subjects; that it is discreditable, not only to their section of the
country, but also to the national character; that these females could have
a sufficient field for the exercise of their influence in the discharge of
their duties to their fathers, their husbands, or their children--cheering
the domestic circle, and shedding over it the mild radiance of the social
virtues, instead of rushing into the fierce struggles of political life. I
admit, sir, that it is their duty to attend to these things. I subscribe
fully, to the elegant compliment, passed by him upon those members of the
female sex who devote their time to these duties. But I say that the
correct principle is, that women are not only justified, but exhibit the
most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and
enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God. The
mere departure of woman from the duties of the domestic circle, far from
being a reproach to her, is a virtue of the highest order, when it is done
from purity of motive, by appropriate means, and towards a virtuous
purpose. That is the principle I maintain, and which the gentleman has to
refute, if he applies the position he has taken to the mothers, the
sisters, and the daughters of the men of my district who voted to send me
here. The motive, the means, and the purpose of their petition will bear
his scrutiny.
Why, sir, what does the gentleman understand by "political subjects?"
Everything in which this House has an agency-everything which relates to
peace and war, or to any of the great interests of society. Are women to
have no opinions or actions on subjects relating to the general welfare?
Where did the gentleman get this principle? Did he find it in sacred
history--in the language of Miriam the Prophetess, in one of the noblest
and most sublime songs of triumph that ever met the human eye or ear? Did
the gentleman never hear of the deed of Jael, who slew the dreaded enemy of
her country? Has he forgotten Esther, who, by her petition saved her people
and her country? Sir, I might go through the whole sacred history, and
find innumerable examples of women, who not only took an active part in the
politics of their times, but who are held up with honor to posterity for
doing so.
To go from sacred history to profane, does the gentleman there find it
"discreditable" for women to take any interest or any part in political
affairs? Has he forgotten the Spartan mother, who said to her son, when
going out to battle, "My son, come back to me with thy shield, or upon thy
shield?" Does he not remember Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who
declared that her children were her jewels? And why? Because they were the
champions of freedom. Has he not read of Arria, who, under imperial
despotism, when her husband was condemned to die by a tyrant, plunged the
sword into her own bosom, and, handing it to her husband, said, "Take it,
Pætus, it does not hurt," and expired?
To come to a later period, what names are more illustrious than that of
Elizabeth, the great British queen, and that of Isabella of Castile, the
patroness of Columbus, the virtual discoverer of this hemisphere, for
without her that discovery would not have been made? Did they bring
"discredit" on their sex by mingling in politics? And what were the women
of the United States in the struggle of the Revolution? Were they devoted
exclusively to the duties and enjoyments of the fireside? When the soldiers
were destitute of clothing, or sick, or in prison, from whence did relief
come? From the hearts where patriotism erects her favorite shrine, and from
the hand which is seldom withdrawn when the soldier is in need. The voice
of our history speaks trumpet-tongued of the daring and intrepid spirit of
patriotism burning in the bosoms of the ladies of that day "Politics," sir,
"rushing into the vortex of politics!" They gloried in being called rebel
ladies, refusing to attend balls and entertainments, but crowding to the
hospitals and prison-ships! And, sir, is that spirit to be charged here, in
this hall where we are sitting, as being "discreditable" to our country's
name? So far from regarding such conduct as a national reproach, I approve
of it, and glory in it.
J. Q. Adams.
C.
VALUE OF POPULARITY.
MY Lords, I come now to speak upon what, indeed, I would have gladly
avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at for the part I have taken
in this bill. It has been said by a noble lord on my left hand, that I,
likewise, am running the race of popularity. If the noble lord means by
popularity, that applause bestowed by after-ages on good and virtuous
actions, I have long been struggling in that race; to what purpose,
all-trying time can alone determine: but, if the noble lord means that
mushroom popularity which is raised without merit, and lost without crime,
he is much mistaken in his opinion.
I defy the noble lord to point out a single action of my life, in which the
popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my
determinations. I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct, the
dictates of my own breast. Those that have foregone that pleasing adviser,
and given up their mind to be the slave of every popular impulse, I
sincerely pity: I pity them still more, if their vanity leads them to
mistake the shouts of the mob for the trumpet of fame. Experience might
inform them, that many who have been saluted with the huzzahs of a crowd
one day, have received its execrations the next; and many who by the
popularity of their times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have,
nevertheless, appeared upon the historian's page,--when truth has triumphed
over delusion,--the assassins of liberty.
