VI.-THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. [The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by noble sentiments, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.] 1. By the flow of the island river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Under the one, the Blue, Under the other, the Gray. 2. These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, Under the willow, the Gray. 3. From the silence of sorrowful hours Lovingly laden with flowers Alike for the friend and the foe :- Waiting the judgment day;— Under the roses, the Blue, Under the lilies, the Gray. 4. So with an equal splendor, Waiting the judgment day;— 5. So, when the Summer calleth, With an equal murmur falleth 6. Sadly, but not upbraiding, The generous deed was done; In the storm of the years that are fading, 7. No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Waiting the judgment day; Love and tears for the Blue, VII.-TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. WENDELL PHILLIPS. [Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has been pronounced one of the greatest statesmen and generals of the nineteenth century, saved his master and family by hurrying them on board a vessel at the insurrection of the negroes of Hayti. He then joined the negro army, and soon found himself at their head. Napoleon sent a fleet with French veterans, with orders to bring him to France at all hazards. But all the skill of the French soldiers could not subdue the negro army; and they finally made a treaty, placing Toussaint L'Ouverture governor of the island. The negroes no sooner disbanded their army, than a squad of soldiers seized Toussaint by night, and taking him on board a vessel, hurried him to France. There he was placed in a dungeon, and finally starved to death.] 1. IF I stood here to-night to tell the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great general of the century. If I were to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts-you who think no marble white enough, in which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. 2. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated him because he had beaten them in battle. You remember that Macauly says, comparing Cromwell with Napoleon, that Cromwell showed greater military genius on this account, he never saw an army till he was forty: Napoleon from a boy was educated in the best military schools of Europe. 3. Cromwell manufactured his army. Napoleon at nineteen was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. They both conquered, but, says Macauly, with such disadvantages, the Englishman showed the greater genius. Whether you allow the result or not, you will at least allow that that is a fair mode of measurement. 4. Now apply it to Toussaint. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty: this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his army-out of what? Englishmen-the best blood of Europe. With it he conquered what? Englishmen-their equals. 5. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized, by two hundred years of slavery. Yet out of this mixed, and as you say despicable mass, he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it-at what? At the proudest blood in Europe-the Spaniard, and sent him home: at the most warlike blood in Europe-the Frenchman, and put him under his feet: at the pluckiest blood in Europethe English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a general, at least, this man was a soldier. It is not by quantity, but by quality we measure genius. 6. Cromwell was only a soldier: his fame stops there. Not one line, in the statute book of Britain, can be traced to him. The state he founded went down with him to his grave. But this man no sooner found himself at the helm of state, than the ship steadied, with an upright keel, and began to evince a statesmanship as marvellous as his military genius. 7. It was 1798, a time when religious intolerance poisoned every page of England's statute book: when every state in the Union, save Rhode Island, was but another name for bigotry. This man remember was a negro, you say that is a superstitious blood. He was uneducated, you say that makes a man narrow minded. He was a Catholic; many say that is but another name for intolerance. Yet, Negro, Catholic, Slave, he took his place beside Roger Williams and said to his committee, “Make it the first line of my constitution, that I know no difference between religious beliefs." 8. Now blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me sixty years; select what statesman you please: let him be either American or Englishman, let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture, let him have the richest culture of university routine, crown his temples with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the man of Saxon lineage, for whom his most sanguine admirers will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes, have placed on the brow of this negro. 9. I would call him Napoleon; but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths, and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word, and his last words uttered to his son in France were these, "My boy, you will some day go back to St. Domingo, forget that France murdered your father." I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded did go down with him to the grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. 10. You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history not with your eyes but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence when impartial history gets written, some Plutarch of later days will put Phocian for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization; then, dipping his pencil in sunlight, will write in the clear blue above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, and the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. VIII. THE DRUNKARD'S DAUGHTER. [We cannot find words to express our emotions when we first read the following touching verses. They stir the soul to its very depths, and we defy a man of feeling to read them with a tearless eye. A young lady, whose life had been made wretched by the drunkenness of her father, is the author; and none but one who has "walked woe's depths," could write such a powerful piece. She wrote and sent it to a friend, who had told her that she was a monomaniac," in bitter hatred of the cup."-St. Louis Press.] 1. Go, feel what I have felt, Go, bear what I have borne; Sink 'neath the blow a father dealt, And the cold proud world's scorn; Thus struggle on from year to year, 2. Go, weep as I have wept, O'er a loved father's fall, See every cherished promise swept, Youth's sweetness turned to gall; 3. Go, kneel as I have knelt, Implore, beseech and pray, The downward course to stay: Be cast, with bitter tears, aside, 4. Go, stand where I have stood, And see the strong man bow, With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood, And cold the livid brow; Go, catch his wandering glance, and see deadly |