Page images
PDF
EPUB

He then pictured a glorious being in the distance gazing from his home in the clouds upon the scene and smiling upon their puny efforts. Then raising himself to his full height, he pointed to the skies and cried out in a voice of exultation, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."

While he was yet speaking, the enormous rock which represented the Declaration, and which seemed to be embedded in the foundations of the earth, was moved by some invisible force. In a moment it overwhelmed its miserable assailants and buried them forever from human sight.

The effect of this amazing panorama so suddenly created by the magic wand of the Great Vindicator of the Dec: laration was so great as to require an immediate adjournment of the meeting. On motion of Mr. Madison, all further discussion was postponed till the next day at 10 o'clock

a. m.

LAFAYETTE'S SPEECH.

Lafayette said that he had been a soldier from his youth. In his boyhood he had been taught that France was the chosen home of chivalry and that the road to honor and glory was war. So he joined the Guards; and, at the age of nineteen became a captain of dragoons and was proud of his skill in all military exercises.

Fortunately, the first war he became engaged in was the American Revolution, a war for liberty and self-govern

ment, and he never had the least inclination to favor an unjust war afterwards. The part he took in the Revolution and subsequent wars in his own country was always in favor of liberty, justice, and good government. He had, in his experience in the old and new worlds, throughout a long life, learned a great deal about war. He had been in many battles and was once a prisoner for five years in unwholesome dungeons.

The false teachings of his youth had yielded to the true lessons of experience. The bright visions of military glory in which he had indulged in early life had been dispelled by the stern reality of the battle-field, the siege, and the prison, with their accompaniments of wounds, mutilation, disease, starvation, misery, and death to all ages, both sexes, and the innocent and guilty alike. Upon this subject he had learned to think and speak the truth. "The horrors of war” was a true and correct expression; and there was little room for charity for any ruler or any government, of any name or nature, which made, or caused to be made, any war which was not absolutely necessary to the national existence or to the preservation of its freedom.

He said that he had adopted the views of a great philosophical writer, that "war originates in the selfishness of the human heart, and is generally caused by ambition, avarice, or revenge." The great exemplars of the spirit of war and of its destructiveness were Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon. They killed more men, made more widows and orphans, and created more misery in the world than any other three de stroyers of the race. And at the bottom of all the wars they

waged was that selfish and deadly ambition which petrifies the human heart. He said:

"France has been afflicted in this way by the selfishness of her rulers throughout almost her entire history as a nation. Such kings as Francis the First, Louis the Fourteenth, and many others of the same character before the Revolution, and the two Bonapartes after the Revolution, were the worst enemies of their country and of mankind and exhausted in their wicked wars the wealth and resources of France; sometimes decimated her people and filled half her homes with sorrow and mourning. The war made by Louis Napoleon on the German Empire, less than thirty years ago, was so wicked and foolish in its origin and so ruinous and humiliating to France in its result that the only way to account for it is upon the theory that its author was under the influence of an uncontrollable infatuation. Nearly all the kings of France who had any ability were warriors; and only one of them in nine hundred years was at once a great king and a good man. Louis the Ninth, called in history St. Louis, occupies alone this proud preeminence.

"How shall France attain the position to which she is entitled among the nations? Not by war, for war has been the incubus which has retarded her progress; but by peace and the works of peace. By devotion to science, to literature, to agriculture, to manufactures, to all the arts of peace, France may and will soon take her natural place among the leading nations of the world. She is already taking a long step in that direction in her great Exposition. If she will take for her motto in the future, "Peace is the true glory of nations," and steadily adhere to it, she will, at

no distant day, equal any nation in Europe in all that makes a people truly great, prosperous, and happy, and her children, scattered all over the earth, will feel a patriotic and exultant pride in the true and lasting glory of their native land.

"As to the Philippine War, it should be regarded as another instance of the vicious influence which selfish ambition so often exerted over the rulers of the world. I cannot conceive of the founders of the American Republic engaging in such a war as that. They would have considered it treason to liberty and to the Declaration of Independence.

"On the 4th of July, 1776, when John Adams was advocating the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, he said: 'We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it.' He said much more to the same effect, and all that he predicted came to pass. In 1824, forty-eight years after the Declaration was made, I visited the United States and remained more than a year, traveling all over the country as the guest of the nation, and never in the history of this world was such an ovation given to any mortal man. The whole people rose up as one man to welcome me. Everywhere it was 'Welcome! Welcome!! Welcome!!! Lafayette!'

"I do not recall these scenes from vanity, but to show the devotion of the American people to Liberty, for it was Liberty they were honoring in their welcome to me. It is impossible for me to express my gratification and pride at hearing my name and Liberty repeated together all over the United States. It was as the friend of Liberty that the President received me. It was as the friend of Liberty that

the great orator of the West, Mr. Clay, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, welcomed me with his wonderful eloquence. And that welcome was repeated all over the land by old and young-by the survivors of the Revolutionary War and their children, and their children's children; from the venerable soldier, tottering on the brink of the grave, to the infant in the cradle.

"These honors, which were far greater than I deserved, were bestowed upon me by the rulers and people of the United States because they considered that I had been the lifelong friend, advocate, and defender of liberty, independence, and self-government in the Old World and the New.

"I was invited to assist in laying the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument on the 17th day of June, 1825. I heard the oration pronounced on that occasion by the great orator of New England, Mr. Webster. I heard him state the objects of the erection of that monument. I heard him say it was 'to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Revolution.' 'We consecrate our

*

*

work to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it forever.'

*

*

*

*

*

*

'We wish that labor may look up here and be proud in the midst of its toil.' * * 'Let it rise-let it rise till it meets the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it and parting day linger and play upon its summit.' I never can forget the intense earnestness of the speaker as he turned to me and said: 'Sir, we are as

« PreviousContinue »