offering for the consideration of tlie society the resolutions which I hold in my hand I almost deem it unnecessary to say that he who is the subject of them bore an active part, fifty years ago, in the organization of this institution. He was one of its first board of officers, under his father, the senior Governor Lincoln, as president. He delivered the inauguration address before the society at its first public exhibition, forty-nine years ago. Five years later he was chosen its president, and continued to hold the office without interruption for the period of nearly thirty years, when of his own choice he retired. I propose his memory to-day, accompanied with no other thoughts or reflections than such as flow from the present occasion and from his relations to this association. His career in public life and political station, and all his connections with other objects and organizations, I pass over, and ask you to remember him as long time the president and at all times the friend of the Worcester Agricultural Society. I offer the following resolutions : — Resolved, by the members of the Worcester Agricultural Society, that we share with the general public in deploring the decease of Levi Lincoln ; whose life, character, and reputation were cherished by all the people of this Commonwealth, and were especially near ADDRESS IN MEMOKY OF LEVI LINCOLN. 177 and dear to his fellow-citizens and neighbors in the city and county of his nativity and I'esidence. Resolved, especially, that we desire to make enduring record of our appreciation of the service he rendered to this society throu<'h the uninterrupted period of half a century, one of its originators and organizers, its first recording secretary, its president for twenty- eight years, at all times and in all seasons its eloquent advocate, constant contributor, and devoted friend. Eesolved, that we hold out to all our members, and to all whom our influence may reach, the worthy and brilliant example of our lamented friend, as an illustration of the honor and dignity which may be attained, beyond all distinction of office or station, by a just and pure life passed amid rural pursuits and in the cultiva- tion of the higher sentiments of human nature. e Mr. President, the present season is an eminently proper occasion for recalling to the attention and gratitude of those now living the services of that class of gentlemen, of M'hom our late townsman remained latest among us, who in the early years of the present century conferred a lasting benefit upon the whole community by organizing the first agricul- tural societies. I refer to Worcester, Essex, and Hampshire. One of these finds its own existence interwoven with the life of Timothy Pickering, and the associates of his time in the East ; another cannot write its history without contributing to the biography of Governor Strong, the Millses, the Bateses, and the Aliens, so well known as the river gods of the West- ern valley ; and the third, our own society, in setting up a stone to mark the stage of fifty years, would be guilty of unnatural neglect if it were not to inscribe most prominently the name of Governor Lincoln, as its founder and most steadfast patron and friend. There are those now present who can bear witness to the comprehensive views he took of the whole field of agricul- ture, and tlie freedom with which he discussed them and impressed them upon others. The characteristics of the soil and the best modern arts and methods of developing and 12 178 ADDEESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK, improving them ; the rotation of crops and their several adaptations to particular localities ; the kinds of animals fitted to the varying towns of this entire section of the State, and the history of their introduction, crossing, and improve- ment, — these and kindred topics were quite at his com- mand, and he treated them so frequently and so well as to become the best educator we have ever had in the county for all that appertains to the business of an agricultural society. He once gave me in private conversation an historical ac- count of the short-horn, occupying half an hour, and fit to have been taken down by a reporter for preservation. If there be any man in the State who is better informed than he was upon this class of subjects, I know not where he may be found. His power of practical generalization was dis- played in this field of inquiry, and he so classified and arranged the topics as to bring the whole together into a noble system of organic husbandry. We always felt, when listening to his talk upon these things here and elsewhere, that he dignified what we call agriculture, and raised our thoughts of it as of something greater and higher than a mere mechanical necessity for subsisting the human family. It must be pleasant to a great many persons now living to remember this Worcester Society as it comes back to them from the days of his presiding, and it is no disparagement of any of his successors if some of us cannot make the associa- tion seem quite the same thing that it was to us under his control and management. My earliest recollections of a cattle show are of coming hither as a boy, nearly forty miles, and witnessing the dignity and affability with which he presided, and the interest with which he inspired all who were around him. Many of you know how patient in that relation he was of every detail, so that it appeared that he could not formerly have been more painstaking in administering the affairs of the Common wealtli than afterwards in directing ADDRESS IN MEMORY OF LEVI LINCOLN. 179 these. His hospitality after the labors of the show-day were over, when committee-men assembled under his roof to con- dense in the fellowship of the evening the somewhat diver- sified and perhaps somewhat incoherent lessons of the field and the pens, will long be remembered by every one who ever shared it. The best farmers from distant towns went away with an enlarged sense of the elevation and importance of their vocation, and felt encouraged to strive more stoutly in the next year's competition. I make much allowance for the lar^re increase in the number of these societies and the consequent reduction of the power of the old ones, — and more still for the modern horse-furore which carries all before it, and to which those who would not nevertheless do yield for the sake of the receipts, — and yet even more for the over- shadowing predominance of the modern mechanic arts over the smaller department of agriculture, — and after all these allowances, I have an opinion that our friend could accom- plish more and better results than any man I ever knew, in keeping up the influence of an agricultural society upon the base of its original design. You and I know with what reluctance he gave up his opposition to the introduction of the trial of the speed of horses as a prominent item in the programme of our institu- tion ; for he knew, as he once said to me, that the incident would in due time become the principal. Let us respect him for that, even while we give way to the fulfilment of his pre- diction, which subordinates to-day that is assigned for the cattle below to-morrow wliicli belongs to the horses. I will not raise the question which of the two we ought to respect the more highly in the peerage of the race, whether it should be Devon or Derby. That you may answer each one for himself. For myself, amid all the excitement of cable de- spatches from the English course, — announcing silver plate and fabulous wagers won or lost according to the infinitesimal part of a second of time achieved by the fleetest hoof, with the name of the progenitor sire annexed, — I like to repeat 180 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. what ]\rr. Webster, standing in tlie centre of his herd at Marshfield, twenty years ago, told me the Duke of Devon had said to him : " Politically my domain may cease to en- dure perhaps sooner than I could wish ; but I console my- self with the reflection that my name shall be respected so long as the noble race of cattle which bears it shall continue to exist in England." The farmer of Marshfield and the farmer of Worcester, contemporaries and friends in almost all other thing.s, were assimilated in the possession and cultivation of this instinct and taste. On the day already referred to, when, with a j^arty of friends, Mr. Webster had perambulated his twelve hundred acres and had shown to us his fields, his cattle, and his barn.s, we noticed the stable well stocked with horses and carriages, and asked that we might not fail to see them. " Certainly," he said, " here are some horses, quite handsome and excellent, I believe, which have been presented to me by generous friends. Look at them and judge. I profess to know how to build a barn, and to nnderstand the best cow in an hundred, but these horses are a little out of my line." And you remember that, as his last days on earth approached, he requested that he might be propped up in his chair by the window, and that his cattle should be driven up before him for his last inspection. It was a review, true to nature, just prior to his final departure. He liked those faces, and turned his own towards them with a confidence which the last hours of a man make solemn and worthy of respect. In the exercises at yonder church in funeral honor to Governor Lincoln, my greatly esteemed friend, the Eev. Dr. Elli.s, — who had been long time an intimate in the family, and who, better than most persons, was fitted to speak of the departed, r— "vvith his quick sagacity as to the features of urban and rural life, made special mention of this point in the life of the good Governor. He said : — " The joys of his childhood were so associated with the objects and interests of a farm that, to the very cud of his lengtlicned ADDKESS IN MEMORY OF LEVI LINCOLN. 181 days, and most so when nearest to it, he found his occupation and delight in the same cherished pursuits. A guest in his deUghtful home, who had gone to his rest at night as in a city mansion, would awake in early morning to the lowing of kine and the cackling of fowls. Looking from one side of the house he would see the beautiful flower garden with its conservatory, and on the other the herd going out to pasture and the yoked oxen to their labor." To me, living directly opposite liis residence and observing for many years his daily ways, this picture of the Governor by Dr. Ellis was peculiarly truthful and charming. Looking out from my chamber window at an early hour in the summer mornings, I used to call attention to the Governor emerging from his dwelling, a little 'in advance of the rest of us, to review his line of Ayrshires as they passed by him to the green fields beyond. His fondness and knowledge of good stock found expression in as choice words as could be bestowed upon a fine landscape. In this particular he was one of the pioneers of the present era of taste and sentiment for the higher grades of the animals which is ennobling the people of this Commonwealth. From the day of Edmund Burke, — who, amid the thickening of the terrible public drama of that time, found solace and invigoration among his herd at Bea- consfield, — there has been nothing better in the education and exaltation of the mass of the community than is ex- hibited now in the care and fondness bestowed by the people of Massachusetts upon the improved kinds of ani- mals. And I have not met witli any one who engaged in this method of promoting the general welfare, and making the cultivation of live-stock almost an ideal employment, with more genuine sentiment than our departed friend and president. He was thoroughly in sympathy with all the growths and symbols of beauty in nature. Of course he was a lover of trees. I make this one of the tests of a true and sympathetic man. In the matter of our sensibilities the great poet has 182 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. given undue precedence to sound over sight. I do not know but every stransrer to the " concord of sweet sounds " should be given over to " treason, stratagems, and spoils ; " certainly, at least, this rhapsody of Shakespeare on music, as some one has said, has furnished every vacant fiddler with something to say in defence of his profession. But what do you say of a man or woman who does not warm under the concord of sweet sights, — of trees and tlowers ? In the lifetime of the late Governor we were wont to indulge in facetiousness over his position of championship and antagonism in the behalf of all standing trees. So far as I am aware, he was never known to be willing that one should be taken down unless under some authority almost equivalent to the exercise of the right of eminent domain. He knew the ages and could verify the concentric rings of most of the trees in our neighborhood. A generation ago he boldly cut the finest private avenue of the city and planted his home on it, — then quite remote from Main Street, and called Oregon, — saving old trees and plant- ing new ones, now old. As a consequence, in later years, new-comers found the ash, the maple, and the elm in the centre of the brick sidewalks ; the municipal authorities did not like to cross his feelings, and artifice had to be resorted to in some instances to clear the encumbrance from the walk. He believed in front yards and ample lawns and green leaves. Flowers, too, he appreciated beyond most men, and guarded them to their tenderest roots. There was most excellent sen- timent in him for these, though no overflow of sentimentality. He could not translate the technical language of flowers like Van Buren, but he enjoyed and cultivated them as ministers and agents in the divine poetry of human life. I dwell upon this, because,_in my judgment, it ought to pass for much in the estimate of a real country gentleman. He manifested this taste at festive boards, and, observing beautiful groups of vine and blossom drooping from the stand, he would say that it must have cost the gardener a pang to cut such clusters. He ADDRESS IN MEMORY OF LEVI LINCOLN. 183 reminded me of the late Mr. Choate, who was known to carry- back a bough to the trunk from which he had torn it, in the belief, as he said, that possibly there might be some yearning between the parent stock and the disrupted shoot. Such men, by their natural sympathies expressed in courtly words, make the world attractive to otliers. But trees, above all things, Governor Lincoln believed in and admired. He had inherited from his birth in this inte- rior county an appreciation of outdoor life and the manly and healthful pursuits of the country. His fatlier's house was amid original groves. He himself had been born upon the verge of the modern clearing and on the margin of the later civilization. By nature and right he retained unto the end his love of the rural scenes in which he had been cradled. The relations of his family carried him backward to the days of Worcester County colonization, and he kept this memory fresh and practical. These clay hills of Worcester, unchanged since the creation, covered largely, until within my recollec- tion, with the primeval woods, — the sublime grouping of the Monadnock and the Wachusett and the smaller ranges and spurs intervening between them and us, — the spring verdure on the plains, deepened and enriched all the way for forty miles around with gleam of water and graver shade of em- bowering forests, — the richest variegations of the autumn and winter, comprising the hues of October and the leafless branches of December, — the wooded and icy galleries of January and February, extending through all the county from this town to the White Hills, — the perennial banners of pine and hemlock and fir that hang out over all this northerly circuit, so much observed and admired by our fathers, — tliese had for him the sanction of the lords of the soil of a former generation, and received his constant love and respect. " In such green palaces the first kings reigned, Slept in their shades, and angels entertained ; With such old counsellors they did advise, And, by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise." 184 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. It seemed to me that Governor Lincoln kept off old age by renewing his youth in sympathy with each recurring spring and summer. In my last visit to his chamber, only a short time before his death, he said that until within a year he had never thought or felt that he was an old man. And some of you must have noticed, as I frequently have within the past ten years, that on public occasions any allusion to him as aged or venerable evidently was not relishable to him. Old age in him was not churlish, or querulous, or so unresponsive as with many men at his time of life. He appeared fond to show that he believed in that age whose pillars are raised on the foundations of youth. To him this felicity came in great part from being constantly in communion and intercourse with the outward and visible world. He meant to know what was going on to the end. No person knew better than he, every year until the last, what was exhibited here, and from what town and farm, and how and by whom raised, and by what process brought into a condition fit for this exhibition of the wonders of the earth. He was, all his life, awake and sensi- tive to the growth and expansion of his country ; and true to the sentiments which had descended to him from his ances- tors, he stood by his country's colors bravely through three wars, and never more gallantly than in the last. By unin- termitted familiarity with the life of society, and with the ceaseless' activities of the animal and vegetable kinsirdom, he kept his own being vital and fresh, as if supplied from the sources of perpetual youth. Accordingly, instead of trying to think that he was neglected, or that his day had gone by, as old folks are too apt to say, he knew better, and gratefully realized in every day's experience that he was in the full enjoyment of " That which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." The last years of his life were marked by something of the ancient patriarchal serenity, and would stand the test of ADDRESS IN MEMORY OF LEVI LINCOLN. 