The American Union Speaker Part 51

The laurel chaplet must not be torn from his brow while it is still so fresh and green, and not yet fully wreathed. His statues must not be pushed from their pedestals to be crumbled into common earth, until the centuries have had time to hallow them with their venerable stains.

This fair palace of national freedom, of which he was the master-builder, must not crumble into ruin, till it shall have given a shelter and a home, security, glory, and peace, to the children's children, and the remote posterity of those for whom he reared it with the loving ardor of his great soul and the strength of his mighty arm.

It must not, need not, shall not be. To think of it for a moment is base recreancy and intolerable shame. Forbid it, thou G.o.d of nations, and our fathers G.o.d! Forbid it, ye, my countrymen, as ye have the power--ay, ten times the power that is requisite. Only rise up again, and yet again, in your strength, and by all that is dear and sacred in the name and fame of your country's Father, swear that it shall not be, and then it cannot be.

Give anew your heart and soul and faith, unswerving fidelity, whole-hearted loyalty--your voice, your strength, your wealth all that you are or possess, to this great cause, give these unitedly, fervently, with one shout, one blow, and in perfect accord, and then it will not be. Then the mad enterprise of rebellion is crushed, and the fiend goes howling back, baffled, to his place. Then your birthright is rescued from the destroyer, And when this anniversary shall return, next year, or the next, yonder marble form in our Capitol shall exchange the look of majestic sorrow which seems to have gathered over it, for a smile of grateful joy; and those lips of stone shall move and grow fervid with words of exultant and benedictory congratulation.

Forth, then, friends and compatriots, to the work that shall save the storm-tossed ark of our liberties and our hopes.

G. Putnam.

CCLXXVI.

OUR HEROIC DEAD.

There is a history in almost every home of Ma.s.sachusetts, which will never be written; but the memory of kindred has it embalmed forever. The representatives of the pride and hope of uncounted households, departing, will return no more. The shaft of the archer, attracted by the shining mark, numbers them among his fallen. In the battles of Big Bethel, of Bull Run, of Ball's Bluff, of Roanoke Island, of Newbern, of Winchester, of Yorktown, of Williamsburg, of West Point, of Fair Oaks, the battles before Richmond from Mechanicsville to Malvern Hill, of James Island, of Baton Rouge, of Cedar Mountain, of Bull Run again, of Chantilly of Washington in North Carolina, of South Mountain, of Antietam, of Fredericksburg, of Goldsborough,--through all the capricious fortunes of the war, the regiments of Ma.s.sachusetts have borne her flag by the side of the banner of the Union. And, beyond the Atlantic slope, every battle-field has drunk the blood of her sons, nurtured among her hills and sands, from which in adventurous manhood they turned their footsteps to the West. Officers and enlisted men have vied with each other in deeds of valor. This flag, whose standard-bearer, shot down in battle, tossed it from his dying hand nerved by undying patriotism, has been caught by the comrade, who in his turn has closed his eyes for the last time upon its starry folds as another hero-martyr clasped the splintered staff and rescued the symbol at once of country and of their blood-bought fame.

How can fleeting words of human praise gild the record of their glory? Our eyes suffused with tears, and blood retreating to the heart, stirred with unwonted thrill, speak with the eloquence of nature, uttered but unexpressed. From the din of the battle, they have pa.s.sed to the peace of eternity. Farewell! warrior, citizen, patriot, lover, friend,--whether in the humbler ranks or bearing the sword of official power, whether private, captain, surgeon, or chaplain, for all these in the heady fight have pa.s.sed away,--Hail! and Farewell! Each hero must sleep serenely on the field where he fell in a cause "sacred to liberty and the rights of mankind."

"Worn by no wasting, lingering pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way."

J. A. Andrew.

CCLXXVII.

HONOR TO OUR HEROES.

The heart swells with unwonted emotion when we remember our sons and brothers, whose constant valor has sustained on the field, during nearly three years of war, the cause of our country, of civilization, and liberty.

Our volunteers have represented Ma.s.sachusetts, during the year just ended, on almost every field and in every department of the army where our flag has been unfurled. At Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner, at Chickamauga, Knoxville, and Chattanooga,--under Hooker, and Meade, and Banks, and Gillmore, and Rosecrans, Burnside, and Grant; in every scene of danger and of duty, along the Atlantic and the Gulf, on the Tennessee, the c.u.mberland, the Mississippi and the Rio Grande,--under Dupont and Dahlgren, and Foote, and Farragut and Porter,--the sons of Ma.s.sachusetts have borne their part, and paid the debt of patriotism and valor. Ubiquitous as the stock they descend from, national in their opinions and universal in their sympathies, they have fought shoulder to shoulder with men of all sections and of every extraction. On the ocean, on the rivers, on the land, on the heights where they thundered down from the clouds of Lookout Mountain the defiance of the skies, they have graven with their swords a record imperishable,

