MiS'gJK'ffi?!-^' Vrri^V 1 I t iT Ml I- -[ -MT 4> , 1 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE Arthur H. and Mary Marden Dean Book Fund Cornell University Library PN6121.G781901 Great orations by Clay, Fox, Gladstone, 3 1924 008 179 354 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008179354 Great Orations by Famous Orators The World's Great Books Committee of Selection Thomas B. Reed William R. Harper Speaker of the House President of the of Representatives University of Chicago Edward Everett Hale Ainsworth R. Spofford Author of The Man Of the Congressional Without a Country Library Rossiter Johnson Editor of Little Classics and Editor-in-Chief of this Series ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Steel engraving by Alfred B. Hall. Great Orations By Clay, Fox, Gladstone, Lincoln, " O'Connell, Phillips, Pitt, Webster, and others With a Critical Introduction by Thomas B. Reed Illustrated New York D. Appleton and Company 1901 CoPYBiGHT, i8gg, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, THE ART OF ORATORY THE subject of oratory, which is the art of persuasion, has not been neglected. It has attracted, in times both ancient and modern, the attention of many men who have analyzed it and praised it, and who have tried to tell the secret of success. Nevertheless, very scant justice has been accorded to the service which the orator has rendered to the world at large for the progress of civilization and the advance- ment of the race. It has been the fashion, ever since the days of Tacitus, and probably centuries before, to point out the influence of the orator, and incite the student by the promise of power for the moment and of fame forever. " Where," said the great Roman historian twenty centuries ago — " where is the art or science the renown of which can vie with the ce- lebrity of the great orator ? Whom do the men in shirt sleeves (tunicus populatus) oftener name and point out as he passes by?" But the mere celebrity and renown of those who practise the art is of small consequence to the world compared with what the art itself does for mankind. Words can be printed in a book, and the book become a store-house of wisdom to be distributed forever and ever. But to be of any good use to mankind as a whole, the distribution must be made by the orator. He must bring the truth home to the hearer. This was especially so in ancient days, when the books were only for the few; but it is still so in our own days, and probably the time will never come when it will cease to be so. There is something in the voice, in the look, in the man himself, which the printed page can never rival. The conspicuousness iv THE ART OF ORATORY of oratory may pass away and may be measurably lost in the multitude of new and striking things which have crowded the world since the days of Tacitus, but it still keeps on its great work of educating the people, protecting their rights, and broadening their knowledge. In the pulpit, orators lead us to a better life; in the forum, they preserve our property and happiness; and in the field of politics they advance the standard of progress. I am quite well aware how little risk many of the preachers run of being called Chrysostom of the Golden Mouth, how far most of the lawyers are from being rivals of Hortensius, and how few speeches of statesmen make us think of the Oration on the Crown. Yet, after all, each does his work after his own way, and adds to the spread and diffusion of that knowledge which wise men have dug up out of the depths of the human experience of all past times. In this view, oratory is not confined to the famous speakers who have made themselves great names, and whose reputations need no proof, but extends itself to every effort to convince bodies of men either for the salvation of souls, the preserva- tion of rights, or the advancement of liberty. The wants of the world vary, and in one age the preacher holds high sway and in another the lawyer takes from him the foremost place, while in all ages the statesman battles with the weapon of speech, even if he seems to be appealing only to one. In free countries a large assembly always does decide, and probably in all despotisms the orator addresses himself to the surround- ings which influence the nominal final judge. Cicero, plead- ing the cause of Marcellus, did not appeal to Csesar alone, but to the senate which surrounded Csesar, and its influence was no small factor in the result. Oratory, then, has a very wide range, and its influence on the world is far from being measured by the wealth or standing or fame which it gives to its votaries. From this point of view it is worth the world's homage, and deserves all the attention that has been devoted to it. How can a man become an orator? I am afraid this is very much like asking. How can a man become a poet ? Poets can improve by study of words, of rhythm, of literature, and THE ART OF ORATORY y by practice in the art, but the essential is the poet himself. Oratory, however, has its own peculiar conditions, and makes gieat demands upon the physical system. Good lungs and a clear voice play no small part in the convincing of multi- tudes, and yet the soundest lungs and limbs and the most resonant voice will plead in vain unless the essential be behind them. Edmund Burke has the great oratorical reputation of modern times, and yet history and biography are never weary of relating his failures in Parliament. Still, he had in him the essential of oratory, and in one way and another has been heard of all the world. Fox declares that practice was what made him master of his art, and that he spoke at every op- portunity, and deeply regretted the few occasions he had missed. What the result was of both practice and his natural equipment the reader can see in the oration given in this volume on the French proposals for peace in 1800. Not even Fox ever showed so well his mastery of the art of putting things. Webster gave the great outlines when he said that oratory was in the man, the audience, and the occasion; and yet there remains the question, How shall the man fit himself to be worthy of the audience and the occasion ? In directions ordi- narily given too much time is spent on very inessential things. If Curran was really " stuttering Jack Curran," you may be sure that when he felt that his mind was full of something to say he found a way of saying it. Whether Demosthenes had such an impediment of speech that he had to. practise with pebbles in his mouth on the ocean shore, we may be sure that it was not the pebbles in his mouth which taught him that resistless directness, that stern invincibility of purpose which in the Oration on the Crown so utterly overcame and routed .(Eschines, himself a master of the art. In oratory all things may be called into requisition — learning, wisdom, the study of a lifetime, the tone of a voice, or the wave of a hand. Nothing is too great and nothing too trivial. We linger with a different but almost equal pleasure over the deep results of a lifelong study of the Constitution and over the episode of Banquo's ghost. Doubtless there vi THE ART OF ORATORY seemed to Hayne more discomfiture in the ghost than in the Constitution. So numerous are the resources of the orator that to enu- merate them would be to enumerate all the possibilities of the human mind that are capable of being turned into words, tones, or gestures. The limitations of the orator are in his auditors and in himself. He can not go much beyond their knowledge, and not at all beyond his own. Of course, the mainstay of everything in this world is sound reason. Unless what you say is based on the eternal verities, no triumph can be lasting. Yet oratory can not always be serious. Wit and ridicule are as legitimate weapons as reason and solid wisdom, and the story of Hook hoarsely bawling through the camp, "Beef! beef!" was for the mo- ment quite as effective as the solemn utterance, " If that be treason, make the most of it ! " Indeed, a side attack may be the only one possible. When Cicero found himself with rather a poor case in the oration for Murasna face to face with Cato and Sulpicius, he could do no otherwise than substi- tute fun for exhortation or attack. Cato was too much es- teemed and Sulpicius too famous to be assailed, and so Cicero ridiculed the Stoic philosophy of Cato and laughed at the antiquated forms and jargon used in the trade of the lawyer Sulpicius. In our own times the world would lose much if it lost the wonderful bit of fun with which Evarts treated of the " hole in the sky " whither the impeached President was to be banished, " beyond the power of Congress to send for persons and papers." Perhaps this gentle way is more powerful than invective, unless you are sure of your audience. When the orator is sure of his audience, even the timid Cicero can burst forth and demand of Catiline how long they are to endure his un- bridled audacity. Even the prophet of the Lord did not deny himself the luxury of the bitterest mockery when the down- pour of flame from heaven had conquered the priests of Baal. Oratory — or rather, perhaps, examples of oratory — suffer much when we endeavour to examine them either for enjoy- ment or to find out the secret of success. They are created THE ART OF ORATORY vii for the time only during which they were uttered. An orator can seldom pause to narrate. He must build upon what his audiences already know. What they know begins to perish immediately, and the force of the allusions perishes with them. It is for this, as well as for other reasons, that reported dis- courses years afterward are so disappointing. You will notice also that the most lavish praise is bestowed on speeches that perished with the using. The Begum speech which Sheri- dan delivered in the House of Commons remains in the im- aginations of men as the finest speech of modern days. It never was reported. The enthusiasm which the spoken word aroused never has been brought to the cold test of study and reflection and comparison. Sheridan has had much turgid rhetoric foisted on him of which he was never father. Oratory further suffers from the difference between spoken and written language. When you write, you can not eke out a sentence or an idea with a gesture or a tone. When you speak, unless you carefully prepare, you always do so, and what is not noticed in the eagerness of listening is very painful in the calmness of reading. An audience never notices that you begin a sentence one way and take the other route before you get through; but if the stenographer is not kind, the speaker will be sorrowful when his change of direction confronts him in print. Words are only one way of conveying the idea, and the idea is what the audience takes in. It has little megi,- ory of anything but the thought, which thought may be con- veyed by the mingling of words and gestures, of tones and pauses. Orderly arrangement goes far toward calling up to the memory that information which must be the basis of most per- suasive speaking — ^at least among those who inhabit the tepj- perate zones. To state the facts of your case and contention ip careful, orderly fashion is half and sometimes the whole battle. This is more and more the truth every day. In barbaric ages glitter and pomp and the display of the jewels of speech were most in demand. In the British Parliament due quotation of Horace was a hundred years ago absolutely essential. That has now all passed away, and plain English is deemed good Missing Page Missing Page CONTENTS PAGB Lord Chatham on the American Stamp Act . . . i Henry Grattan on the Declaration of Irish Rights . ii William Pitt on the Slave-Trade 29 John Philpot Curran on the Trial of Archibald Hamilton Rowan 57 Charles James Fox on the French Overtures for Peace 97 Daniel O'Connell on the Recovery of Catholic Rights 147 Daniel Webster — The Bunker Hill Monument . . i6i Henry Clay in Defence of the American System . .183 Richard Lalor Sheil on the Irish Municipal Bill . 254 John Bright on the Foreign Policy of England . .275 Wendell Phillips — Toussaint L'Ouverture . . .301 Henry Ward Beecher — Union and Emancipation . . 325 Abraham Lincoln — The Gettysburg Address . . .352 Second Inaugural Address . . 353 Lord Beaconsfield on the Principles of the Conserva- tive Party 355 William Ewart Gladstone — Domestic and Foreign Af- fairs 391 James Gillespie Blaine — James Abram Garfield . . 426 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece Steel engraving by Alfred B. Hall Lord Chatham 8 Photogravure from an engraving by Richard Houston, after a painting by William Hoare Henry Grattan 20 Photogravure from an engraving by John Godby William Pitt 40 Photogravure from an engraving by Henry Meyer, after a paint- ing by John Hoppner Daniel O'Connell 148 Photogravure from an engraving by Isaac Dadley Daniel Webster 162 Steel engraving after a painting by George P. A. Healy Henry Clay 216 Steel engraving by William G. Jackman, after a daguerreotype by Brady William Ewart Gladstone . 392 Photogravure from a photograph James Gillespie Blaine 428 Steel engraving by Henry B. Hall, Jr. xiii GREAT ORATIONS LORD CHATHAM ON THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT (Delivered in the House of Commons, January 14, 1765) SIR: I came to town but to-day; I was a stranger to the tenor of his Majesty's speech, and the proposed address, till I heard them read in this House. Un- connected and unconsulted, I have not the means of in- formation; I am fearful of offending through mistake, and therefore beg to be indulged with a second reading of the proposed address. [The address having been again read, Mr. Pitt expressed his approval of the King's speech, and of the address, inasmuch as the latter left the members of the House at liberty to adopt their own views upon the American question, and then resumed:] One word only I can not approve of — early is a word that does not belong to the notice the Ministry have given to Parliament of the troubles in America. In a matter of such importance, the communication ought to have been immediate: I speak not with respect to parties; I stand up in this place single and unconnected. As to the late Ministry, every capital measure they have taken has been entirely wrong! As to the present gentlemen, to those at least whom I have in my eye, I have no objection; I have never been made a sacrifice by any of them. Their characters are fair; 2 LORD CHATHAM and I am always glad when men of fair character engage in his Majesty's service. Some of them have done me the honour to ask my opinion before they would engage. These would do me the justice to own, I advised them to engage; but notwithstanding — I love to be explicit — I can not give them my confidence; pardon me, gentlemen, confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom: youth is the season of credulity; by comparing events with each other, reasoning from efifects to causes, methinks I plainly discover the traces of an overruling influence. There is a clause in the act of settlement to oblige every minister to sign his name to the advice which he gives his Sovereign. Would it were observed! I have had the honour to serve the Crown, and if I could have submitted to influence, I might have still continued to serve; but I would not be responsible for others. I have no local attachments; it is indifferent to me whether a man was rocked in his cradle on this side or that side of the Tweed. I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast that I was the first minister who looked for it, and I found it in the mountains in the north. I called it forth, and drew it into your service, a hardy and intrepid race of men ! men who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifices of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the state in the war before the last. These men, in the last war, were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity, as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the world. Detested be the national reflections against them ! they are unjust, groundless, illiberal, unmanly. When I ceased to serve his Majesty as a minister, it was not the country of the man by which I was moved — ^but the man of that country wanted wisdom, and held prin- ciples incompatible with freedom. It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken in the House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT 3 agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it ! It is now an act that has passed — I would speak with decency of every act of this House, but I must beg the indulgence of the House to speak of it with freedom. I hope a day may be soon appointed to consider the state of the nation with respect to America. I hope gen- tlemen will come to this debate with all the temper and im- partiality that his Majesty recommends and the impor- tance of the subject requires — a subject of greater impor- tance than ever engaged the attention of this House; that subject only excepted when, near a century ago, it was the question whether you yourselves were to be bound or free. In the meantime, as I can not depend upon health for any future day, such is the nature of my infirmities, I will beg to say a few words at present, leaving the justice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the act, to another time. I will only speak to one point — a point which seems not to have been generally understood — I mean to the right. Some gentlemen seem to have considered it as a point of honour. If gentlemen consider it in that light, they leave all measures of right and wrong to follow a delusion that may lead to destruction. It is my opinion that this king- dom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme, in every cir- cumstance of government and legislation whatsoever. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating of the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the govern- ing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned, but the concur- rence of the Peers and the Crown to a tax is only neces- 4 LORD CHATHAM sary to clothe it with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the Commons alone. In ancient days the Crown, the barons, and the clergy possessed the lands. In those days the barons and the clergy gave and granted to the Crown. They gave and granted what was their own. At present, since the discovery of America, and other cir- cumstances permitting, the Commons are become the pro- prietors of the land. The Church (God bless it!) has but a pittance. The property of the Lords, compared with that of the Commons, is as a drop of water in the ocean; and this House represents those Commons, the proprietors of the lands; and those proprietors virtually represent the rest of the inhabitants. When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majes- ty — what? Our own property? No. We give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms. The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty. The Crown, the Peers, are equally legislative powers with the Commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the Crown and the Peers have rights in taxation as well as yourselves; rights which they will claim, which they will exercise, whenever the principle can be supported by power. There is an idea in some that the colonies are virtually represented in the House. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here? Is he represented by any knight of the shire, in any county in this kingdom? Would to God that respectable representation was aug- mented to a greater number! Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough a borough which perhaps no man ever saw? This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It can not continue a century: if it does not drop, it must be ampu- tated. The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible idea that ever entered THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT 5 into the head of a man — it does not deserve a serious refutation. The Commons of America, represented in their sev- eral assembUes, have ever been in possession of the exer- cise of this, their constitutional right of giving and grant- ing their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time this kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regulations, and restrictions in trade, in navigation, in manufactures — in everything, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. Here I would draw the line — " Quam ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum." [After Mr. Grenville had replied, Mr. Pitt again rose and addressed the House:] I did not mean to have gone any further upon the sub- ject to-day; I had only designed to have thrown out a few hints, which gentlemen, who were so confident of the right of this kingdom to send taxes to America, might consider; might perhaps reflect, in a cooler moment, that the right was at least equivocal. But since the gentleman who spoke last has not stopped on that ground, but has gone into the whole, into the justice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the Stamp Act, as well as into the right, I will follow him through the whole field, and combat his arguments on every point. Gentlemen, sir, have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America.^ They have spoken their senti- ments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have desisted from his project. The gentleman tells us, America 6 LORD CHATHAM is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here, armed at all points with law cases and acts of Parliament, with the statute- book doubled down in dogs' ears, to defend the cause of liberty: if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them to have shown that, even under any arbitrary reigns. Parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them representatives. Why did the gentle- man confine himself to Chester and Durham? he might have taken a higher example in Wales — Wales, that never was taxed by Parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman: I know his abilities, I have been obliged to his diligent re- searches: but, for the defence of liberty upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm; on which I dare meet any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed and are not represented: the India Company, merchants, stock- holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are repre- sented on other capacities, as owners of land or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are not equally represented. But they are all inhabitants, and as such are they not virtually represented? Many have it in their option to be actually represented. They have connections with those that elect, and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned the stock-holders: I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the national estate. Since the accession of King William many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government. None of these thought, or ever dreamed, of robbing the colonies of their consti- tutional rights. That was reserved to mark the era of the late administration; not that there were wanting some, THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT 7 when I had the honour to serve his Majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America!^ Are not those bounties intended finally for the benefit of this king- dom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treas- ures. I am no courtier of America — I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less; but so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the gentleman does not understand the difiference between external and internal taxes, I can not help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the pur- pose of raising a revenue and duties imposed for the regu- lation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue might inci- dentally arise from the latter. The gentleman asks. When were the colonies emanci^ pated? But I desire to know when they were made slaves. But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of in- formation which I derived from my office; I speak, there- fore, from knowledge. My materials were good: I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you tri- umphantly through the last war. The estates that were 8 LORD CHATHAM rented at two thousand pounds a year threescore years ago are at three thousand pounds at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years' purchase; the same may now be sold for thirty. You owe this to Amer- ica. This is the price America pays for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can fetch a pepper-corn in the Exchequer to the loss of millions to the nation? I dare not say how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people by natural population in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged, and encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent in favour of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of Parliament in consequence of treaties remain, but let not an English minister become a custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong, much may be amended for the general good of the whole. Does the gentleman complain he has been misrepre- sented in the public prints? It is a common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of last war I was abused in all the newspapers for having advised his Majesty to violate the law of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was indus- triously circulated even in hand-bills. If administration did not propagate the abuse, administration never contra- dicted it. I will not say what advice I did give to the King. My advice is in writing, signed by myself, in the possession of the Crown. But I will say what advice I did not give to the King: I did not advise him to violate any of the laws of nations. As to the report of the gentleman's preventing in some way the trade for bullion with the Spaniards, it was spoken of so confidently that I own I am one of those who did believe it to be true.* LORD CHATHAM. Photogravure from an engraving by Richard Houston, after a painting by William Hoare. THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT 9 The gentleman must not wonder he was not contra- dicted when, as the minister, he asserts the right of Parlia- ment to tax America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this House which does not choose to contra- dict a minister. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modesty. Even that chair, sir, sometimes looks toward St. James's. If they do not, perhaps the collective body may begin to abate of its respect for the representative. Lord Bacon had told me that a great question would not fail of being agitated at one time or another. I was will- ing to agitate that at the proper season; the German war, my German war, they called it. Every session I called out. Has anybody any objections to the German war? Nobody would object to it, one gentleman only excepted, since removed to the Upper House, by succession to an ancient barony.* " He did not like a German war." I honoured the man for it, and was sorry when he was turned out of his post. A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there. But on this grqund, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think it a crying injus- tice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace? Not to sheath the sword in its scabbard, but to sheath it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole house of Bourbon is united against you? while France disturbs your fisheries in New- foundland, embarrasses your slave-trade to Africa, and 10 LORD CHATHAM withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty? while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer, a gentleman whose noble and gen- erous spirit would do honour to the proudest grandee of the country? ^ The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injus- tice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occa- sioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies that I can not help repeating them: " Be to her faults a little blind : Be to her virtues very kind." Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an errone- ous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign author- ity of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever. That we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. Notes ' Mr. Grenville, in his speech, had said that the Americans had been en- couraged to sedition by the factious language of the opposition members. * Mr. Grenville had charged the Americans with exhibiting ingratitude to this country, after bounties had been given on their timber, iron, hemp, and other articles. ' Mr. Grenville had said, " I have been particularly charged with giving orders and instructions to prevent the Spanish trade, and thereby stopping the channel by which alone North America used to be supplied with cash for remittances to this country ; I defy any man to produce any such orders or instructions." * Lord le Despencer, formerly Sir F. Dashwood. » Manilla, the capital of the Manillas, or Philippine Islands, belonging to Spain, surrendered to Sir William Draper, in 1762 ; but a ransom of four million dollars was agreed to be given for all private property, and accepted. HENRY GRATTAN ON THE DECLARA- TION OF IRISH RIGHTS (Delivered in the Irish House of Commons, April 19, 1780) SIR: I have entreated an attendance on this day that you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it. If I had lived when the ninth of William took away the woollen manufacture, or when the sixth of George I de- clared this country to be dependent, and subject to laws to be enacted by the Parliament of England, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience to seize the first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have ad- ministered to him an oath that he would consider himself a person separate and set apart for the discharge of so important a duty; upon the same principle am I now come to move a declaration of right, the first moment occur- ring, since my time, in which such a declaration could be made with any chance of success, and without aggrava- tion of oppression. Sir, it must appear to every person that, notwithstand- ing the import of sugar and export of woollens, the people of this country are not satisfied — something remains; the greater work is behind; the public heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our satisfaction; to stop the throats of . millions with the votes of Parliament; to preach homilies to the volunteers; to utter invectives against the people under pretence of affectionate advice, is an attempt, weak, suspicious, and inflammatory. You can not dictate to those whose sense you are in- II 12 HENRY GRATTAN trusted to represent; your ancestors, who sat within these walls, lost to Ireland trade and liberty; you, by the assist- ance of the people, have recovered trade, you still owe the kingdom Hberty; she calls upon you to restore it. The ground of public discontent seems to be, " We have got commerce, but not freedom "; the same power which took away the export of woollens and the export of glass may take them away again; the repeal is partial, and the ground of repeal is upon a principle of expediency. Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and tyrannical import; expedient is an ill-omened word, selected to ex- press the reservation of authority, while the exercise i$ mitigated; expedient is the ill-omened expression of the repeal of the American Stamp Act. England thought it expedient to repeal that law; happy had it been for man- kind if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not re- served the right! To that reservation she owes the loss of her American empire, at the expense of millions, and America the seeking of liberty through a sea of blood- shed. The repeal of the woollen act, similarly circum- stanced, pointed against the principle of our liberty, present relaxation, but tyranny in reserve, may be a subject for illumination to a populace, or a pretence for apostasy to a courtier, but can not be the subject of settled satisfac- tion to a freeborn, an intelligent, and an injured commu- nity. It is therefore they consider the free trade as a trade de facto, not de jure, a license to trade under the Parlia- ment of England, not a free trade under the charters of Ireland, as a tribute to her strength; to maintain which, she must continue in a state of armed preparation, dread- ing the approach of a general peace, and attributing all she holds dear to the calamitous condition of the British interest in every quarter of the globe. This dissatisfac- tion, founded upon a consideration of the liberty we have lost, is increased when they consider the opportunity they are losing; for if this nation, after the death-wound given to her freedom, had fallen on her knees in anguish, and besought the Almighty to frame an occasion in which a IRISH RIGHTS 1 3 weak and injured people might recover their rights, prayer could not have asked, nor God have furnished, a moment more opportune for the restoration of liberty than this in which I have the honour to address you. England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; the doctrine of imperial legislature she feels to be pernicious; the revenues and monopolies annexed to it she has found to be untenable, she lost the power to en- force it; her enemies are a host, pouring upon her from all quarters of the earth; her armies are dispersed; the sea is not hers; she has no minister, no ally, no admiral, none in whom she long confides, and no general whom she has not disgraced; the balance of her fate is in the hands of Ireland; you are not only her last connection, you are the only nation in Europe that is not her enemy. Besides, there does; of late, a certain damp and spurious supineness overcast her arms and councils, miraculous as that vigour which has lately inspirited yours — for with you everything is the reverse; never was there a Parliament in Ireland so possessed of the confidence of the people; you are the greatest political assembly now sitting in the world; you are at the head of an immense army; nor do we only pos- sess an unconquerable force, but a certain unquenchable public fire, which has touched all ranks of men like a visi- tation. Turn to the growth and spring of your country, and behold and admire it; where do you find a nation who, upon whatever concerns the rights of mankind, expresses herself with more truth or force, perspicuity or justice? not the set phrase of scholastic men, not the tame unreality of court addresses, not the vulgar raving of a rabble, but the genuine speech of liberty, and the unsophisticated ora- tory of a free nation. See her military ardour, expressed not only in forty thousand men, conducted by instinct as they were raised by inspiration, but manifested in the zeal and promptitude of every young member of the growing community. Let corruption tremble; let the enemy, foreign or domestic. 14 HENRY GRATTAN tremble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these means of safety and this hour of redemption. Yes, there does exist an enlightened sense of rights, a young appetite for freedom, a solid strength, and a rapid fire, which not only put a declaration of right within your power, but put it out of your power to decline one. Eighteen counties are at your bar; they stand there with the compact of Henry, with the charter of John, and with all the passions of the people. " Our lives are at your service, but our liberties — we received them from God; we will not resign them to man." Speaking to you thus, if you repulse these peti- tioners, you abdicate the privileges of Parliament, forfeit the rights of the kingdom, repudiate the instruction of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and reject that good which not a minister, not a Lord North, not a Lord Bucking- hamshire, not a Lord Hillsborough, but a certain provi- dential conjuncture, or rather the hand of God, seems to extend to you. Nor are we only prompted to this when we consider our strength; we are challenged to it when we look to Great Britain. The people of that country are now waiting to hear the Parliament of Ireland speak on the subject of their liberty: it begins to be made a question in England whether the principal persons wish to be free: it was the delicacy of former Parliaments to be silent on the subject of commercial restrictions, lest they should show a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the viola- tion; you have spoken out, you have shown a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the violation. On the con- trary, you have returned thanks for a partial repeal made on a principle of power; you have returned thanks as for a favour, and your exultation has brought your charters as well as your spirit into question, and tends to shake to her foundation your title to liberty: thus you do not leave your rights where you found them. You have done too much not to do more; you have gone too far not to go on; you have brought yourselves into that situation in which you must silently abdicate the rights of your IRISH RIGHTS 1 5 country, or publicly restore them. It is very true you may feed your manufacturers, and landed gentlemen may get their rents, and you may export woollens, and may load a vessel with baize, serges, and kerseys, and you may bring back again directly from the plantations sugar, indigo, speckle-wood, beetle-root, and panellas. But liberty, the foundation of trade, the charters of the land, the independ- ency of Parliament, the securing, crowning, and the con- summation of everything, are yet to come. Without them the work is imperfect, the foundation is wanting, the capital is wanting, trade is not free, Ireland is a colony without the benefit of a charter, and you are a provincial synod without the privileges of a Parliament. I read Lord North's proposition; I wish to be satis- fied, but I am controlled by a paper, I will not call it a law; it is the sixth of George I. [The paper was read. J I will ask the gentlemen of the long robe is this the law? I ask them whether it is not practice? I appeal to the judges of the land whether they are not in a course of declaring that the Parliament of Great Britain, naming Ireland, binds her? I appeal to the magistrates of justice whether they do not, from time to time, execute certain acts of the British Parliament? I appeal to the officers of the army whether they do not fine, confine, and execute their fellow- subjects by virtue of the Mutiny Act, an act of the British Parliament; and I appeal to this House whether a country so circumstanced is free. Where is the freedom of trade? where is the security of property? where is the liberty of the people? I here, in this Declamatory Act, see my coun- try proclaimed a slave! I see every man in this House enrolled a slave! I see the judges of the realm, the oracles of the law, borne down by an unauthorized foreign power, by the authority of the British Parliament against the law! I see the magistrates prostrate, and I see Parliament wit- ness of these infringements, and silent (silent or employed to preach moderation to the people, whose liberties it will not restore) ! I therefore say, with the voice of three mil- lions of people, that, notwithstanding the import of sugar. l6 HENRY GRATTAN beetle-wood, and panellas, and the export of woollens and kerseys, nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honourable, noth- ing except a declaration of right. What! are you, with three millions of men at your back, with charters in one hand and arms in the other, afraid to say you are a free people? Are you, the greatest House of Commons that ever sat in Ireland, that want but this one act to equal that English House of Commons that passed the Petition of Right, or that other that passed the Declaration of Right, are you afraid to tell that British Parliament you are a free people? Are the cities and the instructing coun- ties, who have breathed a spirit that would have done honour to old Rome when Rome did honour to mankind, are they to be free by connivance? Are the military asso- ciations, those bodies whose origin, progress, and deport- ment have transcended, equalled at least, anything in mod- ern or ancient story — is the vast line of northern army, are they to be free by connivance? What man will settle among you? Where is the use of the Naturalization Bill? What man will settle among you? who will leave a land of liberty and a settled government for a kingdom con- trolled by the Parliament of another country, whose lib- erty is a thing by stealth, whose trade a thing by permis- sion, whose judges deny her charters, whose Parliament leaves everything at random; where the chance of freedom depends upon the hope that the jury shall despise the judge stating a British act, or a rabble stop the magistrate exe- cuting it, rescue your abdicated privileges, and save the constitution by trampling on the government, by anarchy and confusion? But I shall be told that these are groundless jealousies, and that the principal cities, and more than one half of the counties of the kingdom, are misguided men, raising those groundless jealousies. Sir, let me become, on this occasion, the people's advocate, and your historian: the people of this country were possessed of a code of liberty similar to that of Great Britain, but lost it through the weakness of the kingdom and the pusillanimity of its lead- IRISH RIGHTS 1 7 ers. Having lost our liberty by the usurpation of the British Parliament, no wonder we became a prey to her ministers; and they did plunder us with all the hands of all the harpies for a series of years, in every shape of power, terrifying our people with the thunder of Great Britain, and bribing our leaders with the rapine of Ireland. The kingdom became a plantation, her Parliament, deprived of its privileges, fell into contempt; and, with the legisla- ture, the law, the spirit of liberty, with her forms, vanished. If a war broke out, as in 1778, and an occasion occurred to restore liberty and restrain rapine. Parliament declined the opportunity; but, with an active servility and trem- bling loyalty, gave and granted, without regard to the treasure we had left or the rights we had lost. If a partial separation was made upon a principle of expediency, Par- liament did not receive it with the tranquil dignity of an august assembly, but with the alacrity of slaves. The principal individuals, possessed of great property but no independency, corrupted by their extravagance, or enslaved by their following a species of English factor against an Irish people, more afraid of the people of Ire- land than the tyranny of England, proceeded to that excess that they opposed every proposition to lessen profusion, extend trade, or promote liberty; they did more, they sup- ported a measure which, at one blow, put an end to all trade; they did more, they brought you to a condition which they themselves did unanimously acknowledge a state of impending ruin; they did this, talking as they are now talking, arguing against trade as they now argue against liberty, threatening the people of Ireland with the power of the British nation, and imploring them to rest satisfied with the ruins of their trade, as they now im- plore them to remain satisfied with the wreck of their con- stitution. The people thus admonished, starving in a land of plenty, the victim of two Parliatflents, of one that stopped their trade, the other that fed on their constitution, inhabit- ing a country where industry was forbid, or towns swarm- I 8 HENRY GRATTAN ing with begging manufacturers, and being obliged to take into their own hands that part of government which consists in protecting the subject, had recourse to two measures, which, in their origin, progress, and conse- quence, are the most extraordinary to be found in any age or in any country — viz., a commercial and a military asso- ciation. The consequence of these measures was instant; the enemy that hung on your shores departed, the Parlia- ment asked for a free trade, and the British nation granted the trade, but withheld the freedom. The people of Ire- land are, therefore, not satisfied; they ask for a constitu- tion; they have the authority of the wisest men in this House for what they now demand. What have these walls, for this last century, resounded? The usurpation of the British Parliament, and the interference of the privy coun- cil. Have we taught the people to complain, and do we now condemn their insatiability, because they desire us to remove such grievances, at a time in which nothing can oppose them, except the very men by whom these griev- ances were acknowledged? Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor will her heart be well at ease — never! so long as the Parliament of England exercises or claims a legislation over this country: so long as this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a perpetual attach- ment, will be the cause of new discontent; it will create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will poison the good communicated. The British minister mistakes the Irish character: had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar; there is no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war; the claims of the one go against the liberty IRISH RIGHTS I9 of the Other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood. The English opposition, therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland — they judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political life has been a struggle for liberty; they judge of us with a true knowledge of, and just defer- ence for, our character — that a country enlightened as Ire- land, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than liberty. I admire that public-spirited merchant [Alderman Horan] who spread consternation at the custom-house, and, despising the example which great men afforded, de- termined to try the question, and tendered for entry what the British Parliament prohibts the subject to export, some articles of silk, and sought at his private risk the liberty of his country; with him I am convinced it is neces- sary to agitate the question of right. In vain will you endeavour to keep it back, the passion is too natural, the sentiment is too irresistible; the question comes on of its own vitality — you must reinstate the laws. There is no objection to this resolution, except fears; I have examined your fears; I pronounce them to be frivolous. I might deny that the British nation was at- tached to the idea of binding Ireland; I might deny that England was a tyrant at heart; and I might call to witness the odium of North and the popularity of Chatham, her support of Holland, her contributions to Corsica, and the charters communicated to Ireland; but ministers have tra- duced England to debase Ireland; and politicians, like priests, represent the power they serve as diabolical, to pos- sess with superstitious fears the victim whom they design to plunder. If England is a tyrant, it is you have made her so: it is the slave that makes the tyrant, and then mur- murs at the master whom he himself has constituted. I do allow, on the subject of commerce, England was jealous in the extreme, and I do say it was commercial jealousy, it was the spirit of monopoly (the woollen trade and the act of navigation had made her tenacious of a compre- 20 HENRY GRATTAN hensive legislative authority), and having now ceded that monopoly, there is nothing in the way of your liberty ex- cept your own corruption and pusillanimity; and nothing can prevent your being free except yourselves. It is not in the disposition of England; it is not in the interest of England; it is not in her arms. What! can eight mil- lions of Englishmen, opposed to twenty millions of French, to seven millions of Spanish, to three millions of Ameri- cans, reject the alliance of three millions in Ireland? Can eight millions of British men, thus outnumbered by foes, take upon their shoulders the expense of an expedition to enslave you? Will Great Britain, a wise and magnani- mous country, thus tutored by experience and wasted by war, the French navy riding her Channel, send an army to Ireland, to levy no tax, to enforce no law, to answer no end whatsoever, except to spoliate the charters of Ire- land, and enforce a barren oppression? What! has Eng- land lost thirteen provinces? has she reconciled herself to this loss, and will she not be reconciled to the liberty of Ireland? Take notice that the very constitution which I move you to declare, Great Britain herself offered to America: it is a very instructive proceeding in the British history. In 1778 a commission went out, with powers to cede to the thirteen provinces of America, totally and radi- cally, the legislative authority claimed over her by the British Parliament and the commissioners, pursuant to their powers, did offer to all, or any, of the American States the total surrender of the legislative authority of the Brit- ish Parliament. I will read you their letter to the Con- gress. [Here the letter was read, surrendering the power as aforesaid.] What! has England offered this to the re- sistance of America, and will she refuse it to the loyalty of Ireland? Your fears, then, are nothing but an habitual subjugation of mind; that subjugation of mind which made you at first tremble at every great measure of safety; which made the principal men among us conceive the com- mercial association would be a war; that fear, which made them imagine the military association had a tendency to HENRY GRATTAN. Photogravure from an engraving: fay John Godby. ^f IRISH RIGHTS 21 treason, which made them think a short money bill would be a public convulsion; and yet these measures have not only proved to be useful but are held to be moderate, and the Parliament that adopted them praised, not for its unanimity only, but for its temper also. You now wonder that you submitted for so many years to the loss of the woollen trade and the deprivation of the glass trade; raised above your former abject state in commerce, you are ashamed at your past pusillanimity; so when you have summoned a boldness which shall assert the lilserties of your country — raised by the act, and reinvested, as you will be, in the glory of your ancient right and privileges, you will be surprised at yourselves, who have so long sub- mitted to their violation. Moderation is but a relative term; for nations, like men, are only safe in proportion to the spirit they put forth, and the proud contemplation with which they survey themselves. Conceive yourselves a plantation, ridden by an oppressive government, and every- thing you have done is but a fortunate frenzy: conceive yourselves to be what you are, a great, a growing, and a proud nation, and a declaration of right is no more than the safe exercise of your indubitable authority. But though you do not hazard disturbance by agree- ing to this resolution, you do most exceedingly hazard tranquility by. rejecting it. Do not imagine that the ques- tion will be over when this motion shall be negatived. No; it will recur in a vast variety of shapes and diversity of places. Your constituents have instructed you in great numbers, with a powerful uniformity of sentiment, and in a style not the less awful because full of respect. They will find resources in their own virtue, if they have found none in yours. Public pride and conscious liberty, wounded by repulse, will find ways and means of vindication. You are in that situation in which every man, every hour of the day, may shake the pillars of the state; every court may swarm with the question of right; every quay and wharf with prohibited goods: what shall the judges, what the commissioners, do upon this occasion? Shall they comply 22 HENRY GRATTAN with the laws of Ireland, and against the claims of Eng- land, and stand firm where you have capitulated? shall they, on the other hand, not comply, and shall they per- sist to act against the law? will you punish them if they do so? will you proceed against them for not showing a spirit superior to your own? On the other hand, will you not punish them? Will you leave liberty to be trampled on by those men? Will you bring them and yourselves, all constituted orders, executive power, judicial power, and parliamentary authority, into a state of odium, impo- tence, and contempt; transferring the task of defending public right into the hands of the populace, and leaving it to the judges to break the laws, and to the people to assert them? Such would be the consequence of false mod- eration, of irritating timidity, of inflammatory palliatives, of the weak and corrupt hope of compromising with the court, before you have emancipated the country. I have answered the only semblance of a solid reason against the motion; I will remove some lesser pretences, some minor impediments; for instance, first, that we have a resolution of the same kind already on our journals, it will be said; but how often was the great charter con- firmed? not more frequently than your rights have been violated. Is one solitary resolution, declaratory of your right, sufficient for a country whose history, from the be- ginning unto the end, has been a course of violation? The fact is, every new breach is a reason for a new repair; every new infringement should be a new declaration; lest char- ters should be overwhelmed with precedents to their preju- dice, a nation's right obliterated, and the people themselves lose the memory of their own freedom. I shall hear of ingratitude: I name the argument to de- spise it and the men who make use of it: I know the men who use it are not grateful, they are insatiate; they are public extortioners, who would stop the tide of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel of their own emolu- ment: I know of no species of gratitude which should pre- vent my country from being free, no gratitude which should IRISH RIGHTS 23 oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of rob- bery and usurpation, nothing is an object of gratitude ex- cept the thing stolen, the charter spoliated. A nation's Hberty can not, hke her treasures, be meted and parcelled out in gratitude; no man can be grateful or liberal of his conscience, nor woman of her honour, nor nation of her liberty: there are certain unimpartable, inherent, invalu- able properties not to be alienated from the person, whether body politic or body natural. With the same contempt do I treat that charge which says that Ireland is insatiable; saying, that Ireland asks nothing but that which Great Britain has robbed her of, her rights and privileges; to say that Ireland will not be satisfied with liberty, because she is not satisfied with slavery, is folly. I laugh at that man who supposes that Ireland will not be content with a free trade and a free constitution; and would any man advise her to be content with less? I shall be told that we hazard the modification of the law of Poynings' and the Judges' Bill, and the Habeas Corpus Bill, and the Nullum Tempus Bill; but I ask, have you been for years begging for these little things, and have not you yet been able to obtain them? and have you been contending against a little body of eighty men in Privy Council assembled, convocating themselves into the image of a Parliament, and ministering your high ofHce? and have you been contending against one man, an humble individual, to you a leviathan — ^the English attorney-gen- eral — ^who advises in the case of Irish bills, and exercises legislation in his own person, and makes your parliamen- tary deliberations a blank, by altering your bills or sup- pressing them? and have you not yet been able to conquer this little monster? Do you wish to know the reason? I will tell you: because you have not been a Parliament, nor your country a people. Do you wish to know the remedy? — ^be a Parliament, become a nation, and these things will follow in the train of your consequence. I shall be told that titles are shaken, being vested by force of English acts; but in answer to that, I observe, time may be a title, 24 HENRY GRATTAN acquiescence a title, forfeiture a title, but an English act of Parliament certainly can not: it is an authority which, if a judge would charge, no jury would find, and which all the electors in Ireland have already disclaimed unequivocally, cordially, and universally. Sir, this is a good argument for an act of title, but no argument against a declara- tion of right. My friend who sits above me [Mr. Yelver- ton] has a Bill of Confirmation; we do not come unpre- pared to Parliament. I am not come to shake property, but to confirm property and restore freedom. The nation begins to form; we are moulding into a people; freedom asserted, property secured, and the army (a mercenary band) likely to be restrained by law. Never was such a revolution accomplished in so short a time, and with such public tranquility. In what situation would those men who call themselves friends of constitution and of govern- ment have left you? They would have left you without a title, as they state it; to your estates, without an asser- tion of your constitution, or a law for your army; and this state of unexampled private and public insecurity, this anarchy raging in the kingdom for eighteen months, these mock moderators would have had the presumption to call peace. I shall be told that the judges will not be swayed by the resolution of this House. Sir, that the judges will not be borne down by the resolutions of Parliament, not founded in law, I am willing to believe; but the resolutions of this House, founded in law, they will respect most ex- ceedingly. I shall always rejoice at the independent spirit of the distributors of the law, but must lament that hitherto they have given no such symptom. The judges of the British nation, when they adjudicated against the laws of that country, pleaded precedent and the prostration and profligacy of a long tribe of subservient predecessors, and were punished. The judges of Ireland, if they should be called upon, and should plead sad necessity, the thraldom of the times, and, above all, the silent fears of Parliament, they no doubt will be excused: but when your declara- IRISH RIGHTS 2$ tions shall have protected them from their fears; when you shall have emboldened the judges to declare the law according to the charter, I make no doubt they will do their duty; and your resolution, not making a new law, but giving new life to the old ones, will be secretly felt and inwardly acknowledged, and there will not be a judge who will not perceive, to the innermost recess of his tri- bunal, the truth of your charters and the vigour of your justice. The same laws, the came charters, communicate to both kingdoms, Great Britain and Ireland, the same rights and privileges; and one privilege above them all is that com- ■municated by Magna Charta, by the twenty-fifth of Ed- ward III, and by a multitude of other statutes, " not to be bound by any act except made with the archbishops, bish- ops, earls, barons, and freemen of the commonalty " — viz., of the Parliament of the realm. On this right of exclusive legislation are founded the Petition of Right, Bill of Right, Revolution, and Act of Settlement. The King has no other title to his crown than that which you have to your liberty; both are founded, the throne and your freedom, upon the right vested in the subject to resist by arms, notwithstanding their oaths of allegiance, any authority attempting to impose acts of power as laws, whether that authority be one man or a host, the second James, or the British Parliament! Every argument for the house of Hanover is equally an argument for the liberties of Ireland: the Act of Set- tlement is an act of rebellion, or the declaratory statute of the sixth of George I an act of usurpation; for both can not be law. I do not refer to doubtful history, but to living record; to common charters; to the interpretation England has put upon these charters — an interpretation not made by words only, but crowned by arms; to the revolution she had formed upon them, to the king she has deposed, and to the king she has established; and, above all, to the oath of allegiance solemnly plighted to the house of Stuart, 26 HENRY GRATTAN and afterward set aside, in the instance of a grave and moral people absolved by virtue of these very charters. And as anything less than liberty is inadequate to Ire- land, so is it dangerous to Great Britain. We are too near the British nation, we are too conversant with her his- tory, we are too much fired by her example, to be anything less than her equal ; anything less, we should be her bitter- est enemies — an enemy to that power which smote us with her mace, and to that constitution from whose blessings we were excluded: to be ground as we have been by the British nation, bound by her Parliament, plundered by her crown, threatened by her enemies, insulted with her pro- tection, while we returned thanks for her condescension, is a system of meanness and misery which has expired in our determination, as I hope it has in her magnanimity. There is no policy left for Great Britain but to cherish the remains of her empire, and do justice to a country who is determined to do justice to herself, certain that she gives nothing equal to what she received from us when we gave her Ireland. With regard to this country, England must resort to the free principles of government, and must forego that legislative power which she has exercised to do mischief to herself; she must go back to freedom, which, as it is the foundation of her constitution, so is it the main pillar of her empire ; it is not merely the connection of the crown, it is a constitutional annexation, an alliance of liberty, which is the true meaning and mystery of the sisterhood, and will make both countries one arm and one soul, re- plenishing from time to time, in their immortal connection, the vital spirit of law and liberty from the lamp of each other's light; thus combined by the ties of common inter- est, equal trade and equal liberty, the constitution of both countries may become immortal, a new and milder empire may arise from the errors of the old, and the British na- tion assume once more her natural station — the head of mankind. That there are precedents against us I allow — acts of IRISH RIGHTS 27 power I would call them, not precedent; and I answer the English pleading such precedents, as they answered their kings when they urged precedents against the liberty of England: Such things are the weakness of the times; the tyranny of one side, the feebleness of the other, the law of neither; we will not be bound by them; or rather, in the words of the declaration of right, " no doing judgment, proceeding, or anywise to the contrary, shall be brought into precedent or example." Do not, then, tolerate a power — the power of the British Parliament over this land, which has no foundation in utility or necessity, or empire, or the laws of England, or the laws of Ireland, or the laws of Nature, or the laws of God — do not sufifer it to have a duration in your mind. Do not tolerate that power which blasted you for a century, that power which shattered your loom, banished your manufactures, dishonoured your peerage, and stopped the growth of your people; do not, I say, be bribed by an export of woollens, or an import of sugar, and permit that power which has thus withered the land to remain in your country and have existence in your pusillanimity. Do not suffer the arrogance of England to imagine a surviving hope in the fears of Ireland; do not send the people to their own resolves for liberty, passing by the tri- bunals of justice and the high court of Parliament; neither imagine that, by any formation of apology, you can palli- ate such a commission to your hearts, still less to your children, who will sting you with their curses in your grave for having interposed between them and their Maker, rob- bing them of an immense occasion, and losing an oppor- tunity which you did not create, and can never restore. Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age of thraldom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, com- mercial redress, and miraculous armament, shall the his- torian stop at liberty, and observe — that here the principal men among us fell into mimic trances of gratitude — they were awed by a weak ministry, and bribed by an empty treasury — and when liberty was within their grasp, and 28 HENRY GRATTAN the temple opened her folding doors, and the arms of the people clanged, and the zeal of the nation urged and en- couraged them on, that they fell down, and were prosti- tuted at the threshold. I might, as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty. I do call upon you, by the laws of the land and their violation, by the instruction of eighteen counties, by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present moment, tell us the rule by which we shall go — assert the law of Ireland — declare the liberty of the land. I will not be answered by a public lie, in the shape of an amendment; neither, speaking for the subjects' free- dom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe, in this our island, in common with my fellow-sub- jects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as the meanest cot- tager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags; he may be naked, he shall not be in iron; and I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted ; and though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live; and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him. I shall move you, " That the King's most excellent Majesty, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." WILLIAM PITT ON THE SLAVE-TRADE (Delivered in the House of Commons, April 2, 1792) At this hour of the morning I am afraid, sir, I am too L\ much exhausted to enter so fully into the subject before the committee as I could wish; but if my bodily strength is in any degree equal to the task, I feel so strongly the magnitude of this question that I am ex- tremely earnest to deliver my sentiments, which I rise to do with the more satisfaction, because I now look for- ward to the issue of this business with considerable hopes of success. The debate has this day taken a turn which, though it has produced a variety of new suggestions, has, upon the whole, reduced this question to a much narrower point than it was ever brought into before. I can not say that I quite agree with the right honourable gentleman over the way [Mr. Fox] ; I am far from deploring all that has been said by my two honourable friends [Mr. Dundas and the Speaker]; I rather rejoice that they have now brought this subject to a fair issue — that something, at least, is already gained, and that the argument has taken altogether a new course this night. It is true, a difference of opinion has been stated, and has been urged with all the force of argument that could be given to it. But give me leave to say that this difference has been urged upon principles very far removed from those which were main- tained by the opponents of my honourable friend when he first brought forward his motion. There are very few of those who have spoken this night who have not de- clared the abolition of the slave-trade to be their ultimate object. The point now in dispute between us is a differ- 39 30 WILLIAM PITT ence merely as to the time at which the abolition ought to take place. I therefore congratulate this House, the coun- try, and the world that this great point has been gained; that we may now consider this trade as having received its condemnation; that this curse of mankind is seen by the House in its true light; that this stigma on our national character is about to be removed; and that mankind are likely to be delivered from the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race — from the severest and most extensive calamity recorded in the history of the world. In proceeding to give my reasons for concurring with my honourable friend in his motion, I shall necessarily ad- vert to those topics which my right honourable friends near me have touched upon, and which they stated to be their motives for preferring a gradual abolition to the more immediate and direct measure now proposed. Beginning, as I do, with declaring that in this respect I differ com- pletely from my right honourable friends near me, I do not, however, mean to say that I differ as to one observa- tion which has been pressed rather strongly by them. If they can show that by proceeding gradually we shall arrive more speedily at our end than by a direct vote immediately to abolish; if they can show that our proposition has more the appearance of a speedy abolition than the reality; un- doubtedly they will in this case make a convert of every man among us who looks to this as a question not to be determined by theoretical principles or enthusiastic feel- ings, but considers the practicability of the measure — aim- ing simply to effect his object in the shortest time and in the surest possible manner. If, however, I shall be able to show that the slave-trade will on our plan be abolished sooner than on theirs, may I not then hope that my right honourable friends will be as ready to adopt our proposi- tion as we should in the other case be willing to accede to theirs? One of my right honourable friends has stated that an act passed here for the abolition of the slave-trade would not secure its abolition. Now, sir, I should be glad to know why an act of the British legislature, enforced by THE SLAVE-TRADE 31 all those sanctions which we have undoubtedly the power and the right to apply, is not to be effectual, at least as to every material purpose. Will not the executive power have the same appointment of the officers and the courts of judicature, by which all the causes relating to this sub- ject must be tried, that it has in other cases? Will there not be the same system of law by which we now maintain a monopoly of commerce? If the same law, sir, be applied to the prohibition of the slave-trade which is applied in the case of other contraband commerce, with all the same means of the country to back it, I am at a loss to know why the total abolition is not as likely to be effected in this way as by any project of my right honourable friends for bringing about a gradual termination of it. But my observation is strongly fortified by what fell from my honourable friend who spoke last. He has told you, sir, that if you will have patience with it for a few years, the slave-trade must drop of itself, from the increasing dearness of the commodity imported, and the increasing progress, on the other hand, of internal population. Is it true, then, that the importa- tions are so expensive and disadvantageous already that the internal population is even now becoming a cheaper resource? I ask, then, if you leave to the importer no means of importation but by smuggling, and if, besides all the present disadvantages, you load him with all the charges and hazards of the smuggler, by taking care that the laws against smuggling are in this case rigorously en- forced, is there any danger of any considerable supply of fresh slaves being poured into the islands through this channel? And is there any real ground of fear, because a few slaves may have been smuggled in or out of the islands, that a bill will be ineffectual on any such ground? The question under these circumstances will not bear a dispute. Perhaps, however, my honourable friends may take up another ground and say: " It is true your measure would shut out further importations more immediately; but we think it right, on grounds of general expediency, that they should not be immediately shut out." Let us come, then. 32 WILLIAM PITT to this question of the expediency of making the abolition distant and gradual rather than immediate. The argument of expediency, in my opinion, will not justify the continu- ance of the slave-trade for one unnecessary hour. Sup- posing it to be in our power (which I have shown it is) to enforce the prohibition from this present time, the ex- pediency of doing it is to me so clear that, if I went on this principle alone, I should not feel a moment's hesita- tion. What is the argument of expediency stated on the other side? It is doubted whether the deaths and births in the islands are as yet so nearly equal as to insure the keeping up of a sufficient stock of labourers. In answer to this, I took the liberty of mentioning, in a former year, what appeared to me to be the state of population at that time. My observations were taken from documents which we have reason to judge authentic, and which carried on the face of them the conclusions I then stated: they were the clear, simple, and obvious result of a careful examina- tion which I made into this subject, and any gentleman who will take the same pains may arrive at the same degree of satisfaction. These calculations, however, applied to a period of time that is now four or five years past. The births were then, in the general view of them, nearly equal to the deaths; and, as the state of population was shown by a considerable retrospect to be regularly increasing, an ex- cess of births must before this time have taken place. An- other observation has been made as to the disproportion of the sexes. This, however, is a disparity which will grad- ually diminish as the slave-trade diminishes, and must en- tirely cease when the trade shall be abolished. I believe this disproportion of the sexes is not now by any means considerable. But, sir, I also showed that the great mor- tality which turned the balance so as to make the deaths appear more numerous than the births arose too from the imported Africans, who die in extraordinary numbers in the seasoning. If, therefore, the importation of negroes should cease, every one of the causes of mortality which I have now stated would cease also. Nor can I conceive THE SLAVE-TRADE 33 any reason why the present number of labourers should not maintain itself in the West Indies, except it be from some artificial cause, some fault in the islands; such as the impolicy of their governors, or the cruelty of the man- agers and officers whom they employ. I will not repeat all that I said at that time, or go through island by island. It is true there is a difference in the ceded islands; and I state them possibly to be, in some respects, an excepted case. But, if we are to enter into the subject of the mor- tality in clearing new lands, this, sir, is undoubtedly an- other question; the mortality here is tenfold: and this is to be considered, not as the carrying on of a trade, but as the setting on foot of a slave-trade for the purpose of peopling the colony; a measure which I think will not now be maintained. I therefore desire gentlemen to tell me fairly whether the period they look to is not now arrived? Whether, at this hour, the West Indies may not be de- clared to hav6 actually attained a state in which they can maintain their population? And upon the answer I must necessarily receive I think I could safely rest the whole of the question. One honourable gentleman has rather ingeniously ob- served that one or other of these two assertions of ours must necessarily be false: that either the population must be decreasing, which we deny; or if the population is in- creasing, that the slaves must be perfectly well treated (this being the cause of such population), which we deny also. That the population is rather increasing than other- wise, and also that the general treatment is by no means so good as it ought to be, are both points which have been separately proved by dififerent evidences; nor are these two points so entirely incompatible. The ill treatment must be very great indeed in order to diminish materially the population of any race of people. That it is not so ex- tremely great as to do this I will admit. I will even admit that this charge may possibly have been sometimes exag- gerated; and I certainly think that it applies less and less as we come nearer to the present times. But let us see 3 34 WILLIAM PITT how this contradiction of ours, as it is thought, really stands, and how the explanation of it will completely settle our minds on the point in question. Do the slaves dimin- ish in numbers? It can be nothing but ill treatment that causes the diminution. This ill treatment the abolition must and will restrain. In this case, therefore, we ought to vote for the abolition. On the other hand, do you choose to say that the slaves clearly increase in numbers? Then you want no importations, and, in this case also, you may safely vote for the abolition. Or, if you choose to say, as the third and only other case which can be put, and which perhaps is the nearest to the truth, that the population is nearly stationary and the treatment neither so bad nor so good as it might be; then surely, sir, it will not be denied that this of all others is, on each of the two grounds, the proper period for stopping further sup- plies; for your population, which you own is already sta- tionary, will thus be made undoubtedly to increase from the births; and the good treatment of your present slaves, which I am now supposing is but very moderate, will be necessarily improved also by the same measure of aboli- tion. I say, therefore, that these propositions, contradic- tory as they may be represented, are in truth not at all inconsistent, but even come in aid of each other, and lead to a conclusion that is decisive. And let it be always re- membered that in this branch of my argument I have only in view the well-being of the West Indies, and do not now ground anything on the African part of the question. But, sir, I may carry these observations respecting the islands much further. It is within the power of the colo- nists (and is it not, then, their indispensable duty?) to apply themselves to the correction of those various abuses by which population is restrained. The most important con- sequences may be expected to attend colonial regulations for this purpose. With the improvement of internal popu- lation, the condition of every negro will improve also; his liberty will advance, or at least he will be approaching to a state of liberty. Nor can you increase the happiness THE SLAVE-TRADE 35 or extend the freedom of the negro, without adding in an equal degree to the safety of the islands and of all their inhabitants. Thus, sir, in the place of slaves, who natu- rally have an interest directly opposite to that of their mas- ters, and are therefore viewed by them with an eye of con- stant suspicion, you will create a body of valuable citizens and subjects, forming a part of the same community, hav- ing a common interest with their superiors, in the security and prosperity of the whole. And here let me add that, in proportion as you increase the happiness of these un- fortunate beings, you will undoubtedly increase in effect the quantity of their labour also. Gentlemen talk of the diminution of the labour of the islands. I will venture to assert that, even if in consequence of the abolition there were to be some decrease in the number of hands, the quan- tity of work done, supposing the condition of the slaves to improve, would by no means diminish in the same pro- portion: perhaps would be far from diminishing at all. For if you restore to this degraded race the true feelings of men, if you take them out from among the order of brutes, and place them on a level with the rest of the human species, they will then work with that energy which is natural to men, and their labour will be productive, in a thousand ways, above what it has yet been; as the labour of a man is always more productive than that of a mere brute. It generally happens that in every bad cause some in- formation arises out of the evidence of its defenders them- selves which serves to expose in one part or other the weak- ness of their defence. It is the characteristic of such a cause that if it be at all gone into, even by its own support- ers, it is liable to be ruined by the contradictions in which those who maintain it are forever involved. The commit- tee of the Privy Council of Great Britain sent over certain queries to the West India islands, with a view of elucidat- ing the present subject; and they particularly inquired whether the negroes had any days or hours allotted to them in which they might work for themselves. The as- 36 WILLIAM PITT semblies in their answers, with an air of great satisfaction, state the labour of the slaves to be moderate, and the West India system to be well calculated to promote the domestic happiness of the slaves: they add that "proprietors are not compelled by law to allow their slaves any part of the six working days of the week for themselves, but that it is the general practice to allow them one afternoon in every week out of crop time, which, with such hours as they choose to work on Sundays, is time amply sufficient for their own purposes." Now, therefore, will the negroes, or I may rather say, do the negroes work for their own emolu- ment? I beg the committee's attention to this point. The Assembly of Grenada proceeds to state — I have their own words for it — that " though the negroes are allowed the afternoons of only one day in every week, they will do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their own benefit, as in the whole day when employed in their master's service." Now, sir, I will desire you to burn all my calculations; to disbelieve, if you please, every word I have said on the present state of population; nay, I will admit, for the sake of argument, that the numbers are de- creasing, and the productive labour at present insufficient for the cultivation of those countries: and I will then ask whether the increase in the quantity of labour which is rea- sonably to be expected from the improved condition of the slaves is not, by the admission of the islands themselves, far more than sufficient to counterbalance any decrease which can be rationally apprehended from a defective state of their population? Why, sir, a negro, if he works for himself, and not for a master, will do double work! This is their own account. If you will believe the planters, if you will believe the legislature of the islands, the productive labour of the colonies would, in case the negroes worked as free labourers instead of slaves, be literally doubled. Half the present labourers, on this supposition, would suf- fice for the whole cultivation of our islands on the present scale. I therefore confidently ask the House whether, in considering the whole of this question, we may not fairly THE SLAVE-TRADE 37 look forward to an improvement in the condition of these unhappy and degraded beings, not only as an event desir- able on the ground of humanity and political prudence, but also as a means of increasing very considerably indeed (even without any increasing population) the productive industry of the islands? When gentlemen are so nicely balancing the past and future means of cultivating the plantations, let me request them to put this argument into the scale; and the more they consider it, the more will they be satisfied that both the solidity of the principle which I have stated, and the fact which I have just quoted in the very wojrds of the colonial legislature, will bear me out in every inference I have drawn. I think they will perceive also that it is the undeniable duty of this House, on the grounds of true policy, immediately to sanction and carry into effect that system which insures these im- portant advantages, in addition to all those other inesti- mable blessings which follow in their train. If, therefore, the argument of expediency, as applying to the West India islands, is the test by which this question is to be tried, I trust I have now established this propo- sition — namely, that whatever tends most speedily and efifectually to meliorate the condition of the slaves is un- doubtedly, on the ground of expediency, leaving justice out of the question, the main object to be pursued. That the immediate abolition of the slave-trade will most emi- nently have this effect, and that it is the only measure from which this effect can in any considerable degree be ex- pected, are points to which I shall presently come; but before I enter upon them, let me notice one or two further circumstances. We are told (and by respectable and well- informed persons) that the purchase of new negroes has been injurious instead of profitable to the planters them- selves; so large a proportion of these unhappy wretches being found to perish in the seasoning. Writers well versed in this subject have even advised that, in order to remove the temptation which the slave-trade offers to expend large sums in this injudicious way, the door of importation should 38 WILLIAM PITT be shut. This very plan which we now propose, the mis- chief of which is represented to be so great as to out- weigh so many other momentous considerations, has actually been recommended by some of the best authori- ties as a plan highly requisite to be adopted, on the very principle of advantage to the island; nay, not merely on that principle of general and political advantage on which I have already touched, but for the advantage of the very individuals who would otherwise be most forward in pur- chasing slaves. On the part of the West Indians it is urged: " The planters are in debt : they are already distressed ; if you stop the slave-trade, they will be ruined." Mr. Long, the celebrated historian of Jamaica, recommends the stop- ping of importations as a receipt for enabling the planta- tions which are embarrassed to get out of debt. Speak- ing of the usurious terms on which money is often bor- rowed for the purchase of fresh slaves, he advises " the laying of a duty equal to a prohibition on all negroes im- ported for the space of four or five years, except for re- exportation. Such a law," he proceeds to say, " would be attended with the following good consequences: It would put an immediate stop to these extortions; it would enable the planter to retrieve his afifairs by preventing him from running in debt, either by renting or purchasing negroes; it would render such recruits less necessary, by the re- doubled care he would be obliged to take of his present stock, the preservation of their lives and health; and, lastly, it would raise the value of negroes in the island. A North American province, by this prohibition alone for a few years, from being deeply plunged in debt, has become in- dependent, rich, and flourishing." On this authority of Mr. Long I rest the question whether the prohibition of further importations is that rash, impolitic, and completely ruinous measure which it is so confidently declared to be with respect to our West Indian plantations. I do not, however, mean, in thus treating this branch of the subject, absolutely to exclude the question of indemnification, on the supposition of possible disadvantages affecting the THE SLAVE-TRADE 39 West Indies through the abolition of the slave-trade. But when gentlemen set up a claim of compensation merely on those general allegations, which are all that I have yet heard from them, I can only answer. Let them produce their case in a distinct and specific form; and if upon any practicable or reasonable grounds it shall claim consideration, it will then be time enough for Parliament to decide upon it. I now come to another circumstance of great weight, connected with this part of the question — I mean the dan- ger to which the islands are exposed from those negroes who are newly imported. This, sir, is no mere speculation of ours : for here again I refer you to Mr. Long. He treats particularly of the dangers to be dreaded from the intro- duction of Coromantine negroes — an appellation under which are comprised several descriptions of negroes ob- tained on the Gold Coast, whose native country is not ex- actly known, and who are purchased in a variety of markets, having been brought from some distance inland. With a view of preventing insurrections, he advises that " by lay- ing a duty equal to a prohibition, no more of these Coro- mantines should be bought " ; and after noticing one in- surrection which happened through their means, he tells you of another in the following year, in which thirty-three Coromantines, " most of whom had been newly imported, suddenly rose, and in the space of an hour murdered and wounded no less than nineteen white persons." To the authority of Mr. Long I may add the recorded opinion of the committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica itself, who, in consequence of a rebellion among the slaves, were appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing future insurrections. The committee reported that "the rebellion had originated (like most or all others) with the Coromantines; and they proposed that a bill should be brought in for laying a higher duty on the importation of these particular negroes," which was intended to operate as a prohibition. But the danger is not confined to the importation of Coromantines. Mr. Long, carefully inves- tigating as he does the causes of such frequent insurrec- 40 WILLIAM PITT tions, particularly at Jamaica, accounts for them from the greatness of its general importations. " In two years and a half," says he, " twenty-seven thousand negroes have been imported. No wonder we have rebellions! Twenty- seven thousand in two years and a half! " Why, sir, I believe that in some late years there have been as many imported into the same island within the same period. Surely when gentlemen talk so vehemently of the safety of the islands, and charge us with being so indifferent to it; when they speak of the calamities of St. Domingo, and of similar dangers impending over their own heads at the present hour, it ill becomes them to be the persons who are crying out for further importations. It ill becomes them to charge upon us the crime of stirring up insurrec- tions — upon us who are only adopting the very principles which Mr. Long, which in part even the legislature of Jamaica itself, laid down in the time of danger, with an avowed view to the prevention of any such calamity. It is no small satisfaction to me, sir, that among the many arguments for prohibiting the slave-trade which crowd upon my mind, the security of our West India pos- sessions against internal commotions, as well as foreign enemies, is among the most prominent; and here let me apply to my two right honourable friends, and ask them whether in this part of the argument they did not see reason for immediate abolition? Why should you any longer import into those countries that which is the very seed of insurrection and rebellion? Why should you per- sist in introducing those latent principles of conflagration which, if they should once burst forth, may annihilate in a single day the industry of a hundred years? Why will you subject yourselves, with open eyes, to the imminent risk of a calamity which may throw you back a whole cen- tury in your profits, in your cultivation, in your progress to the emancipation of your slaves? and, disappointing at once every one of those golden expectations, may retard not only the accomplishment of that happy system which I have attempted to describe, but may cut off even your WILLIAM PITT. ' Photogravure from an engraving by Henry Meyer, after a Jgaiflitipg by John Hoppner. "^£.