Modern Eloquence Volume Iii Part 28

"Are ye, are ye," he would say, with a voice of exultation, and yet softened with melancholy, "Are ye our children? Does this scene of refinement, of elegance, of riches, of luxury, does all this come from our labors? Is this magnificent city, the like of which we never saw nor heard of on either continent, is this but an offshoot from Plymouth Rock?

"'... Quis jam locus ...

Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?'

"Is this one part of the great reward, for which my brethren and myself endured lives of toil and of hardship? We had faith and hope. G.o.d granted us the spirit to look forward, and we did look forward. But this scene we never antic.i.p.ated. Our hopes were on another life. Of earthly gratifications we tasted little; for human honors we had little expectation. Our bones lie on the hill in Plymouth churchyard, obscure, unmarked, secreted to preserve our graves from the knowledge of savage foes. No stone tells where we lie. And yet, let me say to you, who are our descendants, who possess this glorious country, and all it contains, who enjoy this hour of prosperity, and the thousand blessings showered upon it by the G.o.d of your fathers, we envy you not; we reproach you not. Be rich, be prosperous, be enlightened. Live in pleasure, if such be your allotment on earth; but live, also, always to G.o.d and to duty.

Spread yourselves and your children over the continent; accomplish the whole of your great destiny; and if so be, that through the whole you carry Puritan hearts with you; if you still cherish an undying love of civil and religious liberty, and mean to enjoy them yourselves, and are willing to shed your heart's blood to transmit them to your posterity, then are you worthy descendants of Carver and Allerton and Bradford, and the rest of those who landed from stormy seas on the rock of Plymouth."

[Loud and prolonged cheers.]

Gentlemen, that little vessel, on December 22, 1620, made her safe landing on the sh.o.r.e of Plymouth. She had been tossed on a tempestuous ocean; she approached the New England coast under circ.u.mstances of great distress and trouble; yet amidst all the disasters of her voyage, she accomplished her end, and she placed the feet of a hundred precious souls on the sh.o.r.e of the New World.

Gentlemen, let her be considered this night as an emblem of New England, as New England now is. New England is a ship, stanch, strong, well-built, and particularly well-manned. She may be occasionally thrown into the trough of the sea, by the violence of winds and waves, and may wallow there for a time; but, depend upon it, she will right herself.

She will, ere long, come round to the wind, and will obey her helm.

[Cheers and applause.]

We have hardly begun, my brethren, to realize the vast importance, on human society, and on the history and happiness of the world, of the voyage of that little vessel which brought the love of civil and religious liberty hither, and the Bible, the Word of G.o.d, for the instruction of the future generations of men. We have hardly begun to realize the consequences of that voyage. Heretofore the extension of our race, following our New England ancestry, has crept along the sh.o.r.e. But now the race has extended. It has crossed the continent. It has not only transcended the Alleghany, but has capped the Rocky Mountains. It is now upon the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific; and on this day, or if not on this day, then this day twelvemonth, descendants of New England will there celebrate the landing--[A Voice: "To-day; they celebrate to-day."]

G.o.d bless them! Here's to the health and success of the California Society of Pilgrims a.s.sembled on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific. [Prolonged applause.] And it shall yet go hard, if the three hundred millions of people of China--if they are intelligent enough to understand anything--shall not one day hear and know something of the Rock of Plymouth too! [Laughter and cheers.]

But, gentlemen, I am trespa.s.sing too long on your time. [Cries of "No, no! Go on!"] I am taking too much of what belongs to others. My voice is neither a new voice, nor is it the voice of a young man. It has been heard before in this place, and the most that I have thought or felt concerning New England history and New England principles, has been before, in the course of my life, said here or elsewhere.

