Part 15

It is not possible to suppress the idea of freedom, or forever hold down its institutions. But it is possible to destroy a State; a political party with geographical bounds may easily be rent asunder. It is not impossible to shiver this American Union. But how? What clove asunder the great British party, one nation once in America and England? Did not our fathers love their father-land? Aye. They called it home, and were loyal with abundant fealty; there was no lack of piety for home. It was the attempt to make old English injustice New England law! Who did it,--the British people? Never. Their hand did no such sacrilege! It was the merchants of London, with the "Navigation Act;" the politicians of Westminster with the "Stamp Act;" the tories of America, who did not die without issue, that for office and its gold would keep a king's unjust commands. It was they, who drove our fathers into disunion against their will. Is here no lesson? We love law, all of us love it; but a true man loves it only as the Safeguard of the Rights of Man. If it destroy these rights, he spurns it with his feet. Is here no lesson? Look further then.

Do you know how empires find their end? Yes, the great States eat up the little. As with fish, so with nations. Aye, but how do the great States come to an end? By their own injustice, and no other cause. They would make unrighteousness their law, and God wills not that it be so. Thus they fall; thus they die. Look at these ancient States, the queenliest queens of earth. There is Rome, the widow of two civilizations,--the Pagan and the Catholic. They both had her, and unto both she bore daughters and fair sons. But, the Niobe of Nations, she boasted that her children were holier and more fair than all the pure ideas of justice, truth, and love, the offspring of the eternal God. And now she sits there, transformed into stone, amid the ruins of her children's bones. At midnight I have heard the owl hoot in the coliseum and the forum, giving voice to desolation; and at midday I have seen the fox in the palace where Augustus gathered the wealth, the wit, the beauty and the wisdom of a conquered world; and the fox and the owl interpreted to me the voice of many ages, which came to tell this age, that though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper.

Come with me, my friends, a moment more, pass over this Golgotha of human history, treading reverent as you go, for our feet are on our mothers' grave, and our shoes defile our fathers' hallowed bones. Let us not talk of them; go further on, look and pass by. Come with me into the Inferno of the nations, with such poor guidance as my lamp can lend. Let us disquiet and bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long ago, and learn a lesson from the tomb.

Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown! What laid thee low? "I fell by my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and Babylon came, with me, also, to the ground."

Oh queenly Persia, flame of the nations, wherefore art thou so fallen, who troddest the people under thee, bridgedst the Hellespont with ships, and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the western world? "Because I trod the people under me, and bridged the Hellespont with ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world. I fell by my own misdeeds!"

Thou muselike, Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood of States, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in art, and most seductive song, why liest thou there with beauteous yet dishonored brow, reposing on thy broken harp? "I scorned the law of God; banished and poisoned wisest, justest men; I loved the loveliness of flesh, embalmed it in the Parian stone; I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth! Lo, therefore have I become as those Barbarian States--as one of them!"

Oh manly and majestic Rome, thy sevenfold mural crown, all broken at thy feet, why art thou here? It was not injustice brought thee low; for thy great book of law is prefaced with these words, justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right! "It was not the saint's ideal: it was the hypocrite's pretence! I made iniquity my law. I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces,--where thou mayst see the fox and hear the owl,--it fed my courtiers and my courtezans. Wicked men were my cabinet counsellors, the flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo here have I my recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go back and tell the new-born child, who sitteth on the Alleghanies, laying his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars about his youthful brow--tell him that there are rights which States must keep, or they shall suffer wrongs! Tell him there is a God who keeps the black man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks His just, eternal law! Warn the young Empire that he come not down dim and dishonored to my shameful tomb! Tell him that justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right. I knew it, broke it, and am lost. Bid him to know it, keep it, and be safe!"