True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equally
administered to all,--to the king and to the beggar. Where is the justice,
then, or where is the law, that protects a member of Parliament more than
any other man from the punishment due to his crimes? The laws of this
country allow no place, nor employment to be a sanctuary for crimes; and
where I have the honor to sit as judge, neither royal favor, nor popular
applause shall ever protect the guilty.
Lord Mansfield.
CI.
SCORN TO BE SLAVES.
The voice of your father's blood cries to you from the ground, "My sons,
scorn to be slaves! In vain we met the frowns of tyrants; in vain we
crossed the boisterous ocean, found a new world, and prepared it for the
happy residence of liberty; in vain we toiled; in vain we fought; we bled
in vain, if you, our offspring, want valor to repel the assaults of her
invaders!" Stain not the glory of your worthy ancestors; but, like them,
resolve never to part with your birthright. Be wise in your deliberations,
and determined in your exertions for the preservation of your liberty.
Follow not the dictates of passion, but enlist yourselves under the sacred
banner of reason; use every method in your power to secure your rights; at
least, prevent the curses of posterity from being heaped upon your
memories. If you, with united zeal and fortitude, oppose the torrent of
oppression; if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your
breasts; if you, from your souls, despise the most gaudy dress which
slavery can wear; if you really prefer the lonely cottage, while blessed
with liberty, to gilded palaces, surrounded with the ensigns of slavery you
may have the fullest assurance that tyranny with her whole accursed train,
will hide her hideous head in confusion, shame, and despair.
If you perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence, that the
same Almighty Being, who protected your pious, and venerable forefathers,
who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful field, who so
often made bare His arm for their salvation, will still be mindful of their
offspring.
May that Almighty Being graciously preside in all our councils. May He
direct us to such measures as He himself shall approve, and be pleased to
bless. May we be ever favored of God. May our land be a land of liberty,
the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, "a name and a praise in
the whole earth," until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of
the world in undistinguished ruin.
J. Warren.
CII.
LOSS OF THE ARCTIC.
It was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages; from Rome
and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the
sides of the Switzer's mountains, and from the capitals of various nations,
all of them saying in their hearts, we will wait for the September gales to
have done with their equinoctial fury, and then we will embark; we will
slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October, we
will greet our longed-for native land, and our heart-loved homes.
And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient,
converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship, and
narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations. They
crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor
passengers so nearly related to so many of us. The hour was come. The
signal-ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors
were weighed; the great hull swayed to the current; the national colors
streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy.
The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the signal-gun beats its echoes, in
upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth
from the jersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her
homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon
the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all the
voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He
neither revealed his presence nor whispered his errand.
And so hope was effulgent, and little gayety disported itself, and joy was
with every guest. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there was
still that which hushed every murmur,--"Home is not far away." And every
morning it was still one night nearer home! Eight days had passed. They
beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of
Newfoundland. Boldly they made it; and plunging in, its pliant wreaths
wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed
from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon
there came noiselessly stealing from the north that fated instrument of
destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both
steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but
invisible.
At a league's distance, unconscious, and at nearer approach, unwarned;
within hail, and bearing right towards each other, unseen, unfelt, till in
a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her
deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the
mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor
officers seemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity the brave
Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect) ordered away
his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered
harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, oh, that some good angel had
called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion,
"Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved."
They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters
gaining upon the hold and rising upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow.
Oh, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors
were wont to mind--had he stood to execute sufficiently the commander's
will--we may believe that we should not have had to blush for the cowardice
and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently,
each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so
honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters,
and crew, rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children,
and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the
catastrophe of collision to the catastrophe of sinking!
Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among
weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid
peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a
burial-service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the
burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the
hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters
smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been.
H. W. Beecher.
CIII.
THE GLORY AND GRANDEUR OF PEACE.