Your sentiment, Mr. President, which called me up before this meeting, is of a larger and more comprehensive nature. It speaks of the Const.i.tution under which we live; of the Union, which for sixty years has been over us, and made us a.s.sociates, fellow-citizens of those who settled at Yorktown and the mouth of the Mississippi and their descendants, and now, at last, of those who have come from all corners of the earth and a.s.sembled in California. I confess I have had my doubts whether the republican system under which we live could be so vastly extended without danger of dissolution. Thus far, I willingly admit, my apprehensions have not been realized. The distance is immense; the intervening country is vast. But the principle on which our Government is established, the representative system, seems to be indefinitely expansive; and wherever it does extend, it seems to create a strong attachment to the Union and the Const.i.tution that protects it. I believe California and New Mexico have had new life inspired into all their people. They consider themselves subjects of a new being, a new creation, a new existence. They are not the men they thought themselves to be, now that they find they are members of this great Government, and hailed as citizens of the United States of America. I hope, in the providence of G.o.d, as this system of States and representative governments shall extend, that it will be strengthened. In some respects the tendency is to strengthen it. Local agitations will disturb it less.

If there has been on the Atlantic coast, somewhere south of the Potomac--and I will not define further where it is--if there has been dissatisfaction, that dissatisfaction has not been felt in California; it has not been felt that side the Rocky Mountains. It is a localism, and I am one of those who believe that our system of government is not to be destroyed by localisms, North or South! [Cheers.] No; we have our private opinions, State prejudices, local ideas; but over all, submerging all, drowning all, is that great sentiment, that always, and nevertheless, we are all Americans. It is as Americans that we are known, the whole world over. Who asks what State you are from, in Europe, or in Africa, or in Asia? Is he an American--is he of us? Does he belong to the flag of the country? Does that flag protect him? Does he rest under the eagle and the Stars and Stripes? If he does, if he is, all else is subordinate and worthy of little concern. [Cheers.]

Now it is our duty, while we live on the earth, to cherish this sentiment, to make it prevail over the whole country, even if that country should spread over the whole continent. It is our duty to carry English principles--I mean, sir [said Mr. Webster turning to Sir Henry Bulwer], Anglo-Saxon American principles, over the whole continent--the great principles of Magna Charta, of the English revolution, and especially of the American Revolution, and of the English language. Our children will hear Shakespeare and Milton recited on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific. Nay, before that, American ideas, which are essentially and originally English ideas, will penetrate the Mexican--the Spanish mind; and Mexicans and Spaniards will thank G.o.d that they have been brought to know something of civil liberty, of the trial by jury, and of security for personal rights.

As for the rest, let us take courage. The day-spring from on high has visited us; the country has been called back, to conscience and to duty.

There is no longer imminent danger of dissolution in these United States. [Loud and repeated cheers.] We shall live, and not die. We shall live as united Americans; and those who have supposed that they could sever us, that they could rend one American heart from another, and that speculation and hypothesis, that secession and metaphysics, could tear us asunder, will find themselves dreadfully mistaken. [Cheers.]

Let the mind of the sober American people remain sober. Let it not inflame itself. Let it do justice to all. And the truest course, and the surest course, to disappoint those who meditate disunion, is just to leave them to themselves, and see what they can make of it. No, gentlemen; the time for meditated secession is past. Americans, North and South, will be hereafter more and more united. There is a sternness and severity in the public mind lately aroused. I believe that, North and South, there has been, in the last year, a renovation of public sentiment, an animated revival of the spirit of Union, and, more than all, of attachment to the Const.i.tution, regarding it as indispensably necessary; and if we would preserve our nationality, it is indispensable that the spirit of devotion should be still more largely increased. And who doubts it? If we give up that Const.i.tution, what are we? You are a Manhattan man; I am a Boston man. Another is a Connecticut, and another a Rhode Island man. Is it not a great deal better, standing hand to hand, and clasping hands, that we should remain as we have been for sixty years--citizens of the same country, members of the same Government, united all--united now and united forever? That we shall be, gentlemen. There have been difficulties, contentions, controversies--angry controversies; but I tell you that, in my judgment,--

"those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th' intestine shock, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way."

[Mr. Webster, on closing, was greeted with the most hearty, prolonged, and tumultuous applause.]

JOSEPH WHEELER

THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

[Speech of Joseph Wheeler prepared for the tenth annual banquet of the Confederate Veteran Camp of New York, New York City, January 19, 1898. Edward Owen, Commander of the Camp, presided. As General Wheeler was ill and unable to attend the banquet, his speech was read by J. E. Graybill.]

