been deluged, very few have produced any perceptible effect on the mass of
human character. By far the greater part have been, even by their
contemporaries, unnoticed and unknown. Not many a one has made its little
mark upon that generation that produced it, though it sunk with that
generation to utter forgetfulness. But, after the ceaseless toil of six
thousand years, how few have been the works, the adamantine basis of whose
reputation has stood unhurt amid the fluctuations of time, and whose
impression can be traced through successive centuries, on the history of
our species!
When, however, such a work appears, its effects are absolutely
incalculable; and such a work, you are aware, is the Iliad of Homer. Who
can estimate the results produced by the incomparable efforts of a single
mind? Who can tell what Greece owes to this first-born of song? Her
breathing marbles, her solemn temples, her unrivalled eloquence, and her
matchless verse, all point us to that transcendent genius, who, by the very
splendor of his own effulgence, woke the human intellect from the slumber
of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the artist; it was Homer who
inspired the poet; it was Homer who thundered in the Senate; and, more than
all, it was Homer who was sung by the people; and hence a nation was cast
into the mould of one mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the
region of taste, the birthplace of the arts.
But, considered simply as an intellectual production, who will compare the
poems of Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?
Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and pathos which shall vie with
the narrative of Moses, or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the
Proverbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade away before the
conceptions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John? But I cannot pursue
this comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dictated
the Iliad, and to those other mighty intellects on whom the light of the
holy oracles never shined.
If, then, so great results have flowed from this one effort of a single
mind, what may we not expect from the combined efforts of several, at least
his equals in power over the human heart? If that one genius, though
groping in the thick darkness of absurd idolatry, wrought so glorious a
transformation in the character of his countrymen, what may we not look for
from the universal dissemination of those writings on whose authors was
poured the full splendor of eternal truth? If unassisted human nature,
spell-bound by a childish mythology, have done so much, what may we not
hope for from the supernatural efforts of preeminent genius, which spake as
it was moved by the Holy Ghost?
Dr. Wayland.
LXXV.
ON ADMITTING CALIFORNIA TO THE UNION.
A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own. To-day,
she is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than several of
the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and
populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating
the dissolution of the Union itself. No wonder if we are perplexed with
ever-changing embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by
ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the
ever-augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!
SHALL CALIFORNIA BE RECEIVED? For myself, upon my individual judgment and
conscience, I answer--yes. Let California come in. Every new State, whether
she come from the east or the west every new State, coming from whatever
part of the continent she may, is always welcome. But, California, that
comes from the clime where the west dies away into the rising
east,--California, that bounds at once the empire and the
continent,--California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of
freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome.
The question now arises, shall this one great people, having a common
origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests,
sympathies and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic;
or shall it be broken into two conflicting, and, probably, hostile nations
or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding
on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and
capabilities. The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this;
which, embracing all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and
traversed by wide expanding lakes and long branching rivers, offers
supplies on the Atlantic shores to the overcrowded nations of Europe, and,
on the Pacific coast, intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nations
thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources
unequaled, if endowed, also with moral energies adequate to the achievement
of great enterprises, and flavored with a government adapted to their
character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which, alone,
is real empire.
We think we may claim to have inherited physical and intellectual vigor,
courage, invention, and enterprise; and the systems of education prevailing
among us, open to all the stores of human science and art. The Old World
and the Past were allotted by Providence to the pupilage of mankind. The
New World and the Future seem to have been appointed for the maturity of
mankind, with the development of self-government, operating in obedience to
reason and judgment.
We may, then, reasonably hope for greatness, felicity, and renown,
excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, standing firmly on the
continent, we lose not our grasp on either ocean. Whether a destiny so
magnificent would be only partially defeated, or whether it would be
altogether lost by a relaxation of the grasp, surpasses our wisdom to
determine, and happily it is not important to be determined. It is enough,
if we agree, that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just,
ought not in any degree to be disappointed. And now, it seems to me, that
the perpetual unity of the empire hangs on the decision of this day and
this hour.
California is already a State,--a complete and fully appointed State. She
never again can be less than that. She never again can be a province or a
colony; nor can she be made to shrink or shrivel into the proportions of a
federal dependent territory. California, then, henceforth and forever, must
be, what she is now,--a State.
The question whether she shall be one of the United States of America, has
depended on her and on us. Her election has been made. Our consent alone
remains suspended; and that consent must be pronounced now or never.
W. H. Seward.
LXXVI.
A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC.
