Attacking Corrupt Judges—Interest in Political Questions—Advocating
Arthur’s Renomination—Opposing Blaine—Supporting Cleveland—Campaign
of 1884—After the Battle.
It had always been Mr. Beecher’s belief that a Christian gentleman
should be a good citizen, and that being a good citizen involved some
responsibility in securing and enforcing righteous laws, in electing
honest men, and defeating the corrupt and unworthy. With this belief his
whole life was consistent. In his early ministry we find him fighting
corruption, intoxication, and slavery, the then three great public
evils. Later he stood as one of the sponsors to the Republican party. In
1856 he entered with all his force in the Fremont campaign, and in 1860
stumped the Middle and New England States for Lincoln. The overthrow of
slavery was his objective point—the one great public evil which at that
time overtopped all others.
When, in 1864, Lincoln ran for re-election, he spared no effort to
secure it.
And as he thought that whatever pertained to the duties of a Christian
man might properly be discussed in the pulpit, he did not hesitate,
during those war times, when the national existence was threatened, to
advocate the cause of the nation and the cause of liberty from his
pulpit; at one time, just before the election of 1864, devoting his
evening sermon for the six preceding weeks exclusively to the nation’s
cause.
We remember vividly the great throngs that packed the church for two
hours before the sermon, many getting entrance through the side windows,
while the street contained as many more trying in vain to even reach the
open doors.
We shall never forget the thrills of excitement that ran through the
audience under the influence of Mr. Beecher’s impassioned eloquence. He
was thoroughly aroused, and seemed to impart much of the intensity of
his own feelings to his audience. He felt that to defeat Lincoln then
meant to throw away all that had been obtained by such a sacrifice of
men and money.
We are not surprised, then, in 1868-69—at the time when the flood of
corruption had deluged New York city, reaching even to the judges on the
bench—that his voice was raised in continuous protest against that
disgraceful state of affairs, calling on all good men to unite and purge
the city of its corruption. The attack from Plymouth pulpit upon the
corrupt judiciary, especially, was unsparing and continuous, sometimes
through whole sermons and sometimes incidentally.
The times were in desperate need of some bold moral surgery, for it
would be hard to imagine a worse condition in the public
administration—in well nigh every department and branch—than that which
existed from 1867 to 1871. The infamous Tweed had assumed virtually the
dictatorship, and impudently wanted to know of the people, “What are you
going to do about it?” A query which was fully answered a few years
later. But the climax was reached in the almost utter corruption of the
bench. There were some honest judges in New York then, but they suffered
from the same imputation that, in more modern times, falls upon any man
who has had the misfortune to have been elected an alderman of the same
city. Friends of some of the judges were rash enough to attempt an
answer through the public press to Mr. Beecher’s attack. But this only
furnished the text for a series of more terrible denunciations in reply,
which led to a very hasty muzzling of the rash defenders of the bench. A
public discussion, even in those days of public apathy and
demoralization, was the last thing that was wished by the corruptionists
whom he was attacking.
To a member of the federal bench who wrote him, protesting that there
_were some_ honest judges who would be injured by Mr. Beecher’s
strictures, he replied:
“... Of the fourteen (elective) judges of New York there are not over
five who are not known to be corrupt—_i. e._, who do not employ their
office for the promotion of their private interests at the expense of
the public good—and hardly _one_ of the whole fourteen who is not guilty
of flagrant _nepotism_.
“Now, if clergymen were violating the vows of their calling in half that
proportion they would have no right to complain, if some judge declared
‘the clergy were corrupt,’ and the judges have no just reason of
complaint, when a clergymen declares the courts of New York to be
corrupt, and that their judges ‘_stink_’ (asking pardon of your
sensibility).
“If this allegation in so broad a form involves the innocent along with
the guilty, it is because such is the law of _social liability_....
“If the honorable men who are alive to the purity of the judicial
reputation can find no way of making a public and recognized distinction
between themselves and their unworthy companions, they should not be
surprised if their own names are clouded, too.
“In regard to yourself, personally, I have never heard a whisper of
dishonor, ... and if you do not receive the full meed of your desert, is
it not because you belong to a profession which, in New York City, is
earning itself an odious reputation?
“I wish to arouse a conscience in the community, outside of courts,
which will compel those judges who are pure, and who value their
reputation, to manifest their repugnance at corruption. _I do not mean
to pause_....
