Part 29

[136] _Page 219, note 1._ Mr. Emerson in his early youth did come near slavery for a short time. His diary at St. Augustine, quoted by Mr. Cabot in his Memoir, mentions that, while he was attending a meeting of the Bible Society, a slave-auction was going on outside, but it does not appear that he actually saw it.

[137] _Page 221, note 1._ Carlyle described Webster as “a magnificent specimen.... As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous, crag-like face, the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown, the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced as much of _silent Berserkir-rage_, that I remember of, in any other man.”[D]

[138] _Page 225, note 1._ Mr. James S. Gibbons (of the _New York Tribune_) in a letter written to his son two days after this speech was delivered, says, referring evidently to this passage:—

“Emerson gave us a fine lecture on Webster. He made him stand before us in the proportions of a giant; and then with one word crushed him to powder.”

[139] _Page 226, note 1._ Professor John H. Wright of Harvard University has kindly furnished me with the passage from Dio Cassius, xlvii. 49, where it is said of Brutus:—

Καὶ ἀναβοήσας τοῦτο δὴ Ἡράκλειον ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή, λόγος ἄρ’ ἦσθ’, ἐγὼ δέ σε ὡς ἔργον ἤσκουν· σὺ δ’ ἄρ’ ἐδούλευες τύχῃ,— παρακάλεσέ τινα τῶν συνόντων, ἵν’ αὐτὸν ἀποκτείνῃ,—

which he renders, “He cried out this sentiment of Heracles, ‘O wretched Virtue, after all, thou art a name, but I cherished thee as a fact. Fortune’s slave wast thou;’ and called upon one of those with him to slay him.”

Professor Wright adds that Theodorus Prodromus, a Byzantine poet of the twelfth century, said, “What Brutus says (O Virtue, etc.) I pronounce to be ignoble and unworthy of Brutus’s soul.” It seems very doubtful whence the Greek verses came.

[140] _Page 233, note 1._ Just ten years earlier, Hon. Samuel Hoar, the Commissioner of Massachusetts, sent to Charleston, South Carolina, in the interests of our colored citizens there constantly imprisoned and ill used, had been expelled from that state with a show of force. See _Lectures and Biographical Sketches_.

[141] _Page 234, note 1._ The sending back of Onesimus by Paul was a precedent precious in the eyes of pro-slavery preachers, North and South, in those days, ignoring, however, Paul’s message, “Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.”[E]

[142] _Page 235, note 1._ The hydrostatic paradox has been before alluded to as one of Mr. Emerson’s favorite symbols, the balancing of the ocean by a few drops of water. In many places he dwells on the power of minorities—a minority of one. In “Character” (_Lectures and Biographical Sketches_) he says, “There was a time when Christianity existed in one child.” For the value and duty of minorities, see _Conduct of Life_, pp. 249 ff., _Letters and Social Aims_, pp. 219, 220.

[143] _Page 236, note 1._ This was a saying of Mahomet. What follows, with regard to the divine sentiments always soliciting us, is thus rendered in “My Garden:”

Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man’s ear Seldom in this low life’s round Are unsealed, that he may hear.

[144] _Page 236, note 2._ This is the important key to the essay on Self-Reliance.

[145] _Page 238, note 1._ In the “Sovereignty of Ethics” Mr. Emerson quotes an Oriental poet describing the Golden Age as saying that God had made justice so dear to the heart of Nature that, if any injustice lurked anywhere under the sky, the blue vault would shrivel to a snake-skin, and cast it out by spasms.

[146] _Page 240, note 1._ There seems to be some break in the construction here probably due to the imperfect adjustment of lecture-sheets. It would seem that the passage should read: “Liberty is never cheap. It is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man—the finished man; earning and bestowing good;” etc.

[147] _Page 241, note 1._ See _Lectures and Biographical Sketches_, pp. 246 and 251.

[148] _Page 242, note 1._ The occasion alluded to was Hon. Robert C. Winthrop’s speech to the alumni of Harvard College on Commencement Day in 1852. What follows is not an abstract, but Mr. Emerson’s rendering of the spirit of his address.

THE ASSAULT UPON MR. SUMNER

One evening in May, Judge Hoar came to Mr. Emerson’s house, evidently deeply stirred, and told in a few words the startling news that the great Senator from Massachusetts had been struck down at his desk by a Representative from South Carolina, and was dangerously hurt. The news was heard with indignant grief in Concord, and a public meeting was held four days later in which Mr. Emerson and others gave vent to this feeling.

Among Mr. Emerson’s papers are the fragmentary notes on Sumner, given below, without indication as to when they were used.