-il^'*' ^ THE SLAVE-TRADE 41 opportunity of taking any one introductory step? Let us begin from this time. Let us not commit these important interests to any further hazard. Let us prosecute this great object from this very hour. Let us vote that the aboH- tion of the slave-trade shall be immediate, and not left to I know not what future time or contingency. Will my right honourable friends answer for the safety of the islands during any imaginable intervening period? Or do they think that any little advantages of the kind which they state can have any weight in that scale of expediency in which this great question ought undoubtedly to be tried? Thus stated — and thus alone, sir, can it be truly stated — to what does the whole of my right honourable friend's argu- ments, on the head of expediency, amount? It amounts but to this: the colonies, on the one hand, would have to struggle with some few difficulties and disadvantages at the first, for the sake of obtaining on the other hand im- mediate security to their leading interests; of insuring, sir, even their own political existence; and for the sake also of immediately commencing that system of progressive im- provement in the condition of the slaves which is necessary to raise them from the state of brutes to that of rational beings, but which never can begin until the introduction of these new disaffected and dangerous Africans into the same gangs shall have been stopped. — If any argument can in the slightest degree justify the severity that is now so generally practised in the treatment of the slaves, it must be the introduction of these Africans. It is the introduc- tion of these Africans that renders all idea of emancipa- tion for the present so chimerical, and the very mention of it so dreadful. It is the introduction of these Africans that keeps down the condition of all plantation negroes. What- ever system of treatment is deemed necessary by the plant- ers to be adopted toward these new Africans, extends itself to the other slaves also. Instead, therefore, of deferring the hour when you will finally put an end to importations, vainly purposing that the condition of your present slaves should previously be mended, you must, in the very first 42 WILLIAM PITT instance, stop your importations, if you hope to introduce any rational or practicable plan either of gradual emancipa- tion or present general improvement. Having now done with this question of expediency as affecting the islands, I come next to a proposition advanced by my right honourable friend [Mr, Dundas], which ap- peared to intimate that on account of some patrimonial rights of the West Indians, the prohibition of the slave- trade might be considered as an invasion on their legal in- heritance. Now, in answer to this proposition, I must make two or three remarks, which I think my right hon- ourable friend will find some considerable difficulty in an- swering. First, I observe that his argument, if it be worth anything, applies just as much to gradual as immediate abolition. I have no doubt that at whatever period he should be disposed to say the abolition should actually take place, this defence will equally be set up; for it certainly is just as good an argument against an abolition seven or seventy years hence as against an abolition at this moment. It supposes we have no right whatever to stop the importa- tions, and even though the disadvantage to our planta- tions, which some gentlemen suppose to attend to the meas- ure of immediate abolition, should be admitted gradually to lessen by the lapse of a few years, yet in point of prin- ciple the absence of all right of interference would remain the same. My right honourable friend, therefore, I am sure, will not press an argument not less hostile to his proposi- tion than to ours. But let us investigate the foundation of this objection, and I will commence what I have to say by putting a question to my right honourable friend. It is chiefly on the presumed ground of our being bound by a parliamentary sanction heretofore given to the African slave-trade that this argument against the abolition is rested. Does, then, my right honourable friend think that the slave-trade has received any such parliamentary sanc- tion as must place it more out of the jurisdiction of the legislature forever after than the other branches of our national commerce? I ask. Is there any one regulation THE SLAVE-TRADE 43 of any part of our commerce which, if this argument be valid, may not equally be objected to, on the ground of its affecting some man's patrimony, some man's property, or some man's expectations? Let it never be forgotten that the argument I am canvassing would be just as strong if the possession affected were small, and the possessors humble; for on every principle of justice the property of any single individual, or small number of individuals, is as sacred as that of the great body of West Indians. Justice ought to extend her protection with rigid impartiality to the rich and to the poor, to the powerful and to the humble. If this be the case, in what a situation does my right hon- ourable friend's argument place the legislature of Great Britain? What room is left for their interference in the regulation of any part of our commerce? It is scarcely possible to lay a duty on any one article which may not, when first opposed, be said in some way to affect the prop- erty of individuals, and even of some entire classes of the community. If the laws respecting the slave-trade imply a contract for its perpetual continuance, I will venture to say there does not pass a year without some act equally pledging the faith of Parliament to the perpetuating of some other branch of commerce. In short, I repeat my observation, that no new tax can be imposed, much less can any prohibitory duty be ever laid on any branch of trade that has before been regulated by Parliament, if this principle be once admitted. Before I refer to the acts of Parliament by which the public faith is said to be pledged, let me remark also that a contract for the continuance of the slave-trade must, on the principles which I shall presently insist on, have been void, even from the beginning; for if this trade is an out- rage upon justice, and only another name for fraud, rob- bery, and murder, will any man urge that the legislature could possibly by any pledge whatever incur the obliga- tion of being an accessory, or I may even say a principal, in the commission of such enormities, by sanctioning their continuance? As well might an individual think himself 44 WILLIAM PITT bound by a promise to commit an assassination. I am confident gentlemen must see that our proceedings on such grounds would infringe all the principles of law, and sub- vert the very foundation of morality. — Let us now see how far the acts themselves show that there is this sort of par- liamentary pledge to continue the African slave-trade. The act of twenty-third George II, chapter 31, is that by which we are supposed to be bound by contract to sanc- tion all those horrors now so incontrovertibly proved. How surprised then, sir, must the House be to find that, by the clause of that very act, some of these outrages are ex- pressly forbidden! It says, " No commander or master of a ship, trading to Africa, shall by fraud, force, or vio- lence, or by any indirect practice whatsoever, take on board or carry away from the coast of Africa any negro or native of the said country, or commit any violence on the natives, to the prejudice of the said trade, and that every person so offending shall for every such offence forfeit — " When it comes to the penalty, sorry am I to say that we see too close a resemblance to the West India law, which inflicts the payment of £30 as the punishment for murdering a negro. The price of blood in Africa is £100; but even this penalty is enough to prove that the act at least does not sanction, much less does it engage to perpetuate, enormities. — But, sir, let us see what was the motive for carrying on the trade at all. The preamble of the act states it, " Whereas the trade to and from Africa is very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for the supplying the plantations and colonies thereunto belonging with a sufficient number of negroes at reasonable rates, and for that purpose the said trade should be carried on," etc. Here, then, we see what the Parliament had in view when it passed this act; and I have clearly shown that not one of the occasions on which it grounded its proceedings now exists. I may then plead, I think, the very act itself as an argument for the abolition. If it is shown that, instead of being " very advantageous " to Great Britain, this trade is the most destructive that can well be imagined to her interests; that it is the ruin of our THE SLAVE-TRADE 45 seamen; that it stops the extension of our manufactures: if it is^roved, in the second place, that it is not now neces- sary for the "supplying our plantations with negroes"; if it is further established that this traffic was from the very beginning contrary to the first principles of justice, and consequently that a pledge for its continuance, had one been attempted to have been given, must have been com- pletely and absolutely void — ^where, then, in this act of Parliament is the contract to be found by which Britain is bound, as she is said to be, never to listen to her own true interests, and to the cries of the natives of Africa? Is it not clear that all argument, founded on the supposed pledged faith of Parliament, makes against those who em- ploy it? I refer you to the principles which obtain in other cases. Every trade act shows undoubtedly that the legis- lature is used to pay a tender regard to all classes of the community. But if, for the sake of moral duty, of national honour, or even of great political advantage, it is thought right, by the authority of Parliament, to alter any long- established system. Parliament is competent to do it. The legislature will undoubtedly be careful to subject individ- uals to as little inconvenience as possible; and if any pecul- iar hardship should arise, that can be distinctly stated and fairly pleaded, there will ever, I am sure, be a liberal feel- ing toward them in the legislature of this country, which is the guardian of all who live under its protection. On the present occasion, the most powerful considerations call upon us to abolish the slave-trade; and if we refuse to at- tend to them on the alleged ground of pledged faith and contract, we shall depart as widely from the practice of Parliament as from the path of moral duty. If, indeed, there is any case of hardship, which comes within the proper cognizance of Parliament, and calls for the exercise of its liberality — well! But such a case must be reserved for calm consideration, as a matter distinct from the pres- ent question. The result of all I have said is, that there exists no impediment, on the ground of pledged faith, or even on 46 WILLIAM PITT that of national expediency, to the abolition of this trade. On the contrary, all the arguments drawn from those sources plead for it, and they plead much more loudly, and much more strongly in every part of the question, for an immediate than for a gradual abolition. But now, sir, I come to Africa. That is the ground on which I rest, and here it is that I say my right honourable friends do not carry their principles to their full extent. Why ought the slave-trade to be abolished? Because it is incurable injustice. How much stronger, then, is the argument for immediate than gradual abolition! By allowing it to con- tinue even for one hour, do not my right honourable friends weaken their own argument of its injustice? If on the ground of injustice it ought to be abolished at last, why ought it not now? Why is injustice to be suffered to re- main for a single hour? From what I hear without doors, it is evident that there is a general conviction entertained of its being far from just; and from that very conviction of its injustice some men have been led, I fear, to the sup- position that the slave-trade never could have been per- mitted to begin but from some strong and irresistible neces- sity: a necessity, however, which if it was fancied to exist at first, I have shown can not be thought by any man what- ever to exist now. This plea of necessity has caused a sort of acquiescence in the continuance of this evil. Men have been led to place it among the rank of those neces- sary evils which are supposed to be the lot of human crea- tures, and to be permitted to fall upon some countries or individuals, rather than upon others, by that Being whose ways are inscrutable to us, and whose dispensations, it is conceived, we ought not to look into. The origin of evil is indeed a subject beyond the reach of human understand- ings; and the permission of it by the Supreme Being is a subject into which it belongs not to us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral evil which a man can scrutinize, and where that moral evil has its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can clear our con- sciences by this general, not to say irreligious and impious, THE SLAVE-TRADE 47 way of laying aside the question. If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be incurred were it removed. I therefore desire to ask, What can be that greater evil which can be stated to overbalance the one in question? I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of seventy or eighty thousand persons annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations inhabiting the most enlightened part of the globe, but more especially under the sanction of the laws of that na- tion which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all. Even if these miserable beings were proved guilty of every crime before you take them off, ought we to take upon ourselves the office of executioners? And even if we condescend so far, still can we be justified in taking them, unless we have clear proof that they are crimi- nals? — But, if we go much further — if we ourselves tempt them to sell their fellow-creatures to us — we may rest as- sured that they will take care to provide by every possible method a supply of victims increasing in proportion to our demand. Can we, then, hesitate in deciding whether the wars in Africa are their wars or ours? It was our arms in the river Cameroon, put into the hands of the trader, that furnished him with the means of pushing his trade; and I have no more doubt that they are British arms, put into the hands of Africans, which promote universal war and desolation, than I can doubt their having done so in that individual instance. I have shown how great is the enormity of this evil, even on the supposition that we take only convicts and prisoners of war. But take the subject in the other way, and how does it stand? Think of eighty thousand persons carried out of their native country by we know not what means! for crimes imputed! for light or inconsiderable faults ! for debt, perhaps ! for the crime of witchcraft ! or a thousand other weak and scandalous pretexts ! Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually taken off! 48 , WILLIAM PITT There is something in the horror of it that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that there exists in Africa something like to courts of justice; yet what an office of humiliation and meanness is it in us, to take upon ourselves to carry into execution the iniquitous sentences of such courts, as if we also were strangers to all religion, and to the first principles of justice! But that country, it is said, has been in some degree civilized, and civilized by us. It is said they have gained some knowledge of the principles of justice. Yes, we give them enough of our intercourse to convey to them the means, and to initiate them in the study of mutual destruction. We give them just enough of the forms of justice to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other modes of perpe- trating the most atrocious iniquity. We give them just enough of European improvements to enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness. Some evidences say that the Africans are addicted to the practice of gambling; that they even sell their wives and children, and ultimately themselves. Are these, then, the legitimate sources of slavery? Shall we pretend that we can thus acquire an honest right to exact the labour of these people? Can we pretend that we have a right to carry away to distant regions men of whom we know noth- ing by authentic inquiry, and of whom there is every rea- sonable presumption to think that those who sell them to us have no right to do so? But the evil does not stop here. Do you think nothing of the ruin and the miseries in which so many other individuals, still remaining in Africa, are involved in consequence of carrying ofif so many myriads of people? Do you think nothing of their fami- lies left behind? of the connections broken? of the friend- ships, attachments, and relationships that are burst asun- der? Do you think nothing of the miseries in consequence that are felt from generation to generation? of the priva- tion of that happiness which might be communicated to them by the introduction of civilization, and of mental and moral improvement? — a happiness which you withhold THE SLAVE-TRADE 49 from them so long as you permit the slave-trade to con- tinue. Thus, sir, has the perversion of British commerce car- ried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of trade, misguided in our policy, and unmindful of our duty, what astonishing mischief have we brought upon that continent! If, know- ing the miseries we have caused, we refuse to put a stop to them, how greatly aggravated will be the guilt of this country! Shall we, then, delay rendering this justice to Africa? I am sure the immediate abolition of the slave- trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of duty, and of justice that the legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects to which I have alluded, and which we are bound to pursue by the most solemn obligations. There is, however, one argument set up as a universal answer to everything that can be urged on our side. The slave-trade system, it is supposed, has taken such deep root in Africa that it is absurd to think of its being eradicated; and the abolition of that share of trade carried on by Great Britain is likely to be of very little service. You are not sure, it is said, that other nations will give up the trade if you should renounce it. I answer, if this trade is as crimi- nal as it is asserted to be, God forbid that we should hesi- tate in relinquishing so iniquitous a traffic, even though it should be retained by other countries! I tremble at the thought of gentlemen indulging themselves in the argu- ment which I am combating. " We are friends," say they, " to humanity. We are second to none of you in our zeal for the good of Africa — ^but the French will not abolish — the Dutch will not abolish. We wait, therefore, on pru- dential principles, till they join us, or set us an example." How, sir, is this enormous evil ever to be eradicated, if every nation is thus prudentially to wait till the concur- rence of all the world shall have been obtained? Let me remark, too, that there is no nation in Europe that has, on the one hand, plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great 4 50 WILLIAM PITT Britain ; or that Is so likely, on the other, to be looked up to as an example. But does not this argument apply a thousand times more strongly in a contrary way? How much more justly may other nations point to us and say: " Why should we abolish the slave-trade when Great Britain has not abolished it? Britain, free as she is, just and honourable as she is, and deeply involved as she is in this commerce above all nations, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish." This, sir, is the argument with which we furnish the other nations of Europe, if we again refuse to put an end to the slave-trade. Instead, therefore, of imagining that by choosing to presume on their continuing it, we shall have exempted ourselves from guilt, and have transferred the whole criminality to them; let us rather reflect that, on the very principle urged against us, we shall henceforth have to answer for their crimes as well as our own. It has also been urged that there is something in the disposition and nature of the Africans themselves which renders all prospect of civilization on that continent ex- tremely unpromising. " It has been known," says Mr. Frazer, in his evidence, " that a boy has been put to death who was refused to be purchased as a slave." This single story was deemed by that gentleman a sufficient proof of the barbarity of the Africans, and of the inutility of abol- ishing the slave-trade. My honourable friend, however, has told you that this boy had previously run away from his master three times; that the master had to pay his value, according to the custom of his country, every time he was brought back; and that, partly from anger at the boy for running away so frequently, and partly to prevent a repetition of the same expense, he determined to put him to death. This, sir, is the signal instance that has been dwelt upon of African barbarity. This African, we admit, was unenlightened, and altogether barbarous: but let us now ask. What would a civilized and enlightened West In- dian, or a body of West Indians, have done in any case of a parallel nature? I will quote you, sir, a law passed THE SLAVE-TRADE Si in the West Indies in 1722; by which law this same crime of running away is, by the legislature of the island, pun- ished with death, in the very first instance. I hope, there- fore, we shall hear no more of the moral impossibility of civilizing the Africans, nor have our understandings again insulted by being called upon to sanction the trade until other nations shall have set the example of abolishing it. While we have been deliberating, one nation, Denmark, not by any means remarkable for the boldness of its coun- cils, has determined on a gradual abolition. France, it is said, will take up the trade if we relinquish it. What! Is it supposed that, in the present situation of St. Domingo, an island which used to take three fourths of all the slaves required by the colonies of France, she, of all countries, will think of taking it up? Of the countries which remain, Portugal, Holland, and Spain — ^let me declare it is my opin- ion that if they see us renounce the trade they will not be disposed, even on principles of policy, to rush further into it. But I say more. How are they to furnish the capital necessary for carrying it on? If there is any aggravation of our guilt in this wretched business, it is that we have stooped to be the carriers of these miserable beings from Africa to the West Indies, for all the other powers of Eu- rope. And if we retire from the trade, where is the fund equal to the purchase of thirty thousand or forty thou- sand slaves? — a fund which, if we rate the slave at forty or fifty pounds each, can not require a capital of less than a million and a half or two millions of money. Having detained the House so long, all that I will fur- ther add shall relate to that important subject, the civiliza- tion of Africa. Grieved am I to think that there should be a single person in this country who can look on the present uncivilized state of that continent as a ground for continuing the slave-trade — as a ground not only for refus- ing to attempt the improvement of Africa, but even for intercepting every ray of light which might otherwise break in upon her. Here, as in every other branch of this ex- tensive question, the argument of our adversaries pleads 52 WILLIAM PITT against them; for surely, sir, the present deplorable state of Africa, especially when we reflect that her chief calami- ties are to be ascribed to us, calls for our generous aid, rather than justifies any despair on our part of her recov- ery, and still less any further repetition of our injuries. I will not much longer fatigue the attention of the House; but this point has impressed itself so deeply on my mind, that I must trouble the committee with a few additional observations. Are we justified, I ask, on any one ground of theory, or by any one instance to be found in the his- tory of the world from its very beginning to this day, in forming the supposition which I am now combating? Are we justified in supposing that the particular practice which we encourage in Africa, of men selling each other for slaves, is any symptom of a barbarism that is incurable? Are we justified in supposing that even the practice of offering up human sacrifices proves a total incapacity for civiliza- tion? I believe it will be found that both the trade in slaves, and the still more savage custom of offering up human sacrifices, obtained in former periods throughout many of those nations which now, by the blessings of Providence, and by a long progression of improvements, are advanced the farthest in civilization. I believe that, if we reflect an instant, we shall find that this observation comes directly home to ourselves; and that, on the same ground on which we are now disposed to proscribe Africa forever from all possibility of improvement, we might, in like manner, have been proscribed and forever shut out from all the blessings which we now enjoy. There was a time, sir, when even human sacrifices are said to have been offered in this island. But I would peculiarly observe on this day, for it is a case precisely in point, that the very practice of the slave-trade once prevailed among us. Slaves, as we may read in Henry's " History of Great Britain," were formerly an established article of our exports. " Great numbers," he says, "were exported like cattle from the British coast, and were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market." It does not distinctly appear by what THE SLAVE-TRADE 53 means they were procured; but there is unquestionably no small resemblance, in this particular point, between the case of our ancestors and that of the present wretched natives of Africa; for the historian tells you that " adul- tery, witchcraft, and debt were probably some of the chief sources of supplying the Roman market with British slaves; that prisoners taken in war were added to the number; and that there might be among them some unfortunate game- sters who, after having lost all their goods, at length staked themselves, their wives, and their children." Every one of these sources of slavery has been stated to be at this hour a source of slavery in Africa. And these circum- stances, sir, with a solitary instance or two of human sacrifices, furnish the alleged proofs that Africa labours under a natural incapacity for civilization ; that it is enthu- siasm and fanaticism to think that she can ever enjoy the knowledge and the morals of Europe; that Providence never intended her to rise above a state of barbarism; that Providence has irrevocably doomed her to be only a nurs- ery for slaves, for us free and civilized Europeans. Allow of this principle, as applied to Africa, and I should be glad to know why it might not also have been applied to an- cient and uncivilized Britain. Why might not some Roman senator, reasoning on the principles of some honourable gentlemen, and pointing to British barbarians, have pre- dicted with equal boldness: "There is a people that will never rise to civilization; there is a people destined never to be free; a people without the understanding necessary for the attainment of useful arts; depressed by the hand of Nature below the level of the human species; and created to form a supply of slaves for the rest of the world." Might not this have been said in all respects as fairly and as truly of Britain hierself, at that period of her history, as it can now be said by us of the inhabitants of Africa? We, sir, have long since emerged from barbarism; we have almost forgotten that we were once barbarians; we are now raised to a situation which exhibits a striking contrast to every circumstance by which a Roman might have characterized 54 WILLIAM PITT US and by which we now characterize Africa. There is, indeed, one thing wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting even to this hour as barbarians; for we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves; we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions to civi- lization. We were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these un- happy Africans are at present. But in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we have become rich in a variety of ac- quirements, favoured above measure in the gifts of Provi- dence, unrivalled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, fore- most in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and estab- lished in all the blessings of civil society: we are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty; we are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected by impartial laws, and the purest admin- istration of justice; we are living under a system of gov- ernment which our own happy experience leads us to pro- nounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed — a system which has become the admiration of the world. From all these blessings we must forever have been shut out had there been any truth in those principles which some gentlemen have not hesitated to lay down as appli- cable to the case of Africa. Had those principles laeen true, we ourselves had languished to this hour in that miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and degradation in which history proves our ancestors to have been immersed. Had other nations adopted these principles in their con- duct toward us; had other nations applied to Great Britain the reasoning which some of the senators of this very island now apply to Africa, ages might have passed without our emerging from barbarism; and we, who are enjoying the blessings of a British civilization, of British laws, and British liberty, might, at this hour, have been little superior, either in morals, in knowledge, THE SLAVE-TRADE 55 or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of Guinea. If, then, we feel that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which could have befallen us; if we view with gratitude and exultation the contrast between the peculiar blessings we enjoy, and the wretchedness of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; if we shudder to think of the mis- ery which would still have overwhelmed us had Great Britain continued to be the mart for slaves to the more civilized nations of the world, God forbid that we should any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and preclude the light of knowledge, which has reached every other quarter of the globe, from having access to her coasts ! I trust we shall no longer continue this commerce, to the destruction of every improvement on that wide con- tinent; and shall not consider ourselves as conferring too great a boon in restoring its inhabitants to the rank of human beings. I trust we shall not think ourselves too liberal if, by abolishing the slave-trade, we give them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the world, and that we shall now allow to Africa the op- portunity — ^the hope — ^the prospect of attaining to the same blessings which we ourselves, through the favourable dis- pensations of Divine Providence, have been permitted, at a much more early period, to enjoy. If we listen to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue this night the line of conduct which they prescribe, some of us may live to see a reverse of that picture from which we now turn our eyes with shame and regret. We may live to behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of in- dustry, in the pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and philosophy break- ing in upon their land, which, at some happy period in still later times, may blaze with full lustre; and, joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and in- vigorate the most distant extremities of that immense con- tinent. Then may we hope that even Africa, though last 56 WILLIAM PITT of all the quarters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those blessings which have de- scended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the w^orld. Then also will Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it can be called) of no longer hindering that continent from extricating herself out of the darkness which, in other more fortunate regions, has been so much more speedily dispelled — " Nos primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis ; lUic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper." Then, sir, may be applied to Africa those words, origi- nally used indeed with a different view: " His demum exactis Devenere locos laetos, et amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas : Largior hie campos uEther, et limine vestit Purpureo." It is in this view, sir — it is as an atonement for our long and cruel injustice toward Africa — that the measure pro- posed by my honourable friend most forcibly recommends itself to my mind. The great and happy change to be ex- pected in the state of her inhabitants is, of all the various and important benefits of the abolition, in my estimation, incomparably the most extensive and important. I shall vote, sir, against the adjournment; and I shall also op- pose to the utmost every proposition which in any way may tend either to prevent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total abolition of the slave-trade ; a measure which, on all the various grounds which I have stated, we are bound, by the most pressing and indispensable duty, to adopt. JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN ON THE TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN (Delivered January 29, 1794) GENTLEMEN of the jury, when I consider the period at which this prosecution is brought for- ward; when I behold the extraordinary safeguard of armed soldiers resorted to, no doubt for the preserva- tion of peace and order; ^ when I catch, as I can not but do, the throb of public anxiety which beats from one end to the other of this hall; when I reflect on what may be the fate of a man of the most beloved personal character, of one of the most respectable families of our country — himself the only individual of that family — I may almost say of that country — ^who can look to that possible fate with unconcern? Feeling, as I do, all these impressions, it is in the honest simplicity of my heart I speak, when I say that I never rose in a court of justice with so much embarrassment as upon this occasion. If, gentlemen, I could entertain a hope of finding refuge for the disconcertion of my mind in the perfect composure of yours — if I could suppose that those awful vicissitudes of human events, which have been stated or alluded to, could leave your judgment undisturbed, and your hearts at ease, I know I should form a most erroneous opinion of your character. I entertain no such chimerical hope — I form no such unworthy opinion. I expect not that your hearts can be more at ease than my own — I have no right to expect it; but I have a right to call upon you, in the name of your country, in the name of the living God, of whose eternal justice you are now administering that por- tion which dwells with us on this side of the grave, to dis- 57 58 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN charge your breasts, as far as you are able, of every bias of prejudice or passion, that if my client be guilty of the offence charged upon him, you may give tranquility to the public, by a firm verdict of conviction; or, if he be innocent, by as firm a verdict of acquittal; and that you will do this in defiance of the paltry artifices and senseless clamours that have been resorted to in order to bring him to his trial with anticipated conviction. And, gentlemen, I feel an additional necessity in thus conjuring you to be upon your guard, from the able and imposing statement which you have just heard on the part of the prosecution. I know well the virtues and talents of the excellent person who conducts that prosecution; ^ I know how much he would disdain to impose on you by the trappings of office; but I also know how easily we mistake the lodgment which character and eloquence can make upon our feelings, for those impressions that reason, and fact, and proof, only ought to work upon our understandings. Perhaps, gentlemen, I shall act not unwisely in waiv- ing any further observation of this sort, and giving your minds an opportunity of growing cool and resuming them- selves, by coming to a calm and uncoloured statement of mere facts, premising only to you that I have it in strictest injunction from my client to defend him upon facts and evidence only, and to avail myself, of no technical artifice or subtlety that could withdraw his cause from the test of that inquiry which it is your province to exercise, and to which only he wishes to be indebted for an ac- quittal. In the month of December, 1792, Mr. Rowan was ar- rested on an information, charging him with the offence for which he is now on his trial. He was taken before an honourable personage now on that bench, and admitted to bail.^ He remained a considerable time in this city, soliciting the present prosecution, and offering himself to a fair trial by a jury of his country. But it was not then thought fit to yield to that solicitation; nor has it now been thought TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 59 proper to prosecute him in the ordinary way, by sending up a bill of indictment to a grand jury. I do not mean by this to say that informations ex-ofificio are always oppressive or unjust; but I can not but observe to you that when a petty jury is called upon to try a charge not previously found by the grand inquest, and supported by the naked assertion only of the King's prosecutor, that the accusation labours under a weakness of probability which it is difficult to assist. If the charge had no cause of dreading the light — ^if it was likely to find the sanction of a grand jury — ^it is not easy to account why it deserted the more usual, the more popular, and the more constitu- tional mode, and preferred to come forward in the un- gracious form of an ex-officio information. ' If such a bill had been sent up and found, Mr. Rowan would have been tried at the next commission; but a speedy trial was not the wish of his prosecutors. An in- formation was filed, and when he expected to be tried upon it, an error, it seems, was discovered in the record. Mr. Rowan offered to waive it, or consent to any amend- ment desired. No, that proposal could not be accepted: a trial must have followed. That information, therefore, was withdrawn, and a new one filed; that is, in fact, a third prosecution was instituted upon the same charge. This last was filed on the 8th day of last July. Gentlemen, these facts can not fail of a due impression upon you. You will find a material part of your inquiry must be, whether Mr. Rowan is pursued as a criminal or hunted down as a victim. It is not, therefore, by insinua- tion or circuity, but it is boldly and directly that I assert, that oppression has been intended and practised upon him, and by those facts which I have stated I am warranted in the assertion. His demand, his entreaty to be tried, was refused, and why? A hue and cry was to be raised against him; the sword was to be suspended over his head; some time was necessary for the public mind to become heated by the circulation of artful clamours of anarchy and rebellion, these 6o JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN same clamours which, with more probability, but not more success, had been circulated before through England and Scotland. In this country, the causes and the swiftness of their progress were as obvious as their folly has since be- come to every man of the smallest observation. I have been stopped myself with — " Good God, sir, have you heard the news? " " No, sir, what? " " Why, one French emissary was seen travelling through Connaught in a post-chaise, and scattering from the window, as he passed, little doses of poHtical poison, made up in square bits of paper; another was actually surprised in the fact of seducing our good people from their allegiance, by discourses upon the indivis- ibility of French robbery and massacre, which he preached in the French language to a congregation of Irish peasants." Such are the bugbears and spectres to be raised to warrant the sacrifice of whatever Httle public spirit may re- main among us. But time has also detected the imposture of these Cock-lane apparitions; and you can not now, with your eyes open, give a verdict without asking your con- sciences this question: Is this a fair and honest prosecu- tion? is it brought forward with the single view of vin- dicating public justice and promoting public good? And here let me remind you that you are not convened to try the guilt of a libel, affecting the personal character of any private man. I know no case in which a jury ought to be more severe than where personal calumny is conveyed through a vehicle which ought to be consecrated to public information. Neither, on the other hand, can I conceive any case in which the firmness and the caution of a jury should be more exerted than when a subject is prosecuted for a libel on the state. The peculiarity of the British con- stitution (to which, in its fullest extent, we have an un- doubted right, however distant we may be from the actual enjoyment), and in which it surpasses every known gov- ernment in Europe, is this, that its only professed object is the general good, and its only foundation the general will; hence the people have a right, acknowledged from time immemorial, fortified by a pile of statutes, and authenti- TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 6l cated by a revolution that speaks louder than them all, to see whether abuses have been committed, and whether their properties and their liberties have been attended to as they ought to be. This is a kind of subject by which I feel myself over- awed when I approach it; there are certain fundamental principles which nothing but necessity should expose to public examination; they are pillars, the depth of whose foundation you can not explore without endangering their strength; but let it be recollected that the discussion of such subjects should not be condemned in me, nor visited upon my client; the blame, if any there be, should rest only with those who have forced them into discussion. I say, therefore, it is the right of the people to keep an eternal watch upon the conduct of their rulers; and in order to that, the freedom of the press has been cherished by the law of England. In private defamation, let it never be tolerated; in wicked and wanton aspersion upon a good and honest administration, let it never be supported. Not that a good government can be exposed to danger by groundless accusation, but because a bad government is sure to find, in the detected falsehood of a licentious press, a security and a credit which it could never otherwise obtain. I said a good government can not be endangered; I say so again; for whether it be good or bad, it can never depend upon assertion; the question is decided by simple inspection; to try the tree, look at its fruit; to judge of the government, look at the people. What is the fruit of a good government? the virtue and happiness of the people. Do four millions of people in this country gather those fruits from that government to whose injured purity, to whose spotless virtue and violated honour this seditious and atrocious libeller is to be immolated upon the altar of the constitution? To you, gentlemen of the jury, who are bound by the most sacred obligation to your country and your God, to speak nothing but the truth, I put the question — do the people of this country gather those fruits? — are they orderly, industrious, religious, and contented? 