Page images
PDF
EPUB

Rights of Persons and Property Must Be Protected

of the persons and property of individuals are trodden down and disregarded. But all this, even, is not the full extent of the evil. By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint but dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely unrestrained. Having ever regarded government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations, and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of governments, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed-I mean the attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it, and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those who are too weak to make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the last half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom throughout the world.

I know the American people are much attached to their government; I know they would suffer much for its sake; I know they would endure evils long and patiently before they would ever think of exchanging it for another,yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually disregarded and despised, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the government is the natural consequence; and to that sooner or later it must

come.

Here, then, is one point from which danger must be expected.

The question recurs, "How shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, and so to the support of the Constitution and laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor-let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles

Nation's Safety Is the Preservation of Its Laws

on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, in spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

While ever a state of feeling such as this universally or even very generally prevails throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the redress for which no`legal provisions have ever been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed. So also in unimproved cases. If such arise, let proper legal provisions be made for them with the least possible delay, but 'til then let them, if not too intolerable, be borne with.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true that is, the thing is right within itself, therefore deserves the protection of all law and good citizens, or it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob law either necessary, justifiable, or excusable.

But it may be asked, "Why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long?"

We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope that all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore, and which are not so insignificant as to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form, from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now it is understood to be a successful one. Then, all that sought celebrity and fame and distinction expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it; their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition which had hitherto been considered at best no better than problematical—namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties, and cities, and rivers, and mountains; and to be revered and sung, toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves, and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful, and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; I believe that the catching ends the pleasures of the chase. This fieid of glory is harvested,

True Patriotism Builds Up-It Does Not Pull Down

and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they too will seek a field. It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is a glory to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving free men. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up.among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

Here is a probable case, highly dangerous and such an one as could not well have existed heretofore.

Another reason which once was, but which to the same extent, is now no more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon. the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence the jealousy, the envy, and avarice incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British Nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances the basest principles of our nature were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest of causes-that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty.

But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it.

I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that like everything else, they must fade from the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what

Reason Must Ultimately Rule There Can Be No Hate

it heretofore has been. Even they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every familya history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes relateda history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done-the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with mutilated limbs a few more rude storms and then to sink and be no more.

Passion Reason

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason-must furnish all the materials for oir future support and defense. Let those materials be molded into general incelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that we improve to the last, that we remained free to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which, to learn, the last trumpet shall awaken our Washington.

Upon this let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as it has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Words of Wisdom from the Lips of Lincoln

"Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold."

"Would you undertake to disprove a proposition in Euclid by calling Euclid a liar?"

"I am like the boy that stumped his toe: hurt too much to laugh and too big to cry."

"Meet face to face and converse together the best way to efface unpleasant feeling."

"I want it said of me that I plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

"Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself."

"You may fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

"If all that has been said in praise of woman were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice . . . God bless the women of America!

FIRST GREAT NATIONAL SPEECH OF LINCOLN

First Speech Delivered by Lincoln in the East, at Fifty-one Years of Age, before a Great Mass Meeting at Cooper Union in New York City, on February 27, 1860-This Is the Speech That First Made Lincoln a Great National Political Leader in America

[ocr errors]

R. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK: The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said:

Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?

What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be, "The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the "thirtynine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represent the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.

I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being "our fathers who framed the government under which we live." What is the question which, according to the test, those fathers understood "just as well, and even better, than we do now?"

It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue this question is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood "better than we." Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine" or any of them ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it-how they expressed their better understanding. In 1784, three years before the Constitution, the United States, then owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other, the Congress of the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who afterward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal

« PreviousContinue »