The American Union Speaker Part 55

CCCVI.

OUR COUNTRY'S CALL.

We shall have success if we truly will success,--not other wise. It may be long in coming,--Heaven only knows through what trials and humblings we may have to pa.s.s before the full strength of the nation is duly arrayed and led to victory, We must be patient, as our fathers were patient; even in our worst calamities we must remember that defeat itself may be a gain where it costs our enemy more in relation to his strength than it costs ourselves.

But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to enn.o.ble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her a.s.sailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them to the field of duty.

Citizens of Boston, sons and daughters of New England, men and women of the North, brothers and sisters in the bond of the American Union, you have among you the scared and wasted soldiers who have shed their blood for your temporal salvation. They bore your Nation's emblems bravely through the fire and smoke of the battlefield; nay, their own bodies are starred with bullet-wounds and striped with sabre-cuts, as if to mark them as belonging to their country until their dust becomes a portion of the soil which they defended, In every Northern graveyard slumber the victims of this destroying struggle. Many whom you remember playing as children amidst the clover-blossoms of our Northern fields, sleep under nameless mounds, with strange Southern wild-flowers blooming over them. By those wounds of living heroes, by those graces of fallen martyrs, by the hopes of your children, and the claims of your children's children yet unborn, in the name of outraged honor, in the interest of violated sovereignty, for the life of an imperilled nation, for the sake of men everywhere and of our common humanity, for the glory of G.o.d and the advancement of His kingdom on earth, your country calls upon you to stand by her through good report and through evil report, in triumph and in defeat, until she emerges from the great war of Western civilization, Queen of the broad continent, arbitress in the councils of earth's emanc.i.p.ated peoples; until the flag that fell from the wall of Fort Sumter floats again inviolate, supreme, over all her ancient inheritance, every fortress, every capital, every s.h.i.+p, and this warring land is once more a united nation.

O. W. Holmes.

CCCVII.

MANHOOD AND COUNTRY BEFORE WEALTH AND LUXURY.

Let us say it plainly it will not hurt our people to be taught that there are other things to be cared for besides money making and money spending; that the time has come when manhood must a.s.sert itself by brave deeds and n.o.ble thoughts; when womanhood must a.s.sume its most sacred office, "to warn, to comfort," and, if need be, "to command" those whose services their country calls for. This Northern section of the land has become a great variety shop, of which the Atlantic cities are the long-extended counter. We have grown rich for what? To put gilt bands on coachmen's hats?

To sweep the foul sidewalks with the heaviest silks which the toiling artisans of France can send us? To look through plate-gla.s.s windows, and pity the brown soldiers,--or sneer at the black ones? to reduce the speed of trotting horses a second or two below its old minimum? to color meerschaums? to flaunt in laces, and sparkle in diamonds? to dredge our maiden's hair with gold-dust? to float through life, the pa.s.sive shuttlec.o.c.ks of fas.h.i.+on, from the avenues to the beaches, and back again from the beaches to the avenues? Was it for this that the broad domain of the Western hemisphere was kept so long unvisited by civilization?--for this, that Time, the father of empires, unbound the virgin zone of this youngest of his daughters, and gave her, beautiful in the long veil of her forests, to the rude embrace of the adventurous Colonists?

All this is what we see around us, now,--now, while we are actually fighting this great battle, and supporting this great load of indebtedness.

Wait till the diamonds go back to the Jews of Amsterdam; till the plate-gla.s.s window bears the fatal announcement, For Sale, or to Let; till the voice of our Miriam is obeyed as she sings:--

"Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms!"

till the gold-dust is combed from golden locks, and h.o.a.rded to buy bread; till the fast-driving youth smokes his clay-pipe on the platform of the horse-car; till the music-grinders cease because none will pay them; till there are no peaches in the windows at twenty-four dollars a dozen, and no heaps of bananas and pine-apples selling at the street-corners; till the ten-flounced dress has but three flounces, and it is a felony to drink champagne; wait till these changes show themselves, the signs of deeper wants, the preludes of exhaustion and bankruptcy; then let us talk of the Maelstrom;--but till then, let us not be cowards with our purses, while brave men are emptying their hearts upon the earth for us; let us not whine over our imaginary ruin, while the reversed current of circling events is carrying us farther and farther, every hour, beyond the influence of the great failing which was born of our wealth, and of the deadly sin which was our fatal inheritance!

O. W. Holmes.

CCCVIII.