“I am obliged to you for the frankness of your letter, and none the less
because I entirely disagree with your judgment.
“You fear that such indiscriminate censure will ruin the influence of
law and courts, and demoralize society.
“Bad laws and bad judges demoralize society, and not the exposure of
them. Religion was in no danger when our Master denounced the priesthood
of the temple, among whom, as with judges, there were many devout and
pure men. He expressed, as I do, the opinion of society outside of the
profession. The exposure was a step toward reformation.”
How far his persistent denunciation stimulated and awakened the public
conscience and hastened the final overthrow of that colossal reign of
corruption, of course no man can say. But the attention and excitement
aroused thereby indicated that his part in that strife was no
insignificant one.
In his own city he took an active part in the local elections, working
earnestly for the public welfare, striving to secure the election of
those men who would best administer the local government.
In the earlier years of the Republican party questions vitally affecting
the welfare of the nation, and even its very existence, were before the
people. And on these the Republican party maintained those principles,
which he believed were essential to the maintenance of the nation. He
threw his entire strength and influence with that party, sparing
nothing. After the war had determined the questions of secession and
slavery, and the reconstruction period had past and a sound financial
policy been established, he noticed with no little disturbance the
insidious growth of corrupting influences in various branches of the
government, and the gradually increasing prominence and influence in the
party’s councils of men who did not, in his opinion, stand for the
highest principles of personal and political honesty. So far as he could
he sought to counteract this tendency downward. He earnestly supported
the better men in the party, and tried to prevent the dangerous ones
from obtaining power.
So long as the high national principles for which the party stood were
in the least in danger, and were acquiring a settled permanence, he
viewed these disquieting signs as morbid growths upon a body healthy in
the main, and which the general strength of the body could throw off,
like boils or skin eruptions on a strong man—painful and unsightly, but
not dangerous to life nor difficult to cure.
But as the government became more and more settled, and as the questions
which called the Republican party into existence and which followed in
the reconstructive period became more and more fixed facts, he noticed
with increasing disquietude that the struggles at the national election
were becoming more a contest for party supremacy than for national
security, where personal benefit was rapidly outstripping the country’s
welfare. At each election the politicians on either side found an
increasingly greater difficulty in framing a platform that should differ
in any important particular from its opponent’s, save on the tariff
question, regarding which Mr. Beecher was not in accord with his party.
The party platforms were rapidly becoming noticeable only for the
ingenuity with which the same ideas were expressed in high-sounding
phrases, differing only in words.
Even as far back as 1877, in a sermon published under the title of “Past
Perils and Perils of To-day,” he gave an intimation of his growing
feeling, almost prophetic:
“The perils of the hour are the last that I shall mention, and they are
the least. Whatever may betide the questions that are now at issue, they
will result in nothing worse than simple transient mischief, moral,
political, and civil. The foundations are settled. The future policy of
this nation, whichever hands undertake to hold the helm, is assured. I
would rather that the nation, which has been rescued by the great
Republican party, and borne through all the shoals and whirls and
troubles of the reconstructive period, for which they are now receiving
more curses than kindnesses, and whose mistakes are multiplied before
the eyes of men, while their wisdom is little thought of—I would rather
that this nation should remain in their hands, if they are worthy to
hold the helm; but if not, give me a hand that can hold the helm,
whosesoever it is. If their light is extinguished along the coast, and
they have no longer power to guide the ship of state to a safe harbor,
let other lights be kindled. We cannot afford to wait for any party. The
nation is more important than any party. It is not, then, any particular
peril of a change of administration that is to be feared. I look upon
that with interest, but still with equanimity.”
He noticed with jealous interest the men who were growing up and pushing
to the front in the Republican party, studying their characters,
watching their actions, noting their words to see toward what they were
tending, whether good or evil, whether they would be safe leaders and
wise administrators. So that when the notable campaign of 1884 began,
and the conventions were called to select the candidates for the
Presidency, he had very clearly defined opinions as to the fitness of
the various aspirants in both parties, the result of long and careful
observation.
Of course his first concern was as to the action of the Republican
party. He earnestly hoped that the party would have the wisdom to
renominate President Arthur.
