intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts
tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro, let these efforts be
turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and
intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand
per cent. interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him
that gives and him that takes."
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall
constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South,
or one-third of its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute
one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or
we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, repressing,
retarding every effort to advance the body politic.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions
of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the
enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result
of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long
in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges
of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared
for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar
in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera-house.
Here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the struggles
of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three
decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and
intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you
shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only
let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in
these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory,
letters and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material
benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come,
in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and
suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a
willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of the law. This,
this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved
South a new heaven and a new earth.
The Guillotine
BY VICTOR HUGO.
(This is a part of the speech in defense of his son, under the
circumstances set forth in the oration.)
Gentlemen of the jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my
son,--it is I!--I, who for these twenty-five years have opposed capital
punishment,--have contended for the inviolability of human life,--have
committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce
my self, Mr. Advocate-General! I have committed it under all aggravated
circumstances; deliberately, repeatedly, tenaciously. Yes, this old and
absurd _lex taliones_--this law of blood for blood--I have combated all
my life--all my life, gentlemen of the jury! And, while I have breath,
I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all
my words and all my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the
crucifix; before that Victim of the penalty of death, who sees and
hears us; before that gibbet, in which, two thousand years ago, for the
eternal instruction of the generations, the human law nailed the divine!
In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment and
for writing and publishing which he is now on trial--in all that he has
written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his
infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen jurors, the right to criticise
a law, and to criticise it severely--especially a penal law--is placed
beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under
the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, as
necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legislator.
What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is
dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he
finds the scaffold! He shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is
young yet--only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say,--"He is a
murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet are
tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His
feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the
scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes
the crowd! The officers,--sweat and shame on their brows,--pale,
panting, terrified, despairing,--despairing with I know not what
horrible despair,--shrinking under that public reprobation which ought
to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive treatment, the
executioner,--the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the
scaffold and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn,--his shoulders
bloody,--still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour
of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this
agony,--agony for all, be it understood,--agony for the assembled
spectators as well as for the condemned man,--after this age of anguish,
gentlemen of the jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison.
The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that
the man will be spared. But no,--the guillotine, though vanquished,
remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened
population. And at night the officers, re-enforced, drag forth the
wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight,--they drag him
forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life,--calling
upon God, calling upon his father and mother,--for like a very child
had this man become in the prospect of death,--they drag him forth to
execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold and his head falls! And then
through every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared
with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated
in the deed. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast
escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart,--a cry of pity and anguish,--a
cry of horror,--a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And in
the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to
the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, "Thou art
wrong!" Gentlemen of the jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.
Robespierre's Last Speech
BY MAXIMILIAN MARIE ISIDORE DE ROBESPIERRE.
[Before his execution, Robespierre addressed the populace of
Paris in part as follows:]
The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such, they would
grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should grant them
immunity for their crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the
kings we have vanquished, far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend
me their guilty support; there would be a covenant between them and me.
Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny,--whither does their
path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my protector?
To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction since the
beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many
detected traitors? You, the people, our principles, are that faction--a
faction to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of
the day is banded!
The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that
the Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality.
Against me, and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is
formed. My life? Oh! my life I abandon without a regret. I have seen the
past; and I foresee the future. What friend of this country would wish
to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it,--when he could
no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I
continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over
truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or
fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In
witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution
has rolled in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that
I have sometimes feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of
posterity, by the impure neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had
thrust themselves into association with the sincere friends of humanity;
and I rejoice that these conspirators against my country have now, by
their reckless rage, traced deep the line of demarcation between
themselves and all true men.
Question history, and learn how all the defenders of liberty, in all
times, have been overwhelmed by calumny. But their traducers died
also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in
very different conditions. O Frenchmen! O my countrymen! Let not your
enemies, with their desolating doctrines, degrade your souls and
enervate your virtues! No, Chaumette, no! Death is not "an eternal
sleep"! Citizens, efface from the tomb that motto, graven by
sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape,
takes from suppressed innocence its support, and affronts the
beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words:
"Death is the commencement of immortality!" I leave to the oppressors
of the People a terrible testament, which I proclaim with the
independence befitting one whose career is so nearly ended; it is
the awful truth,--"Thou shalt die!"
