Modern Eloquence Volume Iii Part 14

A PIOUS PILGRIMAGE

[Speech of William H. Seward at a banquet held at Plymouth, Ma.s.s., December 21, 1855. Preceding this banquet Mr. Seward delivered an oration on "The Pilgrims and Liberty." The speech here given is his response to the toast proposed at the banquet, "The Orator of the Day, eloquent in his tribute to the virtues of the Pilgrims; faithful, in his life, to the lessons they taught."]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--The Puritans were Protestants, but they were not protestants against everybody and everything, right or wrong.

They did not protest indiscriminately against everything they found in England. On the other hand, we have abundant indications in the works of genius and art which they left behind them that they had a reverence for all that is good and true; while they protested against everything that was false and vicious. They had a reverence for the good taste and the literature, science, eloquence, and poetry of England, and so I trust it is with their successors in this once bleak and inhospitable, but now rich and prosperous land. They could appreciate poetry, as well as good sense and good taste, and so I call to your recollection the language of a poet who had not loomed up at the time of the Puritans as he has since. It was addressed to his steed, after an ill-starred journey to Islingtontown. The poet said:--

"'Twas for your pleasure you came here, You shall go back for mine."

Being a candid and frank man, as one ought to be who addresses the descendants of the Puritans, I may say that it was not at all for your pleasure that I came here. Though I may go back to gratify you, yet I came here for my own purposes. The time has pa.s.sed away when I could make a distant journey from a mild climate to a cold though fair region, without inconvenience; but there was one wish, I might almost say there was only one wish of my heart that I was anxious should be gratified. I had been favored with many occasions to see the seats of empire in this western world, and had never omitted occasions to see where the seats of empire were planted, and how they prospered. I had visited the capital of my own and of many other American States. I had regarded with admiration the capital of this great Republic, in whose destinies, in common with you all, I feel an interest which can never die. I had seen the capitals of the British Empire, and of many foreign empires, and had endeavored to study for myself the principles which have prevailed in the foundation of states and empires. With that view I had beheld a city standing where a migration from the Netherlands planted an empire on the bay of New York, at Manhattan, or perhaps more properly at Fort Orange.

They sought to plant a commercial empire, and they did not fail; but in New York now, although they celebrate the memories and virtues of fatherland, there is no day dedicated to the colonization of New York by the original settlers, the immigrants from Holland. I have visited Wilmington, on Christina Creek, in Delaware, where a colony was planted by the Swedes, about the time of the settlement of Plymouth, and though the old church built by the colonists still stands there, I learned that there did not remain in the whole State a family capable of speaking the language, or conscious of bearing the name of one of the thirty-one original colonists.

I have stood on the spot where a treaty was made by William Penn with the aborigines of Pennsylvania, where a seat of empire was established by him, and, although the statue of the good man stands in public places, and his memory remains in the minds of men, yet there is no day set apart for the recollection of the time and occasion when civil and religious liberty were planted in that State. I went still farther south, and descending the James River, sought the first colony of Virginia at Jamestown. There remains nothing but the broken, ruined tower of a poor church built of brick, in which Pocahontas was married, and over the ruins of which the ivy now creeps. Not a human being, bond or free, is to be seen within a mile from the spot, nor a town or city as numerously populated as Plymouth, on the whole sh.o.r.es of the broad, beautiful, majestic river, between Richmond at the head, and Norfolk, where arms and the government have established fortifications. Nowhere else in America, then, was there left a remembrance by the descendants of the founders of colonies, of the virtues, the sufferings, the bravery, the fidelity to truth and freedom of their ancestors; and more painful still, nowhere in Europe can be found an acknowledgment or even a memory of these colonists. In Holland, in Spain, in Great Britain, in France, nowhere is there to be found any remembrance of the men they sent out to plant liberty on this continent. So on the way to the Mississippi, I saw where De Soto planted the standard of Spain, and, in imagination at least, I followed the march of Cortez in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru; but their memory has gone out. Civil liberty perishes, and religious liberty was never known in South America; nor does Spain, any more than other lands, retain the memory of the apostles she sent out to convert the new world to a purer faith, and raise the hopes of mankind for the well-being of the future.

There was one only place, where a company of outcasts, men despised, contemned, reproached as malcontents and fanatics, had planted a colony, and that colony had grown and flourished; and there had never been a day since it was planted that the very town, and sh.o.r.e, and coast, where it was planted had not grown and spread in population, wealth, prosperity, and happiness, richer and stronger continually. It had not only grown and flourished like a vigorous tree, rejoicing in its own strength, but had sent out offshoots in all directions. Everywhere the descendants of these colonists were found engaged in the struggles for civil and religious liberty, and the rights of man. I had found them by my side, the champions of humanity, upon whose stalwart arms I might safely rely.