When General Arthur was called to the Presidential chair by the sad
death of General Garfield, Mr. Beecher, in common with many others, had
grave misgivings as to his wisdom and ability to administer so important
an office. But he developed such unexpected administrative ability,
showed so much wisdom and such rare fortitude in resisting his party’s
leaders, in any unwise or hurtful action, and so much discrimination in
the exercise of his veto power, that he won the admiration and esteem of
those who had, with doubt and solicitude, seen him enter upon his
untried duties.
Every instinct of good sense, every argument of wisdom, urged his
renomination; the precedents of the party gave him a second term.
With this feeling Mr. Beecher was fully in accord. So when a meeting of
merchants and business men was called at the Cooper Institute, early in
the summer of 1884, to give expression to this sentiment, Mr. Beecher
very gladly accepted an invitation to address it.
He had a double reason in advocating General Arthur’s renomination, or
rather two reasons, one positive and the other negative.
He had acquired great confidence in General Arthur, and admiration for
his past administration. He believed that he was by all odds the best
man in his party for the place.
He also felt sure that if General Arthur was not nominated, Mr. Blaine
would be, and in Mr. Blaine he saw, as he believed, a very serious
threatening danger. He was one of the men whose career he had carefully
watched, and for whom he had a very pronounced distrust. Of him he said:
“For twelve years I have watched him, anxious that he should be the
right man—that he is not. For more than ten years I have been afraid of
him.”
Behind Mr. Blaine, as his earnest advocates, he saw the men who had been
most prominent in the jobbery and corruption that had, from time to
time, broken out like plague-spots in different parts of the country.
He strongly felt that his election would be regarded by the world at
large as an endorsement of the idea, painfully prevalent, that all a man
should aim at in politics is success, no matter how.
He deeply regretted the unwisdom of not renominating General Arthur.
When the National Convention put Mr. Blaine in nomination Mr. Beecher
had three courses left open to him: either (1) support Mr. Blaine, as
his party’s nominee regularly presented by the National Convention; or
(2) stay at home and not vote; or (3) support the opposing candidate.
To the first his answer was:
“It is almost the one argument I hear on every hand: ‘I don’t like
Blaine. He was not my choice, but then he is the regular nominee of our
party.’
“Why, according to your logic, you must vote for whomsoever the
convention gives you. If the convention had given you Tweed, every
mother’s son of you would have dropped your tail between your legs and
voted for Tweed. The logic of this is infamous.... You would not do it
anywhere else, I tell you, except where the murrain of a blighted
politics had fallen upon you.”
The second course had too much of prudential shirking to suit Mr.
Beecher’s temperament. If the Republican nominee was an unfit man to
vote for, he was an unfit man to be elected; and, unless his opponent
should be as conspicuously unfit, every vote should be so cast as to
affect the greatest result.
The third course alone seemed open, and when the Democratic Convention,
in a sudden spasm of good sense and wisdom, nominated Governor
Cleveland, Mr. Beecher’s mind was speedily made up.
With the first outbreak of that campaign of slanders Mr. Beecher was
greatly disturbed. He at once requested some personal friends residing
in Buffalo, and well acquainted with Governor Cleveland’s life and
reputation, themselves Republicans, to make a thorough investigation of
the scandalous stories in circulation, and was satisfied from their
report that with the one exception, admitted, repented of, and lived
down by a life of honesty and integrity, the stories were false.
Once satisfied of their falsity, he entered into the campaign with all
his old-time fire and zeal.
His indignation was intensely roused at their circulation, and it only
needed the timid caution of friends, that he would injure himself, by
advocating the cause of a man about whom such stories were told, to
arouse him to an outburst of indignant scorn.
“In all the history of politics we do not believe that lies so cruel, so
base, so atrocious have ever been set in motion. The air is murky with
the shameless stories of Mr. Cleveland’s private life. To our sorrow and
shame we find these cockatrice’s eggs brooded and hatched by rash and
credulous clergymen. They could not go to Mr. Cleveland with honest
inquiry, so they opened their ears to the harlot and the drunkard. They
have sought by hint, innuendo, irresponsible slander, to poison the
faith of holy men, of innocent women, and they have sought to make
back-biting a copt virtue, and to change the sanctuary into a salacious
whispering-gallery. Is it for our sins, or for a trial of our faith,
that God has permitted the plagues of Egypt to revisit us? The land
swarms with vermin, frogs slime our bread-troughs, and lice crawl about
our chambers.