History has many heroes whose martial renown has fired the world, whose daring and wonderful exploits have altered the boundaries of nations and changed the very face of the earth. To say nothing of the warriors of biblical history and Homeric verse, as the ages march along every great nation leaves us the glorious memory of some unique character, such as Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar. Even the wild hordes of northern Europe and the barbaric nations of the East had their grand military leaders whose names will ever live on history's pages, to be eclipsed only by that of Napoleon, the man of destiny, who, as a military genius, stands alone and unrivalled: "Grand, gloomy, peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his awful originality."

The mediaeval ages gave us n.o.ble examples of devotedness and chivalry; but it belonged to the American Republic, founded and defended by Freedom's sons, to give to the world the n.o.blest type of warrior; men in whom martial renown went hand in hand with the n.o.blest of virtues, men who united in their own characters the highest military genius with the loftiest patriotism, the most daring courage with the gentlest courtesy, the most obstinate endurance with the utmost self-sacrifice, the genius of a Caesar with the courage and purity of a Bayard.

Patriotism and love of liberty, the most enn.o.bling motives that can fire the heart of man, expanding and thriving in the atmosphere of free America, added a refining touch to the martial enthusiasm of our forefathers and elevated the character of the American soldier to a standard never attained by fighting men of any other age or nation.

To recall their names and recount their deeds would lead me far beyond the time and s.p.a.ce allotted. Volumes would never do justice to the valorous achievements of George Washington and his compeers, the boys of '76--of the heroes of 1812 and of 1848; of the men in blue who fought under Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Farragut; of the men in gray who followed the lead of Johnston, Jackson, and Lee from 1861 to 1865; of the intrepid band that sailed with Dewey into Manila Bay, or of the small but heroic army of 1898 that fought at Las Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan, and left the Stars and Stripes floating in triumph over the last stronghold of Spain in the New World.

But above the grand heroic names immortalized by historian and poet shines with an undimmed l.u.s.tre, all its own, the immortal name of Robert Edmund Lee.--

"Ah, Muse! You dare not claim A n.o.bler man than he-- Nor n.o.bler man hath less of blame, Nor blameless man hath purer name, Nor purer name hath grander fame, Nor fame--another Lee."

The late Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, in an address delivered at the time of General Lee's death, thus beautifully describes his character: "He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was Caesar without his ambition; Frederick without his tyranny; Napoleon without his selfishness, and Washington without his reward. He was as obedient to authority as a servant, and royal in authority as a true king. He was gentle as a woman in life, and modest and pure as a virgin in thought; watchful as a Roman vestal in duty; submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles!"

Forty-four years ago last June, I found myself in the presence of Colonel Lee, who was then Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. I have never in all my life seen another form or face which so impressed me, as embodying dignity, modesty, kindness, and all the characteristics which indicate purity and n.o.bility. While he was then only a captain and brevet-colonel, he was so highly regarded by the Army that it was generally conceded that he was the proper officer to succeed General Scott.

His wonderful career as leader of the Army of Northern Virginia, as its commander, is so familiar to all of you that any comment would seem to be unnecessary. But to give some of the younger generation an idea of the magnitude of the struggle in which General Lee was the central and leading figure, I will call attention to the fact that in the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania (which really should be called one battle), the killed and wounded in General Grant's army by the army under General Lee, was far greater than the aggregate killed and wounded in all the battles of all the wars fought by the English-speaking people on this continent since the discovery of America by Columbus.

To be more explicit: take the killed and wounded in all the battles of the French and Indian War, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the Revolutionary War, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the War of 1812, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the Mexican War, take the aggregate killed and wounded in all our wars with the Indians, and they amount to less than the killed and wounded in Grant's army in the struggle from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania.

In order further to appreciate the magnitude of the struggle, let us make a comparison between the losses in some of the great battles of our Civil War, and those of some of the most famous battles of modern Europe. The official reports give the following as the losses in killed and wounded of the Federal Army in seven, out of nearly a thousand severely contested struggles during the four years' of war: Seven Days fight, 9,291; Antietam, 11,426; Murfreesboro, 8,778; Gettysburg, 16,426; Chickamauga, 10,906; Wilderness and Spottsylvania, 24,481.