Secession
BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
[Delivered at the Georgia State Convention, January, 1861.]
Mr. President: This step of secession, once taken, can never be
recalled, and all the baleful and withering consequences that must
follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our
posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war,
which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our
green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous
soldiery and fiery car sweeping over our land; our temples of justice
laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but
this convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who
shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I
honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this
suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and
execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating
ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate?
Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can
give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments--what reasons
you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will
bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to
justify it? They will be calm and deliberate judges in the case; and
what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the
plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest
of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what
claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you
to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely
done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to
complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show
the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here, the advocate of
the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the
South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and
faithfully, for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words
of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only
state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as
records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South
demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the
cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves,
was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any
fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or
allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again
ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you
reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have
not been faithful to their engagements? As individuals and local
communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of
government; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again,
gentlemen, look at another act; when we have asked that more territory
should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have
they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and
Texas, out of which four States have been carved, and ample territory
for four more to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and
impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and perhaps by it lose all,
and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as
South American and Mexican were; or by the vindictive decree of a
universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow.
But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of
our relation to the general government? We have always had the control
of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have
been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South,
as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from
the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their
twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So, of the
judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and
but eleven from the North, although nearly four-fifths of the judicial
business has arisen in the free States, yet a majority of the court
has always been from the South. This we have acquired so as to guard
against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In
like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the
legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding presidents
(pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven.
Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While
the majority of the representatives, from their greater population,
have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured
the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the
legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other
department of the general government. Attorney-generals we have had
fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have
had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the
business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the free
States, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the
principal embassies, so as to secure the world-markets for our cotton,
tobacco and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast
majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger
proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North.
Equally so of clerks, auditors and comptrollers filling the executive
department; the records show, for the last fifty years, that of the
three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the
same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the
Republic.
Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a
great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting
government. From official documents we learn that a fraction over
three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the government
has uniformly been raised from the North.
Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and
candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of
government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in
that department. I mean the mail and post-office privileges that we now
enjoy under the general government as it has been for years past. The
expense for the transportation of the mail in the free States was, by
the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860, a little over
$13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the slave States
the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from
the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974 to be supplied
by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been
entirely cut off from this most essential branch of government.
Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars
you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your
sons and brothers slain in battle and offered up as sacrifices upon
the altar of your ambition--and for what, we ask again? Is it for
the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on
the broad principles of right, justice and humanity? And as such, I must
declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated
by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this and other
lands, that it is the best and freest government--the most equal in
its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its
measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race
of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt
to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for
more than three-quarters of a century--in which we have gained our
wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the
elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied
with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed--is the height of
madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor
my vote.
Birds
Birds are singing round my window,
Tunes the sweetest ever heard,
And I hang my cage there daily,
But I never catch a bird.
So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long;
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of song!
--_Richard Henry Stoddard_.
The Death of Hypatia
BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.
["Hypatia was a mathematician of Alexandria, who taught her
students the philosophy of Plato. Orestes, governor of
Alexandria, admired the talents of Hypatia, and frequently
had recourse to her for advice. He was desirous of curbing the
too ardent zeal of St. Cyril, who saw in Hypatia one of the
principal supports of paganism. The most fanatical followers
of the bishop, in March, A.D. 415, seized upon Hypatia as she
was proceeding to her school, forced her to descend from her
chariot, and dragged her into a neighboring church, where she
was put to death by her brutal foes. Canon Kingsley's historical
romance has done much to make her name familiar to English
readers" (Classical Dictionary). Raphael Aben-Ezra, a former
pupil, converted to Christianity and returning to Alexandria,
seeks audience with Hypatia to tell her of the Nazarene. Broken
and discouraged, she still holds to her philosophy, but finally
consents to hear what Raphael has to say of Christianity. It is
almost time for her to lecture at the school, so she makes an
appointment for Raphael the following day. She sends him from
her until then with the words with which this cutting begins.]