185 the best sentiment and style of Cicero's philosophy for old age. And thus, gentlemen of the Worcester Agricultural Society, as your president drew nearer and nearer the goal, he illustrated that law of our existence which I have sometimes thought, ac- cording to all just conceptions of our human lot, is as unerring as the law of gravitation, — the rule of the sympathy and affinity of man to the earth wlience he sprung and to which he must return. Above all others, those who are engaged in the cultivation of the soil and are in daily observation and study of the miracles of the natural world, alike perceive and exemplify this law. So did he in a large and appreciable sense. The last labors and the last thoughts of such are in tranquil association with the myriad lessons coming from this common mother earth, to which the mortal part of us must go back to find its rest. Even under the heathen pliiloso- phies the advanced stage of human life found its keener pleasures in pursuits relating to the culture of the soil. Under the Christian dispensation this tie is more bright and vital, and vibrates with grander thoughts and joys. The higher aspects of the contemplation and cultivation of the land break to the gaze of the Christian agriculturist, " as he moves forward himself toward the great crisis of his being, catching an intelligent glimpse of the grand arcana of nature exhibited in the creative energy of the terrestrial elements ; the suggestive mystery of the quickening seed and the sprouting plant ; the resurrection of universal nature from her wintry grave." And so he died. A few months after his last visit to these grounds, and in fond remembrance of the benefit and the blessing he had here learned and taught through the long time of fifty years, he himself was " sown a natural body, to be raised a spiritual body." The analogies of growth and ripening and decadence which had crowded on his thought and study for half a century, followed him in happy fruition to the spot where, under his own hemlocks and amid the first leaves 186 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. of June, we laid him iu the cemetery which his eloquence had consecrated a generation before with pathos and splendor. And so he went away from our presence. " Of no disteiiii)er, of no blast, he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long : Even wondered at because he dropt no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years ; , Yet freshly ran he on six winters more, Till, like a clock worn out with eating time. The wheels of weary life at last stood still." ADDRESS BEFORE THE WORCESTER COUNTY FREE INSTITUTE OP INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE, NOV. 11, 1868. Mr. President, — At this stage of the exercises it only remains for me to unite with others in congratulating the friends of the School of Industrial Science on having reached the degree of success which is expressed by these ceremonies of inauguration. Though the beneficent purposes of the school are yet to be accomplished, the liberality and vigor which have established these material foundations and super- structures, ill accordance with plans so comprehensive, are a guaranty that no part of the original design shall fail for want of means or public spirit. In addition to the endow- ment furnished by the original founder, the amount contrib- uted by others has been rarely if ever equalled in this section of the country in any similar undertaking and in an equal period of time. To the first donor, Mr. Boyntou, and to all those citizens who have come forward to make his donation certain and successful, — of whom two, Mr. Salisbury and Mr. Washburn, ought to be especially mentioned and at all times remembered, — not only this particular community, but the people of the whole Commonwealth, are under lasting obligation. The memory of great benefactions ought to be enduring. I sometimes think that our familiarity with the quickly ac- cumulated fortunes, and the almost lavishment of benevo- lence of the last few years, has made us too insusceptible to the common duty of gratitude for the munificence which 188 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. abounds in our community. Some of us remember with what sensation it was promulgated over the country, only a little more than twenty years ago, that Mr. Abbott Law- rence had made a gift of fifty thousand dollars to establish the Scientific School at Cambridge. It happened to me, about that time, to be at the same hotel with liiui in the city of New York. It also occurred that the President of the United States was then present, on a visit to the metropolis. An intelligent and public-spirited citizen of Tennessee came to me and said, " I desire to be introduced to Mr. Abbott Lawrence, of your State ; for I would rather take the hand that can open with a donation of fifty thousand dollars in the cause of Education, than to shake hands with the President." And now here, in the retired abodes of the rural County of Worcester, we have three men, who have not been hunted out, but who have come forth of their own volition, each of whom has given for that noble cause a much larger sum than the one I have just mentioned. In cordial sympathy with the prayer of Dr. Sweetser, who opened the exercises of consecration this morning, we ought to be thankful to Him who is the disposer not only of events but of the hearts of men that produce events, that we live in a society where such things as these are performed. The institution which we open for use to-day is a stage in advance of all considerable attempts which have been hitherto made, in Massachusetts, for the promotion of the study of what we call the natural and physical sciences. The first of such efforts resulted in tlie establishment of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Cambridge. Devoted to the study of the whole of living existence, of all orders of being, from man through every gradation to the feeblest vital organism that can be discovered, it is a monument to the interest which the State has manifested in one department of tliis general class of studies. It has been endowed with half a million of dollars, coming about equally from the public treas- ury and private citizens. In the hands of its great master. BEFORE THE FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 189 Mr. Agassiz, — I am half inclined to call liini the great magi- cian of nature, — it is helping into world-wide fame, not only him, but the Commonwealth of his adoption. But in manj particulars that is a school of abstract study, as distinguished from that which is palpably practical and in immediate relation "with the producing powers and capacities of men. The only two other leading institutions we have in tlie domain of physical science — the Scientific School of Harvard University and the Institute of Technology at Boston — have aimed to supply this deficiency by bringing what are termed the useful arts into profound study and direct appli- cation to the social progress of our time. Of the Institute of Technology I have a high appreciation. In my judgment it aims to meet the exigencies of this age with a broader scope than any other institution that has been established in the United States. Passing through its rooms, witnessing the facilities appropriated to the pursuit of mathematics, design, and drawing, descending to the laboratory and beholding tlie young men applying their own thought to actual experiment with the free use of water, steam, and gas-light, all the ele- ments and all the apparatus, any man in the visit of an hour must be satisfied that an advanced position, not realized before, has been attained in the ever widening field of edu- cation. But the school whose doors are now thrown open to .:iwing free on this eminence is designed, as I suppose, to be devoted, not less than the Boston Institute, to the ele- mentary studies which precede, accompany, and stimulate the development of the useful arts, while besides it com- prises the department of practical mechanism, which has not as yet been attached to the former. That, I apprehend, may be found to be the right arm of this institution. Here is a building which is dedicated to the pursuit of the wonder- working forces and agencies of mechanic art, and which is to be supplied with the conveniences, and, so to speak, with the temptations that shall entice the thought, ingenuity, taste, and aptitude of a young man into acquaintance with 190 ADDRESSES OF ALEXAI^DER H. BULLOCK. the processes which distinguish, as characteristics, this me- chanical age in which we live. Here we are to have not only the abstract instruction, — the research, reflection, and contemplation of the student, ranging over all authorities and theories in the broad field of mechanical powers and, combinations, — but we are to have also the illustration at hand ; the thing of beauty, as it lay in the imagination, is to be wrouglit out before the eye of the student and by his own fingers, — the golden chain is here connecting theory with practice, to find which so many men in all the callings of industry have passed years of time between the school of their study and the shop of their success. He was a wise man who connected this department with the institution ; and he is the generous benefactor who supplies and sup- ports it, Mr. President, this school comes to us at the right time, but none too soon, in aid and furtherance of the drift of our civilization. Intelligence, acting through the useful arts, is the vital principle of modern civilized society. The mech- anician is now master of the situation. Those communi- ties are now foremost in wealth, in culture, and in all the methods of moral influence, which are foremost in the de- velopment and use of the arts. They conquer in war, and they rule in time of peace. According to statements made by approved English writers several years ago, and making proper allowance for the increase since, the spinning ma- chinery of Great Britain, tended perliaps by three or four hundred thousand workmen, produces more yarn than could have been produced by four times the entire population of the kingdom if using the one-thread wheel ; and the amount of work now performed by machinery in England is proba- bly equivalent to that of the whole population of the globe if performed by direct labor. Striking and almost incredi- ble as such statements appear, they are at this moment measurably in process of reproduction in some of the States of New England, and in none more conspicuously than in BEFORE THE FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 191 our own State. According to the last official tables of our industry, published two years since, the annual product of values in Massachusetts was more than seven hundred mil- lion dollars, — or nearly two and a half millions for every working day in the year. I allow something for the infla- tion of war values ; but any excess from that source is prob- ably not greater than the amount of production overlooked in making the returns, and therefore I take the footing to be a fair one. Now I need not say that this quickening and awakening of the industries — this type of the modern civ- ilization — comes in a great proportion from intelligence working by machinery. It is the intellect, the reason, the thouo-ht, the imagination, the taste of our men, and of our women as weU, working through the thousand-handed en- gineries and agencies which the God of nature ha placed in their control and inspired them to employ. Our own city of Worcester is a remarkable example of the improvement in these arts. Having had some opportunities for making the comparison, I can in all sincerity declare that I do not know the community in this country which leads a more busy, intelligent, and happy life. 1 do not know what the papers of the Patent Office Department at Washington might show, but it has occurred to me frequently, reading the current lists of patented inventions, that, with the ex- ception of four or five of the very large cities, not another in the United States receives in the course of a year a larger number of letters patent than this inland town of forty thousand souls. The genius of the place seems in- spired for the mission of the arts. The mind of the popu- lation seems aroused and exalted in the pursuit of the greatest attainable improvement in the condition of man- kind. Now, Mr. President, we have only to take the modern situ- ation as we find it, — a people " pushing things," as the phrase now is, not so much by arms, as by arts, — carrying their conquests over the globe by their wits, — and to apply our- 192 ADDRESSES OF ALEXA^'DE1^ II. BULLOCK. selves to the duties of furnishing the best education Avhich this popular condition requires. We have reached a definite and established status, as a Commonwealtli, for which specific policies and adaptations of education must be amply pro- vided. And this work of public obligation has only begun. In the five chartered literary colleges of the State there are, I suppose, some ten or twelve hundred students. But with the exception of very few who will take to engineering scarcely any of this large number will apply and continue their study and culture in those pursuits to which I have alluded, and which constitute the texture and fabric of our social organization and power. The two institutions, which I have before mentioned, are instructing probably less than two hundred and fifty of our young men. The school which we dedicate to-day ought speedily to double this number. The want is imminent. The condition which has produced the want has been advancing upon us with rapid stride dur- ing the last thirty years. The whole social organism, all the forces and activities, the spirit of our age, the life of the State, are flowing in channels which, a generation ago, were too feeble to awaken the public attention. But it is so no longer. The directors and masters of education, the patrons and benefactors of our time, have been aroused to an appre- ciation of the necessity. That which is needed is not an underestimating or depreciation of the schools of classical learning. Theses and addresses have been published in the last few years which have discussed the benefits received from the collecjes in a manner most unwise and unfair. And in my judgment he is not in proper accord with the temper of this era, any more than with the temper of the past, who misleads the intelligence of the people by teaching them to undervalue the higher seminaries of classical learning. They will still live and prosper, and enrich the parish, the town, the halls of justice and legislation, all the circles of life and all the classes of mankind, with their myriad-shaded attain- ment and culture, their rich and exalted thought drawn from BEFORE THE FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 193 the treasuries of past centuries, their flexible taste, their re- fined sentiment, their trained virtue, and their imperishable religion. Let no man assail the colleges of Massachusetts. Their field is the world. But there is quite as much space left for the schools of industrial and physical science as they can occupy. We must maintain them beside and in addi- tion to the others ; we must support them for the specialties of our active, producing, consuming civilization. In sym- pathy with the objects of those other seminaries they should have in common with the others the base of the same Chris- tian religion which has upheld them ; the same patriotic tone and purpose ; the same elementary studies which precede and prepare for the classification of men in the various occupa- tions of life. Beyond these things, they are designed to educate — in the literal signification of that word, to lead forth, to bring out — the inventive genius of our young men. From the great invention of James Watt, which has changed the whole face of society, down through the long line of inventions now innumerable but all working together in the vast complication of the world's industry, you find compara- tively few which have proceeded from the sons of univer- sities. They have cropped out from humble cottages and secluded garrets. There have been in times past no schools for this class of producers and benefactors. Here we have the school at length ; and all around us, in the midst of us, we have the material for crowding its seats. In the appli- cation of elementary mathematics to practical art ; in the broad department of design and drawing ; in facilities for en- abling the student to seize each happy thought as it crosses his imagination, and to chain it in captivity by his own senses and by the agencies of fire, steam, electricity, and all the metals which minister in his hands ; in mutual compari- sons and suggestions among kindred minds laboring side by side in the common workshop of nature ; in the stimulation which shall here be communicated to the illimitable capacity of the mind, for modifying, improving, enlarging, intensifying 13 194 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. all discoveries yet made in the realm of utilized skill and art ; in sending forth, one after another, great and small, new forms and combinations which shall facilitate and cheapen the ways of life, from the work of the engine that traverses the sea, or keeps a thousand men and women at work under a single roof, to the humblest cooking of a cottage dinner ; in simplifying and saving labor by devising new modes of dividing it ; in pointing out new uses of economy in the working operations of the mechanical forces, wasting less and consuming less without profit ; in producing the most benign effects on the moral and social relations by material means, raising the standard of comfortable living, increasing the quantity of leisure time for mental improvement, and pro- moting the progress of man in all the fields of earthly service and enjoyment, — this school and its associate schools shall contribute their j)art in perpetuating for our Common- wealth the respect and blessing of all wherever freedom and intelligence exist. And I deem it a privilege