62 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN — do you find them free from bigotry and ignorance, those inseparable concomitants of systematic oppression? Or, to try them by a test as unerring as any of the former, are they united? The period has now elapsed in which con- siderations of this extent would have been deemed im- proper to a jury; happily for these countries, the legisla- ture of each has lately changed, or, perhaps, to speak more properly, revived and restored the law respecting trials of this kind. For the space of thirty or forty years a usage had prevailed in Westminster Hall, by which the judges assumed to themselves the decision of the question whether libel or not; but the learned counsel for the prosecution is now obliged to admit that this is a question for the jury only to decide. You will naturally listen with respect to the opinion of the court, but you will receive it as a matter of advice, not as a matter of law; and you will give it credit, not from any adventitious circumstances of authority, but merely so far as it meets the concurrence of your own un- derstandings. Give me leave now to state the charge as it stands upon the record; it is, that " Mr. Rowan, being a person of a wicked and turbulent disposition, and maliciously design- ing and intending to excite and diffuse among the subjects of this realm of Ireland, discontents, jealousies, and sus- picions of our lord the King and his government, and disaffection and disloyalty to the person and government of our said lord the King, and to raise very dangerous seditions and tumults within this kingdom of Ireland, and to draw the government of this kingdom into great scan- dal, infamy, and disgrace, and to incite the subjects of our said lord the King, to attempt, by force and violence, and with arms, to make alterations in the government, state, and constitution of this kingdom, and to incite his Majesty's said subjects to tumult and anarchy, and to over- turn the established constitution of this kingdom, and to overawe and intimidate the legislature of this kingdom by an armed force " ; did " maliciously and seditiously " publish the paper in question. TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 63 Gentlemen, without any observation of mine, you must see that this information contains a direct charge upon Mr. Rowan; namely, that he did, with the intents set forth in the information, publish the paper; so that here you have, in fact, two or three questions for your decision. First, the matter of fact of the publication; namely, did Mr. Rowan publish the paper? If Mr. Rowan did not in fact publish that paper, you have no longer any question on which to employ your minds ; if you think that he was in fact the publisher, then, and not till then, arises the great and important subject to which your judgments must be directed. And that comes shortly and simply to this: Is the paper a libel? and did he publish it with the intent charged in the information? For whatever you may think of the abstract question, whether the paper be libellous or not, and of which paper it has not even been insinuated that he is the author, there can be no ground for a verdict against him, unless you also are persuaded that what he did was done with a criminal design. I wish, gentlemen, to simplify, and not to perplex; I therefore say again, if these three circumstances conspire, that he published it, that it was a libel, and that it was published with the purposes alleged in the information, you ought unquestionably to find him guilty; if, on the other hand, you do not find that all these circumstances concurred; if you can not upon your oaths say that he pubUshed it; if it be not in your opinion a libel; and if he did not publish it with the intention alleged; I say upon the failure of any one of these points, my client is entitled, in justice, and upon your oaths, to a verdict of acquittal. Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney-General has thought proper to direct your attention to the state and circumstances of public afifairs at the time of this transaction; let me also make a few retrospective observations on a period at which he has but slightly glanced; I speak of the events which took place before the close of the American war. You 64 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN know, gentlemen, that France had espoused the cause of America, and we became thereby engaged in a war with that nation. " Heu nescia mens hominum futuri ! " Little did that ill-fated monarch know that he was form- ing the first causes of those disastrous events that were to end in the subversion of his throne, in the slaughter of his family, and the deluging of his country with the blood of his people. You can not but remember that, at a time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for our defence, when the old and young were alarmed and terrified with apprehensions of descent upon our coasts, that Providence seemed to have worked a sort of miracle in our favour. You saw a band of armed men come forth at the great call of Nature, of honour, and their country. You saw men of the greatest wealth and rank; you saw every class of the community give up its members, and send them armed into the field, to protect the public and private tranquility of Ireland. It is impossible for any man to turn back to that period without reviving those sentiments of tenderness and gratitude which then beat in the public bosom, to recollect amid what applause, what tears, what prayers, what benedictions, they walked forth among spectators, agitated by the mingled sensations of terror and of reliance, of danger and of protection, imploring the blessings of Heaven upon their heads, and its con- quest upon their swords. That illustrious, and adored, and abused body of men, stood forward and assumed the title, which I trust the ingratitude of their country will never blot from its history — " The Volunteers of Ireland." Give me leave now, with great respect, to put this ques- tion to you: Do you think the assembling of that glori- ous band of patriots was an insurrection? Do you think the invitation to that assembling would have been sedition? They came under no commission but the call of their coun- try; unauthorized and unsanctioned, except by public emergency and public danger. I ask. Was that meeting TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 65 insurrection or not? I put another question: If any man then had pubhshed a call on that body, and stated that war was declared against the state; that the regular troops were withdrawn; that our coasts were hovered round by the ships of the enemy; that the moment was approach- ing when the unprotected feebleness of age and sex, when the sanctity of habitation, would be disregarded and pro- faned by the brutal ferocity of a rude invader; if any man had then said to them, " Leave your industry for a while, that you may return to it again, and come forth in arms for the public defence "; I put the question boldly to you (it is not the case of the volunteers of that day; it is the case of my client at this hour, which I put to you), would that call have been pronounced in a court of justice, or by a jury on their oaths, a criminal and seditious invitation to insurrection? If it would not have been so then, upon what principle can it be so now? What is the force and perfection of the law? It is, the permanency of the law; it is, that whenever the fact is the same, the law is also the same; it is, that the letter remains written, monumented and recorded, to pronounce the same decision, upon the same facts, whenever they shall arise. I will not affect to conceal it; you know there has been artful, ungrateful, and blasphemous clamour raised against these illustrious characters, the saviours of the King of Ireland. Having mentioned this, let me read a few words of the paper alleged to be criminal : " You first took up arms to protect your country from foreign enemies, and from domestic disturb- ance. For the same purposes it now becomes necessary that you should resume them." I should be the last man in the world to impute any want of candour to the right honourable gentleman who has stated the case on behalf of the prosecution; but he has certainly fallen into a mistake, which, if not explained, might be highly injurious to my client. He supposed that this publication was not addressed to those ancient volun- teers, but to new combinations of them, formed upon new principles, and actuated by different motives. You have s 66 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN the words to which this construction is imputed upon the record; the meaning of his mind can be collected only from those words which he has made use of to convey it. The guilt imputable to him can only be inferred from the meaning ascribable to those words. Let his meaning then be fairly collected by resorting to them. Is there a founda- tion to suppose that this address was directed to any such body of men as has been called a banditti (with what jus- tice it is unnecessary to inquire), and not to the old vol- unteers? As to the sneer at the words " citizen soldiers," I should feel that I was treating a very respected friend with an in- sidious and unmerited kindness if I afifected to expose it by any gravity of refutation. I may, however, be per- mitted to observe, that those who are supposed to have dis- graced this expression by adopting it, have taken it from the idea of the British constitution, that " no man in be- coming a soldier ceases to be a citizen." Would to God, all enemies as they are, that that unfortunate people had borrowed more from that sacred source of liberty and vir- tue ; and would to God, for the sake of humanity, that they had preserved even the little they did borrow! If ever there could be an objection to that appellation, it must have been strongest when it was first assumed. To that period the writer manifestly alludes ; he addresses " those who first took up arms." " You first took up arms to pro- tect your country from foreign enemies and from domes- tic disturbance. For the same purposes, it now becomes necessary that you should resume them." Is this applicable to those who had never taken up arms before? " A proc- lamation," says this paper, " has been issued in England for embodying the militia, and a proclamation has been issued by the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland, for repressing all seditious associations. In consequence of both these proclamations, it is reasonable to apprehend danger from abroad and danger at home." God help us from the situation of Europe at that time ; we were threat- ened with too probable danger from abroad, and I am TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 6/ afraid it was not without foundation we were told of our having something to dread at home. I find much abuse has been lavished on the disrespect with which the proclamation is treated, in that part of the paper alleged to be a libel. To that my answer for my client is short: I do conceive it competent to a British sub- ject, if he thinks that a proclamation has issued for the purpose of raising false terrors; I hold it to be not only the privilege, but the duty of a citizen, to set his countrymen right, with respect to such misrepresented danger; and until a proclamation in this country shall have the force of law, the reason and grounds of it are surely at least ques- tionable by the people. Nay, I will go further: if an actual law had passed, receiving the sanction of the three estates, if it be exceptionable in any matter, it is warrantable to any man in the community to state, in a becoming manner, his ideas upon it. And I should be at a loss to know, if the positive laws of Great Britain are thus questionable, upon what grounds the proclamation of an Irish govern- ment should not be open to the animadversion of Irish subjects. " Whatever be the motive, or from whatever quarter it arises," says this paper, " alarm has arisen." Gentlemen, do you not know that to be fact? It has been stated by the attorney-general, and most truly, that the most gloomy apprehensions were entertained by the whole country. " You, volunteers of Ireland, are therefore summoned to arms, at the instance of government, as well as by the re- sponsibility attached to your character, and the permanent obligations of your institution." I am free to confess, if any man, assuming the liberties of a British subject to question public topics, should, under the mask of that privilege, publish a proclamation, inviting the profligate and seditious, those in want, and those in despair, to rise up in arms to overawe the legislature — ^to rob us of what- ever portion of the blessing of a free government we pos- sess; I know of no offence involving greater enormity. But that, gentlemen, is the question you are to try. If 68 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN my client acted with an honest mind and fair intention, and having, as he believed, the authority of government to support him in the idea that danger was to be appre- hended, did apply to that body of so known and so revered a character, calling upon them by their former honour, the principles of their glorious institution, and the great stake they possessed in their country: if he interposed, not upon a fictitious pretext, but a real belief of actual and im- minent danger, and that their arming at that critical mo- ment was necessary to the safety of their country, his inten- tion was not only innocent, but highly meritorious. It is a question, gentlemen, upon which you only can decide; it is for you to say whether it was criminal in the defendant to be misled, and whether he is to fall a sacrifice to the prosecution of that government by which he was so de- ceived. I say again, gentlemen, you can look only to his own words as the interpreters of his meaning; and to the state and circumstances of his country, as he. was made to believe them, as the clew to his intention. The case, then, gentlemen, is shortly and simply this: a man of the first family, and fortune, and character, and property among you reads a proclamation, stating the country to be in danger from abroad and at home; and, thus alarmed, thus, upon the authority of the prosecutor, alarmed, applies to that august body, before whose awful presence sedition must vanish and insurrection disappear. You must sur- render, I hesitate not to say, your oaths to unfounded assertion, if you can submit to say that such an act, of such a man, so warranted, is a wicked and seditious libel. If he was a dupe, let me ask you, who was the impostor? I blush and shrink with shame and detestation from that meanness of dupery and servile complaisance which could make that dupe a victim to the accusation of an impostor. You perceive, gentlemen, that I am going into the merits of this publication before I apply myself to the ques- tion which is first in order of time — namely, whether the publication, in point of fact, is to be ascribed to Mr. Rowan or not. I have been unintentionally led into this viola- TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 69 tion of order. I should effect no purpose of either brevity or clearness by returning to the more methodical course of observation. I have been naturally drawn from it by the superior importance of the topic I am upon — namely, the merit of the publication in question. This publication, if ascribed at all to Mr. Rowan, con- tains four distinct subjects: the first, the invitation to the volunteers to arm: upon that I have already observed; but those that remain are surely of much importance, and, no doubt, are prosecuted, as equally criminal. The paper next states the necessity of a reform in Parliament; it states, thirdly, the necessity of an emancipation of the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland; and, as necessary to the achievement of all these objects, does, fourthly, state the necessity of a general delegated convention of the people. It has been alleged that Mr. Rowan intended, by this publication, to excite the subjects of this country to effect an alteration in the form of your constitution. And here, gentlemen, perhaps you may not be unwilling to follow a little further than Mr. Attorney-General has done, the idea of a late prosecution in Great Britain, upon the sub- ject of a public libel. It is with peculiar fondness I look to that country for solid principles of constitutional lib- erty and judicial example. You have been impressed in no small degree with the manner in which this publication marks the different orders of our constitution, and com- ments upon them. Let me show you what boldness of animadversion of such topics is thought justifiable in the British nation and by a British jury. I have in my hand the report of the trial of the printers of the " Morning Chronicle," for a supposed libel against the state, and of their acquittal; let me read to you some passages from that publication, which a jury of Englishmen were in vain called upon to brand with the name of libel: " Claiming it as our indefeasible right to associate to- gether in a peaceable and friendly manner, for the com- munication of thoughts, the formation of opinions, and to promote the general happiness, we think it unnecessary to 70 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN offer any apology for inviting you to join us in this manly and benevolent pursuit; the necessity of the inhabitants of every community endeavouring to procure a true knowl- edge of their rights, their duties, and their interests, will not be denied, except by those who are the slaves of preju- dice or interested in the continuation of abuses. As men who wish to aspire to the title of freemen, we totally deny the wisdom and the humanity of the advice to approach the defects of government with ' pious awe and trembling solicitude.' What better doctrine could the Pope or the tyrants of Europe desire? We think, therefore, that the cause of truth and justice can never be hurt by temperate and honest discussions; and that cause which will not bear such a scrutiny must be systematically or practically bad. We are sensible that those who are not friends to the gen- eral good have attempted to inflame the public mind with the cry of ' Danger ' whenever men have associated for discussing the principles of government ; and we have little doubt but such conduct will be pursued in this place; we would therefore caution every honest man, who has really the welfare of the nation at heart, to avoid being led away by the prostituted clamours of those who live on the sources of corruption. We pity the fears of the timorous, and we are totally unconcerned respecting the false alarms of the venal. " We view with concern the frequency of wars. We are persuaded that the interests of the poor can never be promoted by accession of territory when bought at the expense of their labour and blood; and we must say, in the language of a celebrated author, ' We, who are only the people, but who pay for wars with our substance and our blood, will not cease to tell kings,' or governments, ' that to them alone wars are profitable; that the true and just conquests are those which each makes at home, by comforting the peasantry, by promoting agriculture and manufactures, by multiplying men and the other produc- tions of Nature; that then it is that kings may call them- selves the image of God, whose will is perpetually directed TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 71 to the creation of new beings. If they continue to make us fight, and kill one another in uniform, we will continue to write and speak, until nations shall be cured of this folly.' " We are certain our present heavy burdens are owing, in a great measure, to cruel and impolitic wars, and there- fore we will do all on our part, as peaceable citizens, who have the good of the community at heart, to enlighten each other, and protest against them. " The present state of the representation of the people calls for the particular attention of every man who has humanity sufficient to feel for the honour and happiness of his country, to the defects and corruptions of which we are inclined to attribute unnecessary wars, etc. We think it a deplorable case when the poor must support a corruption which is calculated to oppress them; when the labourer must give his money to afford the means of pre- venting him having a voice in its disposal; when the lower classes may say: ' We give you our money, for which we have toiled and sweated, and which would save our fami- lies from cold and hunger; but we think it more hard that there is nobody whom we have delegated, to see that it is not improperly and wickedly spent; we have none to watch over our interests; the rich only are represented.' An equal and uncorrupt representation would, we are per- suaded, save us from heavy expenses, and deliver us from many oppressions; we will therefore do our duty to pro- cure this reform, which appears to us of the utmost im- portance. " In short, we see, with the most lively concern, an army of placemen, pensioners, etc., fighting in the cause of corruption and prejudice, and spreading the contagion far and wide. " We see, with equal sensibility, the present outcry against reforms, and a proclamation (tending to cramp the liberty of the press and discredit the true friends of the people) receiving the support of numbers of our coun- trymen. " We see burdens multiplied, the lower classes sinking 72 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN into poverty, disgrace, and excesses, and the means of those shocking abuses increased for the purpose of revenue. " We ask ourselves, ' Are we in England? ' Have our forefathers fought, bled, and conquered for liberty? And did they not think that the fruits of their patriotism would be more abundant in peace, plenty, and happiness? " Is the condition of the poor never to be improved? " Great Britain must have arrived at the highest de- gree of national happiness and prosperity, and our situa- tion must be too good to be mended, or the present out- cry against reforms and improvements is inhuman and criminal. But we hope our condition will be speedily im- proved, and to obtain so desirable a good is the object of our present association: a union founded on principles of benevolence and humanity; disclaiming all connection with riots and disorder, but firm in our purpose, and warm in our affections for liberty. " Lastly, we invite the friends of freedom throughout Great Britain to form similar societies, and to act with unanimity and firmness, till the people be too wise to be imposed upon; and their influence in the government be commensurate with their dignity and importance. Then shall we be free and happy." Such, gentlemen, is the language which a subject of Great Britain thinks himself warranted to hold, and upon such language has the corroborating sanction of a British jury been stamped by a verdict of acquittal. Such was the honest and manly freedom of publication; in a coun- try, too, where the complaint of abuses has not half the foundation it has here. I said I loved to look to England for principles of judicial example; I can not but say to you that it depends on your spirit whether I shall look to it hereafter with sympathy or with shame. Be pleased, now, gentlemen, to consider whether the statement of the imperfection in your representation has been made with a desire of inflaming an attack upon the public tranquil- ity, or with an honest purpose of procuring a remedy for an actually existing grievance. TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 73 It is impossible not to revert to the situation of the times: and let me remind you that, whatever observations of this kind I am compelled thus to make in a court of justice, the uttering of them in this place is not imputable to my client, but to the necessity of defence imposed upon him by this extraordinary prosecution. Gentlemen, the representation of our people is the vital principle of their political existence; without it they are dead, or they live only to servitude; without it there are two estates acting upon and against the third, instead of acting in co-operation with it; without it, if the people are oppressed by theii^ judges, where is the tribunal to which their judges can be amenable? without it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by a minister, where is the tribunal to which the offender shall be amenable? with- out it, where is the ear to hear, or the heart to feel, or the hand to redress their sufferings? Shall they be found, let me ask you, in the accursed bands of imps and minions that bask in their disgrace, and fatten upon their spoils, and flourish upon their ruin? But let me not put this to you as a merely speculative question. It is a plain question of fact; rely upon it, physical man is everywhere the same; it is only the various operations of moral causes that gives variety to the social or individual character and condition. How otherwise happens it that modern slavery looks quietly at the despot, on the very spot where Leonidas expired? The answer is, Sparta has not changed her cli- mate, but she has lost that government which her liberty could not survive. I call you, therefore, to the plain question of fact. This paper recommends a reform in Parliament; I put that question to your consciences, Do you think it needs that reform? I put it boldly and fairly to you. Do you think the people of Ireland are represented as they ought to be? Do you hesitate for an answer? If you do, let me remind you that, until the last year, three millions of your coun- trymen have, by the express letter of the law, been ex- cluded from the reality of actual, and even from the phan- 74 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN torn of virtual representation. Shall we then be told that this is only the affirmation of a wicked and seditious in- cendiary? If you do not feel the mockery of such a charge, look at your country; in what state do you find it? Is it in a state of tranquility and general satisfaction? These are traces by which good are ever to be distinguished from bad governments, without any very minute inquiry or speculative refinement. Do you feel that a veneration for the law, a pious and humble attachment to the constitu- tion, form the poHtical morahty of the people? Do you find that comfort and competency among your people, which are always to be found where a government is mild and moderate, where taxes are imposed by a body who have an interest in treating the poorer orders with com- passion, and preventing the weight of taxation from press- ing sore upon them? Gentlemen, I mean not to impeach the state of your representation; I am not saying that it is defective, or that it ought to be altered or amended; nor is this a place for me to say whether I think that three millions of the inhabitants of a country whose whole number is but four, ought to be admitted to any efficient situation in the state. It may be said, and truly, that these are not questions for either of us directly to decide; but you can not refuse them some passing consideration at least; when you remember that on this subject the real question for your decision is, whether the allegation of a defect in your constitution is so utterly unfounded and false that you can ascribe it only to the malice and perverseness of a wicked mind, and not to the innocent mistake of an ordinary understanding; whether it may not be mistake; whether it can be only sedition. And here, gentlemen, I own I can not but regret that one of our countrymen should be criminally pursued for asserting the necessity of a reform at the very moment when that necessity seems admitted by the Parliament itself; that this unhappy reform shall, at the same moment, be a subject of legislative discussion and criminal prosecu- TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 75 tion. Far am I from imputing any sinister design to the virtue or wisdom of our government; but who can avoid feeling the deplorable impression that must be made on the public mind when the demand for that reform is an- swered by a criminal information? I am the more forcibly impressed by this considera- tion when I consider that, when this information was first put on the file, the subject was transiently mentioned in the House of Commons. Some circumstances retarded the progress of the inquiry there, and the progress of the information was equally retarded here. On the first day of this session, you all know, that subject was again brought forward in the House of Commons, and, as if they had slept together, this prosecution was also revived in the court of King's Bench, and that before a jury taken from a panel partly composed of those very members of Parlia- ment who in the House of Commons must debate upon this subject as a measure of public advantage, which they are here called upon to consider as a public crime. This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of emanci- pating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged as part of the libel. If they had waited another year, if they had kept this prosecution impending for another year, how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the progress of public information was eating away the ground of the prosecution. Since the commencement of the prosecution, this part of the libel has unluckily received the sanction of the legislature. In that interval our Catholic brethren have obtained that admission, which, it seems, it was a libel to propose; in what way to account for this, I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? has the bigoted malignity of any individuals been crushed? or has the sta- bility of the government, or that of the country, been weakened? or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they received should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance? If you 76 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN think SO, you must say to them: " You have demanded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor your persons, we are outraged at your success, and we will stig- matize by a criminal prosecution the adviser of that relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country." I ask you, Do you think, as honest men, anxious for the public tranquility, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this lan- guage at this time, to men who are too much disposed to think that in this very emancipation they have been saved from their own Parliament by the humanity of their sov- ereign? Or do you wish to prepare them for the revoca- tion of these improvident concessions? Do you think it wise or humane at this moment to insult them by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths: Do you think that a blessing of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose that measure? to propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giv- ing liberty to all who had a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this paper, giving "universal emancipation!" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal eman- cipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion in- compatible with freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain the altar and the god sink together in the dust; TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN ^^ his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him; and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disen- thralled by the irresistible genius of universal emanci- pation. [A sudden burst of applause from the court and hall, which was repeated for a considerable length of time, in- terrupted Mr. Curran. Silence being at length restored, he proceeded.] Gentlemen, I am not such a fool as to ascribe an effu- sion of this sort to any merit of mine. It is the mighty theme, and not the inconsiderable advocate, that can ex- cite interest in the hearer. What you hear is but the testi- mony which Nature bears to her own character; it is the effusion of her gratitude to that Power which stamped that character upon her. And permit me to say, that if my client had occasion to defend his cause by any mad or drunken appeals to extravagance or licentiousness, I trust in God I stand in that situation that, humble as I am, he would not have resorted to me to be his advocate. I was not recommended to his choice by any connection of principle or party, or even private friendship; and saying this, I can not but add that I consider not to be acquainted with such a man as Mr. Rowan a want of personal good fortune. But upon this great subject of reform and emancipation there is a latitude and boldness of remark justifiable in the people, and necessary to the defence of Mr. Rowan, for which the habit of professional studies, and technical adherence to established forms, have rendered me unfit. It is, however, my duty, standing here as his advocate, to make some few observations to you which I conceive to be material. Gentlemen, you are sitting in a country which has a right to the British constitution, and which is bound by an indissoluble union with the British nation. If you were not even at liberty to debate upon that subject; if you even were not, by the most solemn compacts, founded upon the authority of your ancestors and of yourselves, bound 78 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN to an alliance, and had an election now to make; in the present unhappy state of Europe, if you had been hereto- fore a stranger to Great Britain you would now say. We will enter into society and union with you: " Una salus ambobus erit, commune periculum." But to accomplish that union, let me tell you, you must learn to become like the English people. It is vain to say you will protect their freedom if you abandon your own. The pillar whose base has no foundation can give no support to the dome under which its head is placed; and if you profess to give England that assistance which you refuse to yourselves, she will laugh at your folly, and despise your meanness and insincerity. Let us follow this a little further — I know you will interpret what I say with the candour in which it is spoken. England is marked by a natural avarice of freedom, which she is studious to engross and accumulate, but most unwilling to impart; whether from any necessity of her policy, or from her weak- ness, or from her pride, I will not presume to say, but so is the fact; you need not look to the east nor to the west; you need only look to yourselves. In order to confirm this observation, I would appeal to what fell from the learned counsel for the Crown — that " notwithstanding the alliance subsisting for two centuries past between the two countries, the date of liberty in one goes no further back than the year 1782." If it required additional confirmation, I should state the case of the invaded American, and the subjugated In- dian, to prove that the policy of England has ever been to govern her connections more as colonies than as allies; and it must be owing to the great spirit indeed of Ireland if she shall continue free. Rely upon it, she shall ever have to hold her course against an adverse current; rely upon it, if the popular spring does not continue strong and elastic, a short interval of debilitated nerve and broken force will send you down the stream again, and reconsign you to the condition of a province. TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 79 If such should become the fate of your constitution, ask yourselves what must be the motive of your govern- ment? It is easier to govern a province by a faction than to govern a co-ordinate country by co-ordinate means. I do not say it is now, but it will always be thought easiest by the managers of the day, to govern the Irish nation by the agency of such a faction, as long as this country shall be found willing to let her connection with Great Britain be preserved only by her own degradation. In such a precarious and wretched state of things, if it shall ever be found to exist, the true friend of Irish liberty and British connection will see that the only means of saving both must be, as Lord Chatham expressed it, " the infusion of new health and blood into the constitution." He will see how deep a stake each country has in the liberty of the other; he will see what a bulwark he adds to the com- mon cause, by giving England a co-ordinate and co-inter- ested ally, instead of an oppressed, enfeebled, and sus- pected dependent; he will see how grossly the credulity of Britain is abused by those who make her believe that her interest is promoted by our depression; he will see the desperate precipice to which she approaches by such conduct; and with an animated and generous piety he will labour to avert her danger. But, gentlemen of the jury, what is likely to be his fate? The interest of the sovereign must be forever the interest of his people, because his interest lives beyond his life: it must live in his fame; it must live in the tenderness of his solicitude for an unborn posterity; it must live in that heart-attaching bond, by which millions of men have united the destinies of themselves and their children with his, and call him by the endearing appellation of king and father of his people. But what can be the interest of such a government as I have described? Not the interest of the King — not the interest of the people; but the sordid interest of the hour; the interest in deceiving the one, and in oppressing and defaming the other; the interest of unpunished rapine and 8o JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN unmerited favour: that odious and abject interest that prompts them to extinguish public spirit in punishment or in bribe, and to pursue every man, even to death, who has sense to see, and integrity and firmness enough to abhor and to oppose them. What, therefore, I say, will be the fate of the man who embarks in an enterprise of so much difficulty and danger? I will not answer it. Upon that hazard has my client put everything that can be dear to man — his fame, his fortune, his person, his liberty, and his children; but with what event, your verdict only can answer, and to that I refer your country. There is a fourth point remaining. Says this paper: " For both these purposes, it appears necessary that pro- vincial conventions should assemble, preparatory to the convention of the Protestant people. The delegates of the Catholic body are not justified in communicating with individuals, or even bodies, of inferior authority; and therefore an assembly of a similar nature and organiza- tion is necessary to establish an intercourse of sentiment, a uniformity of conduct, a united cause, and a united na- tion. If a convention on the one part does not soon fol- low, and is not soon connected with that on the other, the common cause will split into the partial interests; the people will relax into inattention and inertness; the union of afif action and exertion will dissolve; and, too probably, some local insurrection, instigated by the malignity of our common enemy, may commit the character, and risk the tranquility of the island, which can be obviated only by the influence of an assembly arising from and assimilated with the people, and whose spirit may be, as it were, knit with the soul of the nation. Unless the sense of the Protes- tant people be, on their part, as fairly collected and as judiciously directed; unless individual exertion consoli- dates into collective strength; unless the particles unite into one mass, we may, perhaps, serve some person or some party for a little, but the public not at all. The nation is neither insolent, nor rebellious, nor seditious; while it knows its rights, it is unwilling to manifest its powers; it TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 8 1 would rather supplicate administration to anticipate revo- lution by well-timed reform, and to save their country in mercy to themselves." Gentlemen, it is with something more than common reverence, it is with a species of terror, that I am obliged to tread this ground. But what is the idea, put in the strongest point of view? We are willing not to manifest our powers, but to suppHcate administration to anticipate revolution, that the legislature may save the country, in mercy to itself. Let me suggest to you, gentlemen, that there are some circumstances which have happened in the history of this country that may better serve as a comment upon this part of the case than any I can make. I am not bound to defend Mr. Rowan as to the truth or wisdom of the opin- ions he may have formed. But if he did really conceive the situation of the country such, as that the not redress- ing her grievances might lead to a convulsion; and of such an opinion not even Mr. Rowan is answerable here for the wisdom, much less shall I insinuate any idea of my own upon so awful a subject; but if he did so conceive the fact to be, and acted from the fair and honest suggestion of a mind anxious for the public good, I must confess, gen- tlemen, I do not know in what part of the British consti- tution to find the principle of his criminality. But be pleased further to consider that he can not be understood to put the fact on which he argues on the au- thority of his assertion. The condition of Ireland was as open to the observation of every other man as to that of Mr. Rowan. What, then, does this part of the publica- tion amount to? In my mind simply to this: " The nature of oppression in all countries is such that, although it may be borne to a certain degree, it can not be borne beyond that degree. You find that exemplified in Great Britain; you find the people of England patient to a certain point, but patient no longer. That infatuated monarch, James II, experienced this. The time did come when the measure of popular sufferings and popular pa- 6 82 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN tience was full — when a single drop was sufficient to make the waters of bitterness to overflow. I think this measure in Ireland is brimful at present; I think the state of the representation of the people in Parliament is a grievance; I think the utter exclusion of three millions of people is a grievance of that kind that the people are not likely long to endure, and the continuation of which may plunge the country into that state of despair which wrongs, exasper- ated by perseverance, never fail to produce." But to whom is even this language addressed? Not to the body of the people on whose temper and moderation, if once excited, perhaps not much confidence could be placed; but to that authoritative body, whose influence and power would have restrained the