* * * * *

"God save the Commonwealth!" proclaims the Governor. God will do his part,--doubt not of that. But you and I must help Him save the State. What can we do? Next Sunday I will ask you for your charity; to-day I ask a greater gift, more than the abundance of the rich, or the poor widow's long remembered mite. I ask you for your justice. Give that to your native land. Do you not love your country? I know you do. Here are our homes and the graves of our fathers; the bones of our mothers are under the sod. The memory of past deeds is fresh with us; many a farmer's and mechanic's son inherits from his sires some cup of manna gathered in the wilderness, and kept in memory of our exodus; some stones from the Jordan, which our fathers passed over sorely bested and hunted after; some Aaron's rod, green and blossoming with fragrant memories of the day of small things when the Lord led us--and all these attach us to our land, our native land. We love the great ideas of the North, the institutions which they founded, the righteous laws, the schools, the churches too--do we not love all these? Aye. I know well you do. Then by all these, and more than all, by the dear love of God, let us swear that we will keep the justice of the Eternal Law. Then are we all safe. We know not what a day may bring forth, but we know that Eternity will bring everlasting peace. High in the heavens, the pole-star of the world, shines Justice; placed within us, as our guide thereto, is Conscience. Let us be faithful to that

"Which though it trembles as it lowly lies, Points to the light that changes not in heaven."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The late Mr. John Parker.

[19] This took place at a meeting in Faneuil Hall to welcome Mr. George Thompson.

[20] At the "Union meeting" two days before the delivery of this sermon.

[21] Nor even yet. November 24, 1851.

[22] Subsequent events have shown the folly of this statement. Clergymen, it is said, are wont to err, by overrating the moral principle of men. See the next sermon.

[23] Recent experiments fortunately confirm this, and, spite of all the unjust efforts to pack a jury, none has yet been found to punish a man for such a "Crime."

[24] Mr. William Craft, and Mrs. Ellen Craft.

[25] This also appears to have been a mistake. Still I let the passage stand, though it is apparently not at all true.

VI.

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE.--A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE MELODEON, BOSTON, ON FAST DAY, APRIL 10, 1851.

My Friends,--This is a day of Public Humiliation and Prayer. We have one every year. It is commonly in the city churches only a farce, because there is no special occasion for it, and the general need is not felt. But such is the state of things in the Union at this moment, and particularly in Boston, that, if it were not a custom, it would be a good thing, even if it were for the first time in the history of our country, to have such a day for Humiliation and Prayer, that we consider the state of the nation, and look at our conduct in reference to the great principles of religion, and see how we stand before God; for these are times that try men's souls.

Last Sunday, I purposely disappointed you, and turned off from what was nearest to your heart and was nearest to mine,--a subject that would have been easy to preach on without any preparation. Then I asked you to go to the Fountain of all strength, and there prepare yourselves for the evils that we know not of. To-day, the Governor has asked us to come together, and consider, in the spirit of Christianity, the public sins of the community, to contemplate the value of our institutions, and to ask the blessing of God on the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. I am glad of this occasion; and I will improve it, and ask your attention to a sermon of The Chief Sins of this People.

I have said that these are times that try men's souls. This is such an occasion as never came before, and, I trust, never will again. I have much to say to you, much more than I intend to say to-day, much more than there are hours enough in this day to speak. Many things I shall pass by. I shall detain you to-day somewhat longer than is my wont; but do not fear, I will look out for your attention. I simply ask you to be calm, to be composed, and to hear with silence what I have to say.

To understand these things, we must begin somewhat far off.

The purpose of human life is to form a manly character, to get the best development of body and of spirit,--of mind, conscience, heart, soul. This is the end: all else is the means. Accordingly, that is not the most successful life in which a man gets the most pleasure, the most money or ease, the most power of place, honor, and fame; but that in which a man gets the most manhood, performs the greatest amount of human duty, enjoys the greatest amount of human right, and acquires the greatest amount of manly character. It is of no importance whether he win this by wearing a hod upon his shoulders, or a crown upon his head. It is the character, and not the crown, I value. The crown perishes with the head that wore it; but the character lives with the immortal man who achieved it; and it is of no consequence whether that immortal man goes up to God from a throne or from a gallows.