to be permitted to unite with you in committing it to its work, and in com- mending it to the patronage of our fellow-citizens and to the favor of Divine Providence. SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO GENERAL DIX, UNITED STATES MINISTER TO FRANCE, BY AMERICANS AT PARIS, IN 1869. Mr. President, — It seems scarcely less than a superflu- it)' that anything should be added to the striking and felici- tous remarks which have already expressed our purpose and crowned the occasion. And yet there is nothing superfluous, after all, in saying once more before we separate how largely our countryman and friend, the late Minister, takes with him, as he sets his face towards home, the absolute respect and esteem of all Americans whether resident or transient on this side of the ocean. And certainly this is a free-will offering, which never was more justly merited by any one. To that executive capacity and straightforwardness which marked his labors in this as in every former field in which we have known him, in the discharge of his duties at this capital he has added a patience, courtesy, and kindness towards his many countrymen visiting here, which I am sure they are all ready to place high among the diplomatic virtues. I doubt not vou will indulge me in one other remark in relation to this gentleman, — involving some delicacy indeed when ut- tered in his presence, but quite fit to be introduced in the general survey of his character wliich we are entitled to take at this moment. For myself, the respect for General Dix, which has brought me to this table, is not by any means diminished by what I believe to be the fact, — a fact possibly a little more rare now than at some former periods among public men, — that he retires from a prominent official life 196 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. of twenty-five years with the power safely to challenge the closest scrutiny of his conduct and without having added to his private fortune. "When such men quit the pubhc service they leave the country greatly in debt to them. To an assemblage like the present, — comprising Ameri- cans who represent the several characteristic occupations, ranging all the way between those who are stationed here in fixed commercial relations and the greater number who are here for a longer or sliorter period in pursuit of general knowledge and recreation, — a portion having taken on some- what the complexion of this local sky, while others feel pass- ing over their cheeks only the color of the sky they recently parted from at home, — but all Americans still, with hearts beating true to the anthem of their country and eyes rekind- ling at every fresh instance of her progress and glory, — to you and me, one and all, it is gratifying to believe, against every idle rumor from whatsoever quarter it may come, that we sit this evening in the shade of a cordial and compacted concord between France and the United States. There are historical reasons why the Emperor and the President should be thoughtful of the present hour. This is to both countries a centennial era. It is not far from this time an hundred years since the lilies of France were borne on many a field of ours to a conquest which gave to us also an independent flag. In all this lapse of time, through the successive dy- nasties and administrations, between the land of Lafayette and the land of Washinoton, that ensicrn which the two won together has not been ruffled by a serious adversity. What- ever evil might once or twice have happened, and whatever evil some persons would have had happen, none has actually occurred. Nor is any likely to occur. No people have better reason than tlie French to respect the history of the Great Republic, and none can better afford in interest and senti- ment to welcome the fact that this history has no steps backward to take, — that the North American Union is at length complete, and that the name of its President is itself SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO GENERAL DIX. 197 a flag. Then the commerce of the two countries has been and must continue to be a perpetual peace-maker and peace- preserver. Nor can I deem it frivolous or merely senti- mental to speak of a pending event as fit to become another guaranty of enduring friendship. Before the most rapid of our tourists now here shall find their way back to New York or Boston, we may expect that the ship, at present taking on board its freight in a French port, shall carry to our shore the only cable actually joining Europe with the United States. And you will pardon me if with a local pride I take to heart what I have read during my present stay in Paris, the act of the government of my State of Massachusetts — the only sovereignty that could confer the boon — granting the right to land this electric messenger of commerce and amity upon the coast of Cape Cod ; by the same waters which two hun- dred and fifty years back furnished anchorage to that famous little bark that bore in its cabin the Constitution of the future Eepublic. Most assuredly, Mr. President, in these passages of history, in these august events, — in the steadfast union of the king of that early day with our own Wash- ington, in the uninterrupted friendship between both coun- tries during a century, in the forthcoming last act which is to impress upon the very earth beneath the ocean the signet seal of assurance for a common fraternity in the future, — in these three, I am justified in finding that real triple alliance, of which the newspapers in the recent dis- play of their prolific ingenuity have not even given us the mention. Gentlemen, it must at times have seemed to you, as it has to me, that here, far away from home, and removed from par- ticipation in the events and excitements transpiring there, an American citizen may perceive in even more clear and con- spicuous light the proportions of his country without exag- geration and without diminution. While we remained there we ourselves were actors, and our senses partook of the con- fusion of the scenes. But the transparent medium of distance 198 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER 11. BULLOCK. presents to our sight the whole grand picture, correctly limned, free from the illusion of coloring, and without shackles upon the outline. Accordingly, to no portion of our country- men do the historical stages and growths and achievements of their nation appear more sensibly or more impressively than to those of them who are in foreign lands. Here quite impartially you apprehend in the fulness of its meaning, and seize, in your pride and affection, that recent lesson of a na- tional unity now for the first time achieved and established beyond every possibility of disruption in the ages to come. All the antagonisms which had accumulated for a century, all the oppositions of sections and climates and products, all the diversities of histories and races, which from the begin- ning had imperilled the existence of a common central sover- eignty, have been welded by the flames of war into one bond of paternal strength, which belts the continent, makes it in- dissoluble from vices within, and makes it invincible to forces from abroad. No person can realize better than you that there is not an American merchant upon this eastern liemi- sphere, — in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, on either side of the Cape of Good Hope, — who does not now feel, as he could never feel before, that he represents a Government which is capable of protecting him. Having proved sufficient to main- tain its own integrity in the severest of recorded struggles, it may henceforth be considered able to defend the honor and rights of its citizens in every part of the globe. If twenty- five millions, not without some division among themselves, could levy and subsist and animate the recent armies, to wdiich there has been no parallel in modern annals, it is not difficult to say what forty millions would accomplish with one lieart and one mind pervading the whole area from cen- tre to circumference. Let us trust that the day is far distant when such power will be summoned to the requisition. There is exemption from arms in the existence of power. The aim of our country is humanity ; and therefore it is progress. Its end is justice, — in due time and at all hazards justice to SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO GENERAL DIX. 199 itself and justice to its citizens ; and therefore it will be peace. I should be incomplete in my appreciation of the spirit of patriotic congratulation which pervades this convention of xA-mericans, if I should not unite with you in hailing a late event in our country as the last decisive harbinger of com- merce and empire. Hitherto the geographical features of our territory have been in some particulars against us. Moun- tain ridges have stood in the way of commercial unity. For thirty-five years we have by railroad communication over- come these obstacles, one after another, until only a single field of separation remained closed to the rapid exchange of the agencies of civilization between the Atlantic and the Pacific States. Now at length, almost in an unexpected hour, brain and muscle have conquered geography, the civil engineer has suddenly become master of the situation, and the song of Bishop Berkeley is repeated by electric beat in one and the same moment of civic ovation at Xew York and San Francisco. It was formerly a custom at Venice to sol- emnize the espousal of the city with the Adriatic by impos- ing ceremonies in which the Doge and the Court participated. How transcendently surpassing tliat was the late simple and sublime bridal of the Atlantic and the Pacific, celebrated mid- way in the heart of our continent ! Or rather perhaps I should more properly say, it was not so much an espousal as it was a national coronation. California and Arizona and Nevada bore the mace of silver and gold before the Queen of Nations receiving her imperial crown ; receiving it not from the hands of bristling soldiery, but from the arm of the engineer and the laborer, all the hosts of agiiculture, commerce, and the arts, in the towns and upon the prairies, catching at the same in- stant the signal of the new era and re-echoing it from ocean to ocean. The great work is done, and hereafter the States are a unit in commerce as in government. Before my friend, Mr. Burlingame, has half completed his cosmopolitan mis- sion, the freight trains have been made up at San Francisco 200 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. laden with the product of China ; and by the time he shall have unpacked his trunks at Berlin, he may drink at the breakfast-table his favorite tea, which, thanks to the irrepres- sible and irresistible Yankees, has been brought round to him the other way. All things are changed by these new comers upon the world's arena. As in war there is no longer a pres- tige save to the strongest legions, so in the cultures of peace the fruits of success fall into the arms of those who get up earliest in the morning and carry the clearest heads and the most indomitable energy through the labors of the day. And that condition can only be fully attained in a country where the personal liberty of the individual man, free education and voluntary religion, a right to enjoy his conscience, his earn- ings, and an unrestricted, unmolested suffrage in the choice of his rulers, expands his soul, exhilarates his life, and moves him to enterprise, adventure, and independence. We may well rejoice that such is the opportunity and the fortune of every citizen of the United States, and that our country enjoys a corresponding result to the sisterhood of nations. Whatever attractions other countries may present to us, whatever objects of interest to the senses, whatever to be studied and admired, these in due time pale before the larger conception of national justice, freedom, and power, and the dust of our native laud becomes dearer to us than all other lands beside. Gentlemen, it is the spontaneous impulse of my heart to say a word to you about the honorable gentleman who suc- ceeds General Dix as our national representative at the Im- perial Court. My own acquaintance with ISIr. Washburne probably antedates that which any one of you can recall. It happened that thirty years ago the next autumn we occupied rooms side by side as students at law in the University at Cambridge. Following his profession in another section of the Union, he has engrafted upon the education of the East the stout and manly qualities of the West. He brings to his high mission the teachings of Story, enriched by a large SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO GENERAL DIX. 201 experience in public life. These will stand by him and sup- port him, as upon every occasion he will stand by and support his country. Having the confidence of the President and the people, he has already received yours fully in advance, and I could not refrain from uniting my feeble but cordial tribute with the common testimonial. DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIEES' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER, JULY 15, 1874. I CAN neither enlarge nor diminish the lesson of the hour inscribed upon the column before us. We have assembled to witness the erection of a monument by the people of Wor- cester to the memory of her sons who died for the union of the States. Some memorial, fitting in design and durable in substance, which should perpetuate the names of the four hundred citizens fallen for their country, and in association with them pay respect to the larger number of survivors who shared in the same military service, is not only an appropriate offering, but an absolute necessity from our human condition. The sense of gratitude may be trusted so long as memory is fresh or tradition is actively repeated, but these are of uncer- tain duration, and the time of forgetfulness comes only too soon and unawares. The necessary thing is some visible me- morial, without which a haze of indifference quickly gathers over virtuous deeds, and the names of modest heroes are untimely lost. We readily believe with Cicero that but for the " Iliad " the same grave which held the body of Achilles would also have entombed his name. But the historian poet never comes to commemorate the names of the great body of a nation's soldiery, though its existence was preserved by their blood. Already a large part of this present assembly is in need of this monument for monitor and iustructor. Some of us indeed remember the first general war meeting held here for half a century, — on the 16th of April, 1861, — DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS* MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 203 whicli witnessed the fusion of all religions, all politics, all nationalities, under one common sense of wrong and one common purpose of vindication ; but that was more than thirteen years ago, almost half the time by which we measure a transitory generation, and the young men of twenty-one to-day, who were then schoolboys on the grammar form, are now learning, as students, that mighty series of events into which these soldiers were then enlisting, as actors. Whilst, therefore, we stand around this majestic structure with varied reflections, — of approbation for the harmonious effect with which the eminent artist has made each part tributary to the whole work, his statues and embossments merging from their several quarters into civic and martial union beneath the column culminating in benignant victory, — of a certain justi- fiable complacency for the unanimity with which the city has voted this token of its own public spirit, — of grateful wel- come to these remustering ranks of the survivors, privates who were companions and ofiicers who were leaders of the noble dead, — in high supremacy over all these thoughts our gaze passes and fixes upon the names of those translated, and our heart returns to the consciousness that this is their me- morial, its first and last object to transmit their names and THEIR deeds to a remote posterity. The story of the city in the late conflict is the history of the town of earlier days re-enacted on a larger scale and on wider fields. In free and brave communities, kept up to the measure of their fathers by a chivalrous standard of patriotic duty, the inheritance of good blood and inspiring traditions counts for an increasing degree of glory, each generation not only retaining but augmenting the vigor of their ancestors. That truth has been displayed in the public conduct of the people of this town in five historical wars, covering, with greater or less intervals, the period of one hundred and twenty- five years. It is a century since Lord Chatham, whose name will ever be held sacred by the freemen of Massachusetts, declared in the House of Peers, with a pride surpassing the 204 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. pride of argument, that tlie inhabitants of New England had raised, on their own bottom, four regiments and taken Louis- burg from the veteran troops of France. This provincial town, then scarcely advanced more than twenty years in its chartered existence, was represented by its full quota in those regiments under Sir William Pepperell, and carried into that siege names which are still borne by some of our present townsmen, and are thus associated with the victory celebrated by the elder Pitt. The scenes of resolve and preparation, which were witnessed here in 1861, were the enlarged spec- tacle of the century preceding ; and the same plains that were covered with the gathering troops of our day had whitened with the tents of our fathers under beat of the drums of the seven years' war, from 1756 to 1763. They awoke at that time from a brief rest on their arms to actions from which Great Britain bore away imperial renown, and our ancestors the gloom of a depleted population and the transcendent lessons that fitted them for independence. The Worcester men moved everywhere in that war, — they were at Crown Point and Fort William Henry, they were in captivity at Montreal and in the epidemics of Lake George, they