excesses of the irritable and tumultuous, and for that purpose expressly does this publication address the volunteers. " We are told that we are in danger. I call upon you, the great constitutional saviours of Ireland, to defend the country to which you have given political existence, and to use whatever sanction your great name, your sacred character, and the weight you have in the community must give you, to repress wicked designs, if any there are. We feel ourselves strong — the people are always strong; the public chains can only be riveted by the public hands. Look to those devoted regions of southern despotism: behold the expiring victim on his knees, presenting the javelin, reeking with his blood, to the ferocious monster who returns it into his heart. Call not that monster the tyrant; he is no more than the executioner of that in- human tyranny which the people practise upon them- selves, and of which he is only reserved to be a later victim than the wretch he has sent before. Look to a nearer country, where the sanguinary characters are more legible — whence you almost hear the groans of death and tor- ture. Do you ascribe the rapine and murder in France to the few names we are execrating here? or do you not see that it is the frenzy of an infuriated multitude, abusing its own strength, and practising those hideous abominations TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 83 upon itself? Against the violence of this strength let your virtue and influence be our safeguard." What criminality, gentlemen of the jury, can you find in this? What, at any time? but I ask you, peculiarly at this momentous period, what guilt can you find in it? My client saw the scene of horror and blood which covers almost the face of Europe; he feared that causes, which he thought similar, might produce similar effects; and he seeks to avert those dangers, by calling the united virtue and tried moderation of the country into a state of strength and vigilance. Yet this is the conduct which the prose- cution of this day seeks to punish and stigmatize; and this is the language for which this paper is reprobated to-day as tending to turn the hearts of the people against their sovereign, and inviting them to overturn the con- stitution. Let us now, gentlemen, consider the concluding part of this publication. It recommends a meeting of the peo- ple to deliberate on constitutional methods of redressing grievances. Upon this subject I am inclined to suspect that I have in my youth taken up crude ideas, not founded, perhaps, in law; but I did imagine that, when the Bill of Rights restored the right of petitioning for the redress of grievances, it was understood that the people might boldly state among themselves that grievances did exist; I did imagine it was understood that people might lawfully assemble themselves in such manner as they might deem most orderly and decorous. I thought I had collected it from the greatest luminaries of the law. The power of petitioning seemed to me to imply the right of assembling for the purpose of deliberation. The law requiring a peti- tion to be presented by a limited number seemed to me to admit that the petition might be prepared by any number whatever, provided, in doing so, they did not commit any breach or violation of the public peace. I know that there has been a law passed in the Irish Parliament of last year which may bring my former opinion into a merited want of authority. The law declares that no body of men may 84 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN delegate a power to any smaller number to act, think, or petition for them. If that law had not passed, I should have thought that the assembling by a delegate conven- tion was recommended, in order to avoid the tumult and disorder of a promiscuous assembly of the whole mass of the people. I should have conceived, before that act, that any law to abridge the orderly appointment of the few to consult for the interest of the many, and thus force the many to consult by themselves, or not at all, would, in fact, be a law not to restrain but to promote insurrection. But that law has spoken, and my error must stand corrected. Of this, however, let me remind you: you are to try this part of the publication by what the law was then, not by what it is now. How was it understood until the last session of Parliament? You had, both in England and Ireland, for the last ten years, these delegated meetings. The Volunteers of Ireland, in 1783, met by delegation; they framed a plan of parliamentary reform; they presented it to the representative wisdom of the nation. It was not received; but no man ever dreamed that it was not the undoubted right of the subject to assemble in that manner. They assembled by delegation at Dungannon; and to show the idea then entertained of the legality of their public conduct, that same body of Volunteers was thanked by both Houses of Parliament, and their delegates most gra- ciously received at the throne. The other day you had delegated representatives of the Catholics of Ireland, pub- licly elected by the members of that persuasion, and sitting in convention in the heart of your capital, carrying on an actual treaty with the existing government, and under the eye of your own Parliament, which was then assembled; you have seen the delegates from that convention carry the complaints of their grievances to the foot of the throne, from whence they brought back to that convention the auspicious tidings of that redress which they had been re- fused at home. Such, gentlemen, have been the means of popular com- munication and discussion, which, until the last session, TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 85 have been deemed legal in this country, as, happily for the sister kingdom, they are yet considered there. I do not complain of this act as any infraction of popu- lar liberty; I should not think it becoming in me to ex- press any complaint against a law when once become such. I observe only that one mode of popular deliberation is thereby taken utterly away, and you are reduced to a situ- ation in which you never stood before. You are living in a country where the constitution is rightly stated to be only ten years old — where the people have not the ordi- nary rudiments of education. It is a melancholy story, that the lower orders of the people here have less means of being enlightened than the same class of people in any other country. If there be no means left by which public measures can be canvassed, what will be the consequence? Where the press is free, and discussion unrestrained, the mind, by the collision of intercourse, gets rid of its own asperities; a sort of insensible perspiration takes place in the body politic, by which those acrimonies, which would otherwise fester and inflame, are quietly dissolved and dis- sipated. But now, if any aggregate assembly shall meet, they are censured; if a printer publishes their resolutions, he is punished; rightly, to be sure, in both cases, for it has been lately done. If the people say. Let us not create tumult, but meet in delegation, they can not do it; if they are anxious to promote parliamentary reform in that way, they can not do it; the law of the last session has for the first time declared such meetings to be a crime. What, then, remains? The liberty of the press only — that sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, no minister, no government — ^which nothing but the deprav- ity, or folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from by having public communication left open to them? I will tell you, gentle- men, what they are saved from, and what the government is saved from; I will tell you also to what both are ex- posed by shutting up that communication. In one case, sedition speaks aloud and walks abroad; the demagogue 86 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN goes forth — the pubhc eye is upon him — he frets his busy- hour upon the stage; but soon either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedition go forward? Night after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the torch. If you doubt of the horrid consequence of sup- pressing the effusion even of individual discontent, look to those enslaved countries where the protection of despotism is supposed to be secured by such restraints. Even the person of the despot there is never in safety. Neither the fears of the despot, nor the machinations of the slave, have any slumber — the one anticipating the moment of peril, the other watching the opportunity of aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both; the decisive instant is precipitated without warning — by folly on the one side, or by frenzy on the other; and there is no notice of the treason till the traitor acts. In those unfortunate countries — one can not read it without horror — there are officers whose province it is to have the water which is to be drunk by their rulers sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched miscreant should throw poison into the draught. But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and more inter- esting example, you have it in the history of your own revolution. You have it at that memorable period when the monarch found a servile acquiescence in the ministers of his folly — when the liberty of the press was trodden under foot — when venal sheriffs returned packed juries, to carry into effect those fatal conspiracies of the few against the many — ^when the devoted benches of public justice were filled by some of those foundlings of fortune, who, over- whelmed in the torrent of corruption at an early period, lay at the bottom, like drowned bodies, while soundness or sanity remained in them; but at length, becoming buoy- ant by putrefaction, they rose as they rotted, and floated to the surface of the polluted stream, where they were TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 87 drifted along, the objects of terror, and contagion, and abomination. In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how preg- napt is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of soci- ety, therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty — and the last- ing union of the two countries — I conjure you to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, that grand detector of public imposture; guard it, because, when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject and the security of the crown. Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has not been brought forward earlier; I rejoice, for the sake of the court, of the jury, and of the public repose, that this ques- tion has not been brought forward till now. In Great Britain, analogous circumstances have taken place. At the commencement of that unfortunate war which has del- uged Europe with blood, the spirit of the English people was tremblingly alive to the terror of French principles; at that moment of general paroxysm to accuse was to convict. The danger looked larger to the public eye from the misty region through which it was surveyed. We meas- ure inaccessible heights by the shadows which they project, where the lowness and the distance of the light form the length of the shade. There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its best grounds of faith. To what other cause, gentlemen, can you ascribe that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philo- sophic nation of Great Britain a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel for publishing those resolutions to which the present minister of that kingdom had actually subscribed his name? To what other cause can you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, in such a coun- try as Scotland — a nation cast in the happy medium be- tween the spiritless acquiescence of a submissive poverty 88 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth — cool and ardent — adventurous and persevering — winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks and a wing that never tires — crowned, as she is, with the spoils of every art, and decked with the wealth of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, morality of her Burns — how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and character, and talents, should be banished to a distant barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life. But I will not further press an idea that is so painful to me, and I am sure must be painful to you. I will only say, you have now an example, of which neither England nor Scotland had the advantage; you have the example of the panic, the infatuation, and the contrition of both. It is now for you to decide whether you will profit by their experience of idle panic and idle regret; or whether you meanly prefer to palliate a servile imitation of their frailty by a paltry afifectation of their repentance. It is now for you to show that you are not carried away by the same hectic delusions to acts of which no tears can wash away the fatal consequences or the indelible reproach. Gentlemen, I have been warning you by instances of public intellect suspended or obscured; let me rather ex- cite you by the example of that intellect recovered and re- stored. In that case which Mr. Attorney-General has cited himself — I mean that of the trial of Lambert, in England. — is there a topic of invective against constituted authori- ties, is there a topic of abuse against every department of British government, that you do not find in the most glowing and unqualified terms in that publication for which the printer of it was prosecuted and acquitted by an Eng- lish jury? See, too, what a difference there is between the case of a man publishing his own opinion of facts, think- ing that he is bound by duty to hazard the promulgation TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 89 of them, and without the remotest hope of any personal advantage, and that of a man who makes publication his trade. And saying this, let me not be misunderstood. It is not my province to enter into any abstract defence of the opinions of any man upon public subjects. I do not affirmatively state to you that these grievances, which this paper supposes, do in fact exist; yet I can not but say that the movers of this prosecution have forced this question upon you. Their motives and their merits, like those of all accusers, are put in issue before you; and I need not tell you how strongly the motive and merits of any informer ought to influence the fate of his accusation. I agree most implicitly with Mr. Attorney-General, that nothing can be more criminal than an attempt to work a change in the government by armed force; and I entreat the court will not sufifer any expression of mine to be con- sidered as giving encouragement or defence to any de- sign to excite disaffection, to overawe, or to overturn the government. But I put my client's case upon another ground; if he was led into an opinion of grievances, where there were none, if he thought there ought to be a reform, where none was necessary, he is answerable only for his intention. He can be answerable to you in the same way only that he is answerable to that God before whom the accuser, the accused, and the judge must appear together; that is, not for the clearness of his understanding, but for the purity of his heart. Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney-General has said that Mr. Rowan did by this publication (supposing it to be his) recommend, under the name of equality, a general indis- criminate assumption of public rule, by every the mean- est person in the state. Low as we are in point of public information, there is not, I believe, any man who thinks for a moment that does not know that all which the great body of the people of any country can have from any gov- ernment is a fair encouragement to their industry, and protection for the fruits of their labour. And there is scarcely any man, I believe, who does not know that if a go JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN people could become so silly as to abandon their stations in society, under pretence of governing themselves, they would become the dupes and the victims of their own folly. But does this publication recommend any such infatuated abandonment, or any such desperate assumption? I will read the words which relate to that subject: " By liberty, we never understood unlimited freedom; nor by equality, the levelling of property or the destruction of subordina- tion." I ask you, with what justice, upon what principle of common sense, you can charge a man with the publica- tion of sentiments the very reverse of what his words avow, and that, when there is no collateral evidence, where there is no foundation whatever, save those very words, by which his meaning can be ascertained? Or, if you do adopt an arbitrary principle of imputing to him your meaning, in- stead of his own, what publication can be guiltless or safe? It is a sort of accusation that I am ashamed and sorry to see introduced in a court acting on the principles of the British constitution. In the bitterness of reproach it was said, " Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee." From the severity of justice I demand no more. See if, in the words that have been spoken, you can find matter to acquit or condemn: " By liberty, we never understood unlimited freedom ; nor by equality, the levelling of property or the destruction of subordination. This is a calumny invented by that fac- tion, or that gang, which misrepresents the King to the people, and the people to the King — ^traduces one half of the nation to cajole the other — and, by keeping up dis- trust and division, wishes to continue the proud arbitrator of the fortune and fate of Ireland." Here you find that meaning, disclaimed as a calumny, which is artfully im- puted as a crime. I say, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, as to the four parts into which the publication must be divided, I answer thus. It calls upon the Volunteers. Consider the time, the danger — ^the authority of the prosecutors themselves for believing that danger to exist — the high character, the TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 91 known moderation, the approved loyalty of that venerable institution — ^the similarity of the circumstances between the period at which they were summoned to take arms and that in which they have been called upon to reassume them. Upon this simple ground, gentlemen, you will decide whether this part of the publication was libellous and crimi- nal or not. As to reform, I could wish to have said nothing upon it; I believe I have said enough. If Mr. Rowan, in dis- closing that opinion, thought the state required it, he acted like an honest man. For the rectitude of the opinion he was not answerable; he discharged his duty in telling the country he thought so. As to the emancipation of the Catholics, I can not but say that Mr. Attorney-General did very wisely in keeping clear of that subject. Yet, gentlemen, I need not tell you how important a figure it was intended to make upon the scene; though, from unlucky accidents, it has become necessary to expunge it during the rehearsal.* Of the concluding part of this publication, the conven- tion which it recommends, I have spoken already. I wish not to trouble you with saying more upon it. I feel that I have already trespassed much upon your patience. In truth, upon a subject embracing such a variety of topics, a rigid observance either of conciseness or arrangement could, perhaps, scarcely be expected. It is, however, with pleasure I feel I am drawing to a close, and that only one question remains, to which I would beg your attention. Whatever, gentlemen, may be your opinion of the meaning of this publication, there yet remains a great point for you to decide upon — ^namely, whether, in point of fact, this publication be imputable to Mr, Rowan or not — whether he did publish it or not. Two witnesses are called upon to that fact — one of the name of Lyster, and the other of the name of Morton. You must have observed that Morton gave no evidence upon which that paper could have even been read; he produced no paper — he identified g2 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN no paper — he said that he got some paper, but that he had given it away. So that, in point of law, there was no evidence given by him on which it could have gone to a jury; and, therefore, it turns entirely upon the evidence of the other witness. He has stated that he went to a public meeting, in a place where there was a gallery crowded with spectators, and that he there got a printed paper, the same which has been read to you. I know you are well acquainted with the fact that the credit of every witness must be considered by and rest with the jury. They are the sovereign judges of that; and I will not insult your feelings by insisting on the caution with which you should watch the testimony of a witness that seeks to afifect the liberty, or property, or character of your fellow-citizens. Under what circumstances does this evidence come before you? The witness says he has got a commission in the army, by the interest of a lady, from a person then high in administration. He told you that he made a memorandum upon the back of that paper, it being his general custom, when he got such papers, to make an indorsement upon them — that he did this from mere fancy — that he had no intention of giving any evi- dence on the subject — " he took it with no such view." There is something whimsical enough in this curious story. Put his credit upon the positive evidence adduced to his character. Who he is I know not — I know not the man; but his credit is impeached. Mr. Blake was called; he said he knew him. I asked him, " Do you think, sir, that Mr. Lyster is or is not a man deserving credit upon his oath? " If you find a verdict of conviction, it can be only upon the credit of Mr. Lyster. What said Mr. Blake? Did he tell you that he considered him a man to be believed upon his oath? He did not attempt to say that he did. The best he could say was, that he " would hesitate." Do you be- lieve Blake? Have you the same opinion of Lyster's testi- mony that Mr. Blake has? Do you know Lyster? If you do know him, and know that he is credible, your knowledge should not be shaken by the doubts of any man. But if TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN 93 you do not know him, you must take his credit for an un- impeached witness, swearing that he would hesitate to be- Ueve him. In my mind there is a circumstance of the strongest nature that came out from Lyster on the table. I am aware that a most respectable man, if impeached by surprise, may not be prepared to repel a wanton calumny by contrary testimony. But was Lyster unapprised of this attack upon him? What said he? "I knew that you had Blake to examine against me — ^you have brought him here for that purpose." He knew the very witness that was to be produced against him — he knew that his credit was impeached — and yet he produced no person to support that credit. What said Mr. Smith? " From my knowledge of him, I would not believe him upon his oath." Mr. Attorney-General. — I beg pardon, but I must set Mr. Curran right. Mr. Lyster said he had heard Blake would be here, but not in time to prepare himself. Mr. Curran. — But what said Mrs. Hatchell? Was the production of that witness a surprise upon Mr. Lyster? Her cross-examination shows the fact to be the contrary. The learned counsel, you see, was perfectly apprised of a chain of private circumstances, to which he pointed his questions. This lady's daughter was married to the elder brother of the witness Lyster. Did he know these circum- stances by inspiration? No; they could come only from Lyster himself. I insist, therefore, that the gentleman knew his character was to be impeached; his counsel knew it, and not a single witness has been produced to support it. Then consider, gentlemen, upon what ground can you find a verdict of conviction against my client, when the only witness produced to the fact of publication is im- peached, without even an attempt to defend his character? Many hundreds, he said, were at that meeting. Why not produce one of them to swear to the fact of such a meet- ing? One he has ventured to name; but he was certainly very safe in naming a person who, he has told you, is not in the kingdom, and could not, therefore, be called to con- front him. 94 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN Gentlemen, let me suggest another observation or two, if still you have any doubt as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Give me leave to suggest to you what cir- cumstances you ought to consider in order to found your verdict. You should consider the character of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say there is not a man in this nation more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution; not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manu- facturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advo- cate of their sufferings — that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head, soliciting for their relief — searching the frozen heart of charity for every string that can be touched by compassion, and urging the force of every argument and every motive, save that which his modesty suppresses, the authority of his own generous example. Or if you see him not there, you may trace his steps to the private abode of disease, and famine, and de- spair — the messenger of Heaven, bringing with him food, and medicine, and consolation. Are these the materials of which you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatize from every principle that can bind him to the state — his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if you agree with his prosecutors in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man on such an occasion — and upon the credit of such evidence you are to convict him — never did you, never can you give a sentence, consigning any man to public punishment, with less danger to his person or to his fame: for where could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingratitude at his head, whose private distresses he had TRIAL OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN ^ 95 not endeavoured to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not laboured to improve? I can not, however, avoid reverting to a circumstance that distinguishes the case of Mr. Rowan from that of the late sacrifice in a neighbouring kingdom.^ The severer law of that country, it seems — and happy for them that it should — enables them to remove from their sight the victim of their infatuation. The more merci- ful spirit of our law deprives you of that consolation; his sufferings must remain forever before our eyes, a continual call upon your shame and your remorse. But those suf- ferings will do more: they will not rest satisfied with your unavailing contrition — they will challenge the great and paramount inquest of society — the man will be weighed against the charge, the witness, and the sentence — and im- partial justice will demand. Why has an Irish jury done this deed? The moment he ceases to be regarded as a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser; and let me ask you. What can your most zealous defenders be prepared to an- swer to such a charge? When your sentence shall have sent him forth to that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let me tell you he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will stand a striking and imposing object upon a monu- ment, which, if it does not (and it can not) record the atrocity of his crime, must record the atrocity of his con- viction. Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I say that I am still more anxious for you than I can possibly be for him. I can not but feel the peculiarity of your situation. Not the jury of his own choice, which the law of England allows, but which ours refuses; collected in that box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan — certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you can not be surprised, however you may be distressed, at the mourn- ful presage with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, 96 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN for the justice and honour of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipa- tion. I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and, however merci- lessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family and the wishes of his country. But if — ^which Heaven forbid ! — it hath still been unfortunately determined that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf, and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration. Notes 'A few moments before Mr. Curran entered into his client's defence, a guard was brought into the Court-house by the sheriff (Gifford). ' The late Lord Kilwarden, then Attorney-General Wolfe. ' The Honourable Justice Downes, afterward Lord Downes, and Chief Justice of the King's Bench. * Referring to the Emancipation Act of 1793. ' Scotland, from whence Messrs. Muir, Palmer, and others, were trans- ported for sedition. CHARLES JAMES FOX ON THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE (Delivered in the House of Commons, February 3, 1800) M" ; R. SPEAKER: At so late an hour of the night I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I do not mean to go at length into the discussion of this great question. Exhausted as the attention of the House may be, and unaccustomed as I have been of late to attend in my place, nothing but a deep sense of my duty could have induced me to trouble you at all, and particu- larly to request your indulgence at such an hour. Sir, my honourable and learned friend has truly said that the pres- ent is a new era in the war. The right honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer feels the justice of the remark; for by travelling back to the commencement of the war, and referring to all the topics and arguments which he has so often and so successfully urged to the House, and by which he has drawn them on to the support of his meas- ures, he is forced to acknowledge that, at the end of a seven years' conflict, we are come but to a new era in the war, at which he thinks it necessary only to press all his former arguments to induce us to persevere. All the topics which have so often misled us — all the reasoning which has so invariably failed — all the lofty predictions which have so constantly been falsified by events — all the hopes which have amused the sanguine, and all the assurances of the distress and weakness of the enemy which have satisfied the unthinking, are again enumerated and advanced as arguments for our continuing the war. What! at the end of seven years of the most burdensome and the most calami- tous struggle that this country was ever engaged in, are 7 97 98 CHARLES JAMES FOX we again to be amused with notions of finance and calcu- lations of the exhausted resources of the enemy as a ground of confidence and of hope? Gracious God! Were we not told, five years ago, that France was not only on the brink, but that she was actually in the gulf of bankruptcy? Were we not told, as an unanswerable argument against treat- ing, that she could not hold out another campaign — that nothing but peace could save her — that she wanted only time to recruit her exhausted finances — that to grant her repose was to grant her the means of again molesting this country, and that we had nothing to do but persevere for a short time in order to save ourselves forever from the consequences of her ambition and her Jacobinism? What! after having gone on from year to year upon assurances like these, and after having seen the repeated refutations of every prediction, are we again to be seriously told that we have the same prospect of success on the same identical grounds? And without any other argument or security are we invited, at this new era of the war, to carry it on upon principles which, if adopted, may make it eternal? If the right honourable gentleman shall succeed in prevail- ing on Parliament and the country to adopt the principles which he has advanced this night, I see no possible termina- tion to the contest. No man can see an end to it; and upon the assurances and predictions which have so uni- formly failed are we called upon not merely to refuse all negotiation, but to countenance principles and views as distant from wisdom and justice as they are in their nature wild and impracticable. I must lament, sir, in common with every friend of peace, the harsh and unconciliating language which min- isters have held toward the French, and which they have even made use of in their answer to a respectful ofifer of negotiation. Such language has ever been considered as extremely unwise, and has ever been reprobated by diplo- matic men. I remember with pleasure the terms in which Lord Malmesbury at Paris, in the year 1796, replied to expressions of this sort used by M. de la Croix. He justly THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 99 said that " offensive and injurious insinuations were only calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of accommo- dation, and that it was not by revolting reproaches, nor by reciprocal invective, that a sincere wish to accomplish the great work of pacification could be evinced." Nothing could be more proper nor more wise than this language; and such ought ever to be the tone and conduct of men intrusted with the very important task of treating with a hostile nation. Being a sincere friend to peace, I must say with Lord Malmesbury^ that it is not by reproaches and by invective that we can hope for a reconciliation; and I am convinced in my own mind that I speak the sense of this House, and of a majority of the people of this coun- try, when I lament that any unnecessary recriminations should be flung out by which obstacles are put in the way of pacification. I believe that it is the prevailing senti- ment of the people that we ought to abstain from harsh and insulting language; and in common with them I must lament that both in the papers of Lord Grenville and in the speeches of this night such license has been given to the invective and reproach. For the same reason I must lament that the right honourable gentleman has thought proper to go at such length, and with such severity of minute investigation, into all the early circumstances of the war, which, whatever they were, are nothing to the present purpose, and ought not to influence the present feelings of the House. I certainly shall not follow him into all the minute de- tail, though I do not agree with him in many of his asser- tions. I do not know what impression his narrative may make on other gentlemen; but I will tell him, fairly and candidly, he has not convinced me. I continue to think, and until I see better grounds for changing my opinion than any that the right honourable gentleman has this night produced, I shall continue to think and to say, plainly and explicitly, that this country was the aggressor in the war. But with regard to Austria and Prussia — is there a man who for one moment can dispute that they were the lOO CHARLES JAMES FOX aggressors? It will be vain for the right honourable gen- tleman to enter into long and plausible reasoning against the evidence of documents so clear, so decisive — so fre- quently, so thoroughly investigated. The unfortunate Louis XVI himself, as well as those who were in his confidence, have borne decisive testimony to the fact that between him and the emperor there was an intimate correspondence and a perfect understanding. Do I mean by this that a positive treaty was entered into for the dismemberment of France? Certainly not; but no man can read the decla- rations which were made at Mantua, as well as at Pilnitz, as they are given by M. Bertrand de Moleville, without acknowledging that there was not merely an intention, but a declaration of an intention, on the part of the great powers of Germany to interfere in the internal affairs of France, for the purpose of regulating the government against the opinion of the people. This, though not a plan for the partition of France, was, in the eye of reason and common sense, an aggression against France. The right honourable gentleman denies that there was such a thing as a treaty of Pilnitz. Granted. But was there not a declaration which amounted to an act of hostile aggres- sion? The two powers, the Emperor of Germany and the King of Prussia, made a public declaration that they were determined to employ their forces, in conjunction with those of the other sovereigns of Europe, " to put the King of France in a situation to establish, in perfect liberty, the foundations of a monarchical government equally agree- able to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare of the French." Whenever the other princes should agree to co-operate with them, " then, and in that case, their Majes- ties were determined to act promptly, and by mutual con- sent, with the forces necessary to obtain the end proposed by all of them. In the meantime they declared that they would give orders for their troops to be ready for actual service." Now, I would ask gentlemen to lay their hands upon their hearts and say what the fair construction of this declaration was — whether it was not a menace and an in- THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE loi suit to France, since, in direct terms, it declared that when- ever the other powers should concur, they would attack France, then at peace with them, and then employed only in domestic and internal regulations? ' Let us suppose the case to be that of Great Britain. Will any gentleman say, if two of the great powers should make a public declaration that they were determined to make an attack on this king- dom as soon as circumstances should favour their inten- tion; that they only waited for this occasion; and that in the meantime they would keep their forces ready for the purpose; that it would not be considered by the Parlia- ment and people of this country as a hostile aggression? And is there an Englishman in existence who is such a friend to peace as to say that the nation could retain its honour and dignity if it should sit down under such a menace? I know too well what is due to the national character of England to believe that there would be two opinions on the case if thus put home to our own feelings and understanding. We must, then, respect in others the indignation which such an act would excite in ourselves; and when we see it established on the most indisputable testimony that both at Filnitz and at Mantua declarations were made to this effect, it is idle to say that, as far as the emperor and the King of Prussia were concerned, they were not the aggressors in the war. " Oh! but the decree of the 19th of November, 1792! that, at least," the right honourable gentleman says, " you must allow to be an act of aggression, not only against England, but against all the sovereigns of Europe." I am not one of those, sir, who attach much interest to the gen- eral and indiscriminate provocations thrown out at random, like this resolution of the 19th of November, 1792. I do not think it necessary to the dignity of any people to no- tice and to apply to themselves menaces flung out without particular allusion, which are always unwise in the power which uses them, and which it is still more unwise to treat with seriousness. But if any such idle and general provoca- tion to nations is given, either in insolence or in folly, by I02 CHARLES JAMES FOX any government, it is a clear first principle that an explana- tion is the thing which a magnanimous nation, feeling itself aggrieved, ought to demand; and if an explanation be given which is not satisfactory, it ought clearly and dis- tinctly to say so. There ought to be no ambiguity, no reserve, on the occasion. Now we all know from docu- ments on our table that M. Chauvelin did give an explana- tion of this silly decree. He declared in the name of his government that " it was never meant that the French Government should favour insurrections; that the decree was applicable only to those people who, after having ac- quired their liberty by conquest, should demand the assist- ance of the republic; but that France would respect not only the independence of England, but also that of her allies with whom she was not at war." This was the ex- planation given of the offensive decree. " But this ex- planation was not satisfactory! " Did you say so to M. Chauvelin? Did you tell him that you were not content with this explanation? And when you dismissed him after- ward, on the death of the king, did you say that this ex- planation was unsatisfactory? No; you did no such thing: and I contend that unless you demanded further explana- tions, and they were refused, you have no right to urge the decree of the 19th of November as an act of aggression. In all your conferences and correspondence with M. Chau- velin did you hold out to him what terms would satisfy you? Did you give the French the power or the means of settling the misunderstanding which that decree, or any other of the points at issue, had created? I contend that when a nation refuses to state to another the thing which would satisfy her, she shows that she is not actuated by a desire to preserve peace between them: and I aver that this was the case here. The Scheldt, for instance. You now say that the navigation of the Scheldt was one of your causes of complaint. Did you explain yourself on that subject? Did you make it one of the grounds for the dismissal of M. Chauvelin? Sir, I repeat it, a nation, to justify itself in appealing to the last solemn resort, ought THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 103 to prove that it had taken every possible means consistent with dignity to demand the reparation which would be satisfactory, and if she refused to explain what would be satisfactory she did not do her duty, nor exonerate herself from the charge of being the aggressor. The right honourable gentleman has this night, for the first time, produced a most important paper — the instruc- tions which were given to his Majesty's minister at the court of St. Petersburg about the end of the year 1792, to interest her imperial Majesty to join her efforts with those of his Britannic Majesty to prevent, by their joint mediation, the evils of a general war. Of this paper, and of the existence of any such document, I for one was en- tirely ignorant; but I have no hesitation in saying that I completely approve of the instructions which appear to have been given; and I am sorry to see the right honour- able gentleman disposed rather to take blame to himself than credit for having written it. He thinks that he shall be subject to the imputation of having been rather too slow to apprehend the dangers with which the French Revolution was fraught than that he was forward and hasty — " Quod solum excusat, hoc solum miror in illo." I do not agree with him on the idea of censure. I by no means think that he was blamable for too much confidence in the good intentions of the French. I think the tenor and composition of this paper were excellent — the instruc- tions conveyed in it wise; and that it wanted but one essen- tial thing to have entitled it to general approbation — namely, to be acted upon. The clear nature and intent of that paper I take to be that our ministers were to solicit the court of St. Petersburg to join with them in a declara- tion to the French Government, stating explicitly what course of conduct, with respect to their foreign relations, they thought necessary to the general peace and security of Europe, and what, if complied with, would have induced them to mediate for that purpose — a proper, wise, and legitimate course of proceeding. Now I ask, sir, whether, if this paper had been communicated to Paris at the end of 104 CHARLES JAMES FOX the year 1792, instead of St. Petersburg, it would not have been productive of most seasonable benefits to mankind; and by informing the French in time of the means by which they might have secured the mediation of Great Britain, have not only avoided the rupture with this country, but have also restored general peace to the continent? The paper, sir, was excellent in its intentions; but its merit was all in the composition. It was a fine theory, which ministers did not think proper to carry into practice. Nay, on the contrary, at the very time they were drawing up this paper they were insulting M. Chauvelin in