I came here, then, because the occasion offered, and if I pretermitted this, it might be the last, and I was unwilling that any friend or any child, who might lean upon me, who reckoned upon my counsel or advice, should know that I had been such a truant to the cause of religious liberty and humanity, as never to have seen the Rock of Plymouth.

My mission being now accomplished, having shed tears in the first church of the Puritans, when the heartfelt benediction was p.r.o.nounced over my unworthy head by that venerable pastor, I have only to ask that I be dismissed from further service with your kind wishes. I will hold the occasion ever dear to my remembrance, for it is here I have found the solution of the great political problem. Like Archimedes, I have found the fulcrum by whose aid I may move the world--the moral world--and that fulcrum is Plymouth Rock.

WILLIAM TEc.u.mSEH SHERMAN

THE ARMY AND NAVY

[Speech of General William T. Sherman at the first annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880.

The President, Benjamin D. Silliman, on announcing the toast, "The Army and Navy--Great and imperishable names and deeds have ill.u.s.trated their history," said: "In response to this toast, I have the privilege of calling on the great Captain who commands the armies of the Republic; of whom it has been said, that he combines the skill and valor of the soldier, with the wisdom of the statesman, and whose name will ever live in the history of the nation. We shall have the great satisfaction of listening to General Sherman."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--While in Washington I was somewhat embarra.s.sed by receiving invitations from two different New England societies to dine with them on different days in commemoration of the same event. I hoped, under cover of that mistake, to escape one or the other, but I find that each claims its day to be the genuine anniversary of the landing of their Fathers on Plymouth Rock. I must leave some of you to settle this controversy, for I don't know whether it was the 21st or 22d; you here in Brooklyn say the 21st; they in New York say it was the 22d. Laboring under this serious doubt, when I came on the stand and found my name enrolled among the orators and statesmen present, and saw that I was booked to make a speech, I appealed to a learned and most eloquent attorney to represent me on this occasion. I even tried to bribe him with an office which I could not give; but he said that he belonged to that army sometimes described as "invincible in peace, invisible in war." [Laughter.] He would not respond for me.

Therefore I find myself upon the stand at this moment compelled to respond, after wars have been abolished by the Honorable Secretary of State, and men are said to have risen to that level where they are never to do harm to each other again--with the millennium come, in fact, G.o.d grant it may be so? [Applause.]

I doubt it. I heard Henry Clay announce the same doctrine long before our Civil War. I heard also a.s.sertions of the same kind uttered on the floor of our Senate by learned and good men twenty years ago when we were on the very threshold of one of the most b.l.o.o.d.y wars which ever devastated this or any other land. Therefore I have some doubt whether mankind has attained that eminence where it can look backward upon wars and rumors of war, and forward to a state of perpetual peace.

No, my friends, I think man remains the same to-day, as he was in the beginning. He is not alone a being of reason; he has pa.s.sions and feelings which require sometimes to be curbed by force; and all prudent people ought to be ready and willing to meet strife when it comes. To be prepared is the best answer to that question. [Applause.]

Now my friends, the toast you have given me to-night to respond to is somewhat obscure to me. We have heard to-night enumerated the principles of your society--which are called "New England ideas." They are as perfect as the catechism. [Applause and laughter.] I have heard them supplemented by a sort of codicil, to the effect that a large part of our country--probably one-half--is still disturbed, and that the Northern man is not welcome there. I know of my own knowledge that two-thirds of the territory of the United States are not yet settled. I believe that when our Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, they began the war of civilization against barbarism, which is not yet ended in America. The Nation then, as Mr. Beecher has well said, in the strife begun by our fathers, aimed to reach a higher manhood--a manhood of virtue, a manhood of courage, a manhood of faith, a manhood that aspires to approach the attributes of G.o.d Himself.

Whilst granting to every man the highest liberty known on earth, every Yankee believes that the citizen must be the architect of his own fortune; must carry the same civilization wherever he goes, building school-houses and churches for all alike, and wherever the Yankee has gone thus far he has carried his principles and has enlarged New England so that it now embraces probably a third or a half of the settled part of America. That has been a great achievement, but it is not yet completed. Your work is not all finished.