shared with the ill-fated Abercrombie in the defeat of Ticonderoga and with General Amherst in the joy of triumph. It is not easy for the fifty thousand inhabitants of the present day to understand it, yet the recorded rolls declare it, that the rugged stock of our predecessors sent more than five hundred men into the campaigns of the ten years ending with 1756, out of a population not averaging through that period more tlian fourteen hundred. That character heroic, pervading the spirit- ual frame of the age and working in acts of valor in the field, held the town among the foremost twelve years afterwards, and bore its citizens in triumph through another and severer struggle of seven years' duration. When the alarm messenger shouted on the green where we are now assembled the cry of blood from Lexington, at noon, on the 19th of April, 1775, his voice fell upon a people already prepared by experience DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 205 and sacrifice, by long training of arms and by inherited train- ing of the spirit, at a minute's warning to strike the blows for independence ; and scarcely had cannon and bells ceased to reverberate over these hills when two companies of one hun- dred and ten men were on their way for Concord and Boston. It was the tale of previous days. They marched out with the blessing of the same pulpit which rang with its manly counsel ten years before ; they bore the discipline and daring of the Eangers of the French war; they stepped to the same fife and drum which had sounded under the walls of Louisburg. I will not overtax your patience with the story of Worcester in the Eevolution. Happily, we consecrate this monument by the side of another,^ which, while it commemorates the long- suffering heroism of a distinguished soldier of the Eevolution, commemorates as well the whole part which this town bore in that war, from the first baptism in Middlesex to the final coronation of virtue at Yorktown. Of what kind, in service and sacrifice, that marble tells. He filled his regiment here, the stout old Fifteenth of the Massachusetts line in the Con- tinental, known and impressed upon history by their inefface- able footsteps at Saratoga, in Ehode Island, at Verplanck's Point, at Peekskill, at Valley Forge, — a band whose conduct in close, hot places was worthy of the stern commentary of Napier or Cajsar, descended long since to the grave of our common lot, but after the lapse of two generations represented again as if in reinvested life and repeated glory under the colors of the Massachusetts Fifteenth of 1861. Example is the school of mankind. On the morning of the 15th of April, 1861, the entire city was awakened by the intelligence that, under the first blow struck for disunion, the fiag of the United States had been dishonored, and before nightfall the murmur of the armories and the common speech of all told of but one mind and one purpose. In a day we had all become republicans, we had all become democrats. The annals of that first week, its 1 The monument to Colonel Timothy Bigelow. 206 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER U. BULLOCK. transfusion of heart to heart, its enthusiasm toned to solemn calm, its days and nights of ceaseless preparation, will supply a priceless inheritance in any future national exigency. The Light Infantry, first off and first at the capital, the City Guards and the Emmet Guards quickly following, filled the requisition for three hundred within five days from the first peal of the tocsin ; and the next Sabbath after tlie fall of Sumter witnessed that, by the departure of its first conse- crated band, the city had not only met its present duty, but had covenanted for every future requirement. I advert again to the prompt enlistment of the Emmet Guards, because, in my judgment, it was a representative fact of the highest importance to the permanent character of our Government. This company was, I believe, the first organi- zation of foreion blood which marched into the Avar, though it was followed by others of various nationalities, all of which rendered cordial service unto the end by the side of the patri- otic native-born of the laud. It is not any new boast that, in the last seventy-five years, we have drawn to our shores dis- cordant elements from half the globe, and magnetized the mass with tlie electric spark of civil freedom ; but this is the first proof and illustration, on a national scale, that all dis- tinctions of blood sink before the American flag, and tliat in the hour of extreme peril unity of action receives special guaranty and strength from diversities of origin. It would be impossible for me witliiu my limitations to attempt any narrative of the subsequent organization here of companies and regiments of which the stirring recollections have scarcely yet subsided. Fortiinately the whole of this history has been collated and published with honorable industry and impar- tiality in a memorial volume,^ which the present generation cannot afford to neglect, and which will surely be appreciated by the next as having a great and rare value. It is not possible that I should state the number of men who served as soldiers of the city. In this search I find a * History of Worcester in the War, by A. P. Marvin. DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 207 catalogue of their names dislocated and confused by the repeated enlistment of the same individuals in different regi- ments ; but I estimate their whole number as not far from three thousand. You are to bear in mind also that a very large number of our citizens did service in the lines of other States. Many of our own are thus lost to our recognition, save when in individual instances a conspicuous action or a conspicuous death dissolves the mystery, and brings back the name of a distant son for memorial honors at home. The records of Massachusetts volunteers officially show that the men of Worcester served under the colors of fifty distinct regiments of infantry, five regiments of cavalry, and fourteen regimental or battery organizations of artillery, all sent into the field with the commission of John A. Andrew, whose name as the great war-governor of Massachusetts will forever be associated with the immortal renown of her soldiers. Our eye detects amongst the inscriptions upon this monument the names of our sous fallen under the banners of seventeen regiments of our sister States and nine military organizations of the General Government. Estimating the probabilities of the number of our own enlisted by the ascertained number of our own dead in regiments without the State, though we can reach no definite result, we know enough to be able to say for a truth that the blood of "Worcester was offered for the defence of the Government in more than one hundred regiments and under the flag of every loyal State. Marvel- lous touchstone for us all that conflict was ! Between our- selves and some of the States of the Centre and the West there had been for several years more or less of political and social difference, with a plenty of misapprehension and ill blood all round ; but when the common test came to all, how blessed the reunion in which they stood together and learned mutual respect under the same flag of stars ! A sense of repletion of material comes over me when I contemplate the extent and number of the fields which re- sounded with the tread of your soldiers. Not a page, but a 208 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. volume, would furnisli the recital. They shared in the shift- ing lot of the army of the Potomac, from its clouded morning to its brilliant close, in the marchings and fightings of the Shenandoah, till every open field and copse became familiar ground ; in the early welcome victories of Carolina ; in pa- tient trials along the Gulf; in the hours of turning fortune at New Orleans, Port Hudson, and Vicksburg ; in the tangled marches and counter-marches of Tennessee ; in every part of the country, in every great campaign, not excepting the Napoleonic excursion of Sherman to the sea. It would es- pecially be my pleasing duty, if time would permit, to make particular mention of the deeds of the Worcester regiments, so called, city and county, and of a few others in which a considerable proportion of our citizens enlisted, in whose personnel you became by observation and contact so deeply interested. I will not, indeed, omit to give voice to the opinion, to which the oflicial testimony of so many of the higher of&cers of the army converges, that in labors and ac- tions performed, and in the manner of performing them, they ranked amoncr the most illustrious of the war. You will permit me to go one step further on simply my own author- ity, for I take it there are some things in war, as in peace, which the common sense of a layman as well as a soldier can penetrate. I read the campaigns of the Spanish Peninsula, so often resorted to as a standard in military comparison, and I read the most approved descriptive accounts of the service of these rcGfiraents of our own ; I allow for some exaweration in all the cases, and the farther back in the past they are, the greater this allowance should be ; and I declare tlie convic- tion, which every intelligent man is capable of forming, that for the moral and military qualities of a manly heroism, for versatile labors, for marches, for trials, for tough fighting, and for sublime endurance, laurel wreaths should fall around the shaft now rising before us, as profusely as Fame has ever strewn her honors over the memory of Talavera or Salamanca. Throughout the hostilities it was a common complaint of the DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 209 English critics that many of our battles were inconclusive. We then thought that we knew something of the reason for this, and military writers across the water are now confessing that they understand it as well. Conspicuously a writer of high authority in the profession of arms, an officer of the British army,i who, in a recent volume, accounting for M-hat he terms the "inconclusiveness " of our own engagements, very justly says that "the beaten side would not break up;" and then goes on remarking that " in order to pursue, there must be some one to run away, and to the credit of Ameri- cans, the ordinary conditions of European warfare in this respect were usually absent from the great battles fought [ in the United States]." I dare say that those who have re- turned from the war will appreciate the compliment, no doubt a just one, to the valor of both sides in our struggle. It is nothing very new as a discovery. The great Conde, when asked why he did not take Marshal Turenne, since he often came very near to him, replied, J'ai pcur qiiil ne me prennc, — " I am afraid that Ac will take me." The fields of American valor are in every State, and on both sides of the cause, and the regiments which are largely represented in yonder engraved list of the dead would by any tribunal of comparison be awarded some of the highest of historical honors. But we are not just if we measure the merit of these lives by battles alone. There was no hard detail of labor that they were not equal to, no patient and cheerless sacrifice they did not endure, no vicissitude of prosperous or adverse fortune they did not meet with serenity. my friends, you may well believe that there is much of a soldier's life which is liarder than a soldier's death ! Consider the tedium and tiredness of preparation for action deferred, the nervous strain from constant vigil at patrol and picket, the extreme of human wretchedness which comes from hunger, — " two ears of corn a 1^ Colonel Chesnpy's "Essays in Military Biography," reprinted from the 14 " Edinburgh Review.' 210 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. day's ration " in one of our regiments, " six spoonfuls of flour for seven days " in another, — consider the marching for objects unknown to the ranks, and therefore all the harder to endure, under the intensity of our sky, summer or winter, until the very heavens seem animate with cruel hostility, "over one thousand miles in the hottest season [the Thirty- fourth], " " marching without rations under a Mississippi sun until some dropped dead in the ranks [the Thirty-sixth]," " marching, watching, starving, and fighting in the mazes of Tennessee [the Twenty-first]," — consider the dreariness of exhaustion which steals over the senses like the forecasting shadows of dissolution, the days and nights so lengthened out in sickness, the solemn and awful rest of captivity, the horrors of prison, whence too often the cry of sacred misery rises to Heaven, and where the Almiglity sometimes abandons man to the display of his capacity for depravity, — and tell me whether you might not have preferred far rather the quick parting of soul and body in the waters at Ball's Bluff, amidst the transfiguration of victory on Lookout Mountain, in the battles of the Wilderness, that labyrinth of quick-passing fury and quick-coming glory. In the erection of this monument we symbolize alike the character of the war and the character of tliose who engaged in it. Several years ago a gentleman of military authority in England aroused a warm discussion by the assertion that a villain makes none the worse soldier. That might be true in a single instance, under a transitory passion for plunder or booty ; but no sustained spirit of fortitude, such as carries a people througli the changing tides of a long war, can be counted on, unless the merit of the war itself be high enough to enlist in it high personal characters. " A war," says :Mr. Burke, — " a war to preserve national independence, liberty, life, and honor, is a war just, necessary, manly, and pious, and we are bound to persevere in it by every principle, di\ine and human, as long as the system which menaces them has an ex- istence." Tliat was precisely our case ; and our fellow-citizens, DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTEK. 211 looking at it with as fair and impartial an eye as was ever united to a feeling heart, resolved to settle the question at once and for all time, at whatever cost and sacrifice the struggle should find necessary. They left happy firesides for the cheerless camp, misled by none of the illusive glare of romance nor any passing gust of madness, but thoroughly convinced that the government their fathers had established was now on its test and trial, and that the blood of man must be shed to redeem the blood of man. Men who would have looked upon any other war of the present century as vanity or as crime, carried their hearts and their arms impetuously into this. In the essential quality that marks great exemplars of patriotic virtue they were as superior to the heroes of Marathon, one-tenth part of whom were slaves let loose to fight the battles of their masters, as the civil polity of New England transcends the imperfect civilization of Greece or Kome. They were citizen-heroes, bearing in one hand tlie musket, and in the other the violated Constitution of their country, fully determined and sworn, the Lord helping them, to carry the former to the land's end, if need be, to restore the latter to acknowledged supremacy over every inch of territor}'- which had ever taken the national christening. I allow they were backed by tremendous forces from behind, — teeming industries, generous wealth, the sympathetic support of women, the most active that any age had witnessed ; but they had a greater backing than these, — principles descended to them in the high phrase of Milton, endeared to them through the depth and pathos of colonial and revolutionary traditions, sounding through their hearts in the undying words of Adams and Warren, of Webster and Sumner. In sending such men into the field you sent out armed doctrines which were invulnerable and immortal, — " Spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man," and wherever or in whatsoever numbers their mortal repre- 212 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. sentatives should fall, the imperishable principle was certain to reappear in other champions on the field, until the wrong should be forever vanquished. And who were the three thousand that went out from the city to bear aloft such a standard in such a cause ? For the most part they were the young men of the day, the flower of the city's manhood. " Youth is genius," says Disraeli. Un- doubtedly youth is the stage of the ideal inspirations which })lay a most important part in every decisive revolution or .social advancement. Not all age is sluggish, and not all youth is pure or progressive; but human nature has its rules, and they are not disturbed by the exceptions. Advanced towards the grand climacteric, men are apt to become affec- tionately attached to the seasons of peace, in which they find accumulated profits and fixed pleasures better placed than in war. The dead level of civilization, the inertia of states, is best administered by the wisdom of the elders ; but when the great change comes, and obsolete or vicious institutions are to pass away by violence, as too often they must, younger men have to give and take the blows, though old ones may have to be called in again at the close to assist in the ad- justments. The first Pitt was comparatively but a young man when he set in motion the influences that drove the old councillors from around the throne, and in a short career, which reads like a romance of the imagination, bore with his own hand the flag of British conquest blazing with triumph over the two hemispheres. A few years later, with the gout settling over liis body and the caprices of patrician dignity over his spirit, he made the remark, which is frequently and only partially quoted, that " confidence is a plant of slow growth in aged bosoms ; youth is the season for credulity." I accept the stately apothegm for the American situation. The young men of the United States had prepared the way for the con- test ; it was the product of their enthusiasm. It was to be a contest of desperation. In the fulness of time the day had DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 213 come when the