Chapter 4

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongues and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasure from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your buckets among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this you can be sure in the future as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to the graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent. interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him that gives and him that takes."

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third of its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, repressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

Here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of the law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.

The Guillotine

BY VICTOR HUGO.

(This is a part of the speech in defense of his son, under the circumstances set forth in the oration.)

Gentlemen of the jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son,--it is I!--I, who for these twenty-five years have opposed capital punishment,--have contended for the inviolability of human life,--have committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce my self, Mr. Advocate-General! I have committed it under all aggravated circumstances; deliberately, repeatedly, tenaciously. Yes, this old and absurd _lex taliones_--this law of blood for blood--I have combated all my life--all my life, gentlemen of the jury! And, while I have breath, I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the crucifix; before that Victim of the penalty of death, who sees and hears us; before that gibbet, in which, two thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations, the human law nailed the divine!

In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment and for writing and publishing which he is now on trial--in all that he has written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen jurors, the right to criticise a law, and to criticise it severely--especially a penal law--is placed beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, as necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legislator.

What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he finds the scaffold! He shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is young yet--only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say,--"He is a murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet are tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes the crowd! The officers,--sweat and shame on their brows,--pale, panting, terrified, despairing,--despairing with I know not what horrible despair,--shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive treatment, the executioner,--the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the scaffold and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn,--his shoulders bloody,--still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this agony,--agony for all, be it understood,--agony for the assembled spectators as well as for the condemned man,--after this age of anguish, gentlemen of the jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison.

The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that the man will be spared. But no,--the guillotine, though vanquished, remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened population. And at night the officers, re-enforced, drag forth the wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight,--they drag him forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life,--calling upon God, calling upon his father and mother,--for like a very child had this man become in the prospect of death,--they drag him forth to execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold and his head falls! And then through every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated in the deed. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart,--a cry of pity and anguish,--a cry of horror,--a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And in the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, "Thou art wrong!" Gentlemen of the jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

Robespierre's Last Speech

BY MAXIMILIAN MARIE ISIDORE DE ROBESPIERRE.

[Before his execution, Robespierre addressed the populace of Paris in part as follows:]

The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such, they would grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should grant them immunity for their crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished, far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support; there would be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny,--whither does their path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many detected traitors? You, the people, our principles, are that faction--a faction to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is banded!

The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that the Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality. Against me, and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is formed. My life? Oh! my life I abandon without a regret. I have seen the past; and I foresee the future. What friend of this country would wish to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it,--when he could no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of posterity, by the impure neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had thrust themselves into association with the sincere friends of humanity; and I rejoice that these conspirators against my country have now, by their reckless rage, traced deep the line of demarcation between themselves and all true men.

Question history, and learn how all the defenders of liberty, in all times, have been overwhelmed by calumny. But their traducers died also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. O Frenchmen! O my countrymen! Let not your enemies, with their desolating doctrines, degrade your souls and enervate your virtues! No, Chaumette, no! Death is not "an eternal sleep"! Citizens, efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from suppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of immortality!" I leave to the oppressors of the People a terrible testament, which I proclaim with the independence befitting one whose career is so nearly ended; it is the awful truth,--"Thou shalt die!"

Secession

BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

[Delivered at the Georgia State Convention, January, 1861.]

Mr. President: This step of secession, once taken, can never be recalled, and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments--what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be calm and deliberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here, the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully, for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individuals and local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another act; when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and perhaps by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South American and Mexican were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow.

But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So, of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and but eleven from the North, although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free States, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have acquired so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding presidents (pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the free States, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world-markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors and comptrollers filling the executive department; the records show, for the last fifty years, that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic.

Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the government has uniformly been raised from the North.

Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in that department. I mean the mail and post-office privileges that we now enjoy under the general government as it has been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail in the free States was, by the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860, a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the slave States the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974 to be supplied by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been entirely cut off from this most essential branch of government.

Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition--and for what, we ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice and humanity? And as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government--the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century--in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed--is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

Birds

Birds are singing round my window, Tunes the sweetest ever heard, And I hang my cage there daily, But I never catch a bird. So with thoughts my brain is peopled, And they sing there all day long; But they will not fold their pinions In the little cage of song!

--_Richard Henry Stoddard_.

The Death of Hypatia

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.

["Hypatia was a mathematician of Alexandria, who taught her students the philosophy of Plato. Orestes, governor of Alexandria, admired the talents of Hypatia, and frequently had recourse to her for advice. He was desirous of curbing the too ardent zeal of St. Cyril, who saw in Hypatia one of the principal supports of paganism. The most fanatical followers of the bishop, in March, A.D. 415, seized upon Hypatia as she was proceeding to her school, forced her to descend from her chariot, and dragged her into a neighboring church, where she was put to death by her brutal foes. Canon Kingsley's historical romance has done much to make her name familiar to English readers" (Classical Dictionary). Raphael Aben-Ezra, a former pupil, converted to Christianity and returning to Alexandria, seeks audience with Hypatia to tell her of the Nazarene. Broken and discouraged, she still holds to her philosophy, but finally consents to hear what Raphael has to say of Christianity. It is almost time for her to lecture at the school, so she makes an appointment for Raphael the following day. She sends him from her until then with the words with which this cutting begins.]

"Yes, come.... The Galilean.... If he conquers strong men, can the weak maid resist him? Come soon ... this afternoon.... My heart is breaking fast."

"At the eighth hour this afternoon?" asked Raphael.

"Yes.... At noon I lecture ... take my farewell, rather, forever, of the schools.... Gods! What have I to say?... And tell me about Him of Nazareth. Farewell!"

"Farewell, beloved lady! At the ninth hour you shall hear of Him of Nazareth."

As Raphael went down the steps into the street, a young man sprang from behind one of the pillars and seized his arm.

"Aha! my young Coryphaeus of pious plunderers! What do you want with me?"

Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, and recognized him.

"Save her! for the love of God, save her!"

"Whom?"

"Hypatia!"

"How long has her salvation been important to you, my good friend?"

"For God's sake," said Philammon, "go back and warn her! She will hear you--you are rich--you used to be her friend--I know you--I have heard of you.... Oh, if you ever cared for her--if you ever felt for her a thousandth part of what I feel--go in and warn her not to stir from home!"