Mr. President, I go for a national highway from the Mississippi to the
Pacific. And I go against all schemes of individuals or of companies, and
especially those who come here and ask of the Congress of the United States
to give themselves and their assigns the means of making a road, and taxing
the people for the use of it. If they should make it, they are to tax us
for the use of it--tax the people eight or ten millions a year for using a
road which their own money built. A fine scheme, that! But they would never
build it, neither themselves nor their assigns. It would all end in
stock-jobbing. I repudiate the whole idea, sir. I go for a national
highway--no stock-jobbing.
We find all the localities of the country precisely such as a national
central road would require. The Bay of San Francisco, the finest in the
world, is in the centre of the western coast of North America; it is
central, and without a rival. It will accommodate the commerce of that
coast, both north and south, up to the frozen regions, down to the torrid
zone. It is central in that respect. The commerce of the broad Pacific
Ocean will centre there. The commerce of Asia will centre there. Follow the
same latitude across the country, and it strikes the centre of the valley
of the Mississippi. It strikes the Mississippi near the confluence of all
the great waters which concentrate in the valley of the Mississippi. It
comes to the centre of the valley;--it comes to St. Louis. Follow the
prolongation of that central line, and you find it cutting the heart of the
great States between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean,
Illinois, Indiana Ohio a part of Virginia, Kentucky, and
Pennsylvania,--they are all traversed or touched by that great central
line.
We own the country, from sea to sea, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
upon a breadth equal to the length of the Mississippi, and embracing the
whole temperate zone. Three thousand milks across, and half that breadth,
is the magnificent parallelogram of our domain. We can run a national
central road through and through, the whole distance, under our flag and
under our laws. Military reasons require us to make it; for troops and
munitions must go there. Political reasons require us to make it; it will
be a chain of union between the Atlantic and Pacific States. Commercial
reasons demand it from us; and here I touch a boundless field, dazzling and
bewildering the imagination from its vastness and importance. The trade of
the Pacific Ocean, of this western coast of North America, and of eastern
Asia, will all take its track; and not only for ourselves, but for
posterity.
Sir, in no instance has the great Asiatic trade failed to carry the nation
or the people which possessed it to the highest pinnacle of wealth and
power, and with it, to the highest attainments of letters, art, and
science. And so will it continue to be. An American road to India, through
the heart of our country will revive upon its line all the wonders of which
we have read, and eclipse them. The western wilderness, from the Pacific to
the Mississippi, will spring into life under its touch. A long line of
cities will grow up. Existing cities will take a new start. The state of
the world calls for a new road to India, and it is our destiny to give
it--the last and greatest. Let us act up to the greatness of the occasion,
and show ourselves worthy of the extraordinary circumstances in which we
are placed, by securing, while we can, an American road to India, central
and national, for ourselves and our posterity, now and hereafter, for
thousands of years to come.
T. H. Benton.
LXXVII.
ADDRESS TO POLISH EXILES AT LONDON.
It is eighty-one years since Poland first was quartered by a nefarious act
of combined royalty, which the Swiss Tacitus, John Müller, well
characterized by saying that "God permitted the act, to show the morality
of kings;" and it is twenty-four years since down-trodden Poland made the
greatest--not the last--manifestation of her imperishable vitality, which
the cabinets of Europe were either too narrow-minded to understand, or too
corrupt to appreciate. Eighty-one years of still unretributed crime, and
twenty-four years of misery and exile! It is a long time to suffer, and not
to despair.
And all along this time, you, proscribed patriots of Poland, were
suffering, and did not despair. You stood up before the world, a living
statue, with unquenchable life-flame of patriotism streaming through its
petrified limbs; you stood up a protest of eternal right against the sway
of imperious might; a "Mene Tekel Upharsin," written in letters of burning
blood on the walls of overweening despotism. Time, misery, and sorrow have
thinned the ranks of your scattered Israel; you have carried your dead to
the grave, and those who survive went on to suffer and to hope. Wherever
oppressed Freedom reared a banner, you rallied around;--the living statue
changed to a fighting hero. Many of yours fell; and, when crime triumphed
once more over virtue and right, you resumed the wandering exile's staff
and did not despair. Many among you, who were young when they last saw the
sun rise over Poland's mountains and plains, have your hair whitened and
your strength broken with age, anguish, and misery; but the patriotic heart
kept the freshness of its youth; it is young in love for Poland, young in
aspirations for freedom, young in hope, and youthfully fresh in
determination to break Poland's chains.
What a rich source of noble deeds patriotism must be, that has given you
strength to suffer so much and never to despair! You have given a noble
example to all of us,--your younger brother in the family of exiles. When
the battle of Cannæ was lost, and Hannibal was measuring by bushels the
rings of the fallen Roman knights, the Senate of Rome voted thanks to
Consul Terentius Varro for "not having despaired of the Commonwealth."