In the Battle of Marengo, the French lost in killed and wounded, 4,700, the Austrians, 6,475. In the Battle of Hohenlinden, the French loss in killed and wounded was 2,200, the Austrian loss was 5,000; at Austerlitz the French loss was 9,000; at Waterloo, Wellington lost 9,061 in killed and wounded, Blucher lost 5,613, making the total loss of the Allies, 14,674.

I mention these facts because such sanguinary conflicts as those of our Civil War could only have occurred when the soldiers of both contending armies were men of superb determination and courage. Such unquestioned prowess as this should be gratifying to all Americans, showing to the world as they did that the intrepid fort.i.tude and courage of Americans have excelled that of any other people upon the earth. And as the world will extol the exhibition of these qualities by the soldiers that fought under Grant, the historian will find words inadequate to express his admiration of the superb heroism of the soldiers led by the intrepid Lee. Meeting a thoroughly organized, and trebly equipped and appointed army, they successfully grappled in deadly conflict with these tremendous odds, while civilization viewed with amazement this climax of unparalleled and unequal chivalry, surpa.s.sing in grandeur of action anything heretofore portrayed either in story or in song. Whence came these qualities? They were the product of Southern chivalry, which two centuries had finally perfected. A chivalry which esteemed stainless honor as a priceless gem, and a knighthood which sought combat for honor's sake, generously yielding to an antagonist all possible advantage; the chivalry which taught Southern youth to esteem life as nothing when honor was at stake, a chivalry which taught that the highest, n.o.blest, and most exalted privilege of man was the defence of woman, family, and country. It was this Southern chivalry that formed such men as Lee and Stonewall Jackson; they were the central leading figures, but they were only prototypes of the soldiers whom they led.

It is this character of men who meet in banquet to-night to honor the name they revere and the n.o.ble life they seek to emulate. I say, G.o.d bless you all, the whole world breathes blessings upon you. Among the foremost in these sentiments are the brave soldiers against whom you were once arrayed in battle, and they, together with seventy million Americans know that in future perils to our country, you and your children will be foremost in the battle-line of duty, proud of the privilege of defending the glory, honor, and prestige of our country, presenting under the folds of our national ensign an unbroken phalanx of united hearts--an impregnable bulwark of defence against any power that may arise against us.

EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE

CHINA EMERGING FROM HER ISOLATION

[Speech of Edwin P. Whipple at the banquet given by the City of Boston, August 21, 1868, to the Hon. Anson Burlingame, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from China, and his a.s.sociates, Chih Ta-jin and Sun Ta-jin, of the Chinese Emba.s.sy to the United States and the European powers. Mr. Whipple responded to the toast, "The Press."]

MR. MAYOR:--One cannot attempt to respond here for the Press, without being reminded that the Press and the Chinese Emba.s.sy have been on singularly good terms from the start. To record the progress, applaud the object, extend the influence, and cordially eulogize the members of that Emba.s.sy, have been for months no inconsiderable part of the business of all newspapers; and if China antic.i.p.ated us, by some five hundred years, in the invention of printing, our Chinese guests will still admit that, in the minute account we have given both of what they have, and of what they have not, said and done, since they arrived in the country, we have carried the invention to a perfection of which they never dreamed--having not only invented printing, but invented a great deal of what we print.

But, apart from the rich material they have furnished the press in the way of news, there is something strangely alluring and inspiring to the editorial imagination in the comprehensive purpose which has prompted their mission to the civilized nations of the West. That purpose is doubly peaceful, for it includes a two-fold commerce of material products and of immaterial ideas. Probably the vastest conception which ever entered into the mind of a conqueror was that which was profoundly meditated, and, in its initial steps, practically carried out, by Alexander the Great. He was engaged in a clearly defined project of a.s.similating the populations of Europe and Asia, when, at the early age of thirty-three, he was killed--I tremble to state it here--by a too eager indulgence in an altogether too munificent public dinner!

