of March, 1851, that the generous interposition of the United States cast
the first ray of hope into the dead night of my captivity. And on the 15th
of March, 1852, the fourth anniversary of our Revolution, guided by the
bounty of Providence, here I stand, in the very heart of your immense
Republic; no longer a captive, but free in the land of the free, not only
not desponding, but firm in confidence of the future, because raised in
spirits by a swelling sympathy in the home of the brave; still a poor, a
homeless exile, but not without some power to do good to my country and to
the cause of liberty, as my very persecution proves. Such is the history of
the 15th of March, in my humble life. Who can tell what will be the
character of the next 15th of March?
Nearly two thousand years ago. the first Cæsar found a Brutus on the Ides
or 15th of March. May be that the Ides of March, 1853, will see the last of
the Cæsars fall under the avenging might of a thousand-handed Brutus--the
name of whom is "the people"--inexorable at last after it has been so
long generous. The seat of the Cæsars was first in the south, then from the
south to the east, from the east to the west, and from the west to the
north. That is their last abode. None was lasting yet. Will the last, and
worst, prove luckier? No, it will not. While the seat of the Cæsars was
tossed around and thrown back to the icy north, a new world became the
cradle of a new humanity, where, in spite of the Cæsars the Genius of
Freedom raised (let us hope) an everlasting throne. The Cæsar of the north
and the Genius of Freedom have not place enough upon this earth for both of
them; one must yield and be crushed beneath the heels of the other. Which
is it? Which shall yield? America may decide.
L. Kossuth.
LXXXIII.
THE MAYFLOWER AND THE PILGRIMS.
Methinks I see it now that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower
of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and
bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand
misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and
weeks, and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings
them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily
supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored
prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in
fury before the raging tempest, in their scarcely seaworthy vessel. The
awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem
straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship
leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and
settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with
deadening weight, against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from
these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at
last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak
and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on
the charity of their shipmaster for a draught of beer on board, drinking
nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by
hostile tribes.
Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human
probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell
me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by
the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New
England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on
which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant
coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the
deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the
parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless
heads of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it
disease? was it the tomahawk? was it the deep malady of blighted hope, a
ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the
recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea?--was it some, or all
of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy
fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all
combined, were able to blast this bud of lope? Is it possible, that from a
beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of
pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a
reality so important, a promise yet to be fulfilled so glorious?
E. Everett.
LXXXIV.
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
After years of fruitless and heart-sick solicitation, after offering, in
effect, to this monarchy and to that monarch, the gift of a hemisphere. the
great discoverer touches upon a partial success. He succeeds, not in
enlisting the sympathy of his countrymen at Genoa and Venice, for a brave
brother-sailor,--not in giving a new direction to the spirit of maritime
adventure, which had so long prevailed in Portugal,--not in stimulating
the commercial thrift of Henry the Seventh, or the pious ambition of the
Catholic king. His sorrowful perseverance touches the heart of a noble
princess, worthy the throne which she adorned. The New World, which was
just escaping the subtle kingcraft of Ferdinand, was saved to Spain by the
womanly compassion of Isabella.
It is truly melancholy, however, to contemplate the wretched equipment, for
which the most powerful princess of Christendom was ready to pledge her
jewels. Floating castles will soon be fitted out to convey the miserable
natives of Africa to the golden shores of America; towering galleons will
be despatched to bring home the guilty treasures to Spain. But three small
vessels, one of which was without a deck, and neither of them, probably,
exceeding the capacity of a pilot-boat, and even these impressed into the
public service, composed the expedition fitted out under royal patronage,
to realize that magnificent conceptions in which the creative mind of
Columbus had planted the germs of a new world.