Proscribed patriots of Poland! I thank you that you have not despaired of
resurrection and of liberty. The time draws nigh when the oppressed nations
will call their aggressors to a last account; and the millions of freemen,
in the fulness of their right, and their self-conscious strength, will
class judgment on arrogant conquerors, privileged murderers, and perjured
kings. In that supreme trial, the oppressed nations will stand one for all,
and all for one.
L. Kossuth.
LXXVIII.
KOSSUTH ON HIS CREDENTIALS.
Let ambitious fools,--let the pigmies who live on the scanty food of
personal envy, when the very earth quakes beneath their feet; let even the
honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that
thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party
interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a
water-glass;--let those who believe the weather to be calm, because they
have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads in pillows
of domestic comfort, do not hear Satan sweeping in a hurricane over the
earth; let envy, ambition, blindness, and the pettifogging wisdom of small
times,--let all these artistically investigate the question of my official
capacity, or the nature of my public authority; let them scrupulously
discuss the immense problem whether I still possess, or possess no longer,
the title of my once-Governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss
the limits of my commission, as representative of Hungary. I pity all such
frog and mouse fighting.
I claim no official capacity,--no public authority, no
representation;--boast of no commission, of no written and sealed
credentials. I am nothing but what my generous friend, the senator from
Michigan, has justly styled me, "a private and banished man." But, in that
capacity I have a nobler credential for my mission than all the clerks of
the world can write,--the credential that I am a "man;" the credential that
I am a "patriot;" the credential that I love with all sacrificing devotion
my oppressed fatherland and liberty; the credential that I hate tyrants,
and have sworn everlasting hostility to them; the credential that I feel
the strength to do good service to the cause of freedom; good service, as
perhaps few men can do, because I have the iron will, in this my breast, to
serve faithfully devotedly, indefatigably, that noble cause.
I have the credential that I trust to God in heaven, to justice on earth;
that I offend no laws, but cling to the protection of the laws. I have the
credential of my people's undeniable confidence and its unshaken faith; to
my devotion, to my manliness, to my honesty, and to my patriotism; which
faith I will honestly answer without ambition, without interest, as
faithfully as ever, but more skillfully, because schooled by adversities.
And I have the credential of the justice of the cause I plead, and of the
wonderful sympathy which, not my person, but that cause, has met, and
meets, in two hemispheres. These are my credentials, and nothing else. To
whom this is enough, he will help me, so far as the law permits and it is
his good pleasure. To whom these credentials are not sufficient, let him
look for a better accredited man.
LXXIX.
THE IDES OF MARCH.
To-day is the fourth anniversary of the Revolution in Hungary.
Anniversaries of revolutions are almost always connected with the
recollections of some patriot's death,--fallen on that day, like the
Spartans at Thermopylæ, martyrs of devotion to their fatherland.
Almost in every country there is some proud cemetery, or some modest
tombstone, adorned on such a day by a garland of evergreen,--the pious
offering of patriotic tenderness. I passed the last night in a sleepless
dream; and my soul wandered on the magnetic wings of the past, home to my
beloved, bleeding land. And I saw, in the dead of the night, dark veiled
shapes, with the paleness of eternal grief upon their brow--but terrible in
the fearless silence of that grief--gliding over the churchyards of Hungary
and kneeling down to the head of the graves, and depositing the pious
tribute of green and cypress upon them; and, after a short prayer, rising
with clenched fists and gnashing teeth, and then stealing away tearless!
and silent as they came,--stealing away, because the bloodbounds of my
country's murder lurks from every corner on that night, and on this day,
and leads to prison those who dare to show a pious remembrance to the
beloved. To-day, a smile on the lips of a Magyar is taken for a crime of
defiance to tyranny; and a tear in his eye is equivalent to a revolt. And
yet I have seen, with the eye of my home-wandering soul, thousands
performing the work of patriotic piety.
And I saw more. When the pious offerers stole away, I saw the honored dead
half risen from their tombs, looking to the offerings, and whispering
gloomily, "Still a cypress, and still no flower of joy! Is there still the
chill of winter and the gloom of night over thee, Fatherland? Are we not
yet revenged?" And the sky of the east reddened suddenly, and quivered
with bloody flames; and from the far, far west, a lightning flashed like a
star-spangled stripe, and within its light a young eagle mounted and soared
towards the quivering flames of the east; and as he drew near, upon his
approaching, the flames changed into a radiant morning sun, and a voice
from above was heard in answer to the question of the dead:
"Sleep yet a short while; mine is the revenge. I will make the stars of the
west the sun of the east; and when ye next awake, ye will find the flower
of joy upon your cold bed." And the dead took the twig of cypress, the sign
of resurrection, into their bony hands, and lay down.