Every man has some one preponderating object in life,--an object that he aims at and holds supreme. Perhaps he does not know it. But he thinks of this in his day-dreams, and his dreams by night. It colors his waking hours, and is with him in his sleep. Sometimes it is sensual pleasure that he wants; sometimes money; sometimes office, fame, social distinction; sometimes it is the quiet of a happy home, with wife and children, all comfortable and blessed; sometimes it is excellence in a special science or art, or department of literature; sometimes it is a special form of philanthropy; and sometimes it is the attainment of great, manly character.

This supreme object of desire is sometimes different at different times in a man's life, but in general is mainly the same all through. For "The child is father of the man," and his days bound each to each, if not by natural piety, then by unnatural profaneness. This desire may act with different intensity in the active and passive periods, in manhood and in age. It is somewhat modified by the season of passion, and by the season of ambition.

If this object of special desire be worthy, so is the character in general; if base, so is the man. For this special desire becomes the master-motive in the man; and, if strong, establishes a unity in his consciousness, and calls out certain passions, appetites, powers of mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long life, the man creates himself anew in the image of his ideal desire. This desire, good or bad, which sways the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied into the countenance; and lust or love, frivolity or science, interest or principle, mammon or God, is writ on the man. Still this unity is seldom whole and complete. With most men there are exceptional times, when they turn off a little from their great general pursuit. Simeon the Stylite comes down from his pillar-top, and chaffers in the market-place with common folks. Jeffries is even just once or twice in his life, and Wilkes is honorable two or three times. Even when the chief desire is a high and holy one, I should not expect a man to go through life without ever committing an error or a sin. When I was a youngster, just let loose from the theological school, I thought differently; but at this day, when I have felt the passions of life, and been stirred by the ambitions of life, I know it must be expected that a man will stumble now and then. I make allowances for that in myself, as I do in others. These are the exceptional periods in a man's life,--the eddies in the stream. The stream runs down hill all the time, though the eddy may for a time apparently run up.

Now, as with men, so it is with nations. The purpose of national life is to bring forth and bring up manly men, who do the most of human duty, have the most of human rights, and enjoy the most of human welfare. So that is not the most successful nation which fills the largest space, which occupies the longest time, which produces the most cattle, corn, cotton, or cloth, but that which produces the most men. And, in reference to men, you must count not numbers barely, but character quite as much. That is not the most successful nation which has an exceptional class of men, highly cultured, well-bodied, well-minded, well-born, well-bred, at the one end of society; and at the other a mighty multitude, an instantial class, poor, ill-born, ill-bred, ill-bodied, and ill-minded too, as in England; but that is the most successful nation which has the whole body of its people well-born, well-bred, well-bodied, and well-minded too; and those are the best institutions which accomplish this best; those worst, which accomplish it least. The government, the society, the school, or the church, which does this work, is a good government, society, school, or church; that which does it not, is good for nothing.

As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain object of chief desire, which object prevails over others. The nation is not conscious of it,--less so, indeed, than the individual; but, silently, it governs the nation's life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandizement of the central power,--the monarchy: it was so once in France; but, God be praised! is not so now. Then devotion to the king's person was held as the greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the king was treason, the greatest national crime. The people must not dare to whisper against their king. Sometimes it is the desire to build up an aristocracy. It was once so in Venice. It may be an aristocracy of priests, of soldiers, of nobles, or an aristocracy of merchants. Sometimes it is to build up a middle class of gentry, as in Basel and Berne. It may be a military desire, as in ancient Rome; it may be ecclesiastical ambition, as in modern Rome; or commercial ambition, as in London and many other places.

The chief object of desire is not always the same in the course of a nation's history. A nation now greatens the centripetal power, strengthening the king and weakening the people; now it greatens the centrifugal power, weakening the king and strengthening the people. But, commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history, only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circumstances which react upon the nation as the nation acts upon them.

This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so govern the whole nation for all its history. Or it may be, on the other hand, a transient desire, which is to govern it for a time. In either case, it will appear prominently in the controlling classes; either in the classes which control all through, or in such as last only for a time. Thus the military desire appeared chiefly in the patricians of old Rome, and not much in the plebeians; the commercial ambition appeared in the nobles of Venice; the ecclesiastical in the priests of modern Rome, where the people care little for the church, though quite as much perhaps as it deserves.

