Standard Selections Part 42

As it now stands we must appeal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while, and then the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the less radical from being the result of pacific measures. The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery is a violation of eternal right. We have temporized with it from the necessities of our condition; but as sure as G.o.d reigns and school children read, that foul lie can never be consecrated into G.o.d's hallowed truth!

One great trouble in the matter is that slavery is an insidious and crafty power, and gains equally by open violence of the brutal as well as by sly management of the peaceful. Once let slavery get planted in a locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a t.i.tle, and in ever so small numbers, and it is like the Canada thistle, you can't root it out. You yourself may detest slavery; but your neighbor has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent neighbor, or your son has married his daughter, and they beg you to help save their property, and you vote against your interest and principles to accommodate a neighbor, hoping that your vote will be on the losing side. And others do the same; and in those ways slavery gets a sure foothold. And when that is done the whole mighty Union--the force of the Nation--is committed to its support.

It is a very strange thing, and not solvable by any moral law that I know of, that if a man loses his horses the whole country will turn out to help hang the thief; but if a man a shade or two darker than I am is himself stolen the same crowd will hang one who aids in restoring him to liberty. Such are the inconsistencies of slavery, where a horse is more sacred than a man; and the essence of squatter or popular sovereignty--I don't care how you call it--is that if one man chooses to make a slave of another no third man shall be allowed to object. And if you can do this in free Kansas, and it is allowed to stand, the next thing you will see is s.h.i.+ploads of negroes from Africa at the wharf at Charleston; for one thing is as truly lawful as the other; and these are the notions we have got to stamp out, else they will stamp us out. But we cannot be free men if this is, by our national choice, to be a land of slavery.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just G.o.d, cannot long retain it.

The conclusion of all this is that we must restore the Missouri Compromise. We must highly resolve that Kansas must be free! We must reinstate the birthday promise of the Republic; we must reaffirm the Declaration of Independence; we must make good in essence as well as in form Madison's avowal that "the word slave ought not to appear in the Const.i.tution"; and we must even go further, and decree that only local law, and not that time-honored instrument, shall shelter a slaveholder.

We must make this a land of liberty in fact, as it is in name. But in seeking to attain these results, so indispensable if the liberty which is our pride and boast shall endure, we will be loyal to the Const.i.tution and to the "flag of our Union," and no matter what our grievance, even though Kansas shall come in as a slave State; and no matter what theirs, even if we shall restore the compromise, we will say to the Southern disunionists, We won't go out of the Union, and you shan't!

But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense and patriotism of the people, and not to their prejudices; let us spread the floods of enthusiasm here aroused all over the vast prairies so suggestive of freedom. There is both a power and a magic in popular opinion. To that let us now appeal; and while, in all probability, no resort to force will be needed, our moderation and forbearance will stand us in good stead when, if ever, we must make an appeal to battle and to the G.o.d of hosts!

FOOTNOTE:

[56] From the celebrated "last speech," made at Bloomington, Ill., May 29, 1856.

SUBJUGATION OF THE FILIPINO[57]

GEORGE F. h.o.a.r

The American people have got this one question to answer. They may answer it now; they can take ten years, or twenty years, or a generation, or a century to think of it. But it will not down. They must answer it in the end: Can you lawfully buy with money or get by brute force of arms the right to hold in subjugation an unwilling people and to impose on them such const.i.tution as you, and not they, think best for them?

The question will be answered soberly and deliberately and quietly as the American people are wont to answer great questions of duty. It will be answered, not in any turbulent a.s.sembly, amid shouting and clapping of hands and stamping of feet. It will be answered in the churches and in the schools and in the colleges, it will be answered in fifteen million American homes, and it will be answered as it has always been answered. It will be answered right.

I have sometimes fancied that we might erect here in the capital of the country a column to American liberty which alone might rival in height the beautiful and simple shaft which we have erected to the fame of the father of the country. I can fancy each generation bringing its inscription, which should recite its own contribution to the great structure of which the column should be but the symbol.

The generation of the Puritan and the Pilgrim and the Huguenot claims the place of honor at the base. "I brought the torch of freedom across the sea. I cleared the forest. I subdued the savage and the wild beast.

I laid in Christian liberty and law the foundations of empire. I left the seash.o.r.e to penetrate the wilderness. I planted schools and colleges and courts and churches. I stood by the side of England on many a hard-fought field. I helped humble the power of France. I saw the lilies go down before the lion at Louisburg and Quebec. I carried the cross of St. George in triumph in Martinique and Havana."

Then comes the generation of the revolutionary time. "I encountered the power of England. I declared and won the independence of my country. I placed that declaration on the eternal principles of justice and righteousness, which all mankind have read, and on which all mankind will one day stand. I affirmed the dignity of human nature and the right of the people to govern themselves. I created the Supreme Court and the Senate. For the first time in history I made the right of the people to govern themselves safe, and established inst.i.tutions for that end which will endure forever."

The next generation says, "I encountered England again. I vindicated the right of an American s.h.i.+p to sail the seas the wide world over without molestation. I made the American sailor as safe at the ends of the earth as my fathers had made the American farmer safe in his home. I proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine in the face of the Holy Alliance, under which sixteen republics have joined the family of nations. I filled the western hemisphere with republics from the lakes to Cape Horn, each controlling its own destiny in safety and in honor."