No chapter of romance equals the interest of this expedition. The most
fascinating of the works of fiction which have issued from the modern press
have, to my taste, no attraction compared with the pages in which the first
voyage of Columbus is described by Robertson, and still more by our own
Irving and Prescott, the last two enjoying the advantage over the Scottish
historian of possessing the lately discovered Journals and letters of
Columbus himself. The departure from Palos, where, a few days before, he
had begged a morsel of bread and a cup of water for his wayworn child,--his
final farewell to the Old World at the Canaries,--his entrance upon the
trade winds, which then, for the first time, filled a European sail,--the
portentous variation of the needle, never before observed, the fearful
course westward and westward, day after day, and night after night, over
the unknown ocean, the mutinous and ill-appeased crew; at length, when hope
had turned to despair in every heart but one, the tokens of land,--the
cloud-banks on the western horizon,--the logs of drift-wood,--the fresh
shrub, floating with its leaves and berries,--the flocks of
land-birds,--the shoals of fish that inhabit shallow water, the
indescribable smell of the shore,--the mysterious presentiment that seems
ever to go before a great event, and finally, on that ever-memorable night
of the 12th of October, 1492, the moving light seen by the sleepless eye of
the great discoverer himself, from the deck of the Santa Maria, and in the
morning the real, undoubted land, swelling up from the bosom of the deep,
with its plains, and hills, and forests, and rocks, and streams, and
strange, new races of men;--these are incidents in which the authentic
history of the discovery of our Continent excels the specious wonders of
romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines
the flickering taper.
E. Everett.
LXXXV.
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.
We dismiss them not to the chambers of forgetfulness and death. What we
admired, and prized, and venerated in them, can never be forgotten. I had
almost said that they are now beginning to live; to live that life of
unimpaired influence, of unclouded fame, of unmingled happiness, for which
their talents and services were destined. Such men do not, cannot die. To
be cold and breathless; to feel not and speak not; this is not the end of
existence to the men who have breathed their spirits into the institutions
of their country, who have stamped their characters on the pillars of the
age, who have poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public
prosperity. Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yon sacred height, is Warren
dead? Can you not still see him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of his
gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving resplendent over
the field of honors with the rose of heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of
liberty in his eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the
shades of Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that cold and narrow
house? That which made these men, and men like these, cannot die. The hand
that traced the charter of independence is, indeed, motionless; the
eloquent lips that sustained it are hushed; but the lofty spirits that
conceived, resolved, and maintained it, and which alone, to such men, "make
it life to live," these cannot expire;--
"These shall resist the empire of decay,
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away;
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie,
But that which warmed it once can never die."
E. Everett.
LXXXVI.
THE INDIAN CHIEF TO THE WHITE SETTLER.
Think of the country for which the Indians fought! Who can blame them? As
Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope, that glorious eminence,
that
----" throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"--
as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a
summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting
beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the
majestic forest,--could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he
beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into
the hands of the stranger?
As the river chieftains--the lords of the waterfalls and the
mountains--ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld
with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's axe? the
fishing-place disturbed by his saw-mills? Can we not fancy the feelings
with which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians,
who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain, (rising as
it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur,)--in
company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made by
the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was advancing
into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say "White man, there is
eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my fathers, but
with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow; I will still
hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide, unrestrained, in my
bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's
store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn.
"Stranger, the land is mine! I understand not these paper rights. I gave
not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased,
for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs; they
could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great Spirit
sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did.
"The stranger came, a timid suppliant,--few and feeble, and asked to lie
down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire,
and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children;
and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his
parchments over the whole, and says, 'It is mine.'
"Stranger! there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us
to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's
dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers,
whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of
the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce Mohawk,--the
man-eater,--is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great water is before
me. No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou
abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee.
"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank thee.
And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest
forth by day my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest down by
night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy
enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt
plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with
corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle,
and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I
will burn,--till the white man or the Indian perish from the land."
E. Everett.
LXXXVII.
THE MEN OF "SEVENTY-SIX."