Alexander's weapon was force, but it was at least the force of genius, and it was exerted in the service of a magnificent idea. His successors in modern times have but too often availed themselves of force divested of all ideas, except the idea of bullying or outwitting the Asiatics in a trade.

As to China, this conduct aroused an insurrection of Chinese conceit against European conceit. The Chinese were guilty of the offence of calling the representatives of the proudest and most supercilious of all civilizations, "outside barbarians"; ill.u.s.trating in this that too common conservative weakness of human nature, of holding fixedly to an opinion long after the facts which justified it have changed or pa.s.sed away. It certainly cannot be questioned that at a period which, when compared with the long date of Chinese annals, may be called recent, we were outside barbarians as contrasted with that highly civilized and ingenious people. At the time when our European ancestors were squalid, swinish, wolfish savages, digging with their hands into the earth for roots to allay the pangs of hunger, without arts, letters, or written speech, China rejoiced in an old, refined, complicated civilization; was rich, populous, enlightened, cultivated, humane; was fertile in savants, poets, moralists, metaphysicians, saints; had invented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compa.s.s, the Sage's Rule of Life; had, in one of her three State religions--that of Confucius--presented a code of morals never become obsolete; and had, in another of her State religions--that of Buddha--solemnly professed her allegiance to that equality of men, which Buddha taught twenty-four hundred years before our Jefferson was born, and had at the same time vigorously grappled with that problem of existence which our Emerson finds as insolvable now as it was then.

Well, sir, after all this had relatively changed, after the Western nations had made their marvellous advances in civilization, they were too apt to exhibit to China only their barbaric side--that is, their ravenous cupidity backed by their insolent strength. We judge, for example, of England by the poetry of Shakespeare, the science of Newton, the ethics of Butler, the religion of Taylor, the philanthropy of Wilberforce; but what poetry, science, ethics, religion, or philanthropy was she accustomed to show in her intercourse with China? Did not John Bull, in his rough methods with the Celestial Empire, sometimes literally act "like a bull in a China shop"? You remember, sir, that "intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she "roosted high"--withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the harsher side of ours.

But, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous confidence, springing from a faith in the n.o.bler qualities of our Caucasian civilization, she has changed her policy. She has learned that in the language, and on the lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English race, there is such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has nearly emerged from her isolation. And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me that, some thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in a lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified Boston "notion." He had discovered a new and expeditious way of getting to China. "All agree," he said, "that the earth revolves daily on its own axis. If you desire," he therefore contended, "to go to China, all you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait till China comes round, then let off the gas, and drop softly down." Now I will put it to you, Mr. Mayor, if you are not bound to release that philosopher from confinement, for has not his conception been realized?--has not China, to-day, unmistakably come round to us?

And now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gentleman at the head of the Emba.s.sy--a gentleman specially dear to the Press. Judging from the eagerness with which the position is sought, I am led to believe that the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a human being is, that he has once represented Boston in the National House of Representatives.

After such a distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great, must still show a sensible decline from political grace. But I trust that you will all admit, that next to the honor of representing Boston in the House of Representatives comes the honor of representing the vast Empire of China in "The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World."

Having enjoyed both distinctions, Mr. Burlingame may be better qualified than we are to discriminate between the exultant feelings which each is calculated to excite in the human breast. But we must remember that the population, all brought up on a system of universal education, of the Empire he represents, is greater than the combined population of all the nations to which he is accredited. Most Bostonians have, or think they have, a "mission"; but certainly no other Bostonian ever had such a "mission" as he; for it extends all round the planet, makes him the most universal Amba.s.sador and Minister Plenipotentiary the world ever saw; is, in fact, a "mission" from everybody to everybody, and one by which it is proposed that everybody shall be benefited. To doubt its success would be to doubt the moral soundness of Christian civilization. It implies that Christian doctrines will find no opponents provided that Christian nations set a decent example of Christianity. Its virtues herald the peaceful triumph of reason over prejudice, of justice over force, of humanity over the hatreds of cla.s.s and race, of the good of all over the selfish blindness of each, of the "fraternity" of the great Commonwealth of Nations over the insolent "liberty" of any of them to despise, oppress, and rob the rest.