OUR COUNTRY'S GREATEST GLORY.

The true glory of a nation is in an intelligent, honest, industrious Christian people. The civilization of a people depends on their individual character; and a const.i.tution which is not the outgrowth of this character is not worth the parchment on which it is written. You look in vain in the past for a single instance where the people have preserved their liberties after their individual character was lost. It is not in the magnificence of its palaces, not in the beautiful creations of art lavished on its public edifices, not in costly libraries and galleries of pictures, not in the number or wealth of its cities, that we find pledges of a nation's glory.

The ruler may gather around him the treasures of the world, amid a brutalized people; the senate chamber may retain its faultless proportions long after the voice of patriotism is hushed within its wails; the monumental marble may commemorate a glory which has forever departed. Art and letters may bring no lesson to a people whose heart is dead.

The true glory of a nation is in the living temple of a loyal, industrious, and upright people. The busy click of machinery, the merry ring of the anvil, the lowing of peaceful herds, and the song of the harvest-home, are sweeter music than paeans of departed glory, or songs of triumph in war. The vine-clad cottage of the hillside, the cabin of the woodsman, and the rural home of the farmer are the true citadels of any country. There is a dignity in honest toil which belongs not to the display of wealth or the luxury of fas.h.i.+on. The man who drives the plough, or swings his axe in the forest, or with cunning fingers plies the tools of his craft, is as truly the servant of his country, as the statesman in the senate or the soldier in battle.

The safety of a nation depends not alone on the wisdom of its statesmen or the bravery of its generals. The tongue of eloquence never saved a nation tottering to its fall; the sword of a warrior never stayed its destruction.

There is a surer defence in every Christian home. I say Christian home, for I allow of no glory to manhood which comes not from the cross. I know of no rights wrung from tyranny, no truth rescued from darkness and bigotry, which has not awaited on a Christian civilization.

Would you see the image of true glory, I would show you villages where the crown and glory of the people was in Christian schools, where the voice of prayer goes heaven-ward, where the people have that most priceless gift--faith in G.o.d. With this as the basis, and leavened as it will be with brotherly love, there will be no danger in grappling with any evils which exist in our midst; we shall feel that we may work and bide our time, and die knowing that G.o.d will bring victory.

Bishop Whipple.

CCCIX.

OUR NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY.

We celebrate to-day no idle tradition--the deeds of no fabulous race; for we tread in the scarcely obliterated footsteps of an earnest and valiant generation of men, who dared to stake life, and fortune, and sacred honor, upon a declaration of rights, whose promulgation shook tyrants on their thrones, gave hope to fainting freedom, and reformed the political ethics of the world.

The greatest heroes of former days have sought renown in schemes of conquest, based on the love of dominion or the thirst for war; and such had been the wors.h.i.+p of power in the minds of men, that adulation had ever followed in the wake of victory. How daring then the trial of an issue between a handful of oppressed and outlawed colonists, basing their cause, under G.o.d, upon an appeal to the justice of mankind and their own few valiant arms. And how immeasurably great was he, the fearless commander, who, after the fortunes and triumphs of battle were over, scorned the thought of a regal throne for a home in the hearts of his countryman.

Amidst the rejoicings of this day, let us mingle something of grat.i.tude with our joy--something of reverence with our grat.i.tude--and something of duty with our reverence.

Let us cultivate personal independence in the spirit of loyalty to the State. and may G.o.d grant that we may always be able to maintain the sovereignty of the State in the spirit of integrity to the Union. Thus shall still be shed imperishable honors upon the American name thus perpetuated, through all coming time, the heritage which has been bequeathed to us by our fathers. Whatever shall be the fate of other governments, ours thus sustained, shall stand forever. As has been elsewhere said, nation after nation may rise and fall, kingdoms and empires crumble into ruin, but our own native land, gathering energy and strength from the lapse of time, shall go on and still go on its destined way to greatness and renown. And when thrones shall crumble into dust, when sceptres and diadems shall have been forgotten, till Heaven's last thunder shall shake the world below, the flag of the republic shall still wave on, and its Stars, its Stripes, and its Eagle, shall still float in pride, and strength, and glory,

"Whilst the earth bears, a plant, Or the sea rolls a wave."

A. H. Rice.

CCCX.

SOUTHERN USURPATIONS AND NORTHERN CONCESSIONS.

Why did these Southerners make war upon the country, converting their own domain into a receptacle of stolen goods, and the hiding-place of mercenaries, murderers, and madmen, and ours into one vast recruiting tent?