“Do timid ministers ever reflect that the guilt of a vice or a crime
measures the guilt of him who charges them falsely? Slander takes on the
guilt of crime alleged. True religion does not creep through twilight
passages, but is open, frank, rejoicing not in iniquity, but rejoicing
in the truth, hoping all things. These vespertilian saints, whose soft
bat’s wings bear them from house to house, and from town to town, in the
service of Baal, the God of flies and lies, will one day creep into the
holes and clefts of rocks and hide themselves....
“When in the gloomy night of my own suffering I sounded every depth of
sorrow, I vowed that if God would bring the day star of hope I would
never suffer brother, friend, or neighbor to go unfriended should a like
serpent seek to crush him. That oath I will regard now. Because I know
the bitterness of venomous lies, I will stand against infamous lies that
seek to sting to death an upright man and magistrate. Men counsel me to
prudence lest I stir again my own griefs. No! I will not be prudent. If
I refuse to interpose a shield of well-placed confidence between
Governor Cleveland and the swarm of liars that nuzzle in the mud, or
sling arrows from ambush, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
and my right hand forget its cunning! I will imitate the noble example
set me by Plymouth Church in the day of my calamity. They were not
ashamed of my bonds. They stood by me with God-sent loyalty. It was a
heroic deed. They have set my duty before me, and I will imitate their
example.”
Of course many of Mr. Beecher’s friends were greatly exercised, and
lamented what they feared would be a suicidal course. Again, for the
twentieth time or more, he was rushing upon self-destruction—his
prestige would be destroyed, his influence lost, and untold woes would
follow.
As we look back, scarce three years, we cannot but smile, in the light
of subsequent events, at the great excitement and grief that existed
then.
But then it was real. Every effort was made at first to win Mr. Beecher
to support Mr. Blaine, and then that he should _not_ support Governor
Cleveland, and this was carried even to the extent of threats.
The excitement threatened a serious division in his church, and the
danger seemed more real than on any previous occasion. Party zeal ran
high.
But Mr. Beecher had acted only after careful deliberation; being
satisfied as to what his duty was, no argument could sway him in the
least that appealed to his fears or personal benefit.
To a clerical friend who wrote in early autumn, just before the real
campaign began, he replied:
“... But, now, hear me. If I thought it my duty to speak for Cleveland
and against Blaine, I would do it, though I lost all my influence, all
my friends, my church, and even my own family. All considerations urged
upon me which touch my feelings, hopes, interests, are repelled by me
with the whole force of my nature, and I cannot treat my friends better
than I do my innermost self. I will not be bribed even by love. I have
but a few years left. They shall not put to shame all my anti-slavery
days. I do not doubt that you love me, but if you loved me yet more you
would urge me to stand firmly to my conscientious convictions and not
heed ‘what men can do unto me.’ The election of Blaine will be a sign of
such demoralized moral sense as I never dreamed could befall Christian
men and ministers; or I _should_ feel so, if I had not seen good men and
ministers in the great anti-slavery struggle....
“I wish you would say to all my honest-hearted brethren, _please let me
alone_! I am as old as you are, as diligent in seeking the truth, and as
conscientious in deciding and acting.”
To a letter of remonstrance and advice from a dear friend, a member of
his church, he wrote:
“I am sure that I receive with consideration any advice which grown-up
men desire to lay before me, especially those of my church. But, on the
other hand, I hope the brethren will take into consideration that I am
as much interested in being right as they can possibly be, and that I
have had some experience in public life, and that all that is said in
the newspapers, and constituting the knowledge in which the brethren
act, is also before me, and that I have a profound interest in the
welfare of the nation and of the young men in it.
“That, after forty years’ hot experience of stormy times, I have been
led, hitherto by God’s providence, to the right conclusion.
“I am still in God’s hands, and daily ask His guiding providence. What
more?
“The alarm of friends, the party excitement of others, has no effect
upon me whatever. Any _new and real information_ I shall be grateful
for, but to tell me nothing, and only to express amazement, wonder,
concern, etc., and let me know how damaging to my reputation and
interests it will be if I follow _my_ judgment, and not _theirs_, who
love me as I am sure these brethren do, indicates how far gone in
political excitement they are, and how little they understand the man
whom they love.
“I shall do my duty as God reveals it to me, without a moment’s
consideration of its effect on _me_. I am ready to resign my pastorate
at an hour’s notice, when I no longer have freedom to follow my
convictions, or when doing so divides the church and scatters the
congregation.