every way, until about the 23 d or 24th of January, 1793, when they finally dismissed him, without stating any one ground upon which they were willing to preserve terms with the French. " But France," it seems, " then declared war against us; and she was the aggressor, because the declaration came from her." Let us look at the circumstances of this transaction on both sides. Undoubtedly the declaration was made by her; but is a declaration the only thing that constitutes the commencement of a war? Do gentlemen recollect that, in consequence of a dispute about the com- mencement of war, respecting the capture of a number of ships, an article was inserted in our treaty with France by which it was positively stipulated that in future, to pre- vent all disputes, the act of the dismissal of a minister from either of the two courts should be held and considered as tantamount to a declaration of war? I mention this, sir, because when we are idly employed in this retrospect of the origin of a war which has lasted so many years, instead of fixing our eyes only to the contemplation of the means of putting an end to it, we seem disposed to overlook every- thing on our own parts, and to search only for grounds of imputation on the enemy. I almost think it an insult on the House to detain them with this sort of examina- tion. If, sir, France was the aggressor, as the right hon- ourable gentleman says she was throughout, why did not Prussia call upon us for the stipulated number of troops, according to the article of the defensive treaty of alliance THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 105 subsisting between us, by which, in case either of the con- tracting parties was attacked, they had a right to demand the stipulated aid? And the same thing, again, may be asked when we were attacked. The right honourable gen- tleman might here accuse himself, indeed, of reserve; but it unfortunately happened that, at the time, the point was too clear on which side the aggression lay. Prussia was too sensible that the war could not entitle her to make the demand, and that it was not a case within the scope of the defensive treaty. This is evidence worth a volume of subsequent reasoning; for if, at the time when all the facts were present to their minds, they could not take advantage of existing treaties, and that, too, when the courts were on the most friendly terms with one another, it will be manifest to every thinking man that they were sensible they were not authorized to make the demand. I really, sir, can not think it necessary to follow the right honourable gentleman into all the minute details which he has thought proper to give us respecting the first aggression; but that Austria and Prussia were the ag- gressors not a man in any country, who has ever given himself the trouble to think at all on the subject, can doubt. Nothing could be more hostile than their whole proceed- ings. Did they not declare to France that it was their internal concerns, not their external proceedings, which provoked them to confederate against her? Look back to the proclamations with which they set out. Read the declarations which they made themselves to justify their appeal to arms. They did not pretend to fear their am- bition, their conquests, their troubling their neighbours; but they accused them of new-modelling their own govern- ment. They said nothing of their aggressions abroad; they spoke only of their clubs and societies at Paris. Sir, in all this I am not justifying the French — I am not striving to absolve them from blame, either in their internal or external policy. I think, on the contrary, that their successive rulers have been as bad and as execrable, in various instances, as any of the most despotic and un- Io6 CHARLES JAMES FOX principled governments that the world ever saw. I think it impossible, sir, that it should have been otherwise. It was not to be expected that the French, when once en- gaged in foreign wars, should not endeavour to spread destruction around them, and to form plans of aggrandize- ment and plunder on every side. Men bred in the school of the house of Bourbon could not be expected to act otherwise. They could not have lived so long under their ancient masters without imbibing the restless ambition, the perfidy, and the insatiable spirit of the race. They have imitated the practice of their great prototype, and through their whole career of mischief and of crimes have done no more than servilely trace the steps of their own Louis XIV. If they have overrun countries and ravaged them, they have done it upon Bourbon principles. If they have ruined and dethroned sovereigns, it is entirely after the Bourbon manner. If they have even fraternized with the people of foreign countries, and pretended to make their cause their own, they have only faithfully followed the Bourbon example. They have constantly had Louis, the grand monarque, in their eye. But it may be said that this example was long ago, and that we ought not to refer to a period so distant. True, it is a distant period as ap- plied to the man, but not so to the principle. The principle was never extinct; nor has its operation been suspended in France, except, perhaps, for a short interval during the administration of Cardinal Fleury; and my complaint against the republic of France is, not that she has gener- ated new crimes, not that she has promulgated new mis- chief, but that she has adopted and acted upon the prin- ciples which have been so fatal to Europe under the prac- tice of the house of Bourbon. It is said that wherever the French have gone they have introduced revolution; that they have sought for the means of disturbing neigh- bouring states, and have not been content with mere con- quest. What is this but adopting the ingenious scheme of Louis XIV? He was not content with merely overrun- ning a state — whenever he came into a new territory he THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 107 established what he called his Chamber of Claims; a most convenient device, by which he inquired whether the con- quered country or province had any dormant or disputed claims, any cause of complaint, any unsettled demand upon any other state or province — upon which he might wage war upon such state, thereby discover again ground for new devastation, and gratify his ambition by new acquisi- tions. What have the republicans done more atrocious, more Jacobinical, than this? Louis went to war with Hol- land. His pretext was that Holland had not treated him with sufficient respect — a very just and proper cause for war indeed! This, sir, leads me to an example which I think seasonable, and worthy the attention of his Majes- ty's ministers. When our Charles II, as a short exception to the policy of his reign, made the triple alliance for the protection of Europe, and particularly of Holland, against the ambition of Louis XIV, what was the conduct of that great, virtuous, and most able statesman, M. de Witt, when the confederates came to deliberate on the terms upon which they should treat with the French monarch? When it was said that he had made unprincipled conquests, and that he ought to be forced to surrender them all, what was the language of that great and wise man? " No," said he; "I think we ought not to look back to the origin of the war so much as to the means of putting an end to it. If you had united in time to prevent these conquests, well; but now that he has made them, he stands upon the ground of conquest, and we must agree to treat with him, not with reference to the origin of the conquest, but with regard to his present posture. He has those places, and some of them we must be content to give up as the means of peace, for conquest will always successfully set up its claims to indemnification." Such was the language of this minister, who was the ornament of his time; and such, in my mind, ought to be the language of statesmen with re- gard to the French at this day. The same ought to have been said at the formation of the confederacy. It was true that the French had overrun Savoy; but they had overrun I08 CHARLES JAMES FOX it upon Bourbon principles; and having gained this and other conquests before the confederacy was formed, they ought to have treated with her rather for future security than for past correction. States in possession, whether monarchical or republican, will claim indemnity in propor- tion to their success; and it will never be so much inquired by what right they gained possession as by what means they can be prevented from enlarging their depredations. Such is the safe practice of the world; and such ought to have been the conduct of the powers when the reduction of Savoy made them coalesce. The right honourable gentleman may know more of the secret particulars of their overrunning Savoy than I do; but certainly, as they have come to my knowledge, it was a most Bourbon-like act. A great and justly cele- brated historian, whom I will not call a foreigner — I mean Mr. Hume (a writer certainly estimable in many particu- lars, but who was a childish lover of princes) — talks of Louis XIV in very magnificent terms; but he says of him that, though he managed his enterprises with skill and bravery, he was unfortunate in this, that he never got a good and fair pretence for war. This he reckons among his misfortunes! Can we say more of the republican French? In seizing on Savoy I think they made use of the words " convenances morales et physiques." These were their reasons. A most Bourbon-like phrase! And I therefore contend that as we never scrupled to treat with the princes of the house of Bourbon on account of their rapacity, their thirst of conquest, their violation of treaties, their perfidy, and their restless spirit, so we ought not to refuse to treat with their republican imitators. Ministers could not pretend ignorance of the unprincipled manner in which the French had seized on Savoy. The Sardinian minister complained of the aggression, and yet no stir was made about it. The courts of Europe stood by and saw the outrage; and our minister saw it. The right honour- able gentleman will in vain, therefore, exert his powers to persuade me of the interest he takes in the preservation THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 109 of the rights of nations, since, at the moment when an interference might have been made with effect, no step was taken, no remonstrance made, no mediation negoti- ated, to stop the career of conquest. All the pretended and hypocritical sensibility for the " rights of nations and for social order," with which we have since been stunned, can not impose upon those who would take the trouble to look back to the period when this sensibility ought to have roused us into seasonable exertion. At that time, however, the right honourable gentleman makes it his boast that he was prevented by a sense of neutrality from taking any measures of precaution on the subject. I do not give the right honourable gentleman much credit for his spirit of neutrality on the occasion. It flowed from the sense of the country at the time, the great majority of which was clearly and decidedly against all interruptions being given to the French in their desire of regulating their own in- ternal government. But this neutrality, which respected only the internal rights of the French, and from which the people of Eng- land would never have departed but for the impolitic and hypocritical cant which was set up to rouse their jealousy and alarm their fears, was very different from the great principle of political prudence which ought to have actu- ated the councils of the nation, on seeing the first steps of France toward a career of external conquest. My opin- ion is, that when the unfortunate King of France offered to us, in the letter delivered by M. Chauvelin and M. Talley- rand, and even entreated us to mediate between him and the allied powers of Austria and Prussia, they ought to have accepted the offer and exerted their influence to save Europe from the consequence of a system which was then beginning to manifest itself. It was, at least, a question of prudence; and as we had never refused to treat and to mediate with the old princes on account of their ambition or their perfidy, we ought to have been equally ready now, when the same principles were acted upon by other men. I must doubt the sensibility which could be so cold and so no CHARLES JAMES FOX indiflferent at the proper moment for its activity. I fear that there were at that moment the germs of ambition ris- ing in the mind of the right honourable gentleman, and that he was beginning, Hke others, to entertain hopes that something might be obtained out of the coming confusion. What but such a sentiment could have prevented him from overlooking the fair occasion that was offered for prevent- ing the calamities with which Europe was threatened? What but some such interested principle could have made him forego the truly honourable task by which his admin- istration would have displayed its magnanimity and its power? But for some such feeling would not this country, both in wisdom and in dignity, have interfered, and in con- junction with the other powers have said to France : " You ask for a mediation; we will mediate with candour and sincerity, but we will at the same time declare to you our apprehensions. We do not trust to your assertion of a determination to avoid all foreign conquest, and that you are desirous only of settling your own constitution, because your language is contradicted by experience and the evi- dence of facts. You are Frenchmen, and you can not so soon have thrown off the Bourbon principles in which you were educated. You have already imitated the bad prac- tice of your princes; you have seized on Savoy without a colour of right. But here we take our stand. Thus far you have gone, and we can not help it; but you must go no farther. We will tell you distinctly what we shall con- sider as an attack on the balance and the security of Eu- rope; and, as the condition of our interference, we will tell you also the securities that we think essential to the gen- eral repose." This ought to have been the language of his Majesty's ministers when their mediation was solicited; and something of this kind they evidently thought of when they sent the instructions to St. Petersburg which they have mentioned this night, but upon which they never acted. Having not done so, I say they have no claim to talk now about the violated rights of Europe, about the aggression of the French, and about the origin of the war THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE m in which this country was so suddenly afterward plunged. Instead of this, what did they do? They hung back; they avoided explanation; they gave the French no means of satisfying them; and I repeat my proposition — when there is a question of peace and war between two nations, that government feels itself in the wrong which refuses to state with clearness and precision what she would consider as a satisfaction and a pledge of peace. Sir, if I understand the true precepts of the Christian religion, as set forth in the New Testament, I must be per- mitted to say that there is no such thing as a rule or doc- trine by which we are directed, or can be justified, in wag- ing a war for religion. The idea is subversive of the very foundations upon which it stands, which are those of peace and good-will among men. Religion never was, and never can be, a justifiable cause of war; but it has been too often grossly used as the pretext and the apology for the most unprincipled wars. I have already said, and I repeat it, that the conduct of the French to foreign nations can not be justified. They have given great cause of offence, but certainly not to all countries alike. The right honourable gentlemen oppo- site to me have made an indiscriminate catalogue of all the countries which the French have offended, and, in their eagerness to throw odium on the nation, have taken no pains to investigate the sources of their several quarrels. I will not detain the House by entering into the long detail which has been given of their aggressions and their violences; but let me mention Sardinia as one instance which has been strongly insisted upon. Did the French attack Sardinia when at peace with them? No such thing. The King of Sardinia had accepted of a sub- sidy from Great Britain; and Sardinia was, to all intents and purposes, a belligerent power. Several other instances might be mentioned; but though perhaps in the majority of instances the French may be unjustifiable, is this the moment for us to dwell upon these enormities — to waste our time and inflame our passions by recriminating upon 112 CHARLES JAMES FOX each other? There is no end to such a war. I have some- where read — I think in Sir Walter Raleigh's " History of the World " — of a most bloody and fatal battle which was fought by two opposite armies, in which almost all the combatants on both sides were killed, " because," says the historian, " though they had offensive weapons on both sides, they had none for defence." So, in this war of words, if we are to use only offensive weapons, if we are to in- dulge only in invective and abuse, the contest must be eternal. If this war of reproach and invective is to be countenanced, may not the French with equal reason com- plain of the outrages and the horrors committed by the powers opposed to them? If we must not treat with the French on account of the iniquity of their former transac- tions, ought we not to be as scrupulous of connecting our- selves with other powers equally criminal? Surely, sir, if we must be thus rigid in scrutinizing the conduct of an enemy, we ought to be equally careful in not committing our honour and our safety with an ally who has manifested the same want of respect for the rights of other nations. Surely, if it is material to know the character of a power with whom you are only about to treat for peace, it is more material to know the character of allies with whom you are about to enter into the closest connection of friend- ship, and for whose exertion you are about to pay. Now, sir, what was the conduct of your own allies to Poland? Is there a single atrocity of the French in Italy, in Switzerland, in Egypt if you please, more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in Poland? What has there been in the conduct of the French to foreign powers; what in the violation of solemn treaties; what in the plunder, devastation, and dismemberment of unoffending countries; what in the horrors and murders perpetrated upon the subdued victims of their rage in any district which they have overrun, worse than the conduct of those three great powers in the miserable, devoted, and trampled-on kingdom of Poland, and who have been, or are, our allies in this war for religion, social order, and the THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 113 rights of nations? " Oh, but we regretted the partition of Poland!" Yes, regretted! you regretted the violence, and that is all you did. You united yourselves with the actors; you, in fact, by your acquiescence, confirmed the atrocity. But they are your allies; and though they over- ran and divided Poland, there was nothing, perhaps, in the manner of doing it which stamped it with peculiar in- famy and disgrace. The hero of Poland, perhaps, was merciful and mild. He was " as much superior to Bona- parte in bravery, and in the discipline which he maintained, as he was superior in virtue and humanity! He was ani- mated by the purest principles of Christianity, and was restrained in his career by the benevolent precepts which it inculcates." Was he? Let unfortunate Warsaw, and the miserable inhabitants of the suburb of Praga in par- ticular, tell! What do we understand to have been the conduct of this magnanimous hero, with whom, it seems, Bonaparte is not to be compared? He entered the suburb of Praga, the most populous suburb of Warsaw, and there he let his soldiery loose on the miserable, unarmed, and un- resisting people! Men, women, and children, nay, infants at the breast, were doomed to one indiscriminate massa- cre! Thousands of them were inhumanly, wantonly butch- ered! And for what? Because they had dared to join in a wish to meliorate their own condition as a people, and to improve their constitution, which had been confessed by their own sovereign to be in want of amendment. And such is the hero upon whom the cause of " religion and social order" is to repose! And such is the man whom we praise for his discipline and his virtue, and whom we hold out as our boast and our dependence, while the con- duct of Bonaparte unfits him to be even treated with as an enemy! But the behaviour of the French toward Switzerland raises all the indignation of the right honourable gentle- man and inflames his eloquence. I admire the indignation which he expresses (and I think he felt it) in speaking of this country, so dear and so congenial to every man who 8 114 CHARLES JAMES FOX loves the sacred name of liberty. He who loves liberty, says the right honourable gentleman, thought himself at home on the favoured and happy mountains of Switzer- land, where she seemed to have taken up her abode under a sort of implied compact, among all other states, that she should not be disturbed in this her chosen asylum. I ad- mire the eloquence of the right honourable gentleman in speaking of this country of liberty and peace, to which every man would desire, once in his life at least, to make a pilgrimage. But who, let me ask him, first proposed to the Swiss people to depart from the neutrality which was their chief protection and to join the confederacy against the French? I aver that a noble relation of mine [Lord Robert Fitzgerald], then the minister of England to the Swiss Cantons, was instructed, in direct terms, to propose to the Swiss, by an official note, to break from the safe line they had laid down for themselves, and to tell them " in such a contest neutrality was criminal." I know that noble lord too well, though I have not been in habits of intercourse with him of late, from the employments in which he has been engaged, to suspect that he would have presented such a paper without the express instructions of his court, or that he would have gone beyond those in- structions. But was it only to Switzerland that this sort of lan- guage was held? What was our language also to Tuscany and to Genoa? An honourable gentleman [Mr. Canning] has denied the authenticity of a pretended letter which has been circulated and ascribed to Lord Harvey. He says it is all a fable and a forgery. Be it so; but is it also a fable that Lord Harvey did speak in terms to the grand duke which he considered as offensive and insulting? I can not tell, for I was not present. But was it not, and is it not believed? Is it a fable that Lord Harvey went into the closet of the grand duke, laid his watch upon the table, and demanded in a peremptory manner that he should, within a certain number of minutes, I think I have heard within a quarter of an hour, determine, ay or no, to dismiss the THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 115 French minister, and order him out of his dominions, with the menace that if he did not the English fleet should bombard Leghorn? Will the honourable gentleman deny this also? I certainly do not know it from my own knowl- edge; but I know that persons of the first credit, then at Florence, have stated these facts, and that they never have been contradicted. It is true that upon the grand duke's complaint of this indignity Lord Harvey was recalled ; but was the principle recalled? Was the mission recalled? Did not ministers persist in the demand which Lord Harvey had made, perhaps ungraciously? Was not the grand duke forced, in consequence, to dismiss the French minister? and did they not drive him to enter into an unwilling war with the republic? It is true that he afterward made his peace; and that, having done so, he was treated severely and unjustly by the French. But what do I conclude from all this but that we have no right to be scrupulous, we who have violated the respect due to peaceable powers our- selves in this war, which, more than any other that ever afflicted human nature, has been distinguished by the great- est number of disgusting and outrageous insults to the smaller powers by the great. And I infer from this also that the instances not being confined to the French, but having been perpetrated by every one of the allies, and by England as much as by the others, we have no right to refuse to treat with the French on this ground. Need I speak of your conduct toward Genoa also? Perhaps the note delivered by Mr. Drake was also a forgery. Perhaps the blockade of the port never took place. It is impossible to deny the facts, which were so glaring at the time. It is a painful thing to me, sir, to be obliged to go back to these unfortunate periods of the history of this war and of the conduct of this country; but I am forced to the task by the use which has been made of the atrocities of the French as an argument against negotiation. I think I have said enough to prove that if the French have been guilty, we have not been innocent. Nothing but deter- mined incredulity can make us deaf and blind to our own Il6 CHARLES JAMES FOX acts, when we are so ready to yield an assent to all the re- proaches which are thrown out on the enemy, and upon which reproaches we are gravely told to continue the war. " But the French," it seems, " have behaved ill every- where. They seized on Venice, which had preserved the most exact neutrality, or rather," as it is hinted, " had manifested symptoms of friendship to them." I agree with the right honourable gentleman, it was an abominable act. I am not the apologist of, much less the advocate for, their iniquities; neither will I countenance them in their pre- tences for the injustice. I do not think that much regard is to be paid to the charges which a triumphant soldiery bring on the conduct of a people whom they have over- run. Pretences for outrage will never be wanting to the strong when they wish to trample on the weak; but when we accuse the French of having seized upon Venice, after stipulating for its neutrality and guaranteeing its independ- ence, we should also remember the excuse that they made for violence — namely, that their troops had been attacked and murdered. I say I am always incredulous about such excuses; but I think it fair to hear whatever can be alleged on the other side. We can not take one side of a story only. Candour demands that we should examine the whole before we make up our minds on the guilt. I can not think it quite fair to state the view of the subject of one party as indisputable fact, without even mentioning what the other party has to say for itself. But, sir, is this all? Though the perfidy of the French to the Venetians be clear and palpable, was it worse in morals, in principle, and in example than the conduct of Austria? My honour- able friend [Mr. Whitbread] properly asked, " Is not the receiver as bad as the thief? " If the French seized on the territory of Venice, did not the Austrians agree to receive it? " But this," it seems, " is not the same thing." It is quite in the nature, and within the rule of diplomatic moral- ity, for Austria to receive the country which was seized upon unjustly. " The emperor took it as a compensation: it was his by barter: he was not answerable for the guilt THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 117 by which it was obtained." What is this, sir, but the false and abominable reasoning with which we have been so often disgusted on the subject of the slave-trade? Just in the same manner have I heard a notorious wholesale dealer in this inhuman traffic justify his abominable trade. " I am not guilty of the horrible crime of tearing that mother from her infants; that husband from his wife; of depopu- lating that village; of depriving that family of their sons, the support of their aged parent! No: thank Heaven! I am not guilty of this horror; I only bought them in the fair way of trade. They were brought to the market; they had been guilty of crimes, or they had been made prisoners in war; they were accused of witchcraft, of obi, or of some other sort of sorcery; and they were brought to me for sale; I gave a valuable consideration for them; but God forbid that I should have stained my soul with the guilt of dragging them from their friends and families I " Such has been the precious defence of the slave-trade; and such is the argument set up for Austria in this instance of Venice. " I did not commit the crime of trampling on the independence of Venice. I did not seize on the city; I gave a quid pro quo. It was a matter of barter and in- demnity; I gave half a million of human beings to be put under the yoke of France in another district, and I had these people turned over to me in return! " This, sir, is the defence of Austria; and under such detestable sophistry as this is the infernal traffic in human flesh, whether in white or black, to be continued and even justified! At no time has that diabolical traffic been carried to a greater length than during the present war; and that by England herself as well as Austria and Russia. " But France," it seems, " has roused all the nations of Europe against her " ; and the long catalogue has been read to you to prove that she must have been atrocious to provoke them all. Is it true, sir, that she has roused them all? It does not say much for the address of his Majesty's ministers if this be the case. What, sir, have all your negotiations, all your declamation, all your money. Il8 CHARLES JAMES FOX been squandered in vain? • Have you not succeeded in stir- ring the indignation and engaging the assistance of a single power? But you do yourselves injustice. I dare say the truth Hes between you. Between their crimes and your money the rage has been excited; and full as much is due to your seductions as to her atrocities. My learned friend was correct, therefore, in his argument; for you can not take both sides of the case: you can not accuse them of having provoked all Europe, and at the same time claim the merit of having roused them to join you. You talk of your allies. Sir, I wish to know who your alhes are? Russia is one of them, I suppose. Did France attack Russia? Has the magnanimous Paul taken the field for social order and religion, on account of personal aggression? The Emperor of Russia has declared himself grand master of Malta, though his religion is as opposite to that of the knights as ours is; and he is as much con- sidered a heretic by the Church of Rome as we are. The King of Great Britain might, with as much propriety, de- clare himself the head of the order of the Chartreuse monks. Not content with taking to himself the commandery of this institution of Malta, Paul has even created a married man a knight, contrary to all the most sacred rules and regula- tions of the order. And yet this ally of ours is fighting for religion ! So much for his religion : let us see his regard to social order! How does he show his abhorrence of the principles of the French in their violation of the rights of other nations? What has been his conduct to Denmark? He says to Denmark: " You have seditious clubs at Copen- hagen — no Danish vessel shall enter the ports of Russia! " He holds a still more despotic language to Hamburg. He threatens to lay an embargo on their trade; and he forces them to surrender up men who are claimed by the French as their citizens — ^whether truly or not, I do not inquire. He threatens them with his own vengeance if they refuse, and subjects them to that of the French if they comply. And what has been his conduct to Spain? He first sends away the Spanish minister from St. Petersburg, and then THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 119 complains as a great insult that his minister was dismissed from Madrid! This is one of our allies; and he has declared that the object for which he has taken up arms is to replace the ancient race of the house of Bourbon on the throne of France, and that he does this for the cause of religion and social order! Such is the respect for religion and social order which he himself displays; and such are the examples of it with which we coalesce! No man regrets, sir, more than I do the enormities that France has committed; but how do they bear upon the question as it now stands? Are we forever to deprive our- selves of the benefits of peace because France has perpe- trated acts of injustice? Sir, we can not acquit ourselves upon such ground. We have negotiated. With the knowl- edge of these acts of injustice and disorder, we have treated with them twice; yet the right honourable gentleman can not enter into negotiation with them now; and it is worth while to attend to the reasons that he gives for refusing their offer. The revolution itself is no more an objection now than it was in 1796, when he did negotiate; for the government of France at that time was surely as unstable as it is now. The crimes of the French, the instability of their government, did not then prevent him; and why are they to prevent him now? He negotiated with a govern- ment as unstable, and, bafflied in that negotiation, he did not scruple to open another at Lisle in 1797. We have heard a very curious account of these negotiations this day, and, as the right honourable gentleman has emphatically told us, an " honest " account of them. He says he has no scruple in avowing that he apprehended danger from the success of his own efforts to procure a pacification, and that he was not displeased at its failure. He was sincere in his endeavours to treat, but he was not disappointed when they failed. I wish to understand the right honourable gentleman correctly. His declaration on the subject, then, I take to be this — that though sincere in his endeavours to procure peace in 1797, yet he apprehended greater dan- ger from accomplishing his object than from the continu- 120 CHARLES JAMES FOX ance of war; and that he felt this apprehension from the comparative views of the probable state of peace and war at that time. I have no hesitation in allowing the fact that a state of peace, immediately after a war of such violence, must, in some respects, be a state of insecurity; but does this not belong, in a certain degree, to all wars? And are we never to have peace, because that peace may be in- secure? But there was something, it seems, so peculiar in this war and in the character and principles of the enemy, that the right honourable gentleman thought a peace in 1797 would be comparatively more dangerous than war. Why, then, did he treat? I beg the attention of the House to this : he treated, " because the unequivocal sense of the people of England was declared to be in favour of a ne- gotiation." The right honourable gentleman confesses the truth, then, that in 1797 the people were for peace. I thought so at the time; but you all recollect that, when I stated it in my place, it was denied. " True," they said, " you have procured petitions; but we have petitions too: we all know in what strange ways petitions may be pro- cured, and how little they deserve to be considered as the sense of the people." This was their language at the time; but now we find these petitions did speak the sense of the people, and that it was on this side of the House only that the sense of the people was spoken. The majority spoke a contrary language. It is acknowledged, then, that the unequivocal sense of the people of England may be spoken by the minority of this House, and that it is not always by the test of numbers that an honest decision is to be ascertained. This House decided against what the right honourable gentleman knew to be the sense of the coun- try; but he himself acted upon that sense against the vote of Parliament. The negotiation in 1796 went ofif, as my learned friend has said, upon the question of Belgium, or, as the right honourable gentleman asserts, upon a question of prin- ciple. He negotiated to please the people, but it went off " on account of a monstrous principle advanced by France THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 121 incompatible with all negotiation." This is now said. Did the right honourable gentleman say so at the time? Did he fairly and candidly inform the people of England that they broke off the negotiation because the French had urged a basis that it was totally impossible for England at any time to grant? No such thing. On the contrary, when the negotiation broke off, they published a mani- festo, " renewing, in the face of Europe, the solemn decla- ration that whenever the enemy should be disposed to enter on the work of a general pacification, in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing should be wanting on their part to contribute to the accomplishment of that great object." And accordingly, in 1797, notwithstanding this incompatible principle, and with all the enormities of the French on their heads, they opened a new negotiation at Lisle. They do not wait for any retractation of this incom- patible principle; they do not wait even till overtures shall be made to them; but they solicit and renew a negotiation themselves. I do not blame them for this, sir; I say only that it is an argument against the assertion of an incom- patible principle. It is a proof that they did not then think as the right honourable gentleman now says they thought; but that they yielded to the sentiments of the nation, who were generally inclined to peace, against their own judg- ment; and, from a motive which I shall come to by-and-bye, they had no hesitation, on account of the first rupture, to renew the negotiation — ^it was renewed at Lisle; and this the French broke off, after the revolution at Paris on the 4th of September. What was the conduct of ministers upon this occasion? One would have thought that, with the fresh insult at Lisle in their minds, with the recollec- tion of their failure the year before at Paris, if it had been true that they found an incompatible principle, they would have talked a warlike language, and would have announced to their country and to all Europe that peace was not to be obtained ; that they must throw away the scabbard and think only of the means of continuing the contest. No such thing. They put forth a declaration, in which they 122 CHARLES JAMES FOX said that they should look with anxious expectation for the moment when the government of France should show a disposition and spirit corresponding with their own; and renewing before all Europe the solemn declaration that, at the very moment when the brilliant victory of Lord Dun- can might have justified them in demanding more extrava- gant terms, they were willing, if the calamities of war could be closed, to conclude peace on the same moderate and equitable principles and terms which they had before pro- posed. Such was their declaration upon that occasion; and in the discussions which we had upon it in this House ministers were explicit. They said that by that negotia- tion there had been given to the world what might be regarded as an unequivocal test of the sincerity and dis- position of government toward peace or against it; for those who refuse discussion show that they are disinclined to pacification; and it is therefore, they said, always to be considered as a test that the party who refuses to nego- tiate is the party who is disinclined to peace. This they themselves set up as the test. Try them now, sir, by that test. An offer is made them. They rashly, and I think rudely, refuse it. Have they, or have they not, broken their own test? But, they say, " we have not refused all discussion." They have put a case. They have expressed a wish for the restoration of the house of Bourbon, and have de- clared that to be an event which would immediately remove every obstacle to negotiation. Sir, as to the restoration of the house of Bourbon, if it shall be the wish of the people of France, I for one shall be perfectly content to acquiesce. I think the people of France, as well as every other people, ought to have the government which they like best themselves; and the form of that government, or the persons who hold it in their hands, should never be an obstacle with me to treat with the nation for peace, or to live with me in amity — ^but as an Englishman, and actu- ated by English feelings, I surely can not wish for the restoration of the house of Bourbon to the throne of THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 123 France. I hope that I am not a man to bear heavily upon any unfortunate family. I feel for their situation — I respect their distresses — ^but, as a friend of England, I can not wish for their restoration to the power which they abused. I can not forget that the whole history of the century is little more than an account of the wars and the calamities arising from the restless ambition, the intrigues, and the perfidy of the house of Bourbon. I can not discover, in any part of the laboured defence which has been set up for not accepting the ofifer now made by France, any argument to satisfy my mind that ministers have not forfeited the test which they held out as infallible in 1797. An honourable gentleman thinks that Parliament should be eager only to approach the throne with declarations of their readiness to support his Majesty in the further prosecution of the war, without inquiry; and he is quite delighted with an address, which he has found upon the journals, to King William, in which they pledged themselves to support him in his efforts to resist the ambition of Louis XIV. He thinks it quite astonish- ing how much it is in point, and how perfectly it applies to the present occasion. One would have thought, sir, that in order to prove the application he would have shown that an offer had been respectfully made by the grand monarque to King William to treat, which he had per- emptorily and in very irritating terms refused; and that, upon this, the House of Commons had come forward, and with one voice declared their determination to stand by him, with their lives and fortunes, in prosecuting the just and necessary war. Not a word of all this; and yet the honourable gentleman finds it quite a parallel case, and an exact model for the House, on this day, to pursue. I really think, sir, he might as well have taken any other address upon the journals, upon any other topic, as this address to King William. It would have been equally in point, and would have equally served to show the honour- able gentleman's talents for reasoning. Sir, I can not here overlook another instance of this 124 CHARLES JAMES FOX honourable gentleman's candid style of debating, knd of his respect for Parliament. He has found out, it seems, that in former periods of our history, and even in periods which have been denominated good times, intercepted letters have been published; and he reads from the " Gazette " instances of such pubHcation. Really, sir, if the honour- able gentleman had pursued the profession to which he turned his thoughts when younger, he would have learned that it was necessary to find cases a little more in point. And yet, full of his triumph on this notable discovery, he has chosen to indulge himself in speaking of a most re- spectable and a most honourable person as any that this country knows, and who is possessed of as sound an under- standing as any man that I have the good fortune to be acquainted with, in terms the most offensive and disgust- ing, on account of words which he may be supposed to have said in another place.