The Muse herself demands the lapse of silent years to soften, by the influences of Time, her too keen and poignant realization of the scenes of War--the pathos, the heroism, the fierce joy, the grief of battle. But, during the ages to come, she will brood over their memory. Into the hearts of her consecrated priests will breathe the inspirations of lofty and undying Beauty, Sublimity and Truth, in all the glowing forms of speech, of literature and plastic art. By the homely traditions of the fireside--by the head-stones in the church-yard consecrated to those whose farms repose far off in rude graves by the Rappahannock, or sleep beneath the sea,--embalmed in the memories of succeeding generations of parents and children, the heroic dead will live on in immortal youth. By their names, their character, their service, their fate, their glory, they cannot fail:--

"They never fail who die In a great cause; the block may soak their gore; Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs Be strung to city gates and castle walls; But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years Elapse and others share as dark a doom, They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct The world at last to Freedom."

The edict of Nantes maintaining the religious liberty of the Huguenots gave l.u.s.tre to the fame of Henry the Great, whose name will gild the pages of philosophic history after mankind may have forgotten the martial prowess and the white plume of Navarre. The Great Proclamation of Liberty will lift the Ruler who uttered it, our Nation and our Age, above all vulgar destiny.

The bell which rang out the Declaration of independence, has found at last a voice articulate, to "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof." It has been heard across oceans, and has modified the sentiments of cabinets and kings. The people of the Old World have heard it, and their hearts stop to catch the last whisper of its echoes.

The poor slave has heard it, and with bounding joy, tempered by the mystery of religion, he worships and adores. The waiting Continent has heard it, and already foresees the fulfilled prophecy, when she will sit "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation."

J. A. Andrew.

CCLXXVIII.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONTEST.

I hold this armed contest to be a great historical movement, and to have high moral interest and significance because it is to determine the character of the inst.i.tutions under which we, and those who come after us, are to live. You are not merely sustaining the administration of President Lincoln against unlawful combinations, but you are fighting on the side of law, order, government, civilization and progress. The result of this war is to settle the question whether they who are hereafter to inhabit this magnificent country are or are not to have that primal blessing of a good government, without which the most abundant material resources are as valueless as scientific books or philosophical installments would be among the most barbarous tribes of Africa or Australia. Surely there cannot be imagined a war more worthy of calling forth all the energies of a great people than this.

And if I am asked to define my meaning more distinctly and precisely, I say that the questions now submitted to the stern arbitrament of war are substantially these: Is the Const.i.tution of the United States a compact or a law? Is this Union a Commonwealth, a State, or is it merely a confederacy or a copartnership? Is there a right of secession in the separate States, singly or collectively, other than the right of revolution? These are momentous questions, and if they can be settled in no other way than by a war, then such a war is worth the price it costs, great as that is. For if the right of secession be fairly and logically deducible from the Const.i.tution--if any State, upon its own mere motion, with cause or without cause, can withdraw from the Union as a partner may dissolve a copartnership--then the Const.i.tution itself is a stupendous failure, the men who made it were bungling journeymen and not master-mechanics, and to inst.i.tutions of our country, so far from deserving our grat.i.tude and admiration, are worthy only of our contempt. The hour has come, and the men have come, to settle these issues, fraught with such vital consequences to unborn millions. The dusky clouds, surcharged with electric fires, that stand front to front in mid air and darken the heavens with their power, have been long in gathering; let the storm continue till the air is cleared--and no longer.

I want to have it now determined that for all future time any State, or any cl.u.s.ter of States, that may attempt to coerce or bully a legal and const.i.tutional majority by the threat of secession, shall be met with the answer: "You don't go out of this Union unless you are strong enough to fight your way out." I want to have the armed heel of the country crush the serpent head of secession, now and forever, so that it shall never again glare with its baleful eyes, or brandish its venomous tongue. Let not the fate and fortunes of this glorious country be committed to the keeping of a clumsy, misshapen raft, compacted of twenty-four or thirty-four logs, good enough to float down a river, but sure to go to pieces when it gets into deep water; Let let them be embarked on board a goodly ship, well found, well fastened, well manned--in which every timber and plank has been so fashioned as to contribute to the beauty and strength of the whole fabric, with a good seaman at the helm, the Const.i.tution in the binnacle, and the stars and stripes at the masthead. When the time of my departure shall come, let me feel, let me know, that I leave those whom I love under the protection of a government good enough to secure the affection of its subjects, and strong enough to enforce their obedience. Remember that if a strong government be sometimes bad, a weak government is never good.

G. S. Hillard.

CCLXXIX.

THE MILITARY CAPACITY OF THE PEOPLE.