“I am thankful to the brethren who have written; even more so to those
who have not.
“I receive ten to forty letters a day from all over the land, clean and
unclean, and merely glance at them and burn them.”
To one who went to the extent of threats he replied:
“Your remarkable note of August 8th is received. I have nothing to say
to the general views, except that every man should determine his duty
for himself and respect the same liberty in other people.
“To your closing sentence, which contains the threat that, if I vote for
Cleveland, you ‘(I) shall feel compelled to withdraw from your Church
and your teachings,’ I would only say that, having profited so little by
my teachings, as this arrogant sentence indicates, I should certainly
advise you to change your church relations in the hope of better
results.”
It was not until the campaign had gotten under full headway, and within
three or four weeks of the election, that Mr. Beecher began to take any
very active part in it. At first he intended to speak only in New York
and Brooklyn; but as the campaign progressed he realized the importance
of devoting every energy to securing the States of New York, New Jersey,
and Connecticut. Accordingly, during the last two weeks he spoke every
day save Sunday, and on some days twice, visiting the more important
cities of those three States. He was very earnest that the
“Independents” should not enter the Democratic party, but should
organize as “Independent Republicans.”
He thought that it was time that the political managers should
understand, that there was a moral sense in the community that would not
submit to bad nominations; that the best way to redeem his party was by
defeating unworthy nominees, and that, if this was persisted in, the
politicians would soon see the necessity of deferring to an enlightened
public sentiment, and putting in nomination only its best men.
He felt that the Republican party was being misled, by the same
influences that had secured unwise or improper nominations, into a very
dangerous path, that would ultimately lead to the utter destruction of
the party itself.
In one of his earlier speeches in the campaign of 1884, he voiced that
feeling when he spoke of his appearing in opposition to the organized
action of the party:
“I confess, at the risk of the imputation of some immodesty, that my
appearance here to-night, to antagonize the organized action of the
Republican party, is itself a fact of the most significant character.
Before many of you were born I was rocking the cradle of the Republican
party. I fought its early battles when it was in an apparently hopeless
minority. I advocated its cause, speaking day and night, at the risk of
my health and of my life itself, which I counted as nothing compared
with the interests of my country, when Fremont was our first notable
candidate. When Mr. Lincoln became our candidate I gave all I had of
time, strength, influence, and persuasion, and when his election was
ascertained and efforts were made to intimidate the North, and to
prevent his being inaugurated, I went up and down through this country
stiffening the backs of willow-backed patriots. I faced mobs, I preached
day and night in my own church, to hold the North up to its own rights
and interests. When the war broke out, I sent to it the only boy I had
big enough to hold a musket. And as the war went on my contribution
could not be much, but such as it was I gave it—I gave it as a mother
gives her breast to her child.
“And when, seeking some rest from exhausting cares and labors, I went
abroad, I did not suffer the grass to grow under my feet, but, in the
face of royalty and aristocracy and of great wealth in England, I upheld
the justice and the rectitude of the cause for which we were all
striving. And at every canvass from that day to this I have not held
back health, strength, or influence. Why, then, is it that I am now
opposed to the organized movement of the Republican party? That is a
significant question.
“I am now opposing the party whose cradle I rocked, because I do not
mean to be a pall-bearer to carry the coffin of that party to the grave.
The Republican party is on its way to destruction, unless you turn the
switch and run it on a side track. And by all my love of my country—and
it is next to my love of my God—by all my pride in the past, I feel
bound to do whatever God will inspire me to do, to stop the ruinous
progress of the Republican party and to save it.
“It behooves you, therefore, not to make mere amusement of the work of
this evening. I speak to you as to a jury. The case before you is not
that of some trembling culprit, or some wronged citizen seeking redress.
It is your whole country that is before you to-night, whose cause I am
to plead—to plead as if life or death hung on the issues. I am in dead
earnest. It is very natural that men working through a political party,
should, by and by, come to look upon all events in the community in
their relation to party welfare and party success. But I, who have had
nothing to do with parties, except as moral instruments, naturally look
upon their movements and purposes from the moral standpoint. What are
they attempting to do for this great people? What does their success
mean? How does it stand alongside the intelligence, the morality, the
true religion of this people, alongside that patriotism which rests its
feet on morality, but whose head stands in the spirituality which
connects man with God? I study public affairs from the moral and
religious standpoint, and that which is offensive to God may I never
live to see the day when it may be acceptable to me and to my
countrymen.
“Looking forward, as the pilot looks, what are our perils? The war is
over. The great questions that agitated the community are past. You
can’t bring them back. There are, however, two great dangers that betide
our government. One is the danger that comes from the corrupt use of
wealth; the other, that which comes from the corruption of too-long-held
power. It is a common proverb, ‘An honest man can bear watching; a
dishonest man needs it.’ This is just as true of politics as of common
procedure. This is the age of enterprise, of production, of commerce—of
money. Russia, Austria, and France failed in their greatest recent wars
and enterprises because those countries were honeycombed with official
corruption. We are in danger from the same cause.”
He regarded the introduction of the _moral element_ into politics as an
event of the greatest importance.
Politics had become so eminently “practical” that any one who should
suggest the wisdom, or even propriety, of basing political action on any
moral principle, was in danger of being laughed at as a “crank,” “dude,”
or “political pharisee.”
And when in the birth of the Prohibition party, and the sudden uprising
of the Independent Republicans, he saw the attempt to found practical
politics upon a purely moral foundation, he hailed them both as among
the most hopeful signs of the times.
Writing of these two movements, he said:
“Men of moral aims have been ruled out as impracticables, as ignorant of
_real_ politics, as enthusiasts and sentimentalists, as idealists and
doctrinaires. This has been very true, and they have hitherto hung on
the border of parties like a fringe of no substance or use. But the
development of the party of Prohibitionists and of Independent
Republicans is a disclosure, it seems to me, of a great providential
development in politics, and that there is to be hereafter a place found
for the _moral elements_ in the politics of our country!
“I have spoken of the two formative elements as likely to coalesce. For,
though there be thousands who cannot become technical prohibitionists,
yet they will help them to create a higher moral sentiment on the
subject of temperance.”
The results of the election and the part that Mr. Beecher took therein
have become history, and need not be further detailed.
Mr. Beecher’s action was not, as has been erroneously suggested, caused
by any sudden impulse. On the contrary, it was the result of careful and
earnest deliberation, and was not taken until his mind was fully made
up, and it retained the approval of his later judgment, after the heat
and excitement of the contest had died out.
In his Thanksgiving sermons, it was his custom to review to some extent
the political as well as material growth of the country, to find in both
whatever there might be fit for thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving, 1884, he, at first, intended to review the course of
the events of the campaign just completed, and commenced a sermon for
that purpose. After writing a part, he changed his plans and prepared
another, in which he reviewed the reconstruction of the country since
the war. From this we have quoted in a previous chapter.
The manuscript of his unfinished sermon we have, and, though it is a
fragment only, it will be of value as showing his more sober judgment,
reviewing in retrospect the campaign just past and his part therein.
“During the great political campaign which has just terminated, I have
scrupulously refrained from introducing into the pulpit, or into the
social meetings of this church, a word that, directly or indirectly, had
any bearing upon politics.
“Not that I had not the right, but because it was not expedient. Out of
the bounds of the church I felt called to take an active part.
“I am not willing that you should be ignorant of my inmost motives, and
that you should have spread out before you the whole map of affairs as
looked at from my standpoint. Many of you, steadfast friends, will not
agree with my theory and judgment of my duty; but you will acquit me of
apostasy, or of inconsistency, and perhaps will even admit that, if my
view of the whole condition of national affairs was correct, my action
and career have been in one direction for forty years, and _that the
very influences_ which led me to help in the formation of the Republican
party, to accept its hardships, its perils, its reproaches, in all the
successive periods of its development, have at this late day led me to
dissent from its aims and policy. I have not left the party. I am
standing on the _very ground_ over which the battles have raged, when I
have lost good repute and suffered endless revilings.
“No, I have left nothing. If there has been any change, it is not in me.
I would not take one step away from those great moral principles which
have been the strength of this great historic party.
“Others may think that I have mistaken the reality of affairs, and been
misled by will-o’-wisp lights.
“But, taking all counsel of all sobriety and deliberation, every true
man must follow his own ripe judgment. I have followed mine, and,
looking back over the canvass, I should be conceited indeed if I said
that I had been perfect, had carried a cool intensity always, said
nothing too severely. Accepting my own limitations, I nevertheless look
back upon the past few months as worthy to be associated with the months
and years of half a century of public labor, and indeed, if you will
forgive the conceit, I regard this service as the very blossom of my
life.