You who sit here in New York, just as your London cousins did two hundred and fifty years ago, know not the struggle that is beyond. At this very moment of time there are Miles Standishes, under the cover of the snow of the Rocky Mountains, doing just what your forefathers did two hundred and fifty years ago. They have the same hard struggle before them that your fathers had. You remember they commenced in New England by building log cabins and fences and tilling the sterile, stony, soil, which Mr. Beecher describes, and I believe these have been largely instrumental in the development of the New England character. Had your ancestors been cast on the fertile sh.o.r.es of the lower Mississippi, you might not be the same vigorous men you are to-day. Your fathers had to toil and labor. That was a good thing for you, and it will be good for your children if you can only keep them in the same tracks. But here in New York and in Brooklyn, I do not think you now are exactly like your forefathers, but I can take you where you will see real live Yankees, very much the same as your fathers were. In New York with wealth and station, and everything that makes life pleasant, you are not the same persons physically, though you profess the same principles, yet as prudent men, you employ more policemen in New York--a larger proportion to the inhabitants of your city than the whole army of the United States bears to the people of the United States. You have no Indians here, though you have "scalpers." [Applause and laughter.] You have no "road-agents" here, and yet you keep your police; and so does our Government keep a police force where there are real Indians and real road-agents, and you, gentlemen, who sit here at this table to-night who have contributed of your means whereby railroads have been built across the continent, know well that this little army, which I represent here to-night, is at this moment guarding these great roadways against incursions of desperate men who would stop the cars and interfere with the mails and travel, which would paralyze the trade and commerce of the whole civilized world, that now pa.s.ses safely over the great Pacific road, leading to San Francisco. Others are building roads north and south, over which we soldiers pa.s.s almost yearly, and there also you will find the blue-coats to-day, guarding the road, not for their advantage, or their safety, but for your safety, for the safety of your capital.

So long as there is such a thing as money, there will be people trying to get that money; they will struggle for it, and they will die for it sometimes. We are a good-enough people, a better people it may be than those of England, or France, though some doubt it. Still we believe ourselves a higher race of people than have ever been produced by any concatenation of events before. [Laughter.] We claim to be, and whether it be due to the ministers of New England, or to the higher type of manhood, of which Mr. Beecher speaks--which latter doctrine I prefer to submit to--I don't care which, there is in human nature a spark of mischief, a spark of danger, which in the aggregate will make force as necessary for the government of mankind as the Almighty finds the electric fluid necessary to clear the atmosphere. [Applause.]

You speak in your toast of "honored names"; you are more familiar with the history of your country than I am, and know that the brightest pages have been written on the battle-field. Is there a New Englander here who would wipe "Bunker Hill" from his list for any price in Wall Street? Not one of you! Yet you can go out into Pennsylvania and find a thousand of bigger hills which you can buy for ten dollars an acre. It is not because of its money value, but because Warren died there in defence of your government which makes it so dear to you. Turn to the West. What man would part with the fame of Harrison and of Perry? They made the settlement of the great Northwest by your Yankees possible. They opened that highway to you, and shall no honor be given to them? Had it not been for the battles on the Thames by Harrison, and by Perry on Lake Erie, the settlement of the great West would not have occurred by New England industry and thrift. Therefore I say that there is an eloquence of thought in those names as great as ever was heard on the floor of Congress, or in the courts of New York. [Applause.]

So I might go on, and take New Orleans, for example, where General Jackson fought a battle with the a.s.sistance of pirates, many of them black men and slaves, who became free by that act. There the black man first fought for his freedom, and I believe black men must fight for their freedom if they expect to get it and hold it secure. Every white soldier in this land will help him fight for his freedom, but he must first strike for it himself. "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." [Cheers.] That truth is ripening, and will manifest itself in due time. I have as much faith in it as I have that the manhood, and faith, and firmness, and courage of New England has contributed so much to the wealth, the civilization, the fame, and glory of our country.

There is no danger of this country going backward. The Civil War settled facts that remain recorded and never will be obliterated. Taken in that connection I say that these battles were fought after many good and wise men had declared all war to be a barbarism--a thing of the past. The fields stained with patriotic blood will be revered by our children and our children's children, long after we, the actors, may be forgotten.

The world will not stop; it is moving on; and the day will come when all nations will be equal "brothers all," when the Scotchman and the Englishman will be as the son of America. We want the universal humanity and manhood that Mr. Beecher has spoken of so eloquently. You Yankees don't want to monopolize all the virtues; if you do, you won't get them.

[Laughter.]

The Germans have an industry and a type of manhood which we may well imitate. We find them settling now in South America, and in fact they are heading you Yankees off in the South American trade. It won't do to sit down here and brag. You must go forth and settle up new lands for you and your children, as your fathers did. That is what has been going on since Plymouth Rock, and will to the end. The end is not yet, but that it will come and that this highest type of manhood will prevail in the end I believe as firmly as any man who stands on this floor. It will be done not by us alone, but by all people uniting, each acting his own part; the merchant, the lawyer, the mechanic, the farmer, and the soldier. But I contend that so long as man is man there is a necessity for organized force, to enable us to reach the highest type of manhood aimed at by our New England ancestors. [Loud applause.]