If we look only at one part of the work of the men of '76 if we see them
poring over musty parchments by the midnight lamp, citing the year-books
against writs of assistance, disputing themselves hoarse, about this phrase
in the charter of Charles the First, and that section in a statute of
Edward the Third, we should be disposed to class them with the most bigoted
conservatives that ever threw a drag-chain around the limbs of a young and
ardent people. But, gracious heavens, look at them again, when the trumpet
sounds the hour of resistance; survey the other aspect of their work. See
these undaunted patriots, in their obscure caucus gatherings, in their
town-meetings, in their provincial assemblies, in their continental
congress, breathing defiance to the British Parliament and the British
throne. March with their raw militia to the conflict with the trained
veterans of the seven years' war. Witness them, a group of colonies,
extemporized into a confederacy, entering with a calm self-possession into
alliance with the oldest monarchy in Europe; and occupying, as they did, a
narrow belt of territory along the coast, plainly peopled, partially
cleared, hemmed in by the native savage, by the Alleghenies, by the Ohio,
and the Lakes; behold them dilating with the grandeur of the position,
radiant in the prospective glories of their career, casting abroad the
germs of future independent States, destined, at no distant day, not merely
to cover the face of the thirteen British colonies, but to spread over the
territories of France and Spain on this continent, over Florida and
Louisiana, over New Mexico and California, beyond the Mississippi, beyond
the Rocky Mountains,--to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the
arctic and the torrid zones, in one great network of confederate republican
government. Contemplate this, and you will acknowledge the men of
Seventy-six to have been the boldest men of progress that the world has
ever seen!
These are the men whom the Fourth of July invites us to respect and to
imitate;--the James Otises and the Warrens, the Franklins and the Adamses,
the Patrick Henrys and the Jeffersons, and him whom I may not name in the
plural number, brightest of the bright and purest of the pure,--Washington
himself. But let us be sure to imitate them, (or strive to do so) in all
their great principles, in both parts of their noble and comprehensive
policy. Let us reverence them as they reverenced their predecessors,--not
seeking to build up the future on the ruins of all that had gone before,
nor yet to bind down the living, breathing, burning present to the
mouldering relics of the dead past,--but deducing the rule of a bold and
safe progress, from the records of a wise and glorious experience.
E. Everett.
LXXXVIII.
THE SAME CONCLUDED.
We live at an era as eventful, in my judgment, as that of '76 though in a
different way. We have no foreign yoke to throw off but in the discharge of
the duty devolved upon us by Providence, we have to carry the republican
independence which our fathers achieved, with all the organized
institutions of an enlightened community, institutions of religion, law,
education, charity, art, and all the thousand graces of the higher culture,
beyond the Missouri, beyond the Sierra Nevada; perhaps, in time around the
circuit of the Antilles; perhaps to the archipelagoes of the Central
Pacific. The pioneers are on the way. Who can tell how far and fast they
will travel? Who, that compares the North America of 1753, but a century
ago, and numbering but little over a million of souls of European origin;
or still more the North America of 1653, when there was certainly not a
fifth part of that number; who that compares this with the North America of
1853, its twenty-two millions of European origin, and its thirty-one
States, will venture to assign limits to our growth; will dare to compute
the time-table of our railway progress, or lift so much as a corner of the
curtain that hides the crowded events of the coming century?
This only we can plainly see; the Old World is rocking to its foundations.
From the Gulf of Finland to the Yellow Sea, everything is shaken. The
spirit of the age has gone forth to hold his great review, and the kings of
the earth are moved to meet him at his coming. The band which holds the
great powers of Europe together in one political league, is strained to its
utmost tension. The catastrophe may for a while be staved off; but to all
appearance they are hurrying to the verge of one of those conflicts which,
like those of Pharsalia and Actium, affect the condition of States for
twice ten centuries. The Turkish empire, encamped but for four centuries on
the frontiers of Europe, and the Chinese monarchy, contemporary with David
and Solomon, are alike crumbling.
While these events are passing in the Old World, a tide of emigration,
which has no parallel in history is pouring westward, across the Atlantic,
and eastward, across the Pacific to our shores. The real political vitality
of the world seems moving to the new hemisphere, whose condition and
fortune it devolves upon us and our children to mould and regulate.