“These words I speak to my friends and to my church. I owe no apology or
explanation to the public. But to the great multitude of members of the
Church and society, with whom so much of my life has been spent, whose
friendship and love I have had, whose unity of heart and soul around me
has been the source of so much gladness and strength; _to you_, fathers,
mothers, and friends of every name—to you, laying aside my too sensitive
pride and my somewhat fierce sense of personal independence, I shall
to-day unbosom myself, and shall try to give you a bird’s-eye view of
the condition of the United States at this hour, and my understanding of
what it is that God’s providence is calling us to.
“I shall enumerate, point by point, the themes for thanksgiving to-day:
“To-day is waging a great battle between _Optimism_ and _Pessimism_.
What is Optimism? That happy temperament which leads one to see all
things in a hopeful light and in a joyful courage.
“What is Pessimism? It is that structure of mind which inclines one to
see all events in a sad and discouraging way. Either disposition carried
to its farthest limit is unphilosophical. Good is not all good; bad is
not all bad. Good and evil are combined, like lights and shadows in
art—sometimes, as in Rembrandt, voluminous darkness nursing a small spot
of light; sometimes all light and hardly enough dark to cast a shadow.
“In looking at our own day and our own country there is both light and
shadow. There are reasons for criticism and regret, but more for
_gladness and thanksgiving_.
“Great excitements in monarchical governments are great dangers. When
the government takes care of the people, the people feel little need of
caring for themselves. When the people, by the genius of their
institutions, are to look out for themselves, they learn how, like lofty
trees, to let violent winds sway all their branches without disturbing
the _root_. That is anchored fast.
“The roaring anger of the wind and the sharp cry of anguish in the
resisting branches soon pass and die away, and the tree, unclasped by
the demon Storm, comes back to peace, only a few leaves lost, a few
branches twisted.
“Three weeks ago a foreigner, beholding the superlative excitement of
the whole community, East, North, West, and South, would have thought
that there could never be peace more. Newspapers flew like unquenchable
arrows every whither, business was almost forgotten, the streets were
crowded processions, meetings were convoked, and men of every
profession, arguing, appealing, inflamed the people. Friends let go each
other’s hands, families were divided for a time. Words ran high, every
truth was carried to the utmost limit of violence. A wordy prophesy
filled the land, of good or of evil. The lawyer forgot his brief, the
artist his æsthetic dream, the merchant his bargains, the judge the
plushy decorum of the bench. Refined ministers of the Gospel, loving
elegant retiracy, burst forth in interviews. Venerable pastors presided
at wild political demonstrations, and some even went forth speaking up
and down the land, like Saul of old, in prophesying fury. Hundreds of
honored and beloved ministers marched in full panoply of zeal, like
Balaam of old, to curse....
“Three weeks have passed! It is all gone. No more banners, lanterns,
transparencies, or shouts of men. The lamps are out, the men gone home
to work, trades resumed, the lawyer to the courts, the clergyman to his
pulpit. The anger, the scare, the grief of surprise that everybody had,
that everybody should have said or done what everybody did, is dying
out, the sore places are healing, friends are reaching out kindly hands
again.
“The storm that darkened the heavens, the turbulent sea that thundered
on the shore, have resumed their peaceful mien. The only mourners are
they who sought and found not, who knocked and unto whom it was not
opened. Even they will ere long cool their anger, shorten their sighs,
and, like a weary child in its mother’s lap, hide all its grief in
sleep.”
Mr. Beecher was very much gratified, not only at the election of Mr.
Cleveland, for whom he had grown to feel a strong personal friendship,
and in whose administration, despite the occasional mistakes that proved
even the President to be subject to the fallibilities of mankind, he
found so much of moral courage, firmness, and honest good sense to
admire and approve, but in addition to these reasons, he felt that an
administration in which the South should be permitted to have a part,
meant the reuniting of the country in fact as well as in name, and a
fitting sequel to that reconstruction which he had so earnestly
advocated nearly twenty years before. He had earnestly prayed that he
might see the day when our country should be _one nation_, without the
lines of a bitter sectionalism, dividing North from South or East from
West; and in his last year expressed the great satisfaction he felt in
the part he had been permitted to play in bringing about such a result.