Whatever may be the judgment of poets, of moralist, of satirists, or even
of soldiers, it is certain that the glory of arms still exercises no mean
influence over the minds of men. The art of war, which has been happily
termed by a French divine, the baleful art by which men learn to
exterminate one another, is yet held even among Christians, to be an
honorable pursuit; and the animal courage, which it stimulates and
develops, is prized as a transcendent virtue. It will be for another age,
and a higher civilization, to appreciate the more exalted character of the
art of benevolence, the art of extending happiness and all good influences,
by word or deed, to the largest number of mankind, which, in blessed
contrast with the misery, the degradation, the wickedness of war, shall
shine resplendent, the true grandeur of peace. All then will be willing to
join with the early poet in saying, at least,
"Through louder fame attend the martial rage,
'T is greater glory to reform the age."
Then shall the soul thrill with a nobler heroism than that of battle.
Peaceful industry, with untold multitudes of cheerful and beneficent
laborers, shall be its gladsome token. Literature, full of sympathy and
comfort for the heart of man, shall appear in garments of purer glory than
she has yet assumed. Science shall extend the bounds of knowledge and power
adding unimaginable strength to the hands of man, opening innumerable
resources in the earth, and revealing new secrets and harmonies in the
skies. Art, elevated and refined, shall lavish fresh streams of beauty and
grace. Charity, in streams of milk and honey, shall diffuse itself among
all the habitations of the world.
Does any one ask for the signs of this approaching era? The increasing
beneficence and intelligence of our own day, the broad-spread sympathy with
human suffering, the widening thoughts of men, the longings of the heart
for a higher condition on earth, the unfulfilled promises of Christian
progress, are the auspicious auguries of this happy future. As early
voyagers over untried realms of waste, we have already observed the signs
of land. The green twig and fresh red berry have floated by our bark; the
odors of the shore fan our faces; nay, we may seem to descry the distant
gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest observers, as Columbus
heard, after midnight, from the mast-head of the Pinta, the joyful cry of
Land! Land! and lo! a new world broke upon his early morning gaze.
C. Sumner.
CIV.
ANCIENT AND MODERN PRODUCTIONS.
The classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circumstance that they have
been the models, I might almost say the masters, of composition and
thought, in all ages. In the contemplation of these august teachers of
mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice
of the world, better remembered and more cherished still than all the
intermediate words that have been uttered, as the lessons of childhood
still haunt us when the impressions of later years have been effaced from
the mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the
world's childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the
affections. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness, of
elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the frigid
philosophy of the porch and academy that we are to seek these; not in the
marvelous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous
words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring
tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of
Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at
the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love
and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate
eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the
stately atheism of Lucretius. No! these must not be our masters; in none of
these are we to seek the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit
of these writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon
on the Mount, and those two sublime commandments on which hang all the law
and the prophets. The strife is still pending. Heathenism, which has
possessed itself of such siren forms, is not yet exorcised. It still tempts
the young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the meditations
of age.
Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the ancients in the
arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty of form, and in freshness of
illustration, are immeasurably superior in the truth, delicacy, all
elevation of their sentiments,--above all, in the benign recollection of
that great Christian revelation, the brotherhood of man. How vain are
eloquence and poetry compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in one
scale that simple utterance, and in the other the lore of antiquity, with
its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the last will be light and
trivial in the balance. Greek poetry has been likened to the song of the
nightingale as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown of the palm-tree,
trilling her thick-warbled notes; but even this is less sweet and tender
than the music of the human heart.
C. Sumner.
CV.
THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
Why ought the slave trade to be abolished? Because it is incurable
injustice! How much stronger, then, is the argument for immediate than
gradual abolition! By allowing it to continue even for one hour, do not my
right honorable friends weaken--do they not desert their own arguments of
its injustice? If on the ground of injustice it ought to be abolished at
last, why ought it not now? Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a
single hour?
I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist,
worse than the tearing of eighty thousands persons annually from their
native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations in the most
enlightened quarter of the globe; but more especially by that nation which
calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all. Even if these
miserable beings were proved guilty of every crime before you take them off
of which however not a single proof is adduced ought we to take upon
ourselves the office of executioners? And even if we condescend so far,
still can we be justified in taking them, unless we have clear proof that
they are criminals?