"Yes, come.... The Galilean.... If he conquers strong men, can the weak
maid resist him? Come soon ... this afternoon.... My heart is breaking
fast."
"At the eighth hour this afternoon?" asked Raphael.
"Yes.... At noon I lecture ... take my farewell, rather, forever, of
the schools.... Gods! What have I to say?... And tell me about Him
of Nazareth. Farewell!"
"Farewell, beloved lady! At the ninth hour you shall hear of Him of
Nazareth."
As Raphael went down the steps into the street, a young man sprang from
behind one of the pillars and seized his arm.
"Aha! my young Coryphæus of pious plunderers! What do you want with me?"
Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, and recognized him.
"Save her! for the love of God, save her!"
"Whom?"
"Hypatia!"
"How long has her salvation been important to you, my good friend?"
"For God's sake," said Philammon, "go back and warn her! She will hear
you--you are rich--you used to be her friend--I know you--I have heard
of you.... Oh, if you ever cared for her--if you ever felt for her a
thousandth part of what I feel--go in and warn her not to stir from
home!"
"Of what is she to be warned?"
"Of a plot--I know that there is a plot--against her among the monks and
parabolani. As I lay in bed this morning in Arsenius' room they thought
I was asleep--"
"Arsenius? Has that venerable fanatic, then, gone the way of all
monastic flesh, and turned persecutor?"
"God forbid! I heard him beseeching Peter, the reader, to refrain from
something, I cannot tell what; but I caught her name.... I heard Peter
say, 'She that hindereth will hinder till she be taken out of the way.'
And when he went out in the passage I heard him say to another, 'That
thou doest, do quickly!'"
"These are slender grounds, my friend."
"Ah, you do not know of what these men are capable."
"Do I not?"
"I know the hatred which they bear her, the crimes which they attribute
to her. Her house would have been attacked last night had it not been
for Cyril.... And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and softly
not to mean something devilish. I watched all the morning for an
opportunity of escape, and here I am! Will you take my message, or
see her--"
"What?"
"God only knows, and the devil whom they worship instead of God."
Raphael hurried back into the house. "Could he see Hypatia?" She had
shut herself up in her private room, strictly commanding that no visitor
should be admitted.... "Where was Theon, then?" He had gone out by the
canal gate half an hour before, and he hastily wrote on his tablet:
"Do not despise the young monk's warning. I believe him to speak the
truth. As you love yourself and your father, Hypatia, stir not out
to-day."
He bribed the maid to take the message up-stairs; and passed his time in
the hall in warning the servants. But they would not believe him. It was
true the shops were shut in some quarters, and the Museum gardens empty;
people were a little frightened after yesterday. But Cyril, they had
heard for certain, had threatened excommunication only last night to any
Christian who broke the peace; and there had not been a monk to be seen
in the streets the whole morning. And as for any harm happening to their
mistress--impossible! "The very wild beasts would not tear her," said
the huge negro porter, "if she were thrown into the amphitheater."
Whereat the maid boxed his ears for talking of such a thing: and then,
by way of mending it, declared that she knew for certain that her
mistress could turn aside the lightning and call legions of spirits to
fight for her with a nod.... What was to be done with such idolaters.
And yet who could help liking them the better for it?
At last the answer came down, in the old, graceful, studied,
self-conscious handwriting:
"I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare now, they would have
dared long ago. As for that youth--to obey or to believe his word, even
to seem aware of his existence, were shame to me henceforth. Because he
is insolent enough to warn me, therefore I will go. Fear not for me. You
would not wish me, for the first time in my life, to fear for myself.
I must follow my destiny. I must speak the words which I have to speak.
Above all, I must let no Christian say that the philosopher dared less
than the fanatic. If my gods are gods, then will they protect me; and if
not, let your God prove His rule as seems to Him good."