CHARLES SUMNER

Clean, self-poised, great-hearted man, noble in person, incorruptible in life, the friend of the poor, the champion of the oppressed.

Of course Congress must draw from every part of the country swarms of individuals eager only for private interests, who could not love his stern justice. But if they gave him no high employment, he made low work high by the dignity of honesty and truth. But men cannot long do without faculty and perseverance, and he rose, step by step, to the mastery of all affairs intrusted to him, and by those lights and upliftings with which the spirit that makes the Universe rewards labor and brave truth. He became learned, and adequate to the highest questions, and the counsellor of every correction of old errors, and of every noble reform. How nobly he bore himself in disastrous times. Every reform he led or assisted. In the shock of the war his patriotism never failed. A man of varied learning and accomplishments.

He held that every man is to be judged by the horizon of his mind, and Fame he defined as the shadow of excellence, but that which follows him, not which he follows after.

Tragic character, like Algernon Sydney, man of conscience and courage, but without humor. Fear did not exist for him. In his mind the American idea is no crab, but a man incessantly advancing, as the shadow of the dial or the heavenly body that casts it. The American idea is emancipation, to abolish kingcraft, feudalism, black-letter monopoly, it pulls down the gallows, explodes priestcraft, opens the doors of the sea to all emigrants, extemporizes government in new country.

Sumner has been collecting his works. They will be the history of the Republic for the last twenty-five years, as told by a brave, perfectly honest and well instructed man, with social culture and relation to all eminent persons. Diligent and able workman, with rare ability, without genius, without humor, but with persevering study, wide reading, excellent memory, high stand of honor (and pure devotion to his country), disdaining any bribe, any compliances, and incapable of falsehood. His singular advantages of person, of manners, and a statesman’s conversation impress every one favorably. He has the foible of most public men, the egotism which seems almost unavoidable at Washington. I sat in his room once at Washington whilst he wrote a weary procession of letters,—he writing without pause as fast as if he were copying. He outshines all his mates in historical conversation, and is so public in his regards that he cannot be relied on to push an office-seeker, so that he is no favorite with politicians. But wherever I have met with a dear lover of the country and its moral interests, he is sure to be a supporter of Sumner.

It characterizes a man for me that he hates Charles Sumner: for it shows that he cannot discriminate between a foible and a vice. Sumner’s moral instinct and character are so exceptionally pure that he must have perpetual magnetism for honest men; his ability and working energy such, that every good friend of the Republic must stand by him. Those who come near him and are offended by his egotism, or his foible (if you please) of using classic quotations, or other bad tastes, easily forgive these whims, if themselves are good, or magnify them into disgust, if they themselves are incapable of his virtue.

And when he read one night in Concord a lecture on Lafayette we felt that of all Americans he was best entitled by his own character and fortunes to read that eulogy.

Every Pericles must have his Cleon: Sumner had his adversaries, his wasps and back-biters. We almost wished that he had not stooped to answer them. But he condescended to give them truth and patriotism, without asking whether they could appreciate the instruction or not.

A man of such truth that he can be truly described: he needs no exaggerated praise. Not a man of extraordinary genius, but a man of great heart, of a perpetual youth, with the highest sense of honor, incapable of any fraud, little or large; loving his friend and loving his country, with perfect steadiness to his purpose, shunning no labor that his aim required, and his works justified him by their scope and thoroughness.

He had good masters, who quickly found that they had a good scholar. He read law with Judge Story, who was at the head of the Law School at Harvard University, and who speedily discovered the value of his pupil, and called him to his assistance in the Law School. He had a great talent for labor, and spared no time and no research to make himself master of his subject. His treatment of every question was faithful and exhaustive, and marked always by the noble sentiment.

[149] _Page 252, note 1._ With this message of comfort to Sumner, struck down for his defence of Liberty, may be contrasted what is said of Webster when he abandoned her cause:—

“Those to whom his name was once dear and honored, as the manly statesman to whom the choicest gifts of Nature had been accorded, disown him: ... he who was their pride in the woods and mountains of New England is now their mortification,—they have torn his picture from the wall, they have thrust his speeches into the chimney,” etc.—“Address on the Fugitive Slave Law,” at Concord, 1851.