We have cause for grat.i.tude in the military capacity which our people have developed. We had no great standing armies. We had but a single thoroughly furnished military school. There was no military profession proper, inviting young men on the threshold of life to choose the trade of arms. A soldier's garb was a rare spectacle, and every child ran to the window to gaze at the pa.s.sing glitter. Whence should come our fighting men if the bugle should blow? You must have men before you have soldiers. Our inst.i.tutions raised men. Proverbially the Yankee can turn his hand to anything. He likes to do well what he undertakes. He has a pride in showing himself equal to his position. Above all, he has force of personal character. When a Northern regiment makes a charge, it is not merely the weight of so much physical humanity; there goes weight of character with it. Why, there is an accomplished schoolmaster there, and the best blacksmith of the village, and a solid merchant, and a dexterous lawyer, and the handiest coachman of the stable, and a well known stage-driver on a prominent public route, and a butcher with an unerring cleaver, and a jolly tar whose vessel never missed stays with his hand at the wheel; do you suppose that these men are going to charge like so many nameless Hessians?

Why, it is a personal matter with every one of them. They go in under orders, to be sure, but they have not lost the sense of individual responsibility. The thing is to be well done because they are there. I know it, my friends, the personal character of our recruits lends weight and irresistibleness to them as soldiers.

There have been no braver men, no stouter soldiers, in all war's red annals, than these armed clerks, farmers, college boys, and their comrades of every peaceful calling. Each community keeps the name of some young hero, n.o.bler than Spartan mothers ever welcomed on his shield. Redder blood never stained the earth, than those full libations our new mustered ranks have poured out for union, law, and liberty. There has been no fighting in the b.l.o.o.d.y past of human story, where muzzle to muzzle and steel to steel, bold hearts have more truly played the man, than in those battles of two years past in which our citizen armies have saved our nationality. Never have the hardships of the camp, the march, the field, and the trenches, and the merciless privations of imprisonment been more heroically endured. It was not needed--and our President said it well--to consecrate the sacred acres of Gettysburg; that was already done by the deep baptism that had laved those hills, and not that field only, but all the sands and sods and waves our boys' brave blood have crimsoned. No land beneath the blue heavens was ever kept by stouter living bulwarks; no mourners ever had a n.o.bler heritage than those that mourn our soldier-dead.

A. L. Stone.

CCLx.x.x.

LIMIT TO HUMAN DOMINION.

G.o.d has given the land to man, but the sea He has reserved to Himself. "The sea is His, and He made it." He has given man "no inheritance in it; no, not so much as to set his foot on." If he enters its domain, he enters it as a pilgrim and a stranger. He may pa.s.s over it, but he can have no abiding place upon it. He cannot build his house, nor so much as pitch his tent within it. He cannot mark it with his lines, nor subdue it to his uses, nor rear his monuments upon it. It steadfastly refuses to own him as its lord and master. Its depths do not tremble at his coming. Its waters do not flee when he appeareth. All the strength of all his generations is to it as a feather before the whirlwind; and all the noise of his commerce, and all the thunder of his navies, it can hush in a moment within the silence of its impenetrable abysses. Whole armies have gone down into that unfathomable darkness, and not a floating bubble marks the place of their disappearing. If all the populations of the world, from the beginning of time, were cast into its depths the smooth surface of its oblivion would close over them in an hour; and if all the cities of the earth, and all the structures and monuments ever reared by man were heaped together over that grave for a tombstone, it would not break the surface of the deep or lift back their memory to the light of the sun and the breath of the upper air.

The sea would roll its billows in derision, a thousand fathoms deep, above the topmost stone of that mighty sepulchre. The patient earth submits to the rule of man, and the mountains bow their rocky heads before the hammer of his power and the blast of his terrible enginery. The sea cares not for him; not so much as a single hair's breadth can its level be lowered or lifted by all the art, and all the effort, and all the enginery of all the generations of time. He comes and goes upon it, and a moment after it is as if he had never been there. He may engrave his t.i.tles upon the mountain top, and quarry his signature into the foundations of the globe, but he cannot write his name on the sea. And thus, by its material uses and its spiritual voices, does the sea ever speak to us, to tell up that its builder and maker is G.o.d. He hewed its channels in the deep, and drew its barriers upon the stand, and cast its belted waters around the world. He fitted it to the earth and the sky, and poised them skilfully, the one against the other, when He "measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighted the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." He gave the sea its wonderful laws, and armed it with its wonderful powers, and set it upon its wonderful work.

"O'er all its breadth His wisdom walks, On all its waves His goodness shines."

L. Swain.

CCLx.x.xI.

THE BATTLE OF CIVILIZATIONS.