Then comes the next generation: "I did the mighty deeds which in your younger years you saw and which your fathers told. I saved the Union. I put down the rebellion. I freed the slave. I made of every slave a free man and of every free man a citizen and of every citizen a voter. I paid the debt. I brought in conciliation and peace instead of war. I devised the homestead system. I covered the prairie and the plain with happy homes and with mighty states. I crossed the continent and joined together the seas with my great railroads. I declared the manufacturing independence of America, as my fathers affirmed its political independence. I made my country the richest, freest, strongest, happiest people on the face of the earth."

And now what have we to say? Are we to have a place in that honorable company? Must we engrave on that column, "We repealed the Declaration of Independence. We changed the Monroe doctrine from a doctrine of eternal righteousness and justice, resting on the consent of the governed, to a doctrine of brutal selfishness, looking only to our own advantage. We crushed the only republic in Asia. We made war on the only Christian people in the East. We converted a war of glory to a war of shame. We vulgarized the American flag. We introduced perfidy into the practice of war. We inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort confession. We established reconcentrado camps. We devastated provinces. We baffled the aspirations of a people for liberty?"

No, Mr. President, never! never! Other and better counsels will yet prevail. The hours are long in the life of a great people. The irrevocable step is not yet taken. Let us at least have this to say, "We, too, have kept the faith of the fathers. We took Cuba by the hand.

We delivered her from her age-long bondage. We welcomed her to the family of nations. We set mankind an example never beheld before of moderation in victory. We led hesitating and halting Europe to the deliverance of their beleaguered amba.s.sadors in China. We marched through a hostile country, a country cruel and barbarous, without anger or revenge. We returned benefit for injury, and pity for cruelty. We made the name of America beloved in the East as in the West. We kept faith with the Filipino people. We kept faith with our own destiny. We kept our national honor unsullied. The flag which we received without a rent we handed down without a stain!"

FOOTNOTE:

[57] United States Senate, May 22, 1902.

SUFFERINGS AND DESTINY OF THE PILGRIMS

EDWARD EVERETT

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pa.s.s, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for sh.o.r.e. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy wave. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the s.h.i.+p leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, s.h.i.+vering weight against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed, at last, after a few months'

pa.s.sage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth,--weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

Shut now the volume of history and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers? Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this! Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the tomahawk? was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching, in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea?--was it some or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?

TO ARMS

LOUIS KOSSUTH

Our fatherland is in danger. Citizens, to arms! to arms! Unless the whole nation rise up as one man to defend itself all the n.o.ble blood already shed is in vain. People of Hungary, will you die under the exterminating sword of the Russians? If not, defend yourselves. Will you look on while the Kossacks of the far north tread under foot the bodies of your fathers, mothers, wives and children? If not, defend yourselves.

Will you see a part of your fellow-citizens sent to the wilds of Siberia, made to serve in the wars of tyrants, or bleed under the murderous knout? If not, defend yourselves. Will you behold your villages in flames, and your harvests destroyed? Will you die of hunger on the land which your sweat has made fertile? If not, defend yourselves.

TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTISM[58]

BOURKE c.o.c.kRAN

The American patriot is the soldier of civilization. One hundred years ago the republic was first born, but the roots from which it sprung grew and flourished for centuries. The beginning of republicanism is not of American origin nor of any one country or nation of the world. The beginning of republicanism was not upon this soil but upon the soil trodden by the Lord. It was not first announced by the booming of the cannon and the pealing of the liberty bell, but when the star of Bethlehem shone over the place where the new-born babe was in the manger and the songs of the angels told of "Peace on earth, good will toward men."

This right is the crowning glory of man's progress. It is the natural att.i.tude of Christian civilization. A government based upon the equality of all men before the law is based upon the principle of equality of all men in the sight of G.o.d. Democracy is Christianity applied to civilization. From the very moment the Savior of mankind told his disciples to go forth and preach his word it became unavoidable that the triumphs of Christianity would mean the destruction of every form of government based upon inequality of man. The first champions of freedom were the apostles who preached the word of Christ. The advent of feudalism in Europe seemed as if a dark night had set over the face of the world. Man had conquered territory by the sword and was forced to defend it by the torch. In the face of that condition of civilization Christianity proceeded to teach the doctrine that the weak and strong were equal in the sight of heaven.

Columbus was the natural outcome of conditions which had been in course of preparation for years. The Old World, with its prejudices and barbarism, was unfit for the planting of the germ of freedom, and so Providence guided the bark of Columbus to the sh.o.r.es of America. Here the tree of liberty was planted under circ.u.mstances which encouraged its growth and insured its life. Nowhere is the providence of G.o.d more visible. Here was the virgin soil to be conquered. Here were forests to be felled; a strong arm was of more use in cutting down a tree than the lineage of a thousand years. The value of the settler was not the blood which flowed in his veins, but the power of his muscles and the strength of his will. Then the dignity of labor was raised to a pitch unknown to this world. They did not come here to enrich themselves with gold. They did not come here to plunder the soil and return to Spain to spend the proceeds in riot. They were men in whose hearts liberty never died. They sought this continent that they might create liberty, and they did it.

Their labor was fruitful.

FOOTNOTE:

[58] Auditorium, Chicago, April 30, 1894. By permission of the author.

A VISION OF WAR[59]

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL