L Q. C. Lamar
Sumner and the South13 (1874)
It was certainly a gracious act on the part of Charles Sumner toward the South, though unhappily it jarred on the sensibilities of the people at the other extreme of the Union, to propose to erase from the banners of the national army the mementos of the bloody internal struggle which might be regarded as assailing the pride or wounding the sensibilities of the Southern people. The proposal will never be forgotten by that people so long as the name of Charles Sumner lives in the memory of man.
But while it touched the heart and elicited her profound gratitude, her people would not have asked of the North such an act of self-renunciation. Conscious that they themselves were animated by devotion to constitutional liberty, and that the brightest pages of history are replete with evidences of the depth and sincerity of that devotion, they can but cherish the recollection of the battles fought and the victories won in defense of their hopeless cause; and respecting, as all true and brave men must respect, the martial spirit with which the men of the North vindicated the integrity of the Union, and their devotion to the principles of human freedom, they do not ask, they do not wish the North to strike the mementos of heroism and victory from either records or monuments or battle-flags. They would rather that both sections should gather up the glories won by each section, not envious, but proud of each other, and regard them as a common heritage of American valor. Let us hope that future generations, when they remember the deeds of heroism and devotion done on both sides, will speak, not of northern prowess or southern courage, but of the heroism, courage and fortitude of the Americans in a war of ideas—a war in which each section signalized its consecration to the principles, as each understood them, of American liberty and of the Constitution received from their fathers.
Charles Sumner in life believed that all occasion for strife and distrust between the North and South had passed away, and there no longer remained any cause for continued estrangement between these two sections of our common country. Are there not many of us who believe the same thing? Is not the common sentiment, or if not, ought it not to be, of the great mass of our people, North and South? Bound to each other by a common constitution, destined to life together under a common government, forming unitedly but a single member of a great family of nations, shall we not now at least endeavor to grow toward each other once more in heart, as we are indissolubly linked to each other in fortunes? Shall we not, while honoring the memory of this great champion of liberty, this feeling sympathizer with human sorrow, this earnest pleader for the exercise of human tenderness and heavenly charity, lay aside the concealments which serve only to perpetuate misunderstandings and distrust, and frankly confess that on both sides we most earnestly desire to be one—one not merely in political organization; one not merely in community of language, and literature, and traditions, and country; but more and better than all that, one also in feeling and in heart?
Am I mistaken in this? Do the concealments of which I speak still cover animosities, which neither time nor reflection nor the march of events have yet suffered to subdue? I can not believe it. Since I have been here I have scrutinized your sentiments, as expressed not merely in public debate, but in the abandon of personal confidence. I know well the sentiments of these by my southern friends, whose hearts are so infolded that the feeling of each is the feeling of all; and I am on both sides only the seeming of a constraint which each apparently hesitates to dismiss.
The South—prostrate, exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as her material resources, yet still honorable and true—accepts the bitter award of the bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide the result with chivalrous fidelity. Yet, as if struck dumb by the magnitude of her reverses, she suffers on in silence. The North, exultant in her triumph and elevated by success, still cherishes, as we are assured, a heart full of magnanimous emotions toward her disarmed and discomfited antagonist; and yet, as if under some mysterious spell, her words and acts are words and acts of suspicion and distrust. Would that the spirit of the illustrious dead, whom we lament today, could speak from the grave to both parties to this deplorable discord, in tones which would reach each and every heart throughout this broad territory: My country-men! know one another and you will love one another.
ROBERT INGERSOLL
At His Brother’s Grave14 (1879)
My Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.
The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, dies where manhood’s morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows were still falling toward the west.
He had not passed on life’s highway the stone that marks the highest point, but, being weary for a moment, lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.
Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to task against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or ’mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every house is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.
This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.
He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart and with purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.
He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quite these words: “For justice, all place a temple; and all seasons, summer.” He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.
Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his last breath: “I am better now.” Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, and tears and fears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
And now to you who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech can not contain our love. There was, there is, no greater, stronger, manlier man.
WILLIAM GLADSTONE
Against the Tory Government15 (1880)
To those gentlemen who talk of the great vigor and determination and success of the Tory government, I ask you to compare the case of Bulgaria and Turkey. Try them by principles, or try them by results, I care not which; we knew what we were about and what was to be done when we had integrity and independence to support. When they had integrity and independence to protect they talked indeed loud enough about supporting Turkey, and you would suppose they were prepared to spend their resources upon it; but all their measures have ended in nothing except that they have reduced Turkey to a state of greater weakness than at any portion of her history, whereas, on the other hand, in regard to the twelve or thirteen millions of Slavs and Roumanian population, they have made the name of England odious throughout the whole population, and done everything in their power to throw that population into the arms of Russia, to be the tool of Russia in its plans and schemes, unless, indeed, as I hope and am inclined to believe, the virtue of free institutions that they have obtained will make them too wise to become the tools of any foreign power whatever, will make them intent upon maintaining their own liberties, as becomes a free people playing a noble part in the history of Europe.
I have detained you too long, and I will not, though I would, pursue this subject further. I have shown you what I think the miserable failure of the policy of the government. Remember, we have a fixed point from which to draw our measurements. Remember what in 1876 the proposal of those who approved of the Bulgarian agitation and who were denounced as the enemies of Turkey, remember what the proposal would have done. It would have given autonomy to Bulgaria, which has not got autonomy; but it would have saved all the remainder at less detriment to the rest of the Turkish Empire. Turkey would have had a fair chance. Turkey would not have suffered the territorial losses which she has elsewhere suffered, and which she has suffered, I must say, in consequence of her being betrayed into the false and mischievous, the tempting and seductive, but unreal and unwise policy of the present administration.
There are other matters which must be reserved for other times. We are told about the Crimean War. Sir Stafford Northcote tells us the Crimean War, made by the Liberal government, cost the country forty millions of debt, and an income tax of one shilling and four pence per pound. Now what is the use of telling us that? I will discuss the Crimean War on some future occasion, but not now. If the Liberal government were so clever that they contrived to burden the country with forty millions of debt for this Crimean War, why does he not go back to the war before that and tell us what the Tory government did with the Revolutionary War, when they left a debt on the country of some nine hundred millions, of which six hundred and fifty millions then had made in the Revolutionary War, and not only so, but left the blessing and legacy of the corn laws, and of a high protective system, an impoverished country, and a discontented population—so much so that for years that followed the great Revolutionary War, no man could say whether the constitution of this country was or was not worth five years’ purchase. They might even go further back than the Revolutionary War. They have been talking loudly of the colonies, and say that, forsooth, the Liberal party do nothing for the colonies. What did the Tory party do for the colonies? I can tell you. Go to the war that preceded the Revolutionary War. They made war against the American continent. They added to the debt of the country two hundred millions in order to destroy freedom in America. They alienated it and drove it from this country. They were compelled to bring this country to make an ignominious peace; and, as far as I know, that attempt to put down freedom in America, with its results to this country, is the only one great fact which has ever distinguished the relations between a Tory government and the colonies.
But gentlemen, these must be matters postponed for another occasion. I thank you very cordially, both friends and opponents, if opponents you be, for the extreme kindness with which you have heard me. I have spoken, and I must speak in very strong terms of the acts done by my opponents. I will never say that they did it from vindictiveness, I will never say that they did it from passion, I will never say that they did it from a sordid love of office; I have no right to use such words; I have no right to entertain such sentiments; I repudiate and abjure them. I give them credit for patriotic motives—I give them credit for those patriotic motives which are incessantly and gratuitously denied to us. I believe we are all united in a fond attachment to the great country to which we belong, to the great empire which has committed to it a trust and function from Providence, as special and remarkable as was ever entrusted to any portion of the family of man. When I speak of that trust and that function I feel that words fail. I cannot tell you what I think of the nobleness of the inheritance which has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and manhood, and, more than that, till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practice I have lived, and in that faith and practice I shall die.