It is a grand,--let me say, a solemn thought,--well calculated to still the
passions of the day and to elevate us above the paltry strife of parties.
It teaches us that we are called to the highest, and, I do verily believe,
the most momentous trust that ever devolved upon one generation of men. Let
us meet it with a corresponding temper and purpose,--with the wisdom of a
well-instructed experience, and with the foresight and preparation of a
glorious future; not on the narrow platforms of party policy and temporary
expediency, but in the broad and comprehensive spirit of Seventy-six.
E. Everett.
LXXXIX.
OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.
Sir, it is our common schools which gives the keys of knowledge to the mass
of the people. Our common schools are important in the same way as the
common air, the common sunshine, the common rain,--invaluable for their
commonness. They are the corner-stone of that municipal organization which
is the characteristic feature of our social system; they are the fountain
of that widespread intelligence which, like a moral life pervades the
country.
From the humblest village-school there may go forth a teacher who, like
Newton, shall bind his temples with the stars of Orion's belt; with
Herschel, light up his cell with the beams of before-undiscovered planets;
with Franklin, grasp the lightning. Columbus, fortified with a few sound
geographical principles, was, on the deck of his crazy caravel, more truly
the monarch of Castile and Aragon, than Ferdinand and Isabella, enthroned
beneath the golden vaults of the conquered Alhambra. And Robinson, with the
simple training of a rural pastor in England, when he knelt on the shores
of Delft Haven, and sent his little flock upon their Gospel errantry beyond
the world of waters, exercised an influence over the destinies of the
civilized world, which will last to the end of time.
Sir, it is a solemn, a tender, and sacred duty that of education. What,
sir, feed a child's body, and let his soul hunger! pamper his limbs and
starve his faculties! Plant the earth, cover a thousand hills with your
droves of cattle, pursue the fish to their hiding-places in the sea, and
spread out your wheatfields across the plain, in order to supply the wants
of that body which will soon be as cold and as senseless as the poorest
clod, and let the pure spiritual essence within you, with all its glorious
capacities for improvement, languish and pine! What! build factories, turn
in rivers upon the water-wheels, enchain the imprisoned spirits of steam,
to weave a garment for the body, and let the soul remain unadorned and
naked! What! send out your vessels to the farthest ocean, and make battle
with the monsters of the deep, in order to obtain the means of lighting up
your dwellings and workshops, and prolonging the hours of labor for the
meat that perisheth, and permit that vital spark which God has kindled,
which He has intrusted to our care, to be fanned into a bright and heavenly
flame,--permit it, I say, to languish and go out!
What considerate man can enter a school and not reflect with awe, that it
is a seminary where immortal minds are training for eternity? What parent
but is, at times, weighed down with the thought, that there must be laid
the foundations of a building which will stand, when not merely temple and
palace, but the perpetual hills and adamantine rocks on which they rest,
have melted away!--that a light may there be kindled, which will shine, not
merely when every artificial beam is extinguished, but when the affrighted
sun has fled away from the heavens! I can add nothing, sir, to this
consideration. I will only say, in conclusion, Education,--when we feed
that lamp, we perform the highest social duty! If we quench it, I know not
where (humanly speaking), for time or for eternity,--"
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can its light resume! "
E Everett.
XC.
WEBSTER'S GREATEST PARLIAMENTARY EFFORT.
The greatest parliamentary effort made by Mr. Webster, was his second
speech on Foot's resolution,--the question at issue being nothing less than
this; Is the Constitution of the United States a compact without a common
umpire between confederated sovereignties; or is it a government of the
people of the United States, sovereign within the sphere of its delegated
powers, although reserving a great mass of undelegated rights to
the separate State governments and the people? With those who embrace the
opinions which Mr. Webster combated in this speech, this is not the time
nor the place to engage in an argument; but those who believe that he
maintained the true principles of the Constitution, will probably agree,
that since that instrument was communicated to the Continental Congress,
seventy-two years ago this day by George Washington as President of the
Federal Convention, no greater service has been rendered to the country
than in the delivery of this speech.