Our war is only an appeal from the nineteenth century of freedom and ballots to the system of the sixteenth century. The old conflict,--a new weapon, that is all. The South thought because once, twice, thrice, the spaniel North had gotten down on her knees, that this time, also, poisoned by cotton-dust, she would kiss her feet. But instead of that, for the first time in our history, the North has flung the insult back, and said: "By the Almighty, the Mississippi is mine, and I will have it." Now, when shall come peace? Out of this warlike conflict, when shall come peace? Just as it came in the conflict of parties and discussion. Whenever one civilization gets the uppermost positively, then there will be peace, and never till then.

There is no new thing under the sun. The light shed upon our future is the light of experience. Seventy years have not left us ignorant of what the aristocracy of the South means and plans. The South needs to rule, or she goes by the board. She is a wise power. I respect her for it. She knows that she needs to rule. What does Mr. Jefferson Davis plan? Do you suppose he plans for an imaginary line to divide South Carolina from New York and Ma.s.sachusetts? What good would that do? An imaginary line would not shut out ideas. But she must bar out those ideas. That is the programme in the South. He imagines he can broaden his base by allying himself to a weaker race. He says: "I will join marriage with the weak races of Mexico and the Southwest, and then, perhaps, I can draw to my side the Northwest, with its interests as an agricultural population, naturally allied to me, and not to the Northeast, with its tariff set of States." And he thinks thus, a strong, quiet, slaveholding empire, he will bar New England and New York out in the cold, and will have comparative peace.

But if he bar New England out in the cold, what then? She is still there.

And give it only the fulcrum of Plymouth Rock an idea will upheave the continent. Now, Davis knows that better than we do,--a great deal better.

His plan, therefore is to mould an empire so strong, so broad, that it can control New England and New York. He is not only to found a slaveholding despotism, but he is to make it so strong that, by traitors among us, and hemming us in by power, he is to cripple, confine, break down, the free discussion of these Northern States. Unless he does that, he is not safe.

He knows it. Now I do not say he will succeed, but I tell you what I think is the plan of a statesmanlike leader of this effort. To make slavery safe, he must mould Ma.s.sachusetts, not into being a slaveholding Commonwealth, but into being a silent, unprotesting Commonwealth; that Maryland and Virginia, the Carolinas, and Arkansas, may be quiet, peaceable populations.

He is a wise man. He knows what he wants, and he wants it with a will, like Julius Caesar of old. He has gathered every dollar and every missile south of Mason and Dixon's line to hurl a thunderbolt that shall serve his purpose. And if he does achieve a separate confederacy, and shall be able to bribe the West into neutrality, much less alliance, a dangerous time, and a terrible battle, will these Eastern States have. For they will never make peace. The Yankee who comes out of Cromwell's bosom will fight his Naseby a hundred years, if it last so long, but he will conquer. In other words, Davis will try to rule. If he conquers, he is to bring, in his phrase, Carolina to Ma.s.sachusetts. And if we conquer, what is our policy?

To carry Ma.s.sachusetts to Carolina. In other words, carry Northern civilization all over the South. It is a contest between civilizations.

Which ever conquers supersedes the other.

W. Phillips.

CCLx.x.xII.

SECESSION THE DEATH OF SLAVERY.

Severed from us, South Carolina must have a government. You see now a reign of terror,--threats to raise means. That can only last a day. Some system must give a support to a government. It is an expensive luxury. You must lay taxes to support it. Where will you levy your taxes? They must rest on productions. Productions are the result of skilled labor. You must educate your laborer, if you would have the means for carrying on a government.

Despotisms are cheap; free governments are a dear luxury,--the machinery is complicated and expensive. If the South wants a theoretical republic, she must pay for it, she must have a basis for taxation. How will she pay for it? Why, Ma.s.sachusetts, with a million workmen,--men, women, and children,--the little feet that can just toddle bringing chips from the wood-pile.--Ma.s.sachusetts only pays her own board and lodging, and lays by about four per cent a year. And South Carolina, with one half idlers, and the other half slaves, a slave doing only half the work of a freeman,--only one quarter of the population actually at work, how much do you suppose she lays up? Lays up a loss! By all the laws of political economy, she lays up bankruptcy; of course she does! Put her out, and let her see how sheltered she has been from the laws of trade by the Union! The free labor of the North pays her plantation patrol; we pay for her government, we pay for her postage, and for everything else. Launch her out, and let her see if she can make the year's ends meet! And when she tries, she must educate her labor in order to get the basis for taxation. Educate slaves! Make a locomotive with its furnaces of open wirework, fill them with anthracite coal, and when you have raised it to a white heat, mount and drive it through a powder magazine, and you are safe, compared with a slaveholding community educating its slaves. But South Carolina must do it, in order to get the basis for taxation to support an independent government. The moment she does it, she removes the safeguard of slavery.