SPEECH ON AFFAIRS IN KANSAS

By an act of Congress, passed in May, 1854, the territories of Kansas and Nebraska were organized, and in a section of that act it was declared that the Constitution and all the laws of the United States should be in force in these territories, except the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820, which was declared inoperative and void. The act thereby repealed had confined slavery to the region of the Louisiana Purchase south of latitude 36°, 30´ North. Foreseeing the probable success of this measure to increase the area of slavery, Emigrant Aid Societies had been formed in Massachusetts first, and later, in Connecticut, which assisted Northern emigrants to the settlement of this fertile region. Settlers from the Northwestern States also poured in, and also from Missouri, the latter bringing slaves with them. A fierce struggle, lasting for some years and attended with bloodshed and barbarities, began at once, hordes of armed men from the border state of Missouri constantly voting at Kansas elections and intimidating the free state settlers, and even driving parties of immigrants out of the state. Franklin Pierce was then President, and threw the influence and power of the administration on the side of the pro-slavery party in Kansas. Despairing of redress from Washington, the settlers from the free states appealed in their distress to their friends at home, and sent Mr. Whitman, Rev. Mr. Nute, and later, John Brown, to make known to them their wrongs, and ask moral and material aid, especially arms to defend their rights, and reinforcements of brave settlers. Meetings were held, not only in the cities, but in the country towns, and, certainly in the latter, were well attended by earnest people who gave, a few from their wealth, but many from their poverty, large sums to help “bleeding Kansas.” In response to the petitions of the friends of Freedom, who urged the Legislature of Massachusetts to come to the rescue, a joint committee was appointed by the General Court to consider the petitions for a state appropriation of ten thousand dollars to protect the interests of the North and the rights of her citizens in Kansas, should they be again invaded by Southern marauders. John Brown addressed this committee in February, 1856. He made a clear and startling statement of the outrages he had witnessed and the brave struggles of the settlers, and told of the murder and imprisonment and maltreatment of his sons, seven of whom were in Kansas with him during the struggle.[F]

Mr. Emerson always attended the meetings in aid of Kansas in Concord, gave liberally to the cause, and spoke there and elsewhere when called upon.

[150] _Page 263, note 1._ George Bancroft, the historian, said of the conclusion of this speech:—

“Emerson as clearly as any one, perhaps more clearly than any one at the time, saw the enormous dangers that were gathering over the Constitution.... It would certainly be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find any speech made in the same year that is marked with so much courage and foresight as this of Emerson.... Even after the inauguration of Lincoln several months passed away before his Secretary of State or he himself saw the future so clearly as Emerson had foreshadowed it in 1856.”[G]

JOHN BROWN: SPEECH AT BOSTON

Mr. F. B. Sanborn, in his _Familiar Letters of Thoreau_, says that he introduced John Brown to Thoreau in March, 1857, and Thoreau introduced him to Emerson. This was at the time when Brown came on to awaken the people of Massachusetts to the outrages which the settlers and their families were suffering, and procure aid for them. His clear-cut face, smooth-shaven and bronzed, his firmly shut mouth and mild but steady blue eyes, gave him the appearance of the best type of old New England farmers; indeed he might well have passed for a rustic brother of Squire Hoar. Mr. Emerson was at once interested in him and the story of the gallant fight that the Free-State men in Kansas were making, though Brown was very modest about his own part and leadership. Indeed he claimed only to be a fellow worker and adviser. I think that soon after this time, on one of his visits to Concord, he stayed at Mr. Emerson’s house; certainly he spent the evening there. The last time he came to Concord he was a changed man; all the pleasant look was gone. His gray hair, longer and brushed upright, his great gray beard and the sharpening of his features by exposure and rude experiences gave him a wild, fierce expression. His speech in the Town Hall was excited, and when he drew a huge sheath-knife from under his coat and showed it as a symbol of Missouri civilization, and last drew from his bosom a horse-chain and clanked it in air, telling that his son had been bound with this and led bareheaded under a burning sun beside their horses, by United States dragoons, and in the mania brought on by this inhuman treatment had worn the rusty chain bright,—the old man recalled the fierce Balfour of Burley in Scott’s _Old Mortality_. It was a startling sight and sent a thrill through his hearers. Yet on earlier occasions his speech had been really more effective, when a quiet farmer of mature years, evidently self-contained, intelligent, truthful and humane, simply told in New England towns what was going on in Kansas, the outrages committed upon the settlers, the violation of their elementary rights under the Constitution,—and all this connived at by the general government. He opened the eyes of his hearers, even against their wills, to the alarming pass into which the slave power had brought the affairs of the country.

But now wrong and outrage, not only on others but terribly suffered in his own family, had made Brown feel that not he but “Slavery was an outlaw” against which he “held a commission direct from God Almighty” to act. A friend quoted him as having said, “The loss of my family and the troubles in Kansas have shattered my constitution, and I am nothing to the world but to defend the right, and that, by God’s help, I have done and will do.”

