Chapter 9
Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon!--What was the Rubicon?--The boundary of Cæsar's province. From what did it separate his province? From his country. Was that country a desert? No: it was cultivated and fertile; rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity! Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! Friendship was its inhabitant!--Love was its inhabitant!--Domestic affection was its inhabitant!--Liberty was its inhabitant!--All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was Cæsar, that stood upon the brink of that stream?--A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No wonder that he paused! No wonder if, in his imagination, wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water; and heard groans instead of murmurs. No wonder if some Gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot.--But, no!--he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged!--He crossed!--and Rome was free no more. J. S. Knowles.
XLVI.
GUSTAVUS VASA TO THE DALECARLIANS.
Swedes! countrymen! behold at last, after a thousand dangers past, your chief, Gustavus, here! Long have I sighed 'mid foreign lands; long have I roamed in foreign lands; at length, 'mid Swedish hearts and hands, I grasp a Swedish spear! Yet, looking forth, although I see none but the fearless and the free, sad thoughts the sight inspires; for where, I think, on Swedish ground, save where these mountains frown around, can that best heritage be found--the freedom of our sires? Yes, Sweden pines beneath the yoke; the galling chain our fathers broke is round our country now! On perjured craft and ruthless guilt his power a tyrant Dane has built, and Sweden's crown, all blood-bespilt, rests on a foreign brow. On you your country turns her eyes--on you, on you, for aid relies, scions of noblest stem! The foremost place in rolls of fame, by right your fearless fathers claim; yours is the glory of their name,--'t is yours to equal them. As rushing down, when winter reigns, resistless to the shaking plains, the torrent tears its way, and all that bars its onward course sweeps to the sea with headlong force, so swept your sires the Dane and Norse;--can ye do less than they? Rise! Reässert your ancient pride, and down the hills a living tide of fiery valor pour. Let but the storm of battle lower, back to his den the foe will cower;--then, then shall Freedom's glorious hour strike for our land once more! What! silent motionless, ye stand? Gleams not an eye? Moves not a hand? Think ye to fly your fate? Or till some better cause be given, wait ye?--Then wait! till, banished, driven, ye fear to meet the face of Heaven;--till ye are slaughtered, wait. But no! your kindling hearts gainsay the thought. Hark! hear that bloodhound's bay! Yon blazing village see! Rise, countrymen! Awake! Defy the haughty Dane! Your battlecry be Freedom! We will do or die! On! Death or victory!
XLVII.
NOBILITY OF LABOR.
I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is Heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down for ages. Let it then be built up again; here, if anywhere, on these shores of a new world, of a new civilization But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do indeed toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as in some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as escape from it. They fulfil the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so he is not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy work-shop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature; it is impiety to Heaven; it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat toil--either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility. O. Dewey.
XLVIII.
SALATHIEL TO TITUS.
Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, as I may in the next be an exile or a slave: I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of man. I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet, not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning the cause of the City of Holiness.
Titus! in the name of that Being, to whom the wisdom of the earth is folly, I adjure you to beware. Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought her misery; often has she been trampled by the armies of the stranger. But she is still the City of the Omnipotent; and never was blow inflicted on her by man, that was not terribly repaid.
The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the world; he plundered her temple, and led her people into captivity. How long was it before his empire was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and an enemy on his throne? The Persian came; from her protector he turned into her oppressor; and his empire was swept away like the dust of the desert! The Syrian smote her; the smiter died in agonies of remorse; and where is his kingdom now? The Egyptian smote her; and who now sits on the throne of the Ptolemies?
Pompey came: the invincible, the conqueror of a thousand cities, the light of Rome; the lord of Asia, riding on the very wings of victory. But he profaned her temple; and from that hour he went down,--down, like a millstone plunged into the ocean! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish fears were upon the great statesman and warrior of Rome. Where does he sleep? What sands were colored with his blood? The universal conqueror died a slave, by the hand of a slave! Crassus came at the head of the legions; he plundered the sacred vessels of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him, and he was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the bones of the robber and his host? Go, tear them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of Parthia,--their fitting tomb!
You, too: son of Vespasian, may be commissioned for the punishment of a stiff-necked and rebellious people. You may scourge our naked vice by force of arms; and then you may return to your own land exulting in the conquest of the fiercest enemy of Rome. But shall you escape the common fate of the instrument of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface the memory of your virtues, and make Rome, in bitterness of soul, curse the Flavian name? G. Croly.
XLIX.
AN APPEAL TO THE LOYALTY OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
Fellow-citizens of my native State! Let me not only admonish you as the first magistrate of our common country not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that, paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part! Consider its government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different States--giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizen--protecting their commerce--securing their literature and arts--facilitating their intercommunication--defending their frontiers and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States! Behold it, as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support! Look on this picture of happiness and honor, and say "We, too, are citizens of America! Carolina is one of these proud States; her arms have defended, her best blood has cemented this happy Union!" And then add, if you can, with out horror and remorse, "This happy Union we will dissolve this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface--this free intercourse we will interrupt--these fertile fields we will deluge with blood--the protection of that glorious flag we renounce--the very name of Americans we discard!" And for what, mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings--for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence--a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on a foreign power. A. Jackson.