A REMINISCENCE OF THE WAR

[Speech of General William T. Sherman at the eighty-first annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1886. Judge Horace Russell presided and introduced General Sherman as a son of New England whom the Society delighted to honor. The toast proposed was, "Health and Long Life to General Sherman." The General was visibly affected by the enthusiastic greeting he received when he rose to respond.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK:--Were I to do the proper thing, I would turn to my friend on the left [T. DeWitt Talmage] and say, Amen; for he has drawn a glorious picture of war in language stronger than even I or my friend, General Schofield, could dare to use. But looking over the Society to-night--so many young faces here, so many old and loved ones gone--I feel almost as one of your Forefathers. [Laughter and applause.] Many and many a time have I been welcomed among you. I came from a b.l.o.o.d.y Civil War to New York twenty or twenty-one years ago, when a committee came to me in my room and dragged me unwillingly before the then New England Society of New York. They received me with such hearty applause and such kindly greetings that my heart goes out to you now to-night as their representatives. [Applause.] G.o.d knows I wish you, one and all, the blessings of life and enjoyment of the good things you now possess, and others yet in store for you.

I hope not to occupy more than a few minutes of your time, for last night I celebrated the same event in Brooklyn, and at about two or three o'clock this morning I saw this hall filled with lovely ladies waltzing [laughter], and here again I am to-night. [Renewed laughter. A voice, "You're a rounder, General."] But I shall ever, ever recur to the early meetings of the New England Society, in which I shared, with a pride and satisfaction which words will not express; and I hope the few I now say will be received in the kindly spirit they are made in, be they what they may, for the call upon me is sudden and somewhat unexpected.

I have no toast. I am a rover. [Laughter.] I can choose to say what I may--not tied by any text or formula. I know when you look upon old General Sherman, as you seem to call him [Oh, oh!]--pretty young yet, my friends, not all the devil out of me yet, and I hope still to share with you many a festive occasion--whenever you may a.s.semble, wherever the sons of New England may a.s.semble, be it here under this Delmonico roof, or in Brooklyn, or even in Boston, I will try to be there. [Applause.]

My friends, I have had many, many experiences, and it always seems to me easier to recur to some of them when I am on my feet, for they come back to me like the memory of a dream, pleasant to think of. And now, to-night, I know the Civil War is uppermost in your minds, although I would banish it as a thing of trade, something too common to my calling; yet I know it pleases the audience to refer to little incidents here and there of the great Civil War, in which I took a humble part. [Applause.]

I remember, one day away down in Georgia, somewhere between, I think, Milledgeville and Millen, I was riding on a good horse and had some friends along with me to keep good-fellowship. [Laughter.] A pretty numerous party, all clever good fellows. [Renewed laughter.] Riding along, I spied a plantation. I was thirsty, rode up to the gate and dismounted. One of these men with sabres by their side, called orderlies, stood by my horse. I walked up on the porch, where there was an old gentleman, probably sixty years of age, white-haired and very gentle in his manners--evidently a planter of the higher cla.s.s. I asked him if he would be kind enough to give me some water. He called a boy, and soon he had a bucket of water with a dipper. I then asked for a chair, and called one or two of my officers. Among them was, I think, Dr. John Moore, who recently has been made Surgeon-General of the Army, for which I am very glad--indebted to Mr. Cleveland. [Laughter and applause.] We sat on the porch, and the old man held the bucket, and I took a long drink of water, and maybe lighted a cigar [laughter], and it is possible I may have had a little flask of whiskey along. [Renewed laughter.]

At all events, I got into a conversation; and the troops drifted along, pa.s.sing down the roadway closely by fours, and every regiment had its banner, regimental or national, sometimes furled and sometimes afloat.

The old gentleman says:--

"General, what troops are these pa.s.sing now?"

As the color-bearer came by, I said: "Throw out your colors. That is the 39th Iowa."

"The 39th Iowa! 39th Iowa! Iowa! 39th! What do you mean by 39th?"

"Well," said I, "habitually, a regiment, when organized, amounts to 1,000 men."

"Do you pretend to say Iowa has sent 39,000 men into this cruel Civil War?" [Laughter.]

"Why, my friend, I think that may be inferred."

"Well," says he, "where's Iowa?" [Laughter.]

"Iowa is a State bounded on the east by the Mississippi, on the south by Missouri, on the west by unknown country, and on the north by the North Pole."

"Well," says he, "39,000 men from Iowa! You must have a million men."

Says I: "I think about that."

Presently another regiment came along.