The people were not ready to follow him in revolutionary measures, but when on his own responsibility he had precipitated the inevitable conflict by breaking with a government, then so unrighteous, and offered his life as a sacrifice for humanity, they could not but do homage to him as a hero, who was technically a traitor. He had cut the Gordian knot which they had suffered to be tied tighter.

Of course Mr. Emerson had known nothing of John Brown’s plan for a raid into the slave states. It was the motive and courage he honored, not the means. He wrote: “I wish we should have health enough to know virtue when we see it, and not cry with the fools and the newspapers, ‘Madman!’ when a hero passes.”

On the first day of November, John Brown had been sentenced to death. This meeting in Boston, to give aid to his family, was held on the eighteenth, just two weeks before his execution.

The verses which serve as motto are from Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman’s poem written at the time, which Mr. Emerson used to read aloud to his family and friends with much pleasure.

[151] _Page 269, note 1._ “This court acknowledges, I suppose, the validity of the Law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or, at least, the New Testament. That teaches me that all things ‘whatsoever I would that men should do unto me, I should do even so to them.’ It teaches me further to ‘remember them which are in bonds as bound with them.’ I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted that I have done, in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments—I submit: so let it be done.” From the Speech of John Brown to the Court.

[152] _Page 270, note 1._ Among the sheets of the lecture “Courage” is one which seems to have been used at that time:—

“Governor Wise and Mr. Mason no doubt have some right to their places. It is some superiority of working brain that put them there, and the aristocrats in every society. But when they come to deal with Brown, they find that he speaks their own speech,—has whatever courage and directness they have, and a great deal more of the same; so that they feel themselves timorous little fellows in his hand; he outsees, outthinks, outacts them, and they are forced to shuffle and stammer in their turn.

“They painfully feel this, that he is their governor and superior, and the only alternative is to kneel to him if they are truly noble, or else (if they wish to keep their places), to put this fact which they know, out of sight of other people, as fast as they can. Quick, drums and trumpets strike up! Quick, judges and juries, silence him, by sentence and execution of sentence, and hide in the ground this alarming fact. For, if everything comes to its right place, he goes up, and we down.”

[153] _Page 271, note 1._ Commodore Hiram Paulding, in 1857, had broken up Walker’s filibustering expedition at Nicaragua. The arrest of Walker on foreign soil the government did not think it wise wholly to approve.

[154] _Page 272, note 1._ The allusion is to the trials of the fugitives Shadrach, Sims and Burns in Boston. The story of these humiliations is told in full and in a most interesting manner in the diary of Richard H. Dana,[H] whose zeal in the cause of these poor men did him great honor.

During the trial of Sims, a chain was put up, as a barrier against the crowd, around the United States Court-House, and the stooping of the judges to creep under this chain in order to enter the court-house was considered symbolic of their abject attitude towards the aggressive slave power.

JOHN BROWN: SPEECH AT SALEM

The second of December, on which day John Brown was executed at Charlestown, Virginia, was bright in that State, but in New England was of a strange sultriness with a wind from the south and a lowering sky. At noon, the hour appointed for his death, in Concord (as in many New England towns) the men and women who honored his character and motives gathered and made solemn observance of a day and event which seemed laden with omens. There was a prayer, I think offered by the Rev. Edmund Sears of Wayland,[I] Mr. Emerson read William Allingham’s beautiful poem “The Touchstone” which is used as the motto to this speech, Thoreau read with sad bitterness Sir Walter Raleigh’s “The Soule’s Errand.” Hon. John S. Keyes read some appropriate verses from Aytoun’s “Execution of Montrose” and Mr. Sanborn a poem which he had written for the occasion.

[155] _Page 279, note 1._ Here, as often in Mr. Emerson’s speech and writing, is shown his respect for the old religion of New England and its effect on the thought and character of her people. As Lowell said of them in his Concord Ode in 1875:—

“And yet the enduring half they chose, Whose choice decides a man life’s slave or king, The invisible things of God before the seen and known.”

[156] _Page 279, note 2._ I well remember the evening, in my school-boy days, when John Brown, in my father’s house, told of his experiences as a sheep-farmer, and his eye for animals and power over them. He said he knew at once a strange sheep in his flock of many hundred, and that he could always make a dog or cat so uncomfortable as to wish to leave the room, simply by fixing his eyes on it.

[157] _Page 281, note 1._ “Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a different breeding, different religion and greater intellectual activity would have modified or even reversed the particular action, yet, for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of philosophers and divines.”—“Heroism,” _Essays, First Series_.

“I can leave to God the time and means of my death, for I believe now that the sealing of my testimony before God and man with my blood will do far more to further the cause to which I have earnestly devoted myself than anything else I have done in my life.”—Letter of John Brown to a friend.

THEODORE PARKER