Institution, so called, — the hoary monarch of our political system, who " Not content With fair equalitj', fraternal state, Did arrogate dominion undeserved Over his brethren," — • was to be met in the last demand and on the last field, and all our habits of concession and surrender, confirmed and indurated for three generations, were to be upturned and re-, versed, — the day of a social, elemental revolution, in which the proud master should retire forever from the scene, in which many of the relations of production and commerce were to be changed, and many of the old methods of business and politics were to be swept along like stubble before a wild northwester. And who could be best fitted to encounter such a situa- tion ? The sculptor, Mr. Eogers, — who, I may as well say to you, was true as steel to his country during all the war, a terror at Eome to every inflated refugee from home, — has placed before you the answer to my question. In full sym- pathy with his subject, he has symbolized each arm of the service in youthful figure, fashioned in a soldier's grace and strength, upon whose countenance sits the silent power of hope and faith, whilst over them all settles the indomitable will fitting their character and their cause. Nothing tliat is tricked, nothing that is theatrical or affected, lurks in these ideals. The artist has met the occasion. The young men who filled the rolls of that war must have been surcharged with tlie electric fire of enthusiasm, must have breathed in the atmosphere of a credulity whicli easily believes in heroic and revolutionary deeds, must have been so unhackneyed in the ways of age as from instinct to repel every suggestion of compromise, credulous enough to have an easy faith in the eternal union of the States, credulous enough to snuff eman- cipation in the air before it appeared to the sight, to behold high above the clouds of tliat desperate day the honor and 214 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. renown wliich would come to those who should strike the chains from four millions of men and elevate them to the peerage of American citizenship ; or the contest would have broken down in its second year. Such we saw them muster. From the shops, from the professions, from the churches, from the schools upon these surrounding highlands, they came with the dew of youth upon their lips, and bravely were sworn in for freedom, for their country and their God. my fellow-citizens, those were historical hours ! The ex- ample of past generations tiugled in their veins, and forgotten histories reappeared in those new young lives. The descen- dant of one who, ninety years before, had stood with his musket in the first company of martyrs at Lexington, broke away from the peace of home to complete the work of his ancestor, and laid down his life in the far-off prison which horror forbids me to mention. How true it is, as formulated by Bolingbroke, that " the virtue of one generation is trans- fused by the magic of example into several generations." I recall the young citizen of foreign blood, hereditary from Waterloo, who came forward in that first enlistment to match the gallantry of his sire, and fell to his sleep at Cold Harbor, asking that his face might be turned to the enemy and the banner of stars be held over his body in his dying moments. The whole war was unlike any other ; religion, poetry, and eloquence had prepared the way, and it came at length, stirring to their profouudest depths the ideal elements of national life; a credulous pride and boast for the destiny of the flag ; rich veins of sentiment never so quickened before ; conceptions of freedom such as can fiame only in the heart fresh from the studies of boyhood, and unchecked by the cooler calculations of advanced years. As we unveil the statues of the army of the dead, our justice and gratitude fall short of our duty and desire if we fail to comprehend the results they achieved. All this to-day is an empty pageantry, if we catch not the lesson of the occasion. I take that lesson from the engraved en- DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 215 tablatures, where it will be read for ages to come ; — they achieved not only a conquest and a peace, but they estab- lished the unity of the republic. They accomplished some- thing more. It sometimes happens that war, that divinity as mysterious in action as tremendous in power, accom- plishes incidentally purposes not inferior to the original and principal object. " War never leaves where it found a na- tion." If peace had come from early surrender and not from final conquest, from the first day at Bull Run and not from the last day at Appomattox, then it would have been, in the language of Washington, " a peace of war." In the same roar of battle in whicli the union of States was sealed to per- petual life, the Constitution gained its just and final inter- pretation, without which any victory would have been only a transient joy. Very early after the opening of hostilities it became obvious, and by none more quickly discerned than by the ingenuous and independent volunteer, that the one thing absolutely essential for enduring union and peace was the acknowledgment of the equality of all, and their right to enfranchisement. The moral sense of the nation, which had become more keen by war, the alternations of the cause oscillating between victory and defeat, the talk of the volunteers about the camp fires, the judgment of the world, the visible tokens of the Divine will, combined to aggravate and heighten the demand for a completed republic under universal emancipation, and a homogeneous people under universal suffrage. And then, repose. It has come, but it could only have come after war. It needed the tramp of armies to break down the prejudices rooted by the vicious overgrowth of an hundred years and twining about the very body of the Constitution. We might as well suppose that after months of torrid heat and vapor, rolling vege- table life to a scroll, the God of nature would clear the atmosphere without the agency of electric sublimity and destruction, as believe that the current of national vice of a century could be changed, and the institutions grounded 216 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER II. BULLOCK. in the mercenary passions of many generations could be overturned, without the vicissitudes and agonies of pro- tracted war. Out of the war has come another reform in the interpreta- tion of the powers of the Government which never would have been won in peace. We have learned at last that the sovereignty of the nation is greater than the sovereignty of the States. We tried that question under the civil experience of eighty years without reaching a settlement. The Revolu- tion found us united, but only for a special purpose, and the Declaration of Independence, though grand as a war-cry, was by no means a bond of government. The Confederation which followed proved only a joint-stock association, liable to dis- solution at any moment, because it established no central power to raise revenue, or enforce a treaty, or compel a State. It was rich enough for individual liberty, but was poverty as a unit of sovereignty. It sprang out of provincialism, and came only to statism, and not to nationality. It was some- thing splendid as a stage of progress, but could be nothing as a consummation. Then, as a consequence, came the Consti- tution. Singularly enough, Madison, the champion of the Constitution, gave to his own work its first and worst con- struction of weakness in the Virginia resolutions of '98. Those resolutions, coupled since with African slavery, have been the cause of our war. Wlien, long afterwards, Web- ster, in reply to Hayne, put forth the only construction under whicli this Union could live, Madison, then an old man, explained away the resolutions of '98 ; but it was too late, the mischief had begun its irresistible work. The same school of interpretation continued, and under the autliority of its great master, Calhoun, it outlived the argument of Webster, the denunciation of Clay, the invective of Adams, and took its last animate form and articulate expres- sion in James Buchanan. In the expiring hours of his administration he led the way to the opening of war by pronmlgatiug to the world once more, and for the last time. DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 217 that the national sovereignty was powerless before the sover- eignty of the States ; and with these parting words he retired from the capitol to his eternal retreat. He closed the doors of the old school forever, and it only remained for Abraham Lincoln to open the doors of the new. And now, aftei- all these years of the strife of opinions and of arms, we have come to the opportunity of gratitude for the establishment of the central authority of this Union, of the sovereignty of unity over its parts, of the oneness and inde- structibility of American nationality. This has been an open question before, and never could have been solved until the disputants at the South as well as at the North should ac- knowledge it to be solved ; and the ordeal of fire and blood alone could brinon the preliminary questions in both attempts for a constitution. Ehode Island lived on under its charter sixty years after the resolution of the Con- tinental Congress had suppressed it, and it remained a mooted question in Connecticut until the year 1818 whether its peo- ple had any constitution or not. But the return of the votes upon the question referred to them showed that a majority of our people favored the call of a convention, and on the 17th day of June, 1779, precepts were sent out for the elec- tion of delegates, who should assemble in the following Sep- tember. Accidentally tlie conjuncture of dates links the beginning and the end of this higli enterprise with a day forever set apart in the Western world by the opening battle of the Ilevolution. On the 17th day of June, 1774, the rep- resentatives of the State took at Salem the first step for self- government ; on the same day in the next year every retreat was cut off by bloodshed at Charlestown ; and on the same day five years later their successors ordered the completion of the work. As the constitution now to be created did not go into effect until October, 1780, it appears that from the eventful day at Salem more than six years were to elapse before the Commonwealth should come into possession of a genuine government. It is a tribute which history will ever pay to the heroic energies of that generation of men, to their capacity for government, to their innate reverence for law and authority, to their strong and enduring sense of national- ity, to their love of liberty moderated by tlieir love of justice, that they carried on a free republic through all tliat period by their unaided self-denial and self-control ; that, rather than act hastily in a matter so grave to themselves and their CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. 309 posterity, they endured for six years the uncertainties and inconsistencies of an illusive and baseless fabric of govern- ment ; that they deemed the benefits of a perfect constitution within their own borders might come only too soon, if attained by abating one jot or tittle of devotion and sacrifice to the common cause of all the States. The convention wdiich framed the Constitution under which we now live assembled in the meeting-house in Cam- bridge, September 1, 1779, and after seven days took a recess till October 28, having first committed the task of preparation to a committee of thirty ; it re-assembled on the 28th of October, and on the 11th of November took a further recess tiU January 5, 1780. On that day it met in the Old State House in Boston, but by reason of the bad travelling over the State continued without an efficient quorum till the 27th ; on which day the labor was resumed and went on ■without further interruption until it was completed on the 2d day of March. Of this body, which comprised, as I make out from the journal, three hundred and twelve dele- gates, James Bowdoin was elected president. Of the exalted character of this assembly no one can hesitate to concur in the opinion expressed by Mr. Eobert C. "Winthrop in his admirable address on the services of Governor Bowdoin, that it contained " as great a number of men of learning, talents, and patriotism as had ever been convened here at any earlier period ; " and I venture to add that it has not since been equalled by any public body in the State, unless possibly by the next convention, which met in 1820. John Adams, Sam- uel Adams, Hancock, Lowell, Parsons, Cabot, Gorham, Sulli- van, Lincoln, Paine, Cushing, Strong, are but a few of the eminent names which appear on its roll. The journal of its proceedings is exceedingly unmethodical and unsatisfactory, and by reason of the lack of reporters at that time we have scarcely any knowledge of the debates. The committee of thirty, to whom w^as referred the work of preparing a plan and form of government, intrusted this task to a sub- 310 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. committee consisting of Bowdoin and the two Adamses, who in turn committed the responsible labor to John Adams alone. His draught of the framework was substantially as a whole adopted by the sub-committee, and afterwards by the general committee, slightly altered, was propounded to tlie convention. The draught of Mr. Adams, compared with the form in which the Constitution was finally adopted, appears to have received several amendments by the convention ; but the result of their labors was chiefly as he had blocked it out, and by every rightful title he must be declared the father of our Constitution. Judge Lowell said, in his eulogy on Bowdoin, that " it was owing to the hints which he occasionally gave, and the part which he took with the committee, that some of the most admired sections in the Constitution appeared ; " but in comparing John Adams's draught with the ultimate result one cannot easily discover any sufficient supply from other sources to derogate from his title of chief authorsliip. And we owe it to the truth of history to say, that whilst the galaxy of names already mentioned warrants the belief that the absence of any one of these delegates could not have endangered the prospect of a model constitutional gov- ernment in Massachusetts, the chieftainship in that creative work must always be assigned to John Adams. And if he had left no other claim to the gratitude of the Commonwealth, this alone would complete his title. As constitutionalist and publicist all other men of his day came at lon^r interval behind him. ]\Iadison and Hamilton were a development of the ten years which followed the full manifestation of his powers. Beyond all his associates in mastery of the whole subject of government, grasping and applying the lessons of historical studies with a prehensile power at that time unprecedented on this continent, and adding to them the original conceptions of a mind of the highest order, he proved -^of all his contemporaries fittest for constitutional architecture. Having discerned five years be- fore, in advance of everybody, the solution of independence CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. 311 in directing the colonies to establish local governments, he became doctrinaire to the delegates at Philadelphia. In the confusion and chaos of thought relating to these subjects which brooded over their minds, his counsel was sought by delegates from North Carolina, from Virginia, from New Jersey, to each of whose delegations he furnished formulas of State government ; and when he came to the front in the preparation of a constitution for his own State, his mind was already stored for the emergency. His share in framing our own government, and his subsequent writings in defence of the general system adopted by the American States, in refutation of the theories of M. Turgot, this defence being published just in time to bear upon the question of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, furnish sufficient excuse, if indeed excuse were needed, for his boastful declaration, found in the Warren correspondence recently published by the Historical Society : " I made a constitution for Massachusetts, which finally made the Con- stitution of the United States." Under his direction the convention made a Declaration of Eights to precede the framework, almost wholly the work of his hand with the exception of the third article, which he did not attempt to perfect. These are the axioms which are to give direction in future interpretations. Of the eleven original States which made new constitutions, — for Ehode Island and Connecticut continued under their char- ters, the former until 1842, and the latter until 1818, — six adopted these Bills of Eights, and five left them out. That these declarations of general rights and liberties, most carefully and solemnly stated, and called Bills of Eights, are not to be regarded as exclusively suggestive of that period of transition from the old dispensation to the new^, is shovv'n by the fact that of the twenty-five new States admitted since the Eevolution twenty-three have adopted these formularies ; and of the whole present number of thirty-eight States there are still but five which have not accompanied tlieir constitu- 312 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. , tions with something like a Bill of Plights. Upon this sub- ject the people of Massachusetts were peculiarly sensitive, and the want of a Bill of Rights is believed to have had a leading influence in causing the rejection of the first pro- posed constitution. Our ancestors deemed it of first impor- tance to make, with every solemnity, declaration of certain fixed principles of reason adapted to the sphere of govern- ment, certain abstract theories of natural or civil rights of man umler the social compact, as safeguards necessary to immutable liberty. Other sections of the written instru- ment, other provisions of law, are the outworks ; these are the citadel. Secret approaches by violence, or corruption, or other degeneracy, may span the moat and scale the outer walls of government, but the life of constitutional Liberty is HERE, and will " not but by annihilating die." The conclu- sion of disputed principles, derived out of the usurpations and resistances of past centuries, is here registered in a single paragraph. It is but a small body of words, mere " glittering generalities," but every word glitters as a flaming sword of warning and of ward to the generations. Good words are great things with a free people. Seven words, according to Parsons and Shaw and Gray, abolished .slavery in Massachusetts. "These three words," said Chatham to the Lords, " nullus liber homo, are worth all the classics." The journal of the Convention of 1780, barren as it is of any- thing dramatic, shows that the masters of the period resolved to follow after the Commons of 1G88, who gave the word of halt to the Lords in settling the crown upon a new dynasty until a bill of fundamental liberties had first been assented to. And the earliest motion of business in our own conven- tion related to the Declaration. In all these formulas of rights adopted by the several States, there is a general resemblance of substance and phraseology, but it by no means follows that the first in time was literally progenitor of the common affinity of thought which pervaded them all. Undoubtedly the Bill CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION, 313 of Eights of Virginia, which was the first promulgated, was in several particulars largely copied into the others, and by its priority in time, as well as by its excellence for a model, it has laid three generations under tribute of admiration. It was almost solely the production of George Mason, one of the sainted heroes in the history of American constitu- tional government. Four times since that day A^irginia has adopted new constitutions, but, excepting the addition of two or three articles made necessary in 1870 as results of the Civil War, the original work of Mason has stood and now stands, after the lapse of one hundred and five years, as it came from his hands. The Massachusetts Declaration is more extended and enunciates more in detail the inves- titure of the liberties of the citizen-subject ; and though I must unavoidably be suspected of bias, I am free to express the opinion that, as a whole, it is superior to every other similar form in existence, for its comprehensive projecting of the eclectic lessons of history over the future of a new commonwealth, for its repeated inculcation of tlie duties of religion and education as the primary agencies of civilized states, and for its own simple and solid literature. "With the exception of the third article it is the work of ]\Ir. Adams, though in the convention it took on considerable changes in the grouping and the phraseology. It would be difficult to find among the English landmarks of right, in Magna Charta, in the Petition of Right, in the Habeas Corpus, in the Bill of Eights of 1688, any public or private security which, though here modified to fit the modern situation, is not as well stated in this all-comprising Declara- tion. In the annals of English letrislation we often come upon the historian's phrase — " encroachment upon consti- tutional principles " — whilst to learn what the principle is that was encroached upon, one must be well read in five centuries of kings and parliaments, and accept perhaps at last an interpretation from varying schools ; but in the simple and elemental aphorisms of the Massachusetts Bill of 314 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. Eights there is for many of the questions of constitutional encroachment the assurance of speedy and indisputable solution. In the eleventh and twelfth articles, protecting personal liberty and property, which Mr. Hallam sums up as covering the two main rights of civil society, we have repeated the thirty-ninth and fortieth articles of the funda- mentals of Maona Charta with more circumstantial defini- tion, but not without some loss of the Gothic strength and grandeur of those ever-memorable sections. The thirtieth and concluding article, defining the separation and protec- tion of each one of the three departments of government from the other two, which was reduced to its present form by changing Mr. Adams's grouping, has not its superior in the terminology of modern constitutions ; and its success in expressing the leading thought he aimed to impress upon our Constitution is one of the choice felicities of the whole body of the Declaration. Mr. Eufus Choate, speaking of this clause, once said : " I never read without a thrill of sublime emotion the concluding words of the Bill of Eights, — 'to the end this may be a government of laws, and not of men.' " With the change of only a single article the entire thirty sections have stood the test of a hundred years, and they still challenge the same tender observance and care from the present generation, which Lord Coke claimed for the best chapter of Magna Charta : " As the gold refiner will not out of the dust, shreds, or shreds of gold, let pass the least crumb, in respect of the excellency of the metal, so ought not the reader to pass any syllable of this law, in respect of the excellency of the matter." There are some half-dozen of these articles, promulgating the supreme and fundamental principles which form the ground worlv of free government, which are substantially copies from the Declarations of Virginia and Pennsylvania. But since Pennsylvania "copied after Virginia, to the last- mentioned must be accorded the historical honors. John Adams was perfectly familiar with every circumstance and CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. 315 detail of the history of the proceedings iu both of those States. He himself said that the Bill of Rights of Pennsyl- vania was taken almost verbatim from tliat of Virginia, wliicli was made and published several weeks before; and in con- versation with M. Marbois in June, 1779, just before he came home to find himself elected a delegate to our convention, he gave the names of the four men who framed the Pennsyl- vania Declaration. Much has been said and written in our local historical circles about the authorship of the Massa- chusetts famous first article, "All men are born free and equal," etc. ; but it would seem the product of all these inquiries and speculations must lie at last in the simple con- clusion, that this section has come to us iu the sole personal draught of Mr. Adams, and that he in turn had befoi'e him the same in the original as it came from Virginia. Tliis is one of the conclusions established by Mr. Charles Deane in a recent paper published by the Historical. Society. The record ought to be conclusive. But it would be quite unphilosoph- ical to suppose that the primordial conception of the idea of the congenital freedom and equality of men belongs exclu- sively to any one of these forefathers. Xot to George Mason, nor to Thomas Jefferson, nor to John Adams, do we owe an inheritance of this thought. It was in the air of that day. It is said there are climates of opinion ; and I may add there are epidemics of phrase. Prom time far back there have been periods of the public consciousness of the rights of man, and it would be difficult to find a time when human nature has not been conscious of its rights ; and these rights have found expression in one epoch only to be paraphrased after long interval in a following epoch. The central thought of the twelfth article of the Massachusetts Bill of Eights, ex- pressed by Mr. Adams in 1779, may be seen as well expressed by Nathaniel Ward in the first article of the Body of Liberties in 1641, and it was set forth with a strength superior to both in the thirty-ninth article of Magna Charta of 1215. These are not inherited rights ; they come to us from our Creator. 316 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. As to concrete form they may be traced to an origin anions the customs of the English people and the English barons, and as for their phraseology in expression it is a matter rather of curiosity than of utility whether we take rest from our inquiries in Locke or Sidney, in Filmer or Bellar- mine. There is a curious coincidence in the conduct of George Mason and John Adams of their respective Bills of Eights relating to the subject of religion, and in tlie public results which flowed from that conduct. Mr. ]\Iason reported, in his sixteenth article, toleration for all forms of reliuion, when Episcopacy was, so to speak, the state religion of Virginia. The youthful James Madison, then making the fir.st step in a brilliant and beneficent career, contested the lano-uaue, and obtained an amendment predicated on the natural right of all men to the free exercise of religion, excludiu<:f the idea of toleration. This action resulted in the speedy legislation which put an end to the advantage of any one sect of Chris- tians over another, and left the whole domain of reliiiious thought in Virginia without a trace of compulsion or re- straint. Mr. Adams assented to a compulsory support of religious worship, reported in the third article of our Declara- tion, when Congregationalism was, so to speak, the state religion of Massachusetts, though he disclaimed personal responsibility for the article; and this article, subsequently made even more narrow and stringent by the convention, enforced a religious compulsion upon the people of Massa- chusetts which it took half a century afterwards to repeal. Following the Declaration of Eights came the plan or frame of government. On this field Mr. Adams had the opportunity to apply, in clear and enduring formulary, his matured conceptions of a government fit for a free republic, which he summarized in the provision for three organs of governing power, a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. Five years earlier, in his conferences with public men at Philadelphia, he had met with a quite common preference for CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. 317 one sole legislative assembly, which should absorb all func- tions of government, itself legislating and itself also selecting the executive and judicial agencies. This principle was adopted by Pennsylvania in its constitution of 1776, which remained in force till 1790, after the Constitution of the United States had been ratified ; and a similar form of gov- ernment was created by Georgia in 1777 and continued until 1789. Though no other of the thirteen States accepted this theory, it has been made evident that in 1775 and 1776 it had a strong support in high quarters. Dr. Franklin favored it, and according to the authority of Mr. Adams, his colleagues, Gushing, Paine, and Samuel Adams, favored it, though no evidence appears that they adhered to such opinion when called to act in the Convention of 1780. He distinctly states that when the subject of recommending the setting up of state governments was before Congress in 1775, it seemed to him most natural for that body to agree upon a form of state government and send it out to all the States for their adoption ; but, he says, " I dared not make such a motion because I knew that every one of my friends, and all of those who were most zealous for assuming governments, had at that time no idea of any other government but a contemptible legislature in one assembly, with conmiittees for executive magistrates and judges." This was very properly termed an unbalanced government, and such a theory, whether fresh from France or acclimated here, he opposed with great vigor in his reply to the disquisitions of M. Turgot. He would set up the three bulwarks of the English Constitution, king, lords, and com- mons, modified in the form of governor, assembly, and senate, adding an isolated and absolutely independent judiciary, without the British imperfection which then made the upper house a depositary of judicial appeal. As far back as Janu- ary, 1776, five months before the action of Virginia, six months before the action of Pennsylvania, and before any one of the colonies had taken up the subject for deliberation, when invited by the colonial legislature of North Carolina to 318 ADDRESSES OF ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK. give them his views on government, he unfolded his system in a letter to John Penn in language which he afterwards repeated in framing the Constitution of Massachusetts ; the same separation of the executive from the legislature, the same balance of dual legislative houses, the same great bar- riers thrown up around the judiciary. Tlie legal literature of this country does not furnish a more impressive statement of the necessity of an elevated judicial organ in the government, of the method for obtaining it, and of the guards which should surround and protect it, than the following passage which I quote at length from this letter as a motto for the people of the State in all time to come : — " The stabiUty of government, in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every other blessing of society and social institu- tions, depend so much upon an able and impartial administration of justice, that the judicial power should be separated from the legislative and executive, and independent upon both ; the judges should be men of experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, invincible patience, unruffled calmness, and indefatigable applica- tion; their minds should not be distracted with complicated, jar- ring interests'; they should not be dependent on any man or body of men ; they sliould lean to none, be subservient to none, nor more complaisant to one than another. To this end, they should hold estates for life in their offices ; or, in other words, their com- missions should be during good behavior, and their salaries ascer- tained and established by law." It is not singular that jSTorth Carolina, to which State these sentiments were addressed, in its first constitution, in 1776, ordered the appointment of its higher judges to be made during good behavior, and that this provision con- tinued undisturbed through ninety-two years, down to the Convention of 18G8, which convened under a call issued by a major-general of the army of the United States. It is not singular that these sentiments were accepted in a similar provision of the first constitutions of nine of the eleven States which framed new governments, though many of CENTENNIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. 319 them have since taken a wide departure from the principle. And least of all is it singular that the same sentiments were reuilding of, 134. Bowdoin, Gov. James, mentioned, 309. intrusted with framing of the Consti- tution of Massachusetts, 310. eulogy on, quoted, 310. service of, during Sliay's rebellion, 328. Bowles, Samuel, mentioned, 161. INDEX. 353 Boynton, Mr., first donor to Soc. of In- dustrial Science at Worcester, 187. Brattle Street Meeting-house, the, 32i. British Empire, her drum-beat heard around the globe, 54. Brougham, Lord Henry, mentioned, 138. Brown, John, of Ossawatomie, mentioned, 59. Buchanan, James, in office as President, 87. concerning State sovereignty', 167. Bullock, Alexander H., a delegate to Con- vention at Baltimore, 07. eulogy on Abraham I^incoln, delivered at Worcester by, 7G. address at the hundredth anniversary of town ot Royalston, 108. in Paris with Charles Sumner, 241. at dinner, given to General Dix at Paris, 195. at grave of Aaron Burr, 244. in New York when a boy, 287. of Royalston, 127. Bull Run 2d, mentioned, 40. "Bunch of Grapes Tavern" at Royalston, 115. Bunker Hill, the drums beat there, 120. mentioned, 123. Bunyan, John, 51. Burbank, Eleazer, revolutionary soldier, 124. Burke, Edmund, at Beaconsfield, 181. mentioned, 12, 35, 49, 239. agent of New York in England, 238. quoted, 28, 72, 138, 257. Burlingame, Anson, mentioned, 199. Burnside, Gen Ambrose Everett, 43. Burr, Aai-on, the grave of, 244. Butler, Gen. Benjamin F., incident related by, 149. Byron, Lord, concerning Greek revolu- tion, 250. Oable, the laying of, between Europe and Ui ited States, 197. Cabot, George, an American senator, men- tioned, 292, 309. Cairo, city of, 8. Calhoun, John C, his influence in the South, 63. HIS war, 63. the scholar of the South, 63. tribute to, 64. concerning the school of secession, 167, 168. Calhoun, John C, concerning slavery, 169. the master of his school, 245. Calhoun, Mr., trustee of Amherst College, 160. California, Arizona, and Nevada, 199. Camden, battle of, mentioned, 40. Camden, Earl of, English judge, 239. Cameron, Simon, mentioned, 102. Campbell, Gen. William B., mentioned, 104. Canning, George, English statesman, 49. concerning abolition of slavery, 104. Cape Cod, the cable landed at, 197. Carlyle, Thomas, criticises condition of our country, 141. quoted, 236. Carolina, state of, mentioned, 126. Carroll, Charles, mentioned, 292. Celtic, Teutonic, and Yankee blood, 8. Centennial situation ol woman, the, address delivered at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, 258. Centennial of the Massachusetts Constitu- tion, address on, 298. Chandler, Mr., one of the first proprietors of Royalston, Mass., 122. Channing, William Ellerj', memory of, im- perishable, 231. Chantilly, death of Union soldiers at, 42. mentioned, 40, 43. Charlestown, army gathered in, 124. Chase, Roger, soldier of the Revolution, 124. Chase, Salmon P., instance of Lincoln's magnanimity to, 103. Chatham, Lord, 49, 237, 239. as a statesman, 94. concerning the inhabitants of New England, 204. Chesapeake Bay, tiie, 3. Chesney's "Essays in Military Biogra- phy " quoted, 207. Chicago platform, compared with that of Baltimore, 69. Chief Justice of New England, 227. Choate, Rufus, eloquence of, 82. quoted concerning Hamilton, 291. quoted, 314. Choiseul, Madame de, letters of, 268. Cicero, quoted, 34, 58. * influence of, 61. Civil life, cultivated minds take the lead in, 235. Civil war, in the midst of, 6. Clark, , member of Massachusetts Twenty -first Regiment, 43. 23 354 INDEX, Clarke, John, one of the founders of Rhode Island, 255. Clay, Henry, concerning nomination of Lincoln, 86. in President Lincoln's place, 88. concerning slavery, IGt), 170. Clevenger, Sliohal L. Vail, American sculp- tor, 148. Cobden, Richard, quotation concerning, 98. Coke, Lord, mentioned, 226. quoted, .314. Cold Harbor, battle at, 126. Colonial period of America, 53. Columbus, Christopher, America has in- terpreted tlie dream of, 52. Commencement Day at Amherst College, 30. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, duty of the people towards, 9. Comparative Zoology, JMuseum of, 324. Compromise, what it means, in the national struggle, 57, 58. Cond^, , incident concerning Marshal Turenne, 209. Confederacy, the people of the, 3. Confederate bonds, the value of, 3. Confederate States, the republic of, 6. Confederation, the, G. articles of, concerning the, 165. Connecticut, State of, 2. concerning a constitution for, 308. Constitution, a written, concerning our na- tion, 165. a written, in Virginia, 303. the, the framing of, 140, 166. the interpretation of, 244. Hamilton's part in framing, 293. adoption of the, m Masssachusetts, 304-306. of Massachusetts, amendments to, 330- 340. concerning the revisal of, 340. Constitutional Convention, the, 56. Continental Congress, the, 56. Convention of 1787, the, 243. of 1780, provisions of, 329. Cooper, Dr. Samuel, learning of, 234. inaugural sermon preached by, 325. Corning, Erastus, letter of Lincoln to, 101. Cotton, John, 226. Crompton, Samuel, English artisan, 19. Cromwell, Oliver, 89, 229. Crown Point, service of Capt. John Fry at, 120. Czar of Russia, what America has done for, 52. his friendship to our country, 99. assassination of, 348. Cushing, Thomas, American patriot, men- tioned, 309. Cushing. Chief .Justice William, 327. Cutting, Silas, Revolutionary soldier, 124. Davis, Esquire, Revolutionary soldier, 124. Davis, Jefferson, his attempts at compro- mise, 57. Deane, Charles, of Historical Society, 315. Death, in defence of one's country, 5. Declaration of Independence, concerning the, 165. the adoption of, in the different States, .301-306. Decree of Emancipation, the, 96. Detfand, Madame de, letters of, 268. Delaware, State of, concerning the Consti- tution, 166. Denman, Lord, and Mrs. Barbauld, 272. Descartes, the revolutionist philosopher, 228, 230. " Deserted Village," quotation from, 129. Dewey, Chester, report of, 324. Dickens, Charles, reminiscences of, 253. Dickinson, John, American statesman, culture of, 235. Dix, Dorothea, mentioned, 273. Dix, Gen. John A., speech at dinner given to, at Paris, 195. retirement from official life, 195. Dixwell, John, English refugee at New Haven, 229. Douglas, Stephen A., mentioned, 2, 8, 10, quoted, 70. Doane, Falls of, at Royalston, 115. Drury's Bluff, battle at, 126. Dwight, , monument of, mentioned, 255. JliDGEWORTH, Maria, mentioned, 273. Educated man, the relations of the, with American nationality, 45. the duty of the, .59. no bounds to his influence, 64. Educational period of America, the, 233. Edward HI " father of English com- merce," 135. INDEX. 355 Edwards, Jonathan, mentioned, 234. Eighteenth amendment to tlie Constitution of Massachusetts, 335. Election of Sheriffs, etc., concerning the, 336. Electric current, America has established the, 52. Eleventh amendment of Massachusetts Constitution, 337. Ellis, Kev. Dr., quoted concerning Gov- ernor Lincoln, 180. Emancipation of the slaves, concerning the, 94, 95. Emerson, George B., report of, 324. Emigration, European, to this land, 231. Emmet Guards, the, of Worcester, 206. Emmons, Ebenezer, report of, 324. Endicott, John, mentioned, 226. his coming to America, 232. Enfranchisement, right of all men to, 168. England, cost of her war ■with Xapoleon, 11. her war debt from 1803 to 1815, 11, 13. and America, public interest in their histor}-, 48. the confusion between its past and present history, 50. extent of her authority, 113. English capitalists invest in Massachusetts bonds, 21. English loan, the, 13. English orators, the, 239. English traveller, quoted, 148. Espinasse, Mdlle. de 1', letters of, 268. Estabrook, Esquire Joseph, postmaster at Royalston, 127. Eulogj' on Abraham Lincoln, delivered at Worcester, 76. Everett, Edward, influence of, 61. patriotism of, 67. at Gettysburg, 100. r AiTH, governs the conduct of States, 60. Falls, of Forbes and Doane at Rovalston, 115. Faneuil Hall, reception of Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment in, 154. Father of Waters, Mississippi River, 54. Federal authority, acknowledgment of, 168. Federal government, how its re-establish- ment will affect the public debt, 16. Female education in America, 268. Filmer, Sir Robert, English political writer, 316. Finance Committee of Massachusetts, 27. Financial condition of Massachusetts con- sidered, 26, 27. First Congregational Society of Rovalston, 116. Fisher tS: Brooks, mentioned, 251. Flag, the, to be upheld and protected, 3. presentation of a, to Massachusetts Twenty-first Regiment, 40. apostrophe to the flag of the Twenty- first Massachusetts Regiment, 43. Lincoln's determination concerning, 73. American, the blow struck at, 205. Flanders, woollen manufactures in, 134. Forbes, Falls of, at Royalston, 115. Fort Sumter, 2. Fourteenth amendment to Constitution of Massachusetts, 335. Fourth of July, oration delivered at Spring- field, 1867, 162. Fox, Charles James, English orator, 239. devotion to liberty, 248. mentioned, 289. France, the confusion between its past and present history, 50. concerning her power, 163. our indebtedness to, 239. in the year 1763, 240. France and United States, the friendship between, 196. Franklin, Benjamin, 49. at the Constitutional Convention, 56. wisdom of, 235. in London, 238. at Versailles, 241. quoted concerning women in politics, 281. letter to Richard Price, quoted, 338. prediction of, 340. Frazer, Captain, killed at Chantilly, 42. Fredericksburg, mentioned, 40, 43. Freeman, Isaac, a purchaser in town of Royalston, 113. Fremont, John C, mentioned, 3. French, Michael, soldier of the Revolution, 124. French war of 1756, effect of, in Massachu- setts, 117. French, the, coming to America, 53. Fn,', John, biographical sketch of, 119. selectman at Royalston, 119. 356 INDEX. Fry, John, concerning the ne^v church at Koyalston, 121. Fry, Elizabeth, mentioned, 273. Cjadsden, Christopher, American patriot, mentioned, 237. Gage, Tliomas, a British general at Salem in 1744, 300. Gale, Isaac, erected first mill at Royalston, 119. Galileo, pioneer in revolt of science, 228. Gambetta, anecdote of, 241. Ganges Mountains, American influence ex- tends to, 52. Garfield, James A., death of, 344. address at memorial observances at Worcester, 344. General Court, concerning the, in Massa- chusetts, 321. Genius and art, what America has done for. 52. Geologist, the, of Massachusetts, 115. Gerard, Balthasar, a Catholic fanatic, as- sassinator of William the Silent, 340. Gerry, town of, former name of Philipstou, 114. God, providence of, 5. Goffe and Whalley, regicides, 229. Gorham, , American patriot, men- tioned, 309. Gould, John, English naturalist, report of, 324. Government, the, in peril, 2, 3. plan of, for the Constitution, 316. Government bonds, concerning investment in, 3, 4. Governor of Massachusetts, John A. An- drew, 8. Grant, Ulysses, mentioned, 57, 89. Gray, Chief Justice, concerning slavery, 327. Gray, Francis C, concerning the liberties of early settlers of Massachusetts, 299. Great Britain, concerning taxation in, 17. if the Union were broken, 49. the war of 1812 with, 125. Greece, the mind of, surviving to the pres- ent day, 34. no public interest in her history as compared with England or America, 48. Struggle of her provinces for union, 53. Greeley, Horace, mentioned, 96. Gregory, Major-General Franklin, of Roy- alston, 127. Green, Nahum, his grave at Royalston, 124. Revolutionary soldier, 124. served at Bunker Hill, 124. delegate to Provincial Congress, 124. Greek orator quoteil, 05. Grcnville, Hon. George, English states- man, 239. Grote, mentioned, 48. Grotius, "chief of men," 228. XJALE, Sir ^latthew, mentioned, 226. Hale, Nathan, member of Convention of 1820, 329. concerning the record of the Conven- tion of 1820, 329. Hallam, concerning woollen manufactures, 134. Hamilton, Alexander, 12, 49, 61, 62. concerning public credit, 15. Treasury papers prepared by, 62. portraj-ed, 62. tribute to, 64. concerning his education, 101. policy of. 125. concerning the framing of the Consti- tution, 140, 141, 166. at the Convention of 1787, 243. address at unveiling of statue of, 287. monument of, on Wall Street, New York, 287. monument of, in Boston, 287. sketch of his career, 288, 289. grief at death of, 289. his part in the Constitution, 293. author of The Federalist. 293. the father of Nationalism against Statism, 295. concerning the public treasury, 296. Hampden, John, mentioned, 226, 229. Hancock, John, owned land at Royalston, 115, 119. mentioned, 122. message of, to Legislature, 323. ^ elected governor of Massachusetts, 325. Hancock, IVIrs., wife of Governor Han- cock, 280. Hapgood, Mr., land grant at Royalston, 113. INDEX. 357 Harris, Dr. Thaddeus William, entomolo- gist, report of, 324. Harrison, President, mentioned, 289. Harvard University, the professorship of law at, a gift of Isaac Koyal, 110. new departments opened, 132. Hawkes, , member of Massachusetts Twentj'-first Regiment, •13. Hayne, Robert Y., concerning the school of secession, 167, 108. Herodotus, mentioned, 48. Herscliel, Caroline, astronomer, 273. Hill, Lieutenant, killed at Chantilly, 42. His E.Kcellency Gov. John A. Andrew, 251. Hitchcock, Dr. Edward, 32. third president of Amherst College, 158. a tribute to, 158. work of, on geological survey, 324. Hoar, Samuel, member of Convention of 1820, 32D. concerning taxation, 340. Holbrook, Lieutenant, death of, at An- tiet;\m, 41. Holland, how she paid her debt, 27. Holt, Sir John, English judge, 8. Hooker, Rev. Thomas, settled in Connecti- cut, 220. Hooper, , donation to Harvard Uni- versity, 132. Hortensins, mentioned, 35. Hosmer, Haniet, sculptor, 148. House of Representatives, Massachusetts, address in the, 9. Howard, John, quotation concerning, 257. Howe, Dr. Samuel G., address on the character of, 248. title of philanthropist applied to, 249. in the Greek revolution, 249, 250. services of, in education of the blind, 252, 253. review of his life, 256, 265. mentioned, 323. Hubbard, , member of Convention of 182t), 329. Hubbard, Thomas, a purchaser in town of Royalston, 113. Huguenots, settling in America, 53. Humphrey, Rev. Edward, 158. Humphrey, Hon. James, 30. death of, 158. Humphrey, Dr. Heman, president of Am- herst College, 157. Hunt, IMr., land granted to, in Royalston, 114. Huskisson, William, English statesman, mentioned, 138. Independence Hall, at Baltimore, 77. Industrial Science, address before Society of, at Worcester, 187. school of, dedicated at Worcester, 192. Institute of Technology, Boston, 189. Intellectual element of our ancestors, 223. Intellectual leaders, names of, 220. Intellectual leadership in American his- tory, address delivered at Provi- dence, 222. Italy, concerning her provinces, 53. Jackson, Andrew, mentioned, 2, 6. in President Lincoln's place, 88. concerning slavery, 109. member of Convention of 1820, 329. Jacobs, Nathaniel, Revolutionary soldier, 124. served in Rhode Island, 124. Jameson, Mrs. Anna, English writer, 273. Jefferson, Thomas, mentioned, 29, 49. intellectual influence of, 02. concerning nomination of Lincoln, 86. concerning State sovereignty, 166. chivalry of, 237. at Paris, 241. Jonson, Ben, mentioned, 229. Keats, John, English poet, his "Endy- mion " reversed and reproduced, 33. Kellogg (Mr.), of Pittsiield, of alumni of Amherst College, 157. Kelton, Captain, killed at Chantilly, 42. Kent, Chancellor, mentioned, 294. Ketchimi, William, mentioned, 141. Knoxville, mentioned, 40, 43. Lafayette, Marquis de, mentioned, 127, 241. friendship of, for Hamilton, 289. Latin quotation, 10. Laurens, John, American soldier, men- tioned, 289. Lawrence, Abbott, incident concerning, 188. Lawrence, Abbott, gift to Scientific School, Cambridge, 188. 358 INDEX. Lawrence, Amo?, mentioned, 132. Lancaster, town of, 111. Lawrence and Tully rivers, 115. Leaders, tiu- early, in America, 232-2.3.3. Lee, Artliiir and Ciiarlus, mentioned, Gl, 2;j7. Lee, Kev. Josepli, called to settle at R03-- alston, 121. legacy of Josiaii Quincv to his infant son, '50. Legislature concerning grant to female college, 270. Letters of Madame Sdvigne, and others, 2G8. Lexington on the 19th of April, 1775, 204. Libby, war prisoners at, 126. Light Infantry of Worcester, 206. Lincoln, Aln-aham, mentioned, 2. the patriotic IVesideut, 7. proclamation of freedom by, 59. nominated to presidency, 70. events of his admmistration, 71, 72. determination concerning the flag, 73. his prosecution of the war, 73. the best man for President, 73. the power of his proclamations, 73. eulogy on, delivered at Worcester, 76. his funeral pageantry compared with that of Jacob, the Hebrew patriarch, 76, 77. the passing of his funeral procession through principal cities, 77, 78. his qualities of character and service, 78. hisj'outh, 79. compared with Napoleon and Wash- ington, 79. his second inaugural, 79. his library, 79, 80. his service in the cause of freedom, 83, 84. the supposed vision of his future great- ness, 81. period of his life from 1837 to 1858, 81. as a lawyer, 81, 82. as a member of Congress, 82. speech before convention at Worcester, 82. competitor of Douglas as senator to Congress, 83. quoted, 83. as supercar£(o on a flatboat, 80. nominated tor Tresident, 85. Lincoln, Abraham, acceptance of his nomi- nation for President, 86. election as President, 86. assuming the reins of government, 87. as director of the army, 89, 90. his war course criticised by the ancient countries, 88, 89. message concerning entrance into Rich- mond, 90. his message of July, 1862, 92. assumes all responsibility of his mili- tary administration, 92, 93. concerning the emancipation of the slaves, 94, 95. how influenced by public opinion, 97, 98. his speech not unworthv of his action, 99. his messages, 100, 101. speech at Gettysburg, 100. his self-education, 101. letter to Erastus Corning, 101. magnanimity of, 102. moral and humane qualities of, 102. his belief in God, 103. instance of his magnanimity to Chase, 103. last consultation with his cabinet, 104. his fame outlives him, 105. Restorer and Liberator, 107. compared with Washington, 172, 173. in the war of the Rebellion, 172, 173. Seward, Grant, and Sherman, com- pared with, 173. mentioned, 309. member of Convention of 1780, 327, 329. Lincoln, Gov. Levi, address in memory of, at Worcester, 176. resolutions on death of, 176. founder of Agricultural Society of Worcester, 176, 177. presiding at the agricultural show, 178, 179. love of nature, 182, 183. in his old age, 184, 185. death of, 185. debate of, concerning election in Massa- chusetts, 334. Literature, the encouragement of, in the Constitution of Massachusetts, 321, 322. Liverpool, city of, 22. Locke, John, the philosopher, 227, 316. INDEX. 359 London, city of, 22. Lord, Otis P., of Salem, of alumni of Am- herst College, 157. Lord and Saviour, our, 4. Lost arts, traces of the, 134. Lowell, Judge Jdlin, eulogy of, on Gov- ernor Buwdoin, 310. Lowell, John, American statesman, mem- ber of Convention of 1780, 309. Lunatic Asylum, the State, 255. Lyman, , monument of, 255. Lyon, Nathaniel, American general, men- tioned, 3. M.ACAULAY, Lord, quoted, 13. mentioned, 100, 229. McClellan, General George B., mentioned, 3, 102. commander of Union army, 90. at Malvern Hill, 172. McDowell, Gen. L'win, at Bull Run, 172. Machinery, concerning the use of, in Eng- land, 190. Macintosh, Sir James, mentioned, 248. Madison, James, 0, 49. at the Constitutional Convention, 56, 61. concerning State sovereignty, 166, 167. concerning the framing of Constitu- tion, IGG. concerning slaver}', 168, 169. at the convention of Virginia, 243. Magi, , member of Massachusetts Twenty-first Regiment, 43. Maine, set off as a separate State, 329. Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool, their controlling influence, 138. Mann, Horace, concerning the State luna- tic hospital, 255. mentioned, 323. Mansfield, Lord, mentioned, 239. Marlborough, Duke of, mentioned, 89. Marvin, A. P., " Worcester in the War" written by, 206, note. IMaryland from its outset, 226. Mason, George, framer of Constitution of Virginia^ 313. concerning religion in the Bill of Rights, 316. Massachusetts and the War Tax, speech on, 9. State valuation returns in 1860, 17. her proportion of the war debt, 17. Massachusetts, valuation returns as com- pared with those of New York, 18. her tax during the Revolution, 18, 19. her productive forces in 1814, com- pared with those of 1860, 19,20. increase in her valuation returns, 20. establishment of statistical returns in, 20. her industries as compared with those of Virginia, 22. statistics of her industries for 1855, 21, 22. consideration of her war tax, 24, 25. condition of her finances considered 26, 27. credit of, how regarded, 27. effect of French war of 1756 in, 117. Charitable Mechanic Association, ad- dress delivered before the, 131. concerning the framing of the Consti- tution, 140. the product of industries in, 191. a commission of the early settlers In, 298. under Charles L, 300. under Cromwell, 300. under George HL, 300. under the charter government, 300. the adoption of the Constitution in, 304. the framing of the Constitution in, 309. action of, during Shay's Rebellion, 327. Mather, Cotton, mentioned, 234. Mayhew, Jonathan, mentioned, 235. Meade, Richard Kidder, Revolutionary sol- dier, mentioned, 289. Mechanic Arts with Libert}' and Social Progress, relations of, considered, 132.' during the Middle Ages, 133. the victories of, over feudalism in Great Britain, 137. growth of, in New England, 138. the progress of, in New England, led to the struggle for liberty, 139. the sentiment and poetry of, 147, 148. progress in, 131. Mechanical utility, want of, during feudal period, 142. Mechanical wonders of Nineveh, Babylon. &c., 134. Mechanics and Commerce, spread of, through England and Europe, 135. 