[Speech of William M. Evarts at a banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of
the State of New York, New York City, November 5, 1881. The banquet
was given in honor of the guests of the nation, the French diplomatic
representatives in America, and members of the families descended from
our foreign sympathizers and helpers, General Lafayette, Count de
Rochambeau, Count de Grasse, Baron von Steuben, and others, who were
present at the Centennial celebration of the victory at Yorktown. The
chairman, James M. Brown, Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce,
proposed the following toast: "The French Alliance; the amicable
relations between our two countries founded in 1778, by the Treaty of
Amity and Commerce, between the nation of France and the American
people, cemented in blood in 1781, renewed by this visit of our
distinguished guests, will, we trust, be perpetuated through all
time."]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:--It is
with great pride, as well as with great pleasure, that I respond to the
call in behalf of the merchants of the United States, as represented by
the merchants of the great city of the United States, through this
ancient guild of the Chamber of Commerce, in paying their tribute of
honor and applause to the French nation, that was present as a nation in
the contest of our Revolution, and is present here as a nation by its
representatives to-day [applause]; and to the great Frenchmen that were
present with their personal heroism in the struggles of the Revolution,
and are present here in their personal descendants, to see the fruits of
that Revolution, and to receive our respectful greeting [applause]; and
to the Germans who were present, where they could not have been spared
in the great trials of our feeble nation in its struggles against the
greatest power in the world, and who are here, by the descendants of
those heroic Germans, to join in this feast of freedom and of glory.
[Applause.]
But I felt a little doubt, Mr. Chairman, whether the etiquette of this
occasion required me to speak in my own tongue, or in the German or the
French, for I speak French and German equally well [laughter], but I
thought it would be a poor compliment, after all, to talk to these
Frenchmen, or these Germans, in their native tongues. They surely hear
enough of that at home. [Laughter.]
Well, Mr. President, the French Alliance was one of the noblest
transactions in history. The sixth day of February, 1778, witnessed the
Treaty of Alliance and the accompanying Treaty of Amity and Commerce
which filled out our Declaration of Independence, and made that an
assured triumph, which was until then nothing but a heroic effort on our
part. [Cheers.] I do not know that the sixth of February has anywhere
been honored in any due proportion to the Fourth of July; but for my
part, as an humble individual, from the earliest moment I have done all
in my power to show my homage to that day, for on that day I was born.
[Laughter and applause.]
Now, we talk the most and must feel the most and with great propriety,
of the presence of our French and of our German aids, and of our own
presence at the battle of Yorktown and the surrender. But what would
that occasion have amounted to, either in the fact of it or in the
celebration of it, if the English had not been there? [Laughter.] You
may remember the composure of the hero that was going to the block and
felt that there was no occasion for hurry or confusion in the attendant
crowd, as nothing important could take place until he got there
[laughter]; and so, in this past history and in the present celebration,
we recognize that it is not a question of personal mortification or of
personal triumph--not even of national mortification or of national
triumph. This was one of the great battles of the world, in which all
the nations engaged, and all other nations had an everlasting interest
and one through which they were to reap an everlasting good. [Applause.]
And I would like to know if the granddaughter of George III has ever had
from her subjects, British or Indian, any sweeter incense than has just
now been poured out from the hearts of the American people, who freely
give that homage to her virtues as a woman that they deny to her sceptre
and her crown as a queen. [Applause.] Who would not rather be a great
man than a great king? Who would not rather be a great woman than a
great queen? [Applause.] Ah, is there not a wider sovereignty over the
race, and a deeper homage from human nature than ever can come from an
allegiance to power? And for woman, though she be a queen, what personal
power in human affairs can equal that of drawing a throb from every
heart and a tear from every eye, when she spoke to us as a woman in the
distress of our nation? [Applause.]
It was a very great thing for France to make the Treaty of Alliance and
the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with a nation that, as yet, had
received no acceptance from the powers of the earth. And when we
remember that France, in the contests of a thousand years, had found
England no unequal match in the quarrels that belonged to the two
nations, I must think that human history has shown nothing nobler than
her espousal of this growing struggle between these colonists and the
great power of England. [Applause.] How much nearer France was to
England than we! How much wider her possessions through the world, open
to the thunders of the British navy and the prowess of the British arms!
And when France, in a treaty, the equal terms of which will strike every
reader with wonder, speaks of the "common cause" to be pursued until the
result of our complete independence, governmental and commercial, was
attained, I know nothing in the way of the "bearing the burdens of one
another," enjoined as the Christian spirit, that is greater than this
stupendous action of France. [Applause.]