Tell me, you cowardly and traitorous Northmen, who talk about peace before the last armed foe has expired on the soil his attainted blood defiles, or of compromise, while yet the walls of our hospitals resound with the groans of the mangled, and are damp with the death-dew of the expiring? Tell me, you traitors, Davis, Pickens, Stephens, and Floyd? what do you say provoked you to the point where forbearance ceased to be a virtue? What had we of the North usurped that belonged to you? I inquire not now of what some among us may have said. I challenge any act of usurpation by the non-slaveholding States against your rights as members of the confederacy.

Facts are incontrovertible. What had we done? What provision of the Federal Const.i.tution had we violated? For once lay aside your declamation and abuse, and soberly and truthfully state your grievances.

You know, and we know, and the world knows, that we made no encroachment upon your reserved rights as a party to the compact between your fathers and ours. You know, also, that we have been so terrified at your reiterated threats against the family peace and general welfare, that, in our anxiety to preserve national concord, we have sacrificed personal honor and State pride. You called us "mudsills" and "greasy mechanics," until labor almost began to be ashamed of its G.o.d-given dignity. You beat our representatives in the national council chambers, because they expressed the views of those whom they served. You denied us freedom of speech in all your borders. This and much else, before the last burden, which broke our uncomplaining patience into active, and, as you are destined to learn, terrible resistance and deserved retribution. But what had we done? How sinned against you? In 1820 you wanted a geographical limit a.s.signed to your peculiar inst.i.tution and we pa.s.sed the law known as the Missouri Compromise. You got sick of this when it appeared that slavery would not be a gainer thereby, as it was supposed, and begged a repeal of the act. It was repealed. In 1850, you clamored for further legislation in favor of your property in human beings, and the fugitive slave law was placed on the nation's statute book. You continually cried, "Give, give!" and we gave.

But nothing would satisfy your rapacity; you had resolved to quarrel with us. Do you remind me that we did not return your escaped slaves? This is only half the truth. Whenever you came after your chattel, with legal proofs of owners.h.i.+p, we caught and caged him, and sent him back to you, often at our own expense. If you did not think it worth your while to hunt up your runaway, it was none of our concern. Sometimes a man among us, more of a humanitarian than a jurisconsult, and better versed in the law of nature than the law of the land, illegally, but conscientiously, aided your bondman to escape. John Brown did so, and you hanged him for it! But no State, as such, and no authority within a State, ever hesitated or refused to fulfil its const.i.tutional obligations to you on this head. But you did not mean to be satisfied. You meant to rebel. You have rebelled, and you must abide the consequences.

R. Busteed.

CCCXI.

MONUMENTAL HONORS TO PUBLIC BENEFACTORS.

What parent, as he conducts his son to Mount Auburn or to Bunker Hill, will not, as he pauses before their monumental statues, seek to heighten his reverence for virtue, for patriotism, for science, for learning, for devotion to the public good, as he bids him contemplate the form of that grave and venerable Winthrop, who left his pleasant home in England to come and found a new republic in this untrodden wilderness; of that ardent and intrepid Otis, who first struck out the spark of American independence; of that n.o.ble Adams, its most eloquent champion on the floor of Congress; of that martyr Warren, who laid down his life in its defense; of that self-taught Bowditch, who, without a guide, threaded the starry mazes of the heavens; of that Story, honored at home and abroad as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, and, by a felicity of which I believe there is no other example, admirably portrayed in marble by his son? What citizen of Boston, as he accompanies the stranger around our streets, guiding him through our busy thoroughfares, to our wharves, crowded with vessels which range every sea and gather the produce of every climate, up to the dome of this capitol, which commands as lovely a landscape as can delight the eye or gladden the heart, will not, as he calls his attention at last to the statues of Franklin and Webster, exclaim:--"Boston takes pride in her natural position, she rejoices in her beautiful environs, she is grateful for her material prosperity; but richer than the merchandise stored in palatial warehouses, greener than the slopes of sea-girt islets, lovelier than this encircling panorama of land and sea, of field and hamlet, of lake and stream, of garden and grove, is the memory of her sons, native and adopted; the character, services and fame of those who have benefited and adorned their day and generation. Our children, and the schools at which they are trained, our citizens, and the services they have rendered:--these are our monuments, these are our jewels, these our abiding treasures."

E. Everett.

CCCXII.