360 INDEX. Jfpchanics' Hal], Worcester, 1. Mectianics of Massachusetts in the war of the Rebellion, 149. Medford, the estate of the Hon. Isaac Royal at, IIG. Meeting of alumni at Amherst College, address at, 15G. Meetinfj-house at Royalston, history of, 120. Mexico, pitiable-condition of, 1G3. Middle Ages, progress of mechanic arts during the, 133. Military power in Europe, 229. Miller's River, mentioned, 115. 5Iillses, the, Bateses, the, and Aliens, the, mentioned, 177. Milton, blindness of, 253. mentioned, 29, 35. quoted. 155, 225. Mississippi River. 3, 46. the inland Nile of America. 52. Monadnockand Wachusett mountains, 183. Money, an urgent appeal for, for war pur- poses. 4. Monroe, .lames, concerning slavery, 169. Monument at AVorcester for fallen soldiers, an appeal for, 152. what it should be, 155. Monument of Alexander Hamilton, 287. Monumental City, the, receives the body of Abraham Lincoln, 77. Monuments, the building of, an ancient custom, 151. Moore, Benoni, land granted to, in Royals- ton, 114. Moore, Zephaniah Swift, first president of Amherst College, 157. More, Hannah, 273. Morris, Robert, statesman and financier, mentioned, 290, •292. Motley, .lohii Lothrop, quoted, 105. Mount Ilolyoke, 31. Mount Holyoke Seminary, address deliv- ered "at, 258. Mount Tom and Sugar Loaf, 31. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cam- bridge, 188. Napoleon Bonaparte, 11. the genius of, 79. military power of, 229. Nation, a, what it comprehends, 46. value of a, without a common chord. 46. Nation, continental geography its hand- maid, 46. without Government, 47. organism of a, what it means, 47. the fall of a, 47. its life the treasury of histories, 47. its fate when it loses historical con- nections, 48. National crisis, concerning the, Oct. 14, 1861,1. National debt incurred by the war, 12. concerning the payment of, 16. National independency, the dawn of, 237. National unitv, the dutv of maintaining, 58. Nationality, comprehends country and na- tional life, 46. a, extinguished, 48. Natural Historv, Massachusetts interest in, .324. Society of, endowment of, 324. Necker, Jacques, a Swi-^s tiuaneier, 62. Newbern mentioned, 40, 43. death of Adjutant Stearns at, 41. battle at, 126. New Orleans, city of, 8, 22. New York, valuation returns compared with Massachusetts, 18. funeral honors paid to Abraham Lin- coln, 78. concerning the framing of the Consti- tution, 140. Nichols, Isaac, Revolutionary soldier, 124. Nightingale, Florence, 284. Nineteenth amendment to Massachusetts Constitution, concerning election of sheriffs, &c., 336. Nineveh and Babylon, mechanical wonders of, ].34. Ninth amendment to Massachusetts Con- stitution, 340. Noclie triste (the sorrowful night), 106. North, Lord, English Tory statesman, 239. North Carolina, 3. Xullus liber homo, quoted by Chatham, 312. (^CTAVius, compromi.«e of, with Antony and Lepidus, 57. One Country, One Constitution, One Des- tiny, 6. O'Neil, Ca]itain.of Twenty-fifth Massachu- setts Regiment, death of, 154. Orange, town of, incorporation of, 114. INDEX. 361 Otis, James, a purchaser in town of Roy- alston, 1J;J, 114, 115, 119. mentioned, 119, l'2-2. Otis, Samuel, eloquence of, 235. mentioned, 292. Paixe, Robert Treat, mentioned, 309. member of Convention of 1780, 327. Paley, Dr., quotation from his "Political Philosopher," 338. Palfrey, Dr. J. G., quoted, 341. Panama, the yuldcn gate of, 52. " Paradise Lost," the author of, journey into Europe, 228. Parker, Chief Justice, Isaac, president of Convention of 1820, 329. Parker, Chief Justice Joel, concerning taxation, 330. Parker, , soldier of the Rebellion from Worcester, 153. Parsons, Theophilus, concerning the "Es- sex Result," 307. mentioned, 309. quoted, concerning slavery, 326. Patent Office, records of the, 131. Patents, number of, obtained in Worces- ter, 191. Peabodv, W. B. 0., report of, on fishes, &c., 324. Peace with the Confederacy, concerning, 7. sure to come, 28. the only terms of, 59. Peekskill mentioned, 205. Peel, Sir Robert, as a statesman, 94. Pellatt, Sarah, mentioned, 273. Pepperell, Sir William, mentioned, 204. Pequoig, former name of Athol, 112. Perkins, Rev. , minister at Royalston, 127. Perkins, Thomas Handasyd, concerning education of the blind, 252, 255. Peyton, — — , American patriot, mentioned, 237. Phi Beta Kappa Society of Brown Uni- versit}', address before the, 222. Philadelphia, mentioned, 123. Philanthrophist, title of, applied to Dr. Samuel G. Howe, 248, 249. Phillipstown, formerly town of Gerry, 114. Pickard, Mary, mentioned, 273. Pickering, Timothy, mentioned, 177, 292. Pickett, Colonel, of Twenty -Ninth ]\Iassa- chusetts Regiment, addressed, 44. Pierpont, , land granted to, at Royals- ton, 113. Pinckncy, Cotesworth, mentioned, 22. Pitt, William, mentioned, 49, 02, 137, 289. quoted, 212. Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, the elder, 239. Platform of Baltimore and Chicago com- pared, 09. Plato, mentioned, 35. Plunkett, Sergeant, color-bearer of Twenty- first Massachusetts Regiment, 43. Plutarch, mentioned, 48. Poetrv, 5, 29, 31, 30, 42, 149, 183, 186, 278, "285. Milton quoted, 155. Portland and San Francisco, 175. Powers, Hiram, American sculptor, 148. Prescott, William Hickling, contributor to " North American Review," 251. Prescott, , member of Convention of 1820, 329. President, the, Abraham Lincoln, 7, 57. Priest, one of the first settlers in Royals- ton, Mass., 113. land granted to, at Royalston, 113. his loyalty to soldiers of the French wars, 113. Priest's River, mentioned, 115. Proclamation of freedom bj' Abraham Lincoln, 59. Prophecy, lyric, of Bishop Berkeley, 52. Public credit, a limit to, 15. principle of Hamilton concerning, 15. principle of Washington concerning, 15. concerning the establishment of, 15. Puritans, their settlement in America, 53. CiuixcY, Josiah, his legacy to his infant son, 50. Quincy, Josiah, Jr., genius of, 235. member of Convention of 1820, 329. l\,AT,EiGn. Sir Walter, memory of, in Vir- ginia, 227. mentioned, 230. Randolph, Peyton, mentioned, 2-37. Ravaillac, , murderer of Henry IV., 346. Real and personal property, value of, in 1860, 16. 362 INDEX, Rebellion, object of the, 6. the movers of the, 6. war of the, conduet of tOTvn of Roy- alston ill, 125, 126. Relations of the Educated man with Ameri- can Nationality, address on, 45. Religious purposes, concerning taxation for, 339. Remarks at the reception of Twenty-first Massachusetts Regiment at Worces- ter, Feb. 3, 18G4, 40, Reno, Major-General Jesse L., 43. Republican Convention at Baltimore, G7. votes of the delegation of Maryland at, 68. » Republican State Convention at Worcester, speech before, 6G. Resolutions on death of Levi Lincoln, of Worcester, 176. Revere, Paul, early president of Massachu- setts Mechanics' Association, 139. concerning the framing of the Consti- tution, 140. Revisal of the Constitution, concerning the, 340. Revolution, the, 6. from what it grew, 139. war of the, 1G3. Revolutionary period, the, of America, 53. Rhode Island, concerning the framing of the Constitution, 140. under its charter government, 308. Rice, Lieutenant-Colonel, killed at Chan- tilly, 42. tribute to the memory of, 42. Richardson, Eliphalet, Revolutionary' sol- dier, 124. Richardson, Timothy, chosen selectman at Royalston, 119. concerning the new church at Royals- ton, 121. Richmond, counsels at, concerning presi- dential candidate, GG. concerning McClellan's entrance into, 90, Roanoke, mentioned, 40, 43. battle at, 120, Rogers, John, sculptor of soldiers' monu- ment at Worcester, 213. Roland, Madame, dving invocation of, 285. Eomilly, Sir Samuel, English reformer, mentioned, 248. Rosecrans, General William Stark, men- tioned, 3. "Royal Chase," first boy bom in Royals- ton, 116. Royal, Isaac, a purchaser in town of Itov- alston, 113, 114, 115, founded the professorship of law at Harvard University, IIG. concerning his estate at Medford, 116. biographical sketch of, 116. gave .£25 toward meeting-house at Royalston, 116, 120. concerning the Revolution, 122. Royal-shire, former name of Royalston. 112 115. Royalston, town of, address at the Hun- dredth Anniversary of, 108. nothing eventful in its history, 109, the founders of. 110, paucity of its annals. 109, the junior town of Worcester Countv, lil, concerning its territory, 112, the brief interim between settlement and municipalitj-, 112. first purchasers of the town, 113, land granted in, to Hunt, 114, land granted in, to Benoni Moore, 114. its soil, natural beauties, &c., 115, proprietors' meetings held at, 115, land owned bv John Hancock, in, 115. named for Hon. Isaac Roj-al, 116. concerning the settlement at, 117, 118, 119. incorporation of the town, 118. building of the meeting-house, 118. 120. " selectmen chosen at, 119. taxing the lands of non-residents, 119. Rev, Joseph Lee settled as minister at, 121. patriotic history of, 122, 127, response to military calls, 123. Revolutionary soldiers of, 124. conduct of,during war of the Rebellion, 12.-). 12G. prominent men of, 127, its ]iopulation, 128. industries of, 128, " Royalston Leg," part of town of Win- chondon, 112. set off to Winchendon, 112, 114. Rutledgc, John, American orator, men- tioned, 237, INDEX. 363 St. Lawrence River, 48. Salisbury, Stephen, of Worcester, men- tioned, 187. Saltonstall, Gurdon, in America, 232. Saltonstall, Leverett, member of Conven- tion of 1820, 329. Sanborn, Frank, mentioned, 253. Saratoga, mentioned, 123. the'battle of, 163. Sargeant, Associate Justice, member of Convention of 1780, 327. Savage, John, member of Convention of 1820, 329. Scientific School, Cambridge, 188, 189. Scott, Walter, mentioned, 234. Sears, Rev. Dr. Barnas, mentioned, 323. Searses, Harvard College endowed by the, 32. Secession of Southern States, 86. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, mentioned, 273. Sedgwick, Theodore, American jurist, mentioned, 289. Sevign^, Madame de, letters of, 267. Sewall, Associate Justice, member of Con- vention of 1780, 327. Shaftesbury, Earl of, mentioned, 227. Shakespeare, William, 35. at the tomb of, 237. Shaw, , member of Convention of 1820, 329. Shaw, Chief Justice Lemuel, concerning slavery, 326. Shay's Rebellion, the, in 1786, 327. Sheridan, General Philip Henry, 89. Sherman, General William T.,57, 89. Sherman, Rogf^r, mentioned, 289. Shirley, William, Governor of Massachu- setts in 1745, 120. Sibley, Captain, one of first settlers of " Royalston, 119. Sidney, Sir Philip, English author, 316. Slaverj", the national struggle concerning, 57. George Canning, concerning abolition of, 104. in America, 166. its existence in United States, 169, 170, 171. abolished in Massachusetts, 326, 327. Smith, .John, varied fortunes of, 2-30. Soldiers' monument, speech at dedication of, at Worcester, 202. Somers, Barrister, concerning speech of, 100. South Mountain, mentioned, 40. Sovereignt}^ of the nation over the sover- eignty of the States, 164. of State's, &c., 216. Sparta and Athens, the history of, become fabulous, 48. Speech at a war meeting, Oct. 14, 1861, 1. at Worcester, concerning a memorial to fallen soldiers of the Rebellion, 151. at dinner given to General Dix at Paris, 195. at dedication of soldiers' monument at Worcester, 202. Sprague, William, Governor of Rhode Island, 4. Springfield, sketch of early history, 162. oration delivered at, July 4, 18G7, 162. and Omaha, 175. Stanton, Edwin M., mentioned, 102. State, the, older than the nation, 59. State governments, concerning, 317, 318, 316. Statism the bane of nationality, 56. Statistical returns, establishment of, in Massachusetts, 20. of industries of JIassachusetts for 1855, 21, 22. Steams, Adjutant, death of, at Newbem, 41. tribute to the memory of, 42. Stearns, Rev. Dr., President of Amherst College, 159. Stephenson, George, inventor and engi- neer, 137. Stevens, Thaddeus, Chairman of Ways and Means, 11. Stockwell, Joel, Revolutionary soldier, 124. Storer, Dr., report of, on fishes, &c., 324. Story, Joseph, member of Convention of 1820, 329. Story, William Wetmore, sculptor, 148. Strong, Governor Caleb, policy of, 125. mentioned, 177, 309. member of Convention of 1780, 327. Suffrage in the South, concerning, 96. concerning the right of, in Massachu- setts, 331. Sullivan, Associate Justice, James, mem- ber of Convention of 1780, 327. mentioned, 309. Sultan of Turkey, what America has done for, 52. 364 INDEX. Sumner, Charles, incident of, 241. Sumuer, Associate Justice, member of Convention of 1780, 327. Sutton, town of, 111). Sweetzer, Dr., of Worcester, mentioned, 188. Xaney, Chief Justice Roger B., death of, 103. Tappan, Rev. Dr. David, 32. Taxation in Great Britain, 17. upon what revenues it depends, 17. for school purposes, in Massachusetts, 336. for religious purposes, concerning, 339. Tcmploton, town of, incorporation of, 111. Tennessee, State of, 2. The Ftdtralist, Written by Alexander Hamilton, 21)3. Tilghman, William, American jurist, men- tioned, 28U. Townshend, Ciiarles, member of House of Commons, mentioned, 239. Tremont Temple, address delivered at, 131 . Tully, mentioned, 35. Twe'nty-lirst Masbachusetts Regiment, re- ceived its colors, 10. its war history, 40, 41, 42. reception at Worcester, Feb. 3, 1864,40. number of deatlis in the, 41. apostrophe to the flag of the, 43. Twenty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts received in Faiieuil Hall, 154. Tyler, Jolin, Daniel AV'ebster quoted con- cerning, 74. Union Jack. 67. Union of Great Britain, if broken, 49. Union of United States if broken, 49. Union I'aciHc Railroad, opening of, 199. Union, patriotic appeal for preservation of the, 8. Union, the, to be preecrved, 2. must be preserved, 4, G. of the provinces of America, 53. United States, the republic of, 6. revenues of. 14. Unity, the, of Anicricnn nationality, .W. Upton, , oonimaiided Massachusetts regiment. 4. Vail, Rev. Dr., trusiee of Amherst Col- lege, 160. Valley Forge, mentioned, 205. Vane, Sir Henry, 232. Verplanck's Point, mentioned, 205. Veto power, concerning the, in the Consti- tution of Massachusetts, 319. Virginia, 3. her industries compared with those of Massacliusetts, 22. speculation started in, 53. resolutions of, 98, 106. the early peopling of, 225. Walker, Rev. Dr. James, president Harvard College, 32. Walker, Moses, Revolutionary soldier, 124. War, money must be raised for prosecu- tion of the, 4. a vigorous prosecution of the, pro- posed, 2, 5. the grumblers against the, 7. scene of, tonlined to the South, 10. the extravagance of, 10. cost of the, up to July, 18G3, 11. of 1756, Worcester men in the, 204. War debt, concerning the, 9, 14. concerning the payment of, 16. upon what revenues its payment de- pends, 17. Massachusetts proportion of the, 17. what Massachusettj paid during the Revolution, 18, 19. War history of Worcester, 203-208. War meetimr. speech at a, at Worcester, 1. held in Worcester, 1861. 202. War tax, Massachusetts and the, speech on, 9. of Massachusetts, consideration of, 24, 25. Ward, Nathaniel, minister at Ipswich, 299. mentioned, 315. Warner, Oliver, Secretary of State of Massachusetts, lis. Warren, Joseph, genius of, 235. Wasliburn, IMr., of Worcester, mentioned, 187. Washburn, Elihu B.. minister to France, 200. Washington. George. 6. concerning public erertit, 15. incident concerning. 21, 29, 80. at CciMstitntional Convention at Phila- delphia, 48. at the Constitutional Convention, 56. INDEX. 365 Washington, George, quoted, 59. began the work which Lincoln finished, 107. mentioned, lOG. concerning slavery, 169. and Lincoln compared, 79, 172, 173. in the American Uevolution, 172, 173. Greene, Hamilton, and Lafayette com- pared with, 173. Father of his Country, 238. friendship ot, for Hamilton, 289. Watt, James, Scotch inventor, 19, 193. mentioned, 137. Watts, Samuel, one of the purchasers of the town of Roj'alston, 113, 114. Ways and Means, Mr. Stevens Chairman of, 11. Webster, Daniel, anecdote of, in London, 20. the scholar of the North, 63. tribute to, 04. quoted in regard to President Tyler, 74. concerning nomination of Lincoln, 86. in President Lincoln's place, 88. mentioned, 127. reply to Hayne, IGG. quoted, 180. an incident of, 180. defender of the Constitution, 245. member of Convention of 1780, 329, 330. debate concerning election in Massa- chusetts, 334. concerning the revisal of the Constitu- tion, 340. Weitzel, Godfrey, American major-general, mentioned, 104. Wellington, Duke of, his rise to fame, 89. mentioned, 137, 138. Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 228. Whitney, Eli, inventor of the cotton-gin, 19. Whittemore, John, Revolutionary soldier, 124. Wilberforce, William, quoted, 59. concerning netcro emancipation, 248. Wilde, Richard Henry, member of Con- vention of 1820," .329. William of Orange, quotation of Mr. Mot- ley concerning, 105. William the Silent, assassination of, 346. Williams, John, the charter which he dic- tated, 230. Williams, Roger, removal from Massachu- setts, 230. Williams, Roger, his coming to America, 232. concerning religious freedom, 340. Willistons, the, endowments of, to Har- vard College, 32. Wilson, Henry, concerning taxation, 336. Winchendon, town of, 112. Winthrop, John, 220. in America, 232. coming of, to Massachusetts, 298. Winthrop, Robert C., at Whig Convention at Worcester, 82. quoted, 309. Witgift, , mentioned, 226. " With malice toward none," 105. Witherspoon, John, signer of the Declara- tion, 01. Wolfe, James, English officer, victories of, for Britain,"'240. Woman, emancipation of, 260. occupation of, 261. change in her social condition, 262. relation to marriage, 264. what Christianity has done for her, 266. considered historically, 275. intellect of, compared with man, 276. in conduct of public affairs, 278-281. Franklin quoted concerning, 281. heroism of, 284. Woman's mission, concerning, 259. Woman's sphere, what is it V 282, 283. Women as teachers, 271. Woodbury, Benjamin, selectman at Roy- alston, 119. concerning the new church at Royals- ton, 121. Revolutionary soldier, 124. Wool, John E-, American general, men- tioned, 3. Woollen manufactures in Flanders, 134. Worcester County Regiment, speech con- cerning the, 1. Worcester, raising regiments in. 2. speech before Republican Convention at, 60. Whig State Convention at, in 1848, 82. meeting at, concerning a memorial to fallen soldiers of the Rebellion, 151 address at, in memory of late Levi Lincoln, 176. concerning patent inventions, 191. first general war meeting held in, 202. the 15th of April, 1861, at, 200.