I have shown how great is the enormity of this evil, even on the
supposition that we take only convicts and prisoners of war. But take the
subject in the other way; take it on the grounds stated by the right
honorable gentleman over the way, and how does it stand? Think of eighty
thousand persons carried away out of their country, by we know not what
means, for crimes imputed; for light or inconsiderable faults; for debt,
perhaps; for the crime of witchcraft; or a thousand other weak and
scandalous pretexts, besides all the fraud and kidnapping, the villainies
and perfidy, by which the slave trade is supplied. Reflect on these eighty
thousand persons thus annually taken off! There is something in the horror
of it, that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that there
exists in Africa something like to courts of justice; yet what an office of
humiliation and meanness is it in us, to take upon ourselves to carry into
execution the partial, the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such courts, as
if we also were strangers to all religion, and to the first principles of
justice.
But that country, it is said, has been in some degree civilized, and
civilized by us. It is said they have gained some knowledge of the
principles of justice. What sir, have they gained the principles of justice
from us? Is their civilization brought about by us! Yes, we give them
enough of our intercourse to convey to them the means, and to initiate them
in the study of mutual destruction. We give them just enough of the forms
of justice to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other
modes of perpetuating the most atrocious iniquity. We give them just enough
of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to turn
Africa into a ravaged wilderness. But I refrain from attempting to
enumerate half the dreadful consequences of this system. Do you think
nothing of the ruin and the miseries in which so many other individuals,
still remaining in Africa, are involved in consequence of carrying off so
many myriads of people? Do you think nothing of their families which are
left behind; of the connections which are broken; of the friendships,
attachments, and relationships which are burst asunder? Do you think
nothing of the miseries in consequence, that are felt from generation to
generation; of the privation of that happiness which might be communicated
to them by the introduction of civilization, and of mental and moral
improvement? A happiness which you withhold from them so long as you permit
the slave trade to continue.
How shall we hope to obtain, if it be possible, forgiveness from Heaven for
these enormous evils we have committed, if we refuse to make use of those
means which the mercy of Providence hath still reserved for us, for wiping
away the guilt and shame with which we are now covered. If we refuse even
this degree of compensation; if, knowing the miseries we have caused, we
refuse even now to put a stop to them, how greatly aggravated will be the
guilt of Great Britain! and what a blot will these transactions forever be
in the history of this country! Shall we, then, delay to repair these
injuries, and to begin rendering justice to Africa? Shall we not count the
days and hours that are suffered to intervene, and to delay the
accomplishment of such a work? Reflect what an immense object is before
you; what an object for a nation to have in view, and to have a prospect,
under the favor of Providence, of being now permitted to attain! I think
the House will agree with me in cherishing the ardent wish to enter without
delay upon the measures necessary for these great ends; and I am sure that
the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal the
most indispensable act of policy, of duty, and of justice, that the
Legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to
secure those important objects to which I have alluded, and which we are
bound to pursue by the most solemn obligations.
W. Pitt.
CVI.
"LET THERE BE LIGHT."
From her earliest colonial history, the policy of Massachusetts has been to
develop the minds of all her people, and to imbue them with the principles
of duty, To do this work most effectually, she has begun with the young. If
she would continue to mount higher and higher towards the summit of
prosperity, she must continue the means by which her present elevation has
been gained. In doing this, she will not only exercise the noblest
prerogative of government, but will coöperate with the Almighty in one of
his sublimest works.
The Greek rhetorician, Longinus, quotes from the Mosaic account of the
creation what he calls the sublimest passage ever uttered: "God said, 'Let
there be light,' and there was light." From the centre of black immensity
effulgence burst forth. Above, beneath, on every side, its radiance
streamed out, silent, yet making each spot in the vast concave brighter
than the line which the lightning pencils upon the midnight cloud. Darkness
fled as the swift beams spread onward and outward, in an unending
circumfusion of splendor. Onward and outwards still they move to this day,
glorifying, through wider and wider regions of space, the infinite Author
from whose power and beneficence they sprang. But not only in the
beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, did he say, "Let
there be light." Whenever a human soul is born into the world, its Creator
stands over it, and again pronounces the same sublime words, "Let there be
light."