THE CRIME OF THE REBELLION.

I call the war which the Confederates are waging against the Union a "Rebellion," because it is one, and in grave matters it is best to call things by their right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the Const.i.tution of the United States so regards it, and puts "rebellion" on a par with "invasion." The Const.i.tution and law not only of England, but of every civilized country regard them in the same light; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as far worse than the alien enemy. To levy war against the United States is the const.i.tutional definition of treason, and that crime is, by every civilized government: regarded as the highest which citizen or subject can commit. Not content with the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes against the law of the land it is singled out for the denunciations of religion. The litanies of every church in Christendom, as far as I am aware, from the metropolitan cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary chapel in the islands of the sea, concur with the Church of England in imploring the Sovereign of the universe, by the most awful adjurations which the heart of man can conceive or his tongue utter, to deliver us from "sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion." And reason good,--for while a rebellion against tyranny; a rebellion designed, after prostrating arbitrary power, to establish free government on the basis of justice and truth, is an enterprise on which good men and angels may look with complacency; an unprovoked rebellion of ambitious men against a beneficent government, for the purpose--the avowed purpose-of establis.h.i.+ng, extending, and perpetuating any form of injustice and wrong, is an imitation on earth of that first foul revolt of "the Infernal serpent," against which the Supreme Majesty of Heaven sent forth the armed myriads of his angels, and clothed the right arm of his Son with the three-bolted thunders of Omnipotence.

Lord Bacon, "in the true marshalling of the sovereign degrees of honor,"

a.s.signs the first place to "the Conditores Imperiorum, founders of States and Commonwealths "; and truly to build up from the discordant elements of our nature; the pa.s.sions, the interests, and the opinions of the individual man; the rivalries of family, clan, and tribe; the influences of climate and geographical position; the accidents of peace and war acc.u.mulated for ages, to build up, from these oftentimes warring elements, a well-compacted, prosperous and powerful State, if it were to be accomplished by one effort, or in one generation, would require a more than mortal skill. To contribute in some notable degree to this the greatest work of man, by wise and patriotic counsel in peace, and loyal heroism in war, is as high as human merit can well rise, and far more than to any of those to whom Bacon a.s.signs this highest place of honor, whose names can hardly be repeated without a wondering smile,--Romulus; Cyrus, Caesar, Ottoman, Israel,--is it due to our Was.h.i.+ngton, as the founder of the American Union. But if to achieve or help to achieve this greatest work of man's wisdom and virtue gives t.i.tle to a place among the chief benefactors, rightful heirs of the benedictions, of mankind, by equal reason shall the bold bad men who seek to undo the n.o.ble work,--Eversores Imperiorum, destroyers of States,--who for base and selfish ends rebel against beneficent governments, seek to overturn wise const.i.tutions, to lay powerful republican unions at the foot of foreign thrones, bring on civil and foreign war, anarchy at home, dictation abroad, desolation, ruin,--by equal reason, I say, yes a thousand fold stronger, shall they inherit the execrations of ages.

E. Everett.

CCCXIII.

A TRIBUTE TO OUR HONORED DEAD.

How bright are the honors which await those who with sacred fort.i.tude and patriotic patience have endured all things that they might save their native land from division and from the power of corruption. The honored dead! They that die for a good cause are redeemed from death. Their names are gathered and garnered. Their memory is precious. Each place grows proud for them who were born there. There is to be, ere long, in every village, and in every neighborhood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes. Tablets shall preserve their names. Pious love shall renew their inscriptions as time and the unfeeling elements efface them. And the national festivals shall give mult.i.tudes of precious names to the orator's lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred inspirations, whose elder brothers dying n.o.bly for their country, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore it. Orphan children shall find thousands of fathers and mothers to love and help those whom dying heroes left as a legacy to the grat.i.tude of the public.

Oh, tell me not that they are dead--that generous hosts that airy army of invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with n.o.bler motives and more heroic patriotism?

Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It was your son: but now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sister's, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before he was yours: he is ours. He has died from the family that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgot ten or neglected: and it shall by-and-by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life.

Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither epaulette nor badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. Many a man shall envy him who henceforth limps. So strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and helplessness. And buoyant children shall pause in their noisy games, and with loving rererence honor them whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march except upon that journey which brings good men to honor and immortality. Oh, mother of lost children! set not in darkness nor sorrow whom a nation honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead, they shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. The nation lives because you gave it men that love it better than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life till time shall be no more.