As the chief desire of the individual calls out appetites and passions, which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the master-motive of the people, calls out certain classes of men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the constitution, institutions, and laws to correspond thereto.

As with one man, so with the millions, there may be fluctuations of purpose for a time. I cannot expect that one man, or many men, will always pursue an object without at some time violating fundamental principles. I might have thought so once. But as I live longer, and see the passion and the ambition of men, see the force of circumstances, I know better. No ship sails across the ocean with a straight course, without changing a sail: it frequently leaves its direct line, now "standing" this way, now that; and the course is a very crooked one, although, as a whole, it is towards the mark.

America is a young nation, composite, not yet unified; and it is, therefore, not quite so easy to say what is the chief desire of the people; but, if I understand American history, this desire is the Love of Individual Liberty. Nothing has been so marked in our history as this. We are consciously, in part, yet still more unconsciously, aiming at democracy,--at a government of all the people, by all the people, and for the sake of all the people. Of course that must be a government by the higher law of God, by the Eternal Justice to which you and I and all of us owe reverence. We all love freedom for ourselves; one day we shall love it for every man,--for the tawny Indian and the sable Negro, as much as for you and me. This love of freedom has appeared in the ideas of New England,--and New England was once America; it was once the soul, although not the body of America. It appeared in its political action and its ecclesiastical action, in the State and in the church, and in all the little towns. In general, every change in the constitution of a free State makes it more democratic; every change in local law is for democracy, not against it. We have broken with the old feudal tradition,--broken forever with that. I think this love of individual liberty is the specific desire of the people. If we are proud of any thing, it is of our free institutions. I know there are men who are prouder of wealth than of any thing else: by and by I shall have a word to say of them. But in Massachusetts, New England, in the North, if we should appeal to the great body of the people, and "poll the house," and ask of all what they were proudest of, they would not say, of our cattle, or cotton, or corn, or cloth; but it is of our freedom, of our men and women. Leaving out of the calculation the abounding class, which is corrupt everywhere, and the perishing class, which is the vassal as it is the creature of the abounding class, and as corrupt and selfish here as everywhere, we shall find that seven-eighths of the people of New England are eminently desirous of this one thing. This desire will carry the day in any fifty years to come, as it has done in two hundred and fifty years past. The great political names of our history are all on its side: Washington, the Adamses--both of them, God bless them!--Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, these were all friends of liberty. I know the exceptions in the history of some of these men, and do not deny them. Other American names, dear to the people, are of the same stamp. The national literature, so far as we have any national literature, is democratic. I know there is what passes for American literature, because it grows on American soil, but which is just as far from being indigenous to America as the orange is from being indigenous to Cape Cod. This literature is a poor, miserable imitation of the feudal literature of old Europe. Perhaps it is now the prominent literature of the time. One day America will take it and cast it out from her. The true American literature is very poor, is very weak, is almost miserable now; but it has one redeeming quality,--it is true to freedom, it is true to democracy.

In the Revolution this desire of the nation was prominent, and came to consciousness. It was the desire of the most eminent champions of liberty. At one time in the history of the nation, the platform of speakers was in advance of the floor that was covered by the people at large, because at that time the speakers became conscious of the idea which possessed the hearts of the people. That is the reason why John Hancock, the two Adamses, and Jefferson, came into great prominence before the people. They were more the people than the people themselves; more democratic than the democrats. I know, and I think it must be quite plain in our history, that this has been the chief desire of the people. If so, it determines our political destination.

However, with nations as with men, there are exceptional desires; one of which, with the American nation at present, is the desire for wealth. Just now, that is the most obvious and preponderate desire in the consciousness of the people. It has increased surprisingly in fifty years. It is the special, the chief desire of the controlling class. By the controlling class, I mean what are commonly called "our first men." I admit exceptions, and state the general rule. With them every thing gives way to money, and money gives way to nothing, neither to man nor to God.