The American Union Speaker Part 20

PLEA FOR THE UNION.

At a moment when the White House itself is in danger of conflagration, instead of all hands uniting to extinguish the flames, we are contending about who shall be its next occupant. When a dreadful creva.s.se has occurred, which threatens inundation and destruction to all around it, we are contesting and disputing about the profits of an estate which is threatened with total submersion.

Mr. President, it is pa.s.sion, pa.s.sion--party, party, and intemperance--that is all I dread in the adjustment of the great questions which unhappily at this time divide our distracted country. Sir, at this moment we have in the legislative bodies of this Capitol and in the States, twenty-odd furnaces in full blast, emitting heat and pa.s.sion, and intemperance, and diffusing them throughout the whole extent of this broad land. Two months ago all was calm in comparison to the present moment. All now is uproar, confusion, and menace to the existence of the Union, and to the happiness and safety of this people. Sir, I implore Senators, I entreat them, by all that they expect hereafter, and by all that is dear to them here below, to repress the ardor of these pa.s.sions, to look to their country to its interests, to listen to the voice of reason.

Mr. President, I have said--what I solemnly believe--that the dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; that they are convertible terms. Such a war, too, as that would be, following the dissolution of the Union! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so furious, so b.l.o.o.d.y, so implacable, so exterminating, from the wars of Greece down, including those of the Commonwealth of England, and the revolution of France--none, none of them raged with such violence, or was ever conducted with such bloodshed and enormities, as will that war which shall follow that disastrous event--if that event ever happen--the dissolution of the Union.

And what would be its termination? Standing armies and navies, draining the revenues of each portion of the dissevered empire, would be created; exterminating war would follow-not a war of two or three years, but of interminable duration until some Philip or Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would rise to cut the Gordian Knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the dissevered portions of this Union. Can you, sir, lightly contemplate these consequences? Can you yield yourself to a torrent of pa.s.sion, amidst dangers which I have depicted in colors far short of what would be the reality, if the event should ever happen?

I implore gentlemen--I adjure them from the South or the North, by all they hold dear in this world--by all their love of liberty, by all their veneration for their ancestors--by all their regard for posterity--by all their grat.i.tude to Him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings--by all the duties which they owe to mankind, and all the duties they owe to themselves--by all these considerations, I implore upon them to pause--solemnly to pause--at the edge of the precipice before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none who take it will ever return in safety.

And, finally, Mr. President, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me on earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the melancholy and heart-rending spectacle.

H. Clay.

Cx.x.xI.

NATIONAL GLORY.

We are asked, what have we gained by the war? I have shown that we have lost nothing, either in rights, territory, or honor; nothing, for which we ought to have contended, according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing by the war?

Let any man look at the degraded condition of the country before the war,--the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war. What is our present situation?

Respectability and character abroad; security and confidence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion of some, the full measure of retribution, our character and Const.i.tution are placed on a solid basis, never to be shaken.

The glory acquired by our gallant tars on the sea, by our Jacksons and our Browns on the land is that nothing? true we had our vicissitudes: there are humiliating events which the patriot cannot review without deep regret; but the great account when it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate from the proud pages of our history, the brilliant achievements of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea whom I cannot enumerate? Is there a man who could not desire a partic.i.p.ation in the national glory acquired by the war?

Yes, national glory, which, however the expression may be condemned by some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot.

What do I mean by national glory? Glory such as Hull, Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insensible to their deeds, to the value of them in animating the country in the hour of peril hereafter? Did the battle of Thermopylae preserve Greece but once? While the Mississippi contributes to bear the tributes of the Iron Mountains and the Alleghenies to her delta, and to the Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen, in driving the presumptuous invader from our country's soil.

Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown, afford no pleasure? Every act of n.o.ble sacrifice of the country, every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they const.i.tute one common patrimony, the country's inheritance. They awe foreign powers; they arouse and animate our own people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment which ought to be cherished; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, and attempts to put it down, it will rise triumphant, and finally conduct this nation to that height, to which nature and nature's G.o.d have destined it.

H. Clay.

Cx.x.xII.

BRUTUS ON THE DEATH OF CaeSAR.

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor; and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may be the better judge. If there be any in this a.s.sembly,--any dear friend of Caesar's--to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was not less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves; than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition.

Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply,---

None? Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart;--that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

Shakespeare.

Cx.x.xIII.

HAMLET'S ADDRESS TO THE PLAYERS.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I p.r.o.nounced it to you, grippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as life the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your pa.s.sion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robtustious periwig-pated fellow tear a pa.s.sion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, we for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. I pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,--and heard others praise, and that highly,--not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Shakespeare.

Cx.x.xIV.

FALSTAFF'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS SOLDIERS.

If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press outrageously. I have got, in exchange of an hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as life hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts in b.u.t.ter, with hearts in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; discarded, unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and hostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think, that I had an hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat.

Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if--they had gyves on; for, indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a s.h.i.+rt and a half in all my company; and the half-s.h.i.+rt it is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the s.h.i.+rt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St.

Albans, or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

Shakespeare.

Cx.x.xV.

SOLILOQUY ON CHARACTER.

As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for, indeed, three such antics do not amount to a man. For Bardolph,--he is white-livered, and red-faced; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol,--he hath a killing tongue, and a quiet sword; by the means whereof 'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons.

For Nym,--he hath heard, that men of a few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest 'a should be thought a coward; but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post, when he was drunk. They will steal anything, and call it--purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case; bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three half-pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching; and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel; I knew, by that piece of service, the men would carry coals.

They would have me as familiar with men's pockets, as their gloves or their handkerchiefs; which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another's pocket, to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs.

I must leave them, and seek some better service: their villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.

Shakespeare.

Cx.x.xVI.

DEATH OF HAMILTON.

A short time since, and he who is the occasion of our sorrows, was the ornament of his country. He stood on an eminence; and glory covered him.

From that eminence he has fallen--suddenly, forever, fallen. His intercourse with the living world is now ended; and those who would hereafter find him must seek him in the grave. There, cold and lifeless, and the heart which just now was the seat of friends.h.i.+p. There, dim and sightless is the eye, whose radiant and enlivening orb beamed with intelligence; and there, closed forever are those lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so often and so lately hung with transport.

From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light in which it is clearly seen that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this light how dimly s.h.i.+nes the splendor of victory--how humble appears the majesty of grandeur. The bubble which seemed to have so much solidity has burst; and we again see that all below the sun is vanity.

True, the funeral eulogy has been p.r.o.nounced. The sad and solemn procession has moved. The badge of mourning has already been decreed, and presently the sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of Hamilton, and rehea.r.s.e to the pa.s.sing traveller his virtues.

Just tributes of respect! And to the living useful. But to him, mouldering in his narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! how unavailing! Approach, and behold--while I lift from his sepulchre its covering. Ye admirers of his neatness, ye emulous of his talents and his fame, approach, and behold him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements. No fascinated throng weep--and melt--and tremble at his eloquence!--Amazing change. A shroud! a coffin! a narrow subterraneous cabin! This is all that now remains of Hamilton! And is this all that remains of him?--During a life so transitory, what lasting monument then can our fondest hopes erect?

My brethren! we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, notating immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can fasten?

Ask the hero, ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I say? He has already told you, from his death-bed, and his illumined spirit still whispers from the heavens, with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition.

"Mortals! hastening to the tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning and avoid my errors--Cultivate the virtues I have recommended--Choose the Saviour I have chosen--Live disinterestedly--Live for immortality; and would you rescue anything from final dissolution, lay it up in G.o.d."

Dr. Nott.