L.
THE SAME CONCLUDED.
There is yet time to show, that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumters the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union to support which so many of them fought, and bled, and died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention,--bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expression of your will, to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor;--tell them that compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all;--declare that you will never take the field, unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country,--its destroyers you cannot be.
Fellow-citizens, the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of the Government depends the decision of the great question it involves: whether our sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessings it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed, will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions; and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage, which it will bring to their defense, will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children. May the Great Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings with which He has favored ours, may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost; and may His wise Providence bring those who have produced this crisis, to see their folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife; and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of obtaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. A. Jackson.
LI.
BURR AND BLENNERHASSETT.
A plain man, who knew nothing of the curious transmutation which the wit of man can work, would be very apt to wonder by what kind of legerdemain Aaron Burr had contrived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack, as an accessory, and turn up poor Blennerhassett as principal, in this treason. Who, then, is Aaron Burr, and what the part which he has borne in this transaction? He is its author, its projector, its active executor. Bold, ardent, restless, and aspiring, his brain conceived it, his hand brought it into action.
Who is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. On his arrival in America, he retired, even from the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he brought with him taste, and science, and wealth; and "lo the desert smiled!" Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him. Music, that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of Nature. Peace, tranquillity, and innocence, shed their mingled delights around him. And, to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of several children. The evidence would convince you, sir, that this is but a faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart,--the destroyer comes. He comes to turn this paradise into a hell. Yet the flowers do not wither at his approach, and no monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortunate possessor warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him. A stranger presents himself. It is Aaron Burr. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts, by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no designs itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guards before its breast. Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its bowers!
The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpracticed heart of the unfortunate Blennerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart, and the object of its affection. By degrees, he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring, desperate thirst for glory; an ardor, panting for all the storm, and bustle, and hurricane of life. In a short time, the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene; it has become flat and insipid to his taste. His books are abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery bloom's and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and stars, and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of great heroes and conquerors,--of Cromwell, and Cæsar, and Bonaparte. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilderness; and, in a few months, we find the tender and beautiful partner of his bosom, whom he lately "permitted not the winds" of summer "to visit too roughly,"--we find her shivering, at midnight, on the wintry banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell.
Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness,--thus seduced from the paths of innocents and peace,--thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another,--this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason,--this man is to be called the principal offender; while he, by whom he was thus plunged in misery, is comparatively innocent, a mere accessory! Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd; so shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason! Wm. Wirt.
LII.
CAUSE F0R INDIAN RESENTMENT.
You say you have bought the country. Bought it? Yes; of whom? Of the poor, trembling natives, who knew that refusal would be vain; and who strove to make a merit of necessity, by seeming to yield with a grace what they knew they had not the power to retain.
Alas, the poor Indians! No wonder that they continue so implacably vindictive against the white people. No wonder that the rage of resentment is handed down from generation to generation. No wonder that they refuse to associate and mix permanently with their unjust and cruel invaders and exterminators. No wonder that, in the unabating spite and frenzy of conscious impotence, they wage an eternal war, as well as they are able; that they triumph in the rare opportunity of revenge; that they dance, sing, and rejoice, as the victim shrinks and faints amid the flames, when they imagine all the crimes of their oppressors collected on his head, and fancy the spirits of their injured forefathers hovering over the scene, smiling with ferocious delight at the grateful spectacle: and feasting on the precious odor as it arises from the burning blood of the white man. Yet the people here affect to wonder that the Indians are so very unsusceptible of civilization; or, in other words, that they so obstinately refuse to adopt the manners of the white man.
Go, Virginians, erase from the Indian nation the tradition of their wrongs. Make them forget, if you can, that once this charming country was theirs; that over these fields and through these forests their beloved forefathers once, in careless gayety, pursued their sports and hunted their game; that every returning day found them the sole, the peaceful, and happy proprietors of this extensive and beautiful domain. Go, administer the cup of oblivion to recollections like these, and then you will cease to complain that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But, until then, surely it is nothing wonderful that a nation, even yet bleeding afresh from the memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually agonized by new outrages, and goaded into desperation and madness at the prospect of the certain ruin which awaits their descendants, should hate the authors of their miseries, of their desolation, their destruction; should hate their manners, hate their color, hate their language, hate their name, hate everything that belongs to them. No, never, until time shall wear out the history of their sorrows and their sufferings, will the Indian be brought to love the white man, and to imitate his manners. Wm. Wirt.
LIII.
SPEECH ON THE BRITISH TREATY.
The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. If any should still maintain, that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether conviction is not already planted there. I resort especially to the convictions of the Western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty! the settlers will remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within reach of the tomahawk. On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from your false security! Your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed. The wounds yet unhealed are to be torn open again. In the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed. The darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field. You are a mother,--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.
On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It is a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid.
Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that State House? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and without remorse?
It is in vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen. They are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote; we choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them, as for the measure that we know will produce them.