Such was the dream of my waking soul. And I prayed; and such was my prayer:
"Father, if thou deemest me worthy, take the cup from my people, and give
it in their stead to me." And there was a whisper around me like the word
"Amen." Such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution
all. However, none of those dead whom I saw, fell on the 15th of March.
They were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of March.
The anniversary of our Revolution has not the stain of a single drop of
blood.
L. Kossuth.
LXXX.
THE SAME CONTINUED.
We, the elect of the nation, sat on that morning busily but quietly, in the
legislative hall of old Presburg, and, without any flood of eloquence,
passed our laws in short words, that the people shall be free; the burdens
of feudalism shall cease; the peasant shall become free proprietor; that
equality of duties, equality of rights, shall be the fundamental law; and
civil, political, social, and religious liberty shall be the common
property of all the people, whatever tongue it may speak, or in whatever
church pray; and that a national ministry shall execute these laws, and
guard with its responsibility the chartered, ancient independence of our
Fatherland.
Two days before, Austria's brave people in Vienna had broken its yoke; and
summing up despots in the person of their tool, old Metternich, drove him
away; and the Hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial
crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with
yard-long letters, the words, "Constitution" and "Free Press" upon Vienna's
walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the
people knows no falsehood.
On the 14th, I announced the tidings from Vienna to our Parliament at
Presburg. The announcement was swiftly carried by the great democrat, the
steam-engine, upon the billows of the Danube, down to old Buda and to young
Pesth, and while we, in the House of Representatives, passed the laws of
Justice and freedom, the people of Pesth rose in peaceful but majestic
manifestation, declaring that the people should be free. At this
manifestation all the barriers raised by violence against the laws, fell of
themselves. Not a drop of blood was shed. A man who was in prison because
he had dared to write a book, was carried home in triumph through the
streets. The people armed itself as a National Guard, the windows were
illuminated and bon fires burnt, and when these tidings returned back to
Presburg, blended with the cheers from Vienna, they warmed the chill of our
House of Lords, who readily agreed to the laws we pro posed. And there was
rejoicing throughout the land. For the first time for centuries the farmer
awoke with the pleasant feeling that his time was now his own--for the
first time went out to till his field with the consoling thought that the
ninth part of his harvest will not be taken by the landlord, nor the tenth
by the bishop. Both had fully resigned their feudal portion, and the air
was brightened by the lustre of freedom, and the very soil budding into a
blooming paradise. Such is the memory of the 15th of March, 1848.
L. Kossuth.
LXXXI.
THE SAME CONTINUED.
One year later, there was blood, but also victory, over the land; the
people because free, fought like demi-gods. Seven great victories we had
gained in that month of March. On this very day, the remains of the first
ten thousand Russians fled over the frontiers of Transylvania, to tell at
home how heavily the blow falls from free Hungarian arms. It was in that
very month, that one evening I lay down in the bed, whence in the morning
Windischgrätz had risen; and from the battle-field I hastened to the
Congress at Debreczin, to tell the Representatives of the nation "It is
time to declare our national independence, because it is really achieved.
The Hapsburgs have not power to contradict it more." Nor had they.
But Russia, having experienced by the test of its first interference, that
there was no power on earth caring about the most flagrant violation of the
laws of nations, and seeing by the silence of Great Britain and of the
United States, that she may dare to violate those laws, our heroes had to
meet a fresh force of nearly two hundred thousand Russians. No power
cheered our bravely-won independence by diplomatic recognition; not even the
United States, though they always professed their principle to be that they
recognize every de facto government. We therefore had the right to expect a
speedy recognition from the United States. Our struggle rose to European
height, but we were left alone to fight for the world; and we had no arms
for the new battalions, gathering up in thousands with resolute hearts and
empty hands.
The recognition of our independence being withheld, commercial intercourse
for procuring arms abroad was impossible,--the gloomy feeling of entire
forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the
secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those
common laws of nations was achieved, and. the code of "nature and of
nature's God" was drowned in Hungary's blood. And I who on the 15th of
March, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious liberty
triumphing in my native land,--who, on the 15th of March, 1849, saw this
freedom consolidated by victories,--one year later, on the 15th of March,
1850, was on my sorrowful way to an Asiatic prison.
L. Kossuth.
LXXXII.
THE SAME CONCLUDED.