Page images
PDF
EPUB

49. IN FAVOR OF INDEPENDENCE.

[This extract is taken from Webster's Eulogy on John Adams. No report was made of Adams's speech in favor of the Declaration of Independence, in the Continental Congress, but Webster in his oration, supposes him to have made this speech.]

1. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that, in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, she has, for our good, obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the declaration?

2. Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague, near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws?

3. If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament,-Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust?

4. I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to

adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know that there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him.

5. The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injustice and oppression.

6. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former, she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter, she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why then, sir, do we not, as soon as possible, change this from a civil to a national war? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?

But we

7. If we fail, it can be no worse for us. shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people-the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry them

selves, gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead.

8. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of griev ances, for chartered immunities held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life.

9. Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

10. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scaffold. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

11. But whatever may be our fate, be assured-be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

12. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment,-independence now, and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!

DANIEL WEBSTER.

USING WORDS. Write each of the following words, in a sentence of your own: colleague, stake, copious, proscribed, predestined, compensate, exultation, rebellious, uncertainty, immunities, rue, restoration, resistance, scabbard, colonies.

10

WRITTEN SPELLING.-WORDS OFTEN MISSPELLED.

Study this lesson by copying it on your slate, at your desk. Refer to the dictionary for definitions or pronunciation.

[blocks in formation]

50. FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU.

[King James, of Scotland, disguised as a knight, while wandering in the Highlands, encounters the Scottish Chieftain, Roderick Dhu. Neither warrior, however, is known to the other. The opening extract describes the meeting.]

With cautious step, and ear awake,

He climbs the crag, and threads the brake;
And not the summer solstice, there,
Tempered the midnight mountain air,
But every breeze that swept the wold,
Benumbed his drenched limbs with cold.
In dread, in danger, and alone,

Famished and chilled, through ways unknown,
Tangled and steep, he journeyed on;
Till, as a rock's huge point he turned,
A watch-fire close before him burned.
Beside its embers red and clear,
Basked, in his plaid, a mountaineer:
And up he sprung with sword in hand,—
"Thy name and purpose! Saxon, stand!"
"A stranger."-"What dost thou require ?"
"Rest and a guide, and food and fire.
My life's beset, my path is lost,
The gale has chilled my limbs with frost."
"Art thou a friend to Roderick?" "No."
"Thou darest not call thyself a foe?"
"I dare! to him and all the band
He brings to aid his murderous hand."
"Bold words!-but, though the beast of game
The privilege of chase may claim,

Though space and law the stag we lend,
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend,
Who ever recked, where, how, or when,
The prowling fox was trapped or slain?
Thus treacherous scouts,-yet sure they lie,

« PreviousContinue »