The relations of blood and history that make England and us one, as we
always shall be, do not, nevertheless, make it clear that there is not a
closer feeling of attachment, after all, between us and France. It is a
very great compliment, no doubt, in classical phrase, to bespoken of as
"_matre pulchra filia pulchrior"_--the fairer daughter of a fair mother,
but, after all, it is a greater compliment to the daughter than to the
mother. I don't know that maternal affection, the purest sentiment on
earth, is ever quite pleased that the daughter is taller and fairer and
more winning in her ways than the mother is, or ever was [laughter]; and
I do know that there comes a time when the daughter leaves the mother
and cleaves to a closer affection. And here were we, a young, growing,
self-conscious, self-possessed damsel, just peeping from out our
mother's apron, when there comes a gallant and noble friend, who takes
up our cause, and that, too, at a time when it was not quite apparent
whether we should turn out a beauty or a hoyden. [Laughter and
applause.] And that is our relation to France. Nothing can limit,
nothing can disturb it; nothing shall disparage it. It is that we, from
that time and onward, and now finally in the great consummation of two
Republics united together against the world, represent in a new sense
Shakespeare's figure of the "unity and married calm of states."
[Applause.]
The French people have the advantage of us in a great many things, and I
don't know that we have any real advantage of them, except in a superior
opinion of ourselves. [Laughter.] God forbid that anybody should take
that from us! Great as is our affection and gratitude toward the French
and German nations, there is one thing that we cannot quite put up with
in those nations, and that is, that, but for them, the English and we
should think ourselves the greatest nations in the world. [Laughter.]
So, with all the bonds of amity between us and them, we must admit that
the Frenchmen and Germans make a pretty good show on the field of
history in the past, and, apparently, mean to have a pretty good share
of the future of this world. [Applause.]
In comparing the Yorktown era with the present day, we find that then a
great many more Frenchmen came here than Germans; but now a great many
more Germans come here than Frenchmen. The original disparity of numbers
seems to have been redressed by the later immigration, and we are
reduced to that puzzling equilibrium of the happy swain whenever we are
obliged to choose sides in the contest between these nations:--
"How happy could I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away."
[Laughter.]
The French are a great people in their conduct toward us in this
respect, that the aid and sympathy and alliance has been all in our
favor; they have done everything for us, and have been strong enough not
to need anything from us. [Applause.] The fault of the French, changing
a little Mr. Canning's memorable lines:--
"The fault of the French, unlike the Dutch,
Is asking too little, and giving too much."
[Laughter and applause.]
Now, this treaty commences with the very sensible statement that the two
nations being desirous of placing their commerce and correspondence upon
permanent and equitable grounds, His Most Christian Majesty and the
United States of America had thought, to that end, it was best to place
these relations upon perfect equality and reciprocity, without any of
those burdensome preferences which are the source of debate and
misunderstanding and of discontent between nations. In this spirit it
is, no doubt, that we have each pursued toward each other, in commerce,
that most equitable and equal system, by prohibitory duties, of keeping
all of each other's products out of the other that we can. [Laughter.]
Well, the Frenchmen knew, after all, that the Americans can never get
along without their wines, and without their silks, and without their
jewels, and without their art, and without their science, and without
the numberless elegancies which make life even in our backwoods
tolerable. And we know that they cannot very well dispense with our
wheat and corn and the oil from the earth and the cotton to weave into
those delicate tissues with which they clothe the world. [Applause.] So
that, after all, these superficial barriers of customs duties do not
really obstruct our commerce; and even if they have too much of our
pork, as would seem to be the notion at present, we have no desire to
dispense with their wines. [Laughter.]
But there are some other interchanges between nations besides those of
commerce in the raw material or in the products of industry. If we could
make more of a moral interchange with the French; if we could take some
of the moral sunlight which shines upon that great nation; if we could
be more cheerful, more gay, more debonair, and if they could take from
us some of the superfluous ice which we produce morally as well as
naturally, and some of that cold resistance against the inflammation of
enthusiasm which sometimes raises a conflagration among their citizens
at home, we have no tariff on either side that would interfere in the
blending and intercommunication of the moral resources of both nations,
that shall make us more and more one people, in laws, liberties and
national glory, and in all the passions that guide and animate the
conduct of nations. [Applause.]
I am happy to announce myself to you, gentlemen, what I am vain enough
to suppose you would not suspect, that I am a contemporary of Lafayette.
As a Boston schoolboy, I stood in the ranks at Boston when Lafayette in
1825 passed with a splendid cortége along the malls of Boston Common. I
had the pleasure, as a descendant of one of his Revolutionary friends,
to be presented to him personally, and to hear him say that he well
remembered his old friend, my grandfather. [Cheers.] This pleasing
courtesy, it may be said, was all French politeness; but I can say to
these Frenchmen that whether they believe one another at home or not, we
always believe them in this country. [Applause.]
And now your toast desires that this friendship, thus beginning and
continued, shall be perpetual. Who is to stop it? No power but ourselves
and yourselves, sir (turning to the French Minister), can interrupt it.
What motive have you--what motive have we--what sentiment, but that on
either side would be dishonor to the two nations--can ever breathe a
breath to spoil its splendor and its purity? [Applause.] And, sir, your
munificence and your affection is again to be impressed upon the
American people in that noble present you are designing to make to us,
in the great statue of "Liberty enlightening the World," an unexampled
munificence from the private citizens of one nation to the people of
another. We are to furnish the island for its site and the pedestal to
place the statue on. This our people will do with an enthusiasm equal to
your own. But, after all, the obligation will be wholly ours, for it is
to be a lighthouse in our great harbor, a splendid monument to add new
beauty to the glorious Bay of New York. [Applause.]
* * * * *