^ He has spoken of that noble person and of his intellect in terms which, were I disposed to retort, I might say show the honourable gentleman to be possessed of an intellect which would justify me in pass- ing over in silence anything that comes from such a man. Sir, that noble person did not speak of the mere act of pub- lishing the intercepted correspondence; and the honour- able gentleman's reference to the " Gazettes " of former periods is, therefore, not in point. The noble duke com- plained of the manner in which these intercepted letters had been published, not of the fact itself of their publica- tion; for, in the introduction and notes to those letters, the ribaldry is such that they are not screened from the execration of every honourable mind even by their ex- treme stupidity. The honourable gentleman says that he must treat with indifference the intellect of a man who can ascribe the present scarcity of corn to the war. Sir, I think there is nothing either absurd or unjust in such an opinion. Does not the war, necessarily, by its magazines, and still more by its expeditions, increase consumption? But when we learn that corn is, at this very moment, sold in France for less than half the price which it bears here, THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 125 is it not a fair thing to suppose that, but for the war and its prohibitions, a part of that grain would be brought to this country, on account of the high price which it would sell for, and that, consequently, our scarcity would be re- lieved from their abundance? I speak only upon report, of course; but I see that the price quoted in the French markets is less by one half than the prices in England. There was nothing, therefore, very absurd in what fell from my noble friend; and I would really advise the honourable gentleman, when he speaks of persons distinguished for every virtue, to be a little more guarded in his language. I see no reason why he and his friends should not leave to persons in another place, holding the same opinions as themselves, the task of answering what may be thrown out there. Is not the phalanx sufficient? It is no great compliment to their talents, considering their number, that they can not be left to the task of answering the few to whom they are opposed; but perhaps the honourable gentleman has too little to do in this House, and is to be sent there himself. In truth, I see no reason why even he might not be sent, as well as some others who have been sent there. To return to the subject of the negotiation in 1797. It is, in my mind, extremely material to attend to the ac- count which the right honourable gentleman gives of his memorable negotiation of 1797, and of his motives for entering into it. In all questions of peace and war, he says, many circumstances must necessarily enter into the consideration; and that they are not to be decided upon the extremes: the determination must be made upon a balance and comparison of the evils or the advantages upon the one side and the other, and that one of the great- est considerations is that of finance. In 1797 the right honourable gentleman confesses he found himself pecul- iarly embarrassed as to the resources for the war, if they were to be found in the old and usual way of the funding system. Now, though he thought, upon his balance and comparison of considerations, that the evils of war would 126 CHARLES JAMES FOX be fewer than those of peace, yet they would only be so provided that he could establish a " new and solid system of finance " in the place of the old and exhausted funding system; and to accomplish this it was necessary to have the unanimous approbation of the people. To procure this unanimity he pretended to be a friend to negotiation, though he did not wish for the success of that negotiation, but hoped only that through that means he should bring the people to agree to his new and solid system of finance. With these views, then, what does he do? Knowing that, contrary to his declarations in this House, the opinion of the people of England was generally for peace, he enters into a negotiation in which, as the world believed at the time, and even until this day, he completely failed. No such thing, sir — he completely succeeded — for his object was not to gain peace; it was to gain over the people of this country to a " new and a solid system of finance " — that is, to the raising a great part of the supplies within the year, to the triple assessment, and to the tax upon in- come! And how did he gain them over? By pretending to be a friend of peace, which he was not; and by opening a negotiation which he secretly wished might not succeed. The right honourable gentleman says that in all this he was honest and sincere; he negotiated fairly, and would have obtained the peace if the French had shown a dis- position correspondent to his own; but he rejoiced that their conduct was such as to convince the people of Eng- land of the necessity of concurring with him in the views which he had, and in granting him the supply which he thought essential to their posture at the time. Sir, I will not say that in all this he was not honest to his own pur- pose, and that he has not been honest in his declarations and confessions this night; but I can not agree that he was honest to this House, or honest to the people of this country. To this House it was not honest to make them counteract the sense of the people, as he knew it to be expressed in the petitions upon the table; nor was it honest to the country to act in a disguise, and to pursue a secret THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 127 purpose, unknown to them, while affecting to take the road which they pointed out. I know not whether this may not be honesty in the poHtical ethics of the right honourable gentleman, but I know that it would be called by a very different name in the common transactions of society, and in the rules of morality established in private life. I know of nothing in the history of this country that it resembles, except, perhaps, one of the most profligate periods — the reign of Charles II, when the sale of Dunkirk might probably have been justified by the same pretence. Charles also declared war against France, and did it to cover a negotiation by which, in his difficulties, he was to gain a " solid system of finance." But, sir, I meet the right honourable gentleman on his own ground. I say that you ought to treat on the same principle on which you treated in 1797, in order to gain the cordial co-operation of the people. " We want experi- ence and the evidence of facts." Can there be any evi- dence of facts equal to that of a frank, open, and candid negotiation? Let us see whether Bonaparte will display the same temper as his predecessors. If he shall do so, then you will confirm the people of England in their opin- ion of the necessity of continuing the war, and you will revive all the vigour which you roused in 1797. Or will you not do this until you have a reverse of fortune? Will you never treat but when you are in a situation of distress, and when you have occasion to impose on the people? " But," you say, " we have not refused to treat." You have stated a case in which you will be ready immediately to enter into a negotiation — viz., the restoration of the house of Bourbon; but you deny that this is a sine qua non; and in your nonsensical language, which I do not understand, you talk of " limited possibilities " which may induce you to treat without the restoration of the house of Bourbon. But do you state what they are? Now, sir, I say that if you put one case, upon which you declare that you are willing to treat immediately, and say that there are other possible cases which may induce you to treat here- 128 CHARLES JAMES FOX after, without mentioning what these possible cases are, you do state a sine qua non of immediate treaty. Suppose I have an estate to sell, and I say my demand is one thou- sand pounds for it — I will sell the estate immediately for that sum. To be sure, there may be other terms upon which I may be willing to part with it; but I say noth- ing of them. The one thousand pounds is the only con- dition that I state now. Will any gentleman say that I do not make the one thousand pounds the sine qua non of the immediate sale? Thus, you say, the restoration of the princes is not the only possible ground; but you give no other. This is your projet. Do you demand a contre- projet? Do you follow your own rule? Do you not do the thing of which you complained in the enemy? You seemed to be afraid of receiving another proposition; and by confining yourselves to this one point you make it in fact, though not in terms, your sine qua non. But the right honourable gentleman, in his speech, does what the official note avoids — he finds there the convenient words " experience and the evidence of facts "; upon these he goes into detail; and, in order to convince the House that new evidence is required, he goes back to all the earli- est acts and crimes of the revolution — to all the atrocities of all the governments that have passed away; and he con- tends that he must have experience that these foul crimes are repented of, and that a purer and a better system is adopted in France, by which he may be sure that they shall be capable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity. Sir, these are not conciliatory words; nor is this a prac- ticable ground to gain experience. Does he think it pos- sible that evidence of a peaceable demeanour can be ob- tained in war? What does he mean to say to the French consul? " Until you shall in war behave yourself in a peaceable manner, I will not treat with you." Is there not something extremely ridiculous in this? In duels, in- deed, we have often heard of this kind of language. Two gentlemen go out and fight; when, after discharging their pistols at one another, it is not an unusual thing for one THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 129 of them to say to the other: " Now I am satisfied; I see that you are a man of honour, and we are friends again." There is something, by-the-bye, ridiculous even in this; but between nations it is more than ridiculous — it is criminal. It is a ground which no principle can justify, and which is as impracticable as it is impious. That two nations should be set on to beat one another into friendship is too abominable even for the fiction of romance ; but for a statesman seriously and gravely to lay it down as a system upon which he means to act is monstrous. What can we say of such a test as he means to put the French Govern- ment to, but that it is hopeless? It is in the nature of war to inflame animosity — ^to exasperate, not to soothe — to widen, not to approximate. And so long as this is to be acted upon, it is vain to hope that we can have the evidence which we require. The right honourable gentleman, however, thinks otherwise; and he points out four distinct possible cases, besides the re-establishment of the Bourbon family, in which he would agree to treat with the French: 1. "If Bonaparte shall conduct himself so as to con- vince him that he has abandoned the principles which were objectionable in his predecessors, and that he shall be actu- ated by a more moderate system." I ask you, sir, if this is likely to be ascertained in war? It is the nature of war not to allay but to inflame the passions; and it is not by the invective and abuse which have been thrown upon him and his government, nor by the continued irritations which war is sure to give, that the virtues of moderation and forbearance are to be nourished. 2. " If, contrary to the expectations of ministers, the people of France shall show a disposition to acquiesce in the government of Bonaparte." Does the right honour- able gentleman mean to say that because it is a usurpa- tion on the part of the present chief, therefore the people are not likely to acquiesce in it? I have not time, sir, to discuss the question of this usurpation, or whether it is likely to be permanent; but I certainly have not so good 9 I30 CHARLES JAMES FOX an opinion of the French, or of any people, as to beUeve that it will be short-lived, merely because it was a usurpa- tion, and because it is a system of military despotism. Cromwell was a usurper; and in' many points there may be found a resemblance between him and the present chief consul of France. There is no doubt but that, on several occasions of his life, Cromwell's sincerity may be ques- tioned, particularly in his self-denying ordinance — in his affected piety and other things; but would it not have been insanity in France and Spain to refuse to treat with him because he was a usurper? No, sir; these are not the maxims by which governments are actuated. They do not inquire so much into the means by which power may have been acquired as into the fact of where the power resides. The people did acquiesce in the government of Cromwell; but it may be said that the splendour of his tal- ents, the vigour of his administration, the high tone with which he spoke to foreign nations, the success of his arms, and the character which he gave to the English name, induced the nation to acquiesce in his usurpation; and that we must not try Bonaparte by this example. Will it be said that Bonaparte is not a man of great abilities? Will it be said that he has not, by his victories, thrown a splen- dour over even the violence of the revolution, and that he does not conciliate the French people by the high and lofty tone in which he speaks to foreign nations? Are not the French, then, as likely as the English in the case of Cromwell to acquiesce in his government? If they should do so, the right honourable gentleman may find that this possible predicament may fail him. He may find that though one power may make war, it requires two to make peace. He may find that Bonaparte was as insincere as himself in the proposition which he made; and in his turn he may come forward and say: " I have no occasion now for concealment. It is true that in the beginning of the year 1800 I offered to treat, not because I wished for peace, but because the people of France wished for it; and, be- sides, my old resources being exhausted, and there being THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 131 no means of carrying on the war without a ' new and soHd system of finance,' I pretended to treat, because I wished to procure the unanimous assent of the French people to this new and soHd system. Did you think I was in earnest? You were deceived. I now throw off the mask; I have gained my point; and I reject your ofifers with scorn." Is it not a very possible case that he may use this language? Is it not within the right honourable gentleman's " knowl- edge of human nature"? But even if this should not be the case, will not the very test which you require — the acquiescence of the people of France in his government — give him an advantage ground in the negotiation which he does not possess now? Is it quite sure that when he finds himself safe in his seat he will treat on the same terms as now, and that you will get a better peace some time hence than you might reasonably hope to obtain at this moment? Will he not have one interest less than at pres- ent? And do you not overlook a favourable occasion for a chance which is extremely doubtful? These are the con- siderations which I would urge to his Majesty's ministers against the dangerous experiment of waiting for the acqui- escence of the people of France. 3. " If the allies of this country shall be less successful than they have every reason to expect they will be in stir- ring up the people of France against Bonaparte, and in the further prosecution of the war." And — 4. " If the pressure of the war should be heavier upon us than it would be convenient for us to continue to bear." These are the other two possible emergencies in which the right honourable gentleman would treat even with Bona- parte. Sir, I have often blamed the right honourable gen- tleman for being disingenuous and insincere. On the pres- ent occasion I certainly can not charge him with any such thing. He has made to-night a most honest confession. He is open and candid. He tells Bonaparte fairly what he has to expect. " I mean," says he, " to do everything in my power to raise up the people of France against you. I have engaged a number of allies, and our combined 132 CHARLES JAMES FOX efforts shall be used to excite insurrection and civil war in France. I will strive to murder you, or to get you sent away. If I succeed, well; but if I fail, then I will treat with you. My resources being exhausted, even my solid system of finance having failed to supply me with the means of keeping together my allies, and of feeding the discontents I have excited in France, then you may ex- pect to see me renounce my high tone, my attachment to the house of Bourbon, my abhorrence of your crimes, my alarm at your principles; for then I shall be ready to own that, on the balance and comparison of circumstances, there will be less danger in concluding a peace than in the con- tinuance of war! " Is this a language for one state to hold to another? And what sort of peace does the right honourable gentleman expect to receive in that case? Does he think that Bonaparte would grant to baffled in- solence, to humiliated pride, to disappointment, and to imbecility the same terms which he would be ready to give now? The right honourable gentleman can not have for- gotten what he said on another occasion — " Potuit quae plurima virtus Esse, fuit : toto certatum est corpore regni." He would then have to repeat his words, but with a dif- ferent application. He would have to say: All our efforts are vain — we have exhausted our strength — our designs are impracticable — and we must sue to you for peace. Sir, what is the question this night? We are called upon to support ministers in refusing a frank, candid, and respectful offer of negotiation, and to countenance them in continuing the war. Now, I would put the question in another way. Suppose ministers had been inclined to adopt the line of conduct which they pursued in 1796 and 1797, and that to-night, instead of a -question on a war address, it had been an address to his Majesty to thank him for accepting the overture, and for opening a negotia- tion to treat for peace: I ask the gentlemen opposite — I appeal to the whole five hundred and fifty-eight representa- THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 133 tives of the people — to lay their hands upon their hearts, and to say whether they would not have cordially voted for such an address? Would they, or would they not? Yes, sir, if the address had breathed a spirit of peace your benches would have resounded with rejoicings, and with praises of a measure that was likely to bring back the bless- ings of tranquility. On the present occasion, then, I ask for the vote of none but of those who, in the secret con- fession of their conscience, admit, at this instant while they hear me, that they would have cheerfully and heartily voted with the minister for an address directly the reverse of this. If every such gentleman were to vote with me, I should be this night in the greatest majority that ever I had the honour to vote with in this House. Sir, we have heard to-night a great many most acri- monious invectives against Bonaparte, against the whole course of his conduct, and against the unprincipled manner in which he seized upon the reins of government. I will not make his defence — I think all this sort of invective, which is used only to inflame the passions of this House and of the country, exceedingly ill-timed and very im- politic — ^but I say I will not make his defence. I am not sufficiently in possession of materials upon which to form an opinion on the character and conduct of this extraordi- nary man. Upon his arrival in France he found the gov- ernment in a very unsettled state, and the whole affairs of the republic deranged, crippled, and involved. He thought it necessary to reform the government; and he did reform it, just in the way in which a military man may be expected to carry on a reform — ^he seized on the whole authority to himself. It will not be expected from me that I should either approve or apologize for such an act. I am cer- tainly not for reforming governments by such expedients; but how this House can be so violently indignant at the idea of military despotism is, I own, a little singular, when I see the composure with which they can observe it nearer home; nay, when I see them regard it as a frame of gov- ernment most peculiarly suited to the exercise of free opin- 134 CHARLES JAMES FOX ion on a subject the most important of any that can engage the attention of a people. Was it not the system that was so happily and so advantageously established of late all over Ireland; and which, even now, the government may, at its pleasure, proclaim over the whole of that kingdom? Are not the persons and property of the people left in many districts at this moment to the entire will of military commanders? And is not this held out as peculiarly proper and advantageous at a time when the people of Ireland are free, and with unbiassed judgment, to discuss the most in- teresting question of a legislative union? Notwithstanding the existence of martial law, so far do we think Ireland from being enslaved that we think it precisely the period and the circumstances under which she may best declare her free opinion! Now really, sir, I can not think that gentlemen who talk in this way about Ireland can, with a good grace, rail at military despotism in France. But, it seems, " Bonaparte has broken his oaths. He has violated his oath of fidelity to the constitution of the year 3." Sir, I am not one of those who think that any such oaths ought ever to be exacted. They are seldom or ever of any efifect; and I am not for sporting with a thing so sacred as an oath. I think it would be good to lay aside all such oaths. Who ever heard that, in revolu- tions, the oath of fidelity to the former government was ever regarded; or even when violated, that it was imputed to the persons as a crime? In times of revolution, men who take up arms are called rebels — if they fail, they are adjudged to be traitors. But who ever heard before of their being perjured? On the restoration of Charles II, those who had taken up arms for the Commonwealth were stigmatized as rebels and traitors, but not as men for- sworn. Was the Earl of Devonshire charged with being perjured on account of the allegiance he had sworn to the house of Stuart, and the part he took in those struggles which preceded and brought about the Revolution? The violation of oaths of allegiance was never imputed to the people of England, and will never be imputed to any peo- THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 135 pie. But who brings up the question of oaths? He who strives to make twenty-four millions of persons violate the oaths they have taken to their present constitution, and who desires to re-establish the house of Bourbon by such violation of their vows. I put it so, sir; because, if the question of oaths be of the least consequence, it is equal on both sides. He who desires the whole people of France to perjure themselves, and who hopes for success in his project only upon their doing so, surely can not make it a charge against Bonaparte that he has done the same. " Ah! but Bonaparte has declared it as his opinion that the two governments of Great Britain and of France can not exist together. After the Treaty of Campo Formio he sent two confidential persons, Berthier and Monge, to the Directory to say so in his name." Well, and what is there in this absurd and puerile assertion, if it was ever made? Has not the right honourable gentleman, in this House, said the same thing? In this, at least, they resemble one another. They have both made use of this assertion; and I believe that these two illustrious persons are the only two on earth who think it. But let us turn the tables. We ought to put ourselves at times in the place of the enemy if we are desirous of really examining with candour and fairness the dispute between us. How may they not inter- pret the speeches of ministers and their friends in both Houses of the British Parliament? If we are to be told of the idle speech of Berthier and Monge, may they not also bring up speeches in which it has not been merely hinted, but broadly asserted, that " the two constitutions of England and France could not exist together"? May not these offences and charges be reciprocated without end? Are we ever to go on in this miserable squabble about words? Are we still, as we happen to be successful on the one side or the other, to bring up these impotent ac- cusations, insults, and provocations against each other; and only when we are beaten and unfortunate to think of treat- ing? Oh, pity the condition of man, gracious God! and save us from such a system of malevolence, in which all our 136 CHARLES JAMES FOX old and venerated prejudices are to be done away, and by which we are to be taught to consider war as the natural state of man, and peace but as a dangerous and difficult extremity! Sir, this temper must be corrected. It is a diabolical spirit, and would lead to interminable war. Our history is full of instances that where we have overlooked a prof- fered occasion to treat, we have uniformly sufifered by delay. At what time did we ever profit by obstinately per- severing in war? We accepted at Ryswick the terms we had refused five years before, and the same peace which was concluded at Utrecht might have been obtained at Gertruydenberg. And as to security from the future machinations or ambition of the French, I ask you what security you ever had or could have? Did the different treaties made with Louis XIV serve to tie up his hands, to restrain his ambition, or to stifle his restless spirit? At what period could you safely repose in the honour, forbear- ance, and moderation of the French Government? Was there ever an idea of refusing to treat because the peace might be afterward insecure? The peace of 1763 was not accompanied with securities; and it was no sooner made than the French court began, as usual, its intrigues. And what security did the right honourable gentleman exact at the peace of 1783, in which he was engaged? Were we rendered secure by that peace? The right honourable gentleman knows well that soon after that peace the French formed a plan, in conjunction with the Dutch, of attacking our Indian possessions, of raising up the native powers against us, and of driving us out of India; as the French are desirous of doing now — only with this dififer- ence: that the cabinet of France entered into this project in a moment of profound peace, and when they conceived us to be lulled into perfect security. After making the peace of 1783, the right honourable gentleman and his friends went out, and I, among others, came into office. Suppose, sir, that we had taken up the jealousy upon which the right honourable gentleman now acts, and had refused to ratify THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 137 the peace which he had made. Suppose that we had said: " No; France is acting a perfidious part — we see no secu- rity for England in this treaty — they want only a respite, in order to attack us again in an important part of our dominions; and we ought not to confirm the treaty." I ask, would the right honourable gentleman have supported us in this refusal? I say that upon his reasoning he ought; but I put it fairly to him, would he have supported us in refusing to ratify the treaty upon such a pretence? He certainly ought not, and I am sure he would not, but the course of reasoning which he now assumes would have justified his taking such a ground. On the contrary, I am persuaded that he would have said: " This is a refinement upon jealousy. Security! You have security, the only security that you can ever expect to get. It is the present interest of France to make peace. She will keep it if it be her interest: she will break it if it be her interest; such is the state of nations; and you have nothing but your own vigilance for your security." " It is not the interest of Bonaparte," it seems, " sin- cerely to enter into a negotiation, or, if he should even make peace, sincerely to keep it." But how are we to de- cide upon his sincerity? By refusing to treat with him? Surely, if we mean to discover his sincerity, we ought to hear the propositions which he desires to make. " But peace would be unfriendly to his system of military despo- tism." Sir, I hear a great deal about the short-lived nature of military despotism. I wish the history of the world would bear gentlemen out in this description of military despotism. Was not the government erected by Augustus Caesar a military despotism? and yet it endured for six or seven hundred years. Military despotism, unfortunately, is too likely in its nature to be permanent, and it is not true that it depends on the life of the first usurper. Though half the Roman emperors were murdered, yet the military despotism went on; and so it would be, I fear, in France. If Bonaparte should disappear from the scene, to make room, perhaps, for a Berthier, or any other general, what 138 CHARLES JAMES FOX difference would that make in the quaUty of French des- potism or in our relation to the country? We may as safely treat with a Bonaparte or with any of his successors, be they who they may, as we could with a Louis XVI, a Louis XVII, or a Louis XVIII. There is no difference but in the name. Where the power essentially resides, thither we ought to go for peace. But, sir, if we are to reason on the fact, I should think that it is the interest of Bonaparte to make peace. A lover of military glory, as that general must necessarily be, may he not think that his measure of glory is full — that it may be tarnished by a reverse of fortune, and can hardly be increased by any new laurels? He must feel that, in the situation to which he is now raised, he can no longer de- pend on his own fortune, his own genius, and his own tal- ents for a continuance of his success; he must be under the necessity of employing other generals, whose miscon- duct or incapacity might endanger his power, or whose triumphs even might affect the interest which he holds in the opinion of the French. Peace, then, would secure to him what he has achieved, and fix the inconstancy of fortune. But this will not be his only motive. He must see that France also requires a respite — a breathing in- terval to recruit her wasted strength. To procure her this respite would be, perhaps, the attainment of more solid glory, as well as the means of acquiring more solid power, than anything which he can hope to gain from arms and from the proudest triumphs. May he not then be zealous to gain this fame, the only species of fame, perhaps, that is worth acquiring? Nay, granting that his soul may still burn with the thirst of military exploits, is it not likely that he is earnestly disposed to yield to the feelings of the French people, and to consolidate his power by consult- ing their interests? I have a right to argue in this way, when suppositions of his insincerity are reasoned upon on the other side. Sir, these aspersions are, in truth, always idle, and even mischievous. I have been too long accus- tomed to hear imputations and calumnies thrown out upon THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 139 great and honourable characters to be much influenced by them. My learned friend has paid this night a most just, deserved, and honourable tribute of applause to the memory of that great and unparalleled character who has been so recently lost to the world. I must, like him, beg leave to dwell a moment on the venerable George Wash- ington, though I know that it is impossible for me to be- stow anything like adequate praise on a character which gave us, more than any other human being, the example of a perfect man; yet, good, great, and unexampled as General Washington was, I can remember the time when he was not better spoken of in this House than Bona- parte is now. The right honourable gentleman who opened this debate [Mr. Dundas] may remember in what terms of disdain, of virulence, and even of contempt Gen- eral Washington was spoken of by gentlemen on that side of the House. Does he not recollect with what marks of indignation any member was stigmatized as an enemy to his country who mentioned with common respect the name of General Washington? If a negotiation had then been proposed to be opened with that great man, what would have been said? " Would you treat with a rebel, a traitor! What an example would you not give by such an act ! " I do not know whether the right honourable gentleman may not yet possess some of his old prejudices on the sub- ject. I hope not. I hope by this time we are all convinced that a republican government like that of America may exist without danger or injury to social order or to estab- lished monarchies. They have happily shown that they can maintain the relations of peace and amity with other states: they have shown, too, that they are alive to the feelings of honour; but they do not lose sight of plain good sense and discretion. They have not refused to nego- tiate with the French, and they have accordingly the hopes of a speedy termination of every difference. We cry up their conduct, but we do not imitate it. At the beginning of the struggle we were told that the French were setting up a set of wild and impracticable theories, and that we 140 CHARLES JAMES FOX ought not to be misled by them — we could not grapple with theories. Now we are told that we must not treat, because, out of the lottery, Bonaparte has drawn such a prize as military despotism. Is military despotism a the- ory? One would think that that is one of the practical things which ministers might understand, and to which they would have no particular objection. But what is our present conduct founded on but a theory, and that a most wild and ridiculous theory? What are we fighting for? Not for a principle; not for security; not for conquest even; but merely for an experiment and a speculation, to discover whether a gentleman at Paris may not turn out a better man than we now take him to be. My honourable friend [Mr. Whitbread] has been cen- sured for an opinion' which he gave, and I think justly, that the change of property in France since the revolution must form an almost insurmountable barrier to the return of the ancient proprietors. " No such thing," says the right honourable gentleman; "nothing can be more easy. Prop- erty is depreciated to such a degree that the purchasers would easily be brought to restore the estates." I very much differ with him in this idea. It is the character of every such convulsion as that which has ravaged France that an infinite and indescribable load of misery is inflicted upon private families. The heart sickens at the recital of the sorrows which it engenders. No revolution implied, though it may have occasioned, a total change of prop- erty. The restoration of the Bourbons does imply it; and there is the difference. There is no doubt but that if the noble families had foreseen the duration and the extent of the evils which were to fall upon their heads they would have taken a very different line of conduct. But they un- fortunately flew from their country. The king and his advisers sought foreign aid. A confederacy was formed to restore them by military force; and as a means of resist- ing this combination, the estates of the fugitives were con- fiscated and sold. However compassion may deplore the case, it can not be said that the thing is unprecedented. THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 141 The people have always resorted to such means of defence. Now the question is, how this property is to be got out of their hands? If it be true, as I have heard, that the pur- chasers of national and forfeited estates amount to a mil- lion and a half persons, I see no hopes of their being forced to deliver up their property; nor do I even know that they ought. I question the policy, even if the thing were practicable; but I assert that such a body of new proprie- tors forms an insurmountable barrier to the restoration of the ancient order of things. Never was a revolution con- solidated by a pledge so strong. But, as if this were not of itself sufficient, Louis XVIII from his retirement at Mittau puts forth a manifesto, in which he assures the friends of his house that he is about to come back with all the powers that formerly belonged to his family. He does not promise to the people a con- stitution which may tend to conciliate; but, stating that he is to come with all the ancien regime, they would natu- rally attach to it its proper appendages of bastiles, lettres de cachet, gabelle, etc. And the noblesse, for whom this proclamation was peculiarly conceived, would also natu- rally feel that if the monarch was to be restored to all his privileges, they surely were to be reinstated in their estates without a compensation to the purchasers. Is this likely to make the people wish for a restoration of royalty? I have no doubt but there may be a number of Chouans in France, though I am persuaded that little dependence is to be placed on their efiforts. There may be a number of people dispersed over France, and particularly in certain provinces, who may retain a degree of attachment to roy- alty; and how the government will contrive to compro- mise with that spirit I know not. I suspect, however, that Bonaparte will try; his efforts have been turned to that object; and, if we may believe report, he has succeeded to a considerable degree. He will naturally call to his recollection the precedent which the history of France itself will furnish. The once formidable insurrection of the Huguenots was completely stifled and the party conciliated 142 CHARLES JAMES FOX by the policy of Henry IV, who gave them such privileges and raised them so high in the government as to make some persons apprehend danger therefrom to the unity of the empire. Nor will the French be likely to forget the revocation of the edict — one of the memorable acts of the house of Bourbon — an act which was never sur- passed in atrocity, injustice, and impolicy, by anything that has disgraced Jacobinism. If Bonaparte shall attempt some similar arrangement to that of Henry IV with the Chouans, who will say that he is likely to fail? He will meet with no great obstacle to success from the influence which our ministers have established with the chiefs, or in the attachment and dependence which they have on our protection; for what has the right honourable gentleman told him, in stating the contingencies in which he will treat with Bonaparte? He will excite a rebellion in France — he will give support to the Chouans if they can stand their ground; but he will not make common cause with them; for unless they can depose Bonaparte, send him into ban- ishment, or execute him, he will abandon the Chouans, and treat with this very man, whom he describes as hold- ing the reins and wielding the powers of France for pur- poses of unexampled barbarity. Sir, I wish the atrocities of which we hear so much, and which I abhor as much as any man, were indeed unex- ampled. I fear that they do not belong exclusively to the French. When the right honourable gentleman speaks of the extraordinary successes of the last campaign, he does not mention the horrors by which some of those suc- cesses were accompanied. Naples, for instance, has been, among others, what is called "delivered"; and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and by cruelties of every kind so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital. It has been said, not only that the miserable victims of the rage and brutality of the fanatics were savagely murdered, but that, in many instances, their flesh was eaten and devoured by the cannibals who are the advocates and the instru- THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 143 merits of social order! Nay, England is not totally exempt from reproach if the rumours which are circulated be true. I will mention a fact to give ministers the opportunity, if it be false, of wiping away the stain that it must otherwise fix on the British name. It is said that a party of the re- publican inhabitants of Naples took shelter in the fortress of the Castel de Uova. They were besieged by a detach- ment from the royal army, to whom they refused to sur- render; but demanded that a British officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated. They made terms with him under the sanction of the British name. It was agreed that their persons and property should be safe, and that they should be conveyed to Toulon. They were accordingly put on board a vessel; but before they sailed their property was confiscated, numbers of them taken out, thrown into dungeons, and some of them, I understand, notwithstanding the British guarantee, actually executed. Where then, sir, is this war, which on every side is pregnant with such horrors, to be carried? Where is it to stop? Not till you establish the house of Bourbon! And this you cherish the hope of doing, because you have had a successful campaign. Why, sir, before this you have had a successful campaign. The situation of the allies, with all they have gained, is surely not to be compared now to what it was when you had taken Valenciennes, Quesnoy, Conde, etc., which induced some gentlemen in this House to prepare themselves for a march to Paris. With all that you have gained, you surely will not say that the prospect is brighter now than it was then. What have you gained but the recovery of a part of what you before lost? One campaign is successful to you — another to them; and in this way, animated by the vindictive passions of revenge, hatred, and rancour, which are infinitely more flagitious even than those of ambition and the thirst of power, you may go on forever; as, with such black incentives, I see no end to human misery. And all this without an intel- ligible motive, alf this because you may gain a better 144 CHARLES JAMES FOX peace a year or two hence! So that we are called upon to go on merely as a speculation. We must keep Bona- parte for some time longer at war as a state of probation. Gracious God, sir, is war a state of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Is your vigilance, your policy, your com- mon powers of observation, to be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war? Can not this state of pro- bation be as well undergone without adding to the cata- logue of human sufferings? "But we must pause!" What ! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out — her best blood be spilt — her treasure wasted — that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves — oh, that you would put yourselves! — in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite. In former wars a man might at least have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even perhaps allayed his feelings — they were fighting to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the grand monarque. But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting — " Fighting! " would be the answer; " they are not fighting, they are pausing." "Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury? " The answer must be: " You are quite wrong, sir; you deceive yourself — they are not fighting — do not dis- turb them — they are merely pausing! — this man is not expiring with agony — ^that man is not dead — he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel — but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting — there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever — it is nothing more than a political pause! — it is merely to try an experiment — THE FRENCH OVERTURES FOR PEACE 145 to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the meantime we have agreed to a pause in pure friendship! " And is this the way, sir, that you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world, to de- stroy order, to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in the prosecution of this system you spread terror and devastation all around you. Sir, I have done. I have told you my opinion. I think you ought to have given a civil, clear, and explicit answer to the overture which was fairly and handsomely made you. If you were desirous that the negotiation should have included all your allies, as the means of bringing about a general peace, you should have told Bonaparte so; but I believe you were afraid of his agreeing to the proposal. You took that method before. " Ay, but," you say, " the people were anxious for peace in 1797." I say they are friends to peace now; and I am confident that you will one day own it. Believe me, they are friends to peace; although, by the laws which you have made re- straining the expression of the sense of the people, public opinion can not now be heard as loudly and unequivocally as heretofore. But I will not go into the internal state of this country. It is too afflicting to the heart to see the strides which have been made, by means of and under the miserable pretext of this war, against liberty of every kind, both of speech and of writing; and to observe in another kingdom the rapid approaches to that military despotism which we affect to make an argument against peace. I know, sir, that public opinion, if it could be col- lected, would be for peace as much now as in 1797, and I know that it is only by public opinion — not by a sense of their duty — ^not by the inclination of their minds — that ministers will be brought, if ever, to give us peace. I con- clude, sir, with repeating what I said before; I ask for no gentleman's vote who would have reprobated the compli- ance of ministers with the proposition of the French Gov- 146 CHARLES JAMES FOX ernment; I ask for no gentleman's support to-night who would have voted against ministers if they had come down and proposed to enter into a negotiation with the French; but I have a right to ask — I know that, in honour, in con- sistency, in conscience, I have a right to expect — ^the vote of every gentleman who would have voted with ministers in an address to his Majesty diametrically opposite to the motion of this night. Note ' The Duke of Bedford. DANIEL O'CONNELL ON THE RECOV- ERY OF CATHOLIC RIGHTS (Delivered in Dublin, February 23, 1814) I WISH to submit to the meeting a resolution calling on the different counties and cities in Ireland to petition for unqualified emancipation. It is a resolution which has been already and frequently adopted, when we have persevered in our petitions, even at periods when we de- spaired of success; and it becomes a pleasing duty to pre- sent them, now that the symptoms of the times seem so powerfully to promise an approaching relief. Indeed, as long as truth or justice can be supposed to influence man, as long as man is admitted to be under the control of reason, so long must it be prudent and wise to procure discussions on the sufferings and the rights of the people of Ireland. Truth proclaimed the treacher- ous iniquity which had deprived us of our chartered liberty; truth destroys the flimsy pretext under which this in- iquity is continued; truth exposes our merits and our suf- ferings; while reason and justice combines to demonstrate our right — ^the right of every human being to freedom of conscience — a right without which every honest man must feel that to him, individually, the protection of gov- ernment is a mockery, and the restriction of penal law a sacrilege. Truth, reason, and justice are our advocates; and even in England let me tell you that those powerful advocates have some authority. They are, it is true, more frequently resisted there than in most other countries; but yet they have some sway among the English at all times. Passion may confound and prejudice darken the English under- 147 148 DANIEL O'CONNELL standing; and interested passion and hired prejudice have been successfully employed against us at former periods; but the present season appears singularly well calculated to aid the progress of our cause, and to advance the attain- ment of our important objects. I do not make the assertion lightly. I speak after de- liberate investigation, and from solemn conviction, my clear opinion that we shall, during the present session of Parlia- ment, obtain a portion at least, if not the entire, of our emancipation. We can not fail, unless we are disturbed in our course by those who graciously style themselves our friends, or are betrayed by the treacherous machina- tions of part of our own body. Yes, everything, except false friendship and domestic treachery, forebodes success. The cause of man is in its great advance. Humanity has been rescued from much of its thraldom. In the states of Europe, where the iron, despotism of the feudal system so long classed men into two species — the' hereditary masters and the perpetual slaves; when rank supplied the place of merit, and to be humbly born operated as a perpetual exclusion — in many parts of Europe man is reassuming his natural station, and artificial distinctions have vanished before the force of truth and the necessities of governors. France has a representative government; and as the unjust privileges of the clergy and nobility are abolished; as she is blessed with a most wise, clear, and simple code of laws; as she is almost free from debt, and emancipated from odious prejudices, she is likely to prove an example and a light to the world. In Germany, the sovereigns who formerly ruled at their free will and caprice are actually bribing the people to the support of their thrones, by giving them the blessings of liberty. It is a wise and a glorious policy. The prince regent has emancipated his Catholic subjects of Hanover, and traced for them 'the grand outlines of a free constitu- tion. The other states of Germany are rapidly jFollowing the example. The people, no longer destined to bear the DANIEL aCONNELL. Photogravure from an engraving by' Isaac Dadley. CATHOLIC RIGHTS I49 burdens only of society, are called up to take their share in the management of their own concerns, and in the sus- tentation of the public dignity and happiness. In short, representative government, the only rational or just gov- ernment, is proclaimed by princes as a boon to their people, and Germany is about to afford many an example of the advantages of rational liberty. Anxious as some kings appear to be in the great work of plunder and robbery, others of them are now the first heralds of freedom. It is a moment of glorious triumph to humanity; and even one instance of liberty, freely conceded, makes com- pensation for a thousand repetitions of the ordinary crimes of military monarchs. The crime is followed by its own punishment; but the great principle of the rights of man establishes itself now on the broadest basis, and France and Germany now set forth an example for England to imitate. Italy, too, is in the paroxysms of the fever of independ- ence. Oh, may she have strength to go through the dis- ease, and may she rise like a giant refreshed with wine! One thing is certain, that the human mind is set afloat in Italy. The flame of freedom burns; it may be smoth- ered for a season; but all the whiskered Croats and the fierce pandoors of Austria will not be able to extinguish the sacred fire. Spain, to be sure, chills the heart and dis- gusts the understanding. The combined Inquisition and the court press upon the mind, while they bind the body in fetters of adamant. But this despotism is, thank God, as unrelentingly absurd as it is cruel, and there arises a darling hope out of the very excess of the evil. The Span- iards must be walking corpses — ^they must be living ghosts, and not human beings, unless a sublime reaction be in rapid preparation. But let us turn to our own prospects. The cause of liberty has made, and is making, great progress in states heretofore despotic. In all the countries in Europe, in which any portion of freedom prevails, the liberty of conscience is complete. England alone, of all the states pretending to be free, leaves shackles upon the ISO DANIEL O'CONNELL human mind; England alone, among free states, exhibits the absurd claim of regulating belief by law, and forcing opinion by statute. Is it possible to conceive that this gross, this glaring, this iniquitous absurdity can continue? Is it possible, too, to conceive that it can continue to op- erate, not against a small and powerless sect, but against the millions, comprising the best strength, the most afflu- ent energy of the empire? — a strength and an energy daily increasing, and hourly appreciating their own importance. The present system, disavowed by liberalized Europe, dis- claimed by sound reason, abhorred by genuine religion, must soon and forever be abolished. Let it not be said that the princes of the continent were forced by necessity to give privileges to their subjects, and that England has escaped from a similar fate. I admit that the necessity of procuring the support of the people was the mainspring of royal patriotism on the continent; but I totally deny that the ministers of England can dis- pense with a similar support. The burdens of the war are permanent; the distresses occasioned by the peace are pressing; the financial system tottering, and to be sup- ported in profound peace only by a war taxation. In the meantime, the resources of corruption are mightily dimin- ished. Ministerial influence is necessarily diminished by one half of the effective force of indirect bribery; full two thirds must be disbanded. Peculation and corruption must be put upon half-pay, and no allowances. The ministry lose not only all those active partisans; those outrageous loyalists, who fattened on the public plunder during the seasons of immense expenditure; but those very men will themselves swell the ranks of the malcontents, and prob- ably be the most violent in their opposition. They have no sweet consciousness to reward them in their present privations; and therefore they are likely to exhaust the bitterness of their souls on their late employers. Every cause conspires to render this the period in which the ministry should have least inclination, least interest, • least power, to oppose the restoration of our rights and liberties. CATHOLIC RIGHTS 151 I speak not from mere theory. There exists at this moment practical illustrations of the truth of my asser- tions. Instances have occurred which demonstrate as well the inability of the ministry to resist the popular voice as the utility of re-echoing that voice, until it is heard and understood in all its strength and force. The ministers had determined to continue the property tax; they an- nounced that determination to their partisans at Liverpool and in Bristol. Well, the people of England met; they peti- tioned; they repeated — they reiterated their petitions, until the ministry felt they could no longer resist; and they un- graciously, but totally, abandoned their determination; and the property tax now expires. Another instance is also now before us. It relates to the Corn Laws. The success of the repetition of petitions in that instance is the more remarkable, because such suc- cess has been obtained in defiance of the first principles of political economy, and in violation of the plainest rules of political justice. This is not the place to discuss the merits of the Corn Laws; but I can not avoid, as the subject lies in my way, to put upon public record my conviction of the inutility as well as the impropriety of the proposed measure re- specting those laws. I expect that it will be believed in Ireland that I would not volunteer thus an opposition of sentiment to any measure if I was not most disinterestedly, and in my conscience, convinced that such measure would not be of any substantial or permanent utility to Ireland. As far as I am personally concerned, my interest plainly is to keep up the price of lands; but I am quite convinced that the measure in question will have an effect perma- nently and fatally injurious to Ireland. The clamour re- specting the Corn Laws has been fomented by parsons who were afraid that they would not get money enough for their tithes, and absentee landlords, who apprehended a diminution of their rack rents; and if you observed the names of those who have taken an active part in favour of the measure, you will find among them many, if not 152 DANIEL O'CONNELL all, the persons who have most distinguished themselves against the liberty and religion of the people. There have been, I know, many good men misled, and many clever men deceived, on this subject; but the great majority are of the class of oppressors. There was formed, some time ago, an association of a singular nature in Dublin and the adjacent counties. Mr, Luke White was, as I remember, at the head of it. It con- tained some of our stoutest and most stubborn seceders; it pubHshed the causes of its institution; it recited that, whereas butcher's meat was dearer in Cork, and in Lim- erick, and in Belfast than in Dublin, it was therefore ex- pedient to associate, in order that the people of Dublin should not eat meat too cheap. Large sums were sub- scribed to carry the patriotic design into effect, but public indignation broke up the ostensible confederacy; it was too plain and too glaring to bear public inspection. The indignant sense of the people of Dublin forced them to dissolve their open association; and if the present enor- mous increase of the price of meat in Dublin beyond the rest of Ireland be the result of secret combination of any individuals, there is at least this comfort, that they do not presume to beard the public with the open avowal of their design to increase the difficulties of the poor in procuring food. Such a scheme as that, with respect to meat in Dublin — such a scheme, precisely, is the sought-for Corn Law. The only difference consists in the extent of the operation of both plans. The corn plan is only more extensive, not more unjust in principle, but it is more unreasonable in its operation, because its necessary tendency must be to destroy that very market of which it seeks the exclusive possession. The Corn-Law men want, they say, to have the exclusive feeding of the manufacturers ; but at present our manufacturers, loaded as they are with taxation, are scarce- ly able to meet the goods of foreigners in the markets of the world. The English are already undersold in foreign markets; but if to this dearness produced by taxation there CATHOLIC RIGHTS 153 shall be added the dearness produced by dear food, is it not plain that it will be impossible to enter into a competi- tion with foreign manufacturers, who have no taxes and cheap bread? Thus the Corn Laws will destroy our manu- factures, and compel our manufacturers to emigrate, in spite of penalties; and the Corn-Law supporters will have injured themselves and destroyed others. I beg pardon for dwelling on this subject. If I were at liberty to pursue it here, I would not leave it until I had satisfied every dispassionate man that the proposed meas- ure is both useless and unjust; but this is not the place for doing so, and I only beg to record at least the honest dic- tates of my judgment on this interesting topic. My argu- ment of the efficacy of petitioning is strengthened by the impolicy of the measure in question; because, if petitions, by their number and perseverance, succeed in establishing a proposition impolitic in principle and oppressive to thou- sands in operation, what encouragement does it not aflford to us to repeat our petitions for that which has justice for its basis and policy as its support ! The great advantages of discussion being thus appar- ent, the efficacy of repeating, and repeating, and repeating again our petitions being thus demonstrated by notorious facts, the Catholics of Ireland must be sunk in criminal apathy if they neglect the use of an instrument so effica- cious for their emancipation. There is further encouragement at this particular crisis. Dissension has ceased in the Catholic body. Those who paralyzed our efforts, and gave our conduct the appearance and reality of weakness, and wavering, and inconsistency, have all retired. Those who were ready to place the entire of the Catholic feelings and dignity, and some of the Cath- olic religion too, under the feet of every man who pleased to call himself our friend, and to prove himself our friend, by praising on every occasion, and upon no occasion, the oppressors of the Catholics, and by abusing the Catholics themselves; the men who would link the Catholic cause to this patron and to that, and sacrifice it at one time to 1 54 DANIEL O'CONNELL the minister and at another to the Opposition, and make it this day the tool of one party and the next the instru- ment of another party; the men, in fine, who hoped to trafific upon our country and our reUgion, who would buy honours, and titles, and places, and pensions, at the price of the purity, and dignity, and safety of the Catholic Church in Ireland — all those men have, thank God, quitted us, I hope forever. They have returned into silence and seces- sion, or have frankly or covertly gone over to our ene- mies. I regret deeply and bitterly that they have carried with them some few who, like my Lord Fingal, entertain no other motives than those of purity and integrity, and who, like that noble lord, are merely mistaken. But I rejoice at this separation — I rejoice that they have left the single-hearted, and the disinterested, and the indefatigable, and the independent, and the numerous, and the sincere Catholics to work out their emancipation un- clogged, unshackled, and undismayed. They have be- stowed on us another bounty also — they have proclaimed the causes of their secession — they have placed out of doubt the cause of the divisions. It is not intemperance, for that we abandoned; it is not the introduction of ex- traneous topics, for those we disclaimed; it is simply and purely veto or no veto — restriction or no restriction — no other words; it is religion and principle that have divided us; thanks, many thanks to the tardy and remote can- dour of the seceders, that has at length written in large letters the cause of their secession — it is the Catholic Church of Ireland — it is whether that Church shall con- tinue independent of a Protestant ministry or not. We are for its independence — the seceders are for its depend- ence. Whatever shall be the fate of our emancipation ques- tion, thank God we are divided forever from those who would wish that our Church should crouch to the partisans of the Orange system! Thank God, secession has displayed its cloven foot, and avowed itself to be synonymous with vetoism! CATHOLIC RIGHTS 155 Those are our present prospects of success. First, man is elevated from slavery almost everywhere, and human nature has become more dignified and, I may say, more valuable. Secondly, England wants our cordial support, and knows that she has only to cede to us justice in order to obtain our affectionate assistance. Thirdly, this is the season of successful petition, and the very fashion of the times entitles our petition to succeed. Fourthly, the Catholic cause is disencumbered of hollow friends and interested speculators. Add to all these the native and inherent strength of the principle of religious freedom and the inert and accumulating weight of our wealth, our re- ligion, and our numbers, and where is the sluggard that shall dare to doubt our approaching success? Besides, even our enemies must concede to us that we act from principle, and from principle only. We prove our sincerity when we refuse to make our emancipation a subject of traffic and barter, and ask for relief only upon those grounds which, if once established, would give to every other sect the right to the same political immunity. All we ask is " a clear stage and no favour." We think the Catholic religion the most rationally consistent with the divine scheme of Christianity, and, therefore, all we ask is that everybody should be left to his unbiassed reason and judgment. If Protestants are equally sincere, why do they call the law, and the bribe, and the place, and the pen- sion in support of their doctrines? Why do they fortify themselves behind pains, and penalties, and exclusions, and forfeitures? Ought not our opponents to feel that they degrade the sanctity of their religion when they call in the profane aid of temporal rewards and punishments, and that they proclaim the superiority of our creed when they thus admit themselves unable to contend against it upon terms of equality, and by the weapons of reason and argument, and persevere in refusing us all we ask — " a clear stage and no favour " ? Yes, Mr. Chairman, our enemies, in words and by actions, admit and proclaim our superiority. It remains 1 56 DANIEL O'CONNELL to our friends alone, and to that misguided and ill-advised portion of the Catholics who have shrunk into secession — it remains for those friends and seceders alone to un- dervalue our exertions and underrate our conscientious opinions. Great and good God, in what a cruel situation are the CathoHcs of Ireland placed! If they have the manliness to talk of their oppressors as the paltry bigots deserve — if they have the honesty to express, even in measured lan- guage, a small portion of the sentiments of abhorrence which peculating bigotry ought naturally to inspire — if they condemn the principle which established the Inquisi- tion in Spain and Orange lodges in Ireland, they are as- sailed by the combined clamour of those parliamentary friends and title-seeking, place-hunting seceders. The war- whoop of " intemperance " is sounded, and a persecution is instituted by our advocates and our seceders — against the Catholic who dares to be honest, and fearless, and in- dependent! But I tell you what they easily forgive — nay, what our friends, sweet souls, would vindicate to-morrow in Par- liament, if the subject arose there. Here it is — here is the "Dublin Journal" of the 2ist of February, printed just two days ago. In the administration of Lord Whitworth, and the secretaryship of Mr. Peel, there is a government newspaper — a paper supported solely by the money of the people; for its circulation is little, and its private adver- tisements less. Here is a paper continued in existence like a wounded reptile — only while in the rays of the sun, by the heat and warmth communicated to it by the Irish ad- ministration. Let me read two passages for you. The first calls " popery the deadly enemy of pure religion and rational liberty." Such is the temperate description the writer gives of the Catholic faith. With respect to purity of religion, I shall not quarrel with him. I only differ with him in point of taste; but I should be glad to know what this creature calls rational liberty. I suppose such as existed at Lacedasmon — the dominion of Spartans over CATHOLIC RIGHTS 157 Helots — the despotism of masters over slaves, that is his rational liberty. We will readily pass so much by. But attend to this: " I will," says this moderate and temperate gentleman, " lay before the reader such specimens of the popish super- stition as will convince him that the treasonable combina- tions cemented by oaths, and the nocturnal robbery and assassination which have prevailed for many years past in Ireland, and still exist in many parts of it, are produced as a necessary consequence by its intolerant and sanguinary principles." Let our seceders — let our gentle friends who are shocked at our intemperance, and are alive to the mild and conciliating virtues of Mr. Peel — read this passage, sanctioned I may almost say, certainly countenanced by those who do the work of governing Ireland. Would to God we had but one genuine, unsophisticated friend, one real advocate in the House of Commons! How such a man would pour down indignation on the clerks of the Castle, who pay for this base and vile defamation of our religion — of the religion of nine tenths of the population of Ireland! But perhaps I accuse falsely; perhaps the administra- tion of Ireland are guiltless of patronizing these calumnies. Look at the paper and determine; it contains nearly five columns of advertisements — only one from a private per- son — and even that is a notice of an anti-popery pamphlet, by a Mr. Cousins, a curate of the Established Church. Dean Swift has somewhere observed that the poorest of all possible rats was a curate [much laughing] ; and if this rat be so, if he have as usual a large family, a great appetite, and little to eat, I sincerely hope that he may get what he wants — a fat living. Indeed, for the sake of consistency, and to keep up the succession of bad pamphlets, he ought to get a living. Well, what think you are the rest of the advertisements? First, there are three from the worthy commissioners of wide streets; one, dated August 6, 181 3, announcing that they would, the ensuing Wednesday, receive certain proposals. 158 DANIEL O'CONNELL Secondly, the barony of Middlethird is proclaimed, as of the 6th of September last, for fear the inhabitants of that barony should not as yet know they were proclaimed. Thirdly, the proclamation against the Catholic Board, dated only the 3d day of June last, is printed lest any person should forget the history of last year. Fourthly, there is proclamation stating that gunpowder was not to be car- ried coastwise for six months, and this is dated the 5th of October last. But why should I detain you with the details of state proclamations, printed for no other purpose than as an excuse for putting so much of the public money into the pockets of a calumniator of the Catholics? The ab- stract of the rest is that there is one other proclamation, stating that Liverpool is a port fit for importation from the East Indies; another forbidding British subjects from serving in the American forces during the present — ^that is, the past — war; and another stating that, although we had made peace with France, we are still at war with Amer- ica, and that, therefore, no marine is to desert; and to finish the climax, there is a column and a half of extracts from several statutes; all this printed at the expense of the government — that is, at the expense of the people. Look now at the species of services for which so enor- mous a sum of our money is thus wantonly lavished! It consists simply of calumnies against the Catholic religion — calumnies so virulently atrocious as, in despite of the in- tention of the authors, to render themselves ridiculous. This hireling accuses our religion of being an enemy to liberty, of being an encourager of treason, of instigating to robbery, and producing a system of assassination. Here are libels for which no prosecution is instituted. Here are libels which are considered worthy of encouragement, and which are rewarded by the Irish treasury. And is it for this — is it to supply this waste, this abuse of public money — is it to pay for those false and foul calumnies that we are, in a season of universal peace, to be borne down with a war taxation? Are we to have two or three additional millions of taxes imposed upon us in peace, in order that CATHOLIC RIGHTS 159 this intestine war of atrocious calumny may be carried on against the rehgion of the people of Ireland with all the vigour of full pay and great plunder? Let us, agitators, be now taunted by jobbers in Parliament with our violence, our intemperance. Why, if we were not rendered patient by the aid of a dignified contempt, is there not matter enough to disgust and to irritate almost beyond endurance? Thus are we treated by our friends, and our enemies, and our seceders; the first abandon, the second oppress, the third betray us, and they all join in calumniating us; in the last they are all combined. See how naturally they associate — this libeller in the " Dublin Journal," who calls the Catholic religion a system of assassination, actually praises in the same paper some individual Catholics; he praises, by name, Quarantotti, and my Lord Fingal [much laughing], and the respectable party (those are his words) who join with that noble lord. Of Lord Fingal I shall always speak with respect, be- cause I entertain the opinion that his motives are pure and honourable; but can anything, or at least ought any- thing, place his secession in so strong a point of view to the noble lord himself as to find that he and his party are praised by the very man who, in the next breath, treats his religion as a system of assassination? Let that party have all the enjoyment which such praises can confer; but if a spark of love for their religion or their country remains with them, let them recollect that they could have earned those praises only by having, in the opinion of this writer, betrayed the one and degraded the other. This writer, too, attempts to traduce Lord Donough- more. He attacks his lordship in bad English, and worse Latin, for having, as he says, cried peccavi to popish thral- dom. But the ignorant trader in virulence knew not how to spell that single Latin word, because they do not teach Latin at the charter schools. I close with conjuring the Catholics to persevere in their present course. Let us never tolerate the slightest inroad on the disci- l6o DANIEL O'CONNELL pline of our ancient, our holy Church. Let us never con- sent that she should be made the hireling of the ministry. Our forefathers would have died, nay, they perished in hopeless slavery rather than consent to such degradation. Let us rest upon the barrier where they expired, or go back into slavery rather than forward into irreligion and disgrace! Let us also advocate our cause on the two great principles — first, that of an eternal separation in spirituals between our Church and the state; secondly, that of the eternal right to freedom of conscience — a right which, I repeat it with pride and pleasure, would exter- minate the Inquisition in Spain and bury in oblivion the bloody orange flag of dissension in Ireland! DANIEL WEBSTER— THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT (Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monu- ment at Charlestown, Mass., June 17, 1825) THIS uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which the occasion has ex- cited. These thousands of human faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and frpm the impulses of a com- mon gratitude turned reverently to Heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling have made a deep im- pression on our hearts. If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here. We are among the sepul- chres of our fathers. We are on ground distinguished by their valour, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive gen- erations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is natural, there- II 161 l62 DANIEL WEBSTER fore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth. We do not read even of the discovery of this conti- nent without feeling something of a personal interest in the event; without being reminded how much it has af- fected our own fortunes and our own existence. It would be still more unnatural for us, therefore, than for others to contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most touching and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of his shat- tered bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair toss- ing his own troubled thoughts; extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of the unknown world. Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is the settlement of our own country by colonists from England. We cherish every memorial of these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their patience and fortitude; we admire their daring enterprise; we teach our children to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being descended from men who have set the world an example of founding civil institutions on the great and united principles of human freedom and human knowl- edge. To us, their children, the story of their labours and sufferings can never be without interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth while the sea continues to wash it ; nor will our brethren in another early and ancient colony forget the place of its first establish- ment till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigour of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation DANIEL WEBSTER, Steel engraving after a painting by George P, A. Healy. THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 163 to forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and defended. But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modem times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of ex- traordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honour, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion. The society whose organ I am^ was formed for the purpose of rearing some honourable and durable monu- ment to the memory of the early friends of American in- dependence. They have thought that for this object no time could be more propitious than the present prosper- ous and peaceful period; that no place could claim prefer- ence over this memorable spot; and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking than the anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it. We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with mak- ing known to all future times. We know that no inscrip- tion on entablatures less broad than the earth itself can 1 64 DANIEL WEBSTER carry information of the events we commemorate where it has not already gone; and that no structure, which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Revolution. Human beings are com- posed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to per- petuate national hostiHty, or even to cherish a mere mili- tary spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured bene- fit which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labour may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national power are still strong. We wish that this column, rising toward THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 165 heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedi- cated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden him who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so vari- ous and so important that they might crowd and distin- guish centuries are, in our times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it happened that his- tory has had so much to record, in the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 1775? Our own Revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected; and a general government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should have been accomplished so soon were it not far the greater wonder that it should have been established at all. Two or three millions of people have been augmented to twelve, the great forests of the West prostrated beneath the arm of successful in- dustry, and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become the fellow-citizens and neighbours of those who cultivate the hills of New England. We have a commerce that leaves no sea unexplored; navies which take no law from superior force; revenues adequate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect. Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the centre her political fabric, and dashed l66 DANIEL WEBSTER against one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On this our continent our own example has been followed, and colonies have sprung up to be nations. Un- accustomed sounds of liberty and free government have reached us from beyond the track of the sun; and at this moment the dominion of European power in this conti- nent, from the place where we stand to the south pole, is annihilated forever. In the meantime, both in Europe and America, such has been the general progress of knowledge, such the im- provement in legislation, in commerce, in the arts, in let- ters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems changed. Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the things which have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years removed from it; and we now stand here to enjoy all the blessings of our own condition, and to look abroad on the brightened pros- pects of the world, while we still have among us some of those who were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of New England, to visit once more, and under circumstances so affecting — I had almost said so overwhelming — this renowned theatre of their courage and patriotism. Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbours, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charles- town. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 167 freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with un- utterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of po- sition appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoy- ance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like " another morn, Risen on mid-noon " ; and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But, ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the premature victim of his own self-devot- 1 68 DANIEL WEBSTER ing heart! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit ! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of free- dom or of bondage! — how shall I struggle with the emo- tions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspira- tions shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit. But the scene amid which we stand does not permit us to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this con- secrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the sur- vivors of the whole revolutionary army. Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honour from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your coun- try's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this ! At a period to which you could not reason- ably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national pros- perity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, present themselves before you. The scene over- THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 169 whelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to give succour in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your young valour defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind! The occasion does not require of me any particular account of the battle of the 17th of June, 1775, nor any detailed narrative of the events which immediately *pre- ceded it. These are familiarly known to all. In the prog- ress of the great and interesting controversy, Massachu- setts and the town of Boston had become early and marked objects of the displeasure of the British Parliament. This had been manifested in the act for altering the government of the province, and in that for shutting up the port of Boston. Nothing sheds more honour on our early history, and nothing better shows how little the feelings and senti- ments of the colonies were known or regarded in England, than the impression whi^h these measures everywhere pro- duced in America. It had been anticipated that, while the colonies in general would be terrified by the severity of the punishment inflicted on Massachusetts, the other sea- ports would be governed by a mere spirit of gain; and that, as Boston was now cut off from all commerce, the unex- pected advantage which this blow on her was calculated to confer on other towns would be greedily enjoyed. How miserably such reasoners deceived themselves! How little they knew of the depth, and the strength, and the intense- ness of that feeling of resistance to illegal acts of power which possessed the whole American people! Everywhere the unworthy boon was rejected with scorn. The fortunate I/O DANIEL WEBSTER occasion was seized, everywhere, to show to the whole world that the colonies were swayed by no local interest, no partial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation to profit by the punishment of Boston was strongest to our neighbours of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely the place where this miserable proffer was spurned, in a tone of the most lofty self-respect and the most indignant patriotism. " We are deeply affected," said its inhabitants, " with the sense of our public calamities; but the miseries that are now rapidly hastening on our brethren in the capital of the province greatly excite our commiseration. By shutting up the port of Boston some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hither and to our benefit; but we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge a thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruin of our suffering neigh- bours." These noble sentiments were not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that day of general affection and brotherhood, the blow given to Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one end of the country to the other. Virginia and the Carolinas, as well as Connecticut and New Hampshire, felt and proclaimed the cause to be their own. The Continental Congress, then holding its first session in Philadelphia, expressed its sympathy for the suffering inhabitants of Boston, and addresses were received from all quarters assuring them that the cause was a common one, and should be met by common efforts and common sacrifices. The Congress of Massachusetts responded to these assurances; and in an address to the Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the official signature, perhaps among the last, of the immortal Warren, notwithstanding the se- verity of its suffering and the magnitude of the dangers which threatened it, it was declared that this colony " is ready, at all times, to spend and to be spent in the cause of America." But the hour drew nigh which was to put professions to the proof, and to determine whether the authors of these mutual pledges were ready to seal them in blood. The THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 171 tidings of Lexington and Concord had no sooner spread than it was universally felt that the time was at last come for action. A spirit pervaded all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but deep, solemn, determined — " Totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." ' War on their own soil and at their own doors was, indeed, a strange work to the yeomanry of New England; but their consciences were convinced of its necessity, their country called them to it, and they did not withhold themselves from the perilous trial. The ordinary occupations of life were abandoned; the plough was stayed in the unfinished furrow; wives gave up their husbands, and mothers gave up their sons, to the battles of a civil war. Death might come in honour, on the field; it might come, in disgrace, on the scaffold. For either and for both they were pre- pared. The sentiment of Quincy was full in their hearts. " Blandishments," said that distinguished son of genius and patriotism, " will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a halter intimidate; for, under God, we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever, we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men." The 17th of June saw the four New England colonies standing here, side by side, to triumph or to fall together; and there was with them from that moment to the end of the war, what I hope will remain with them forever — one cause, one country, one heart. The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the most important effects beyond its immediate results as a mili- tary engagement. It created at once a state of open, public war. There could now be no longer a question of pro- ceeding against individuals, as guilty of treason or rebel- lion. That fearful crisis was past. The appeal lay to the sword, and the only question was, whether the spirit and the resources of the people would hold out till the object should be accomplished. Nor were its general conse- quences confined to our own country. The previous pro- 172 DANIEL WEBSTER ceedings of the colonies, their appeals, resolutions, and ad- dresses had made their cause known to Europe. Without boasting, we may say, that in no age or country has the pubHc cause been maintained with more force of argu- ment, more power of illustration, or more of that persua- sion which excited feeling and elevated principle can alone bestow than the revolutionary state papers exhibit. These papers will forever deserve to be studied, not only for the spirit which they breathe, but for the ability with which they were written. To this able vindication of their cause, the colonies had now added a practical and severe proof of their own true devotion to it, and given evidence also of the power which they could bring to its support. All now saw that if America fell she would not fall without a struggle. Men felt sympathy and regard, as well as surprise, when they beheld these infant States, remote, unknown, unaided, en- counter the power of England, and, in the first consider- able battle, leave more of their enemies dead on the field, in proportion to the number of combatants, than had been recently known to fall in the wars of Europe. Information of these events, circulating throughouf the world, at length reached the ears of one who now hears me. He has not forgotten the emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill, and the name of Warren, excited in his youthful breast. Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establish- ment of great public principles of liberty, and to do honour to the distinguished dead. The occasion is too severe for eulogy of the living. But, sir, your interesting relation to this country, the peculiar circumstances which surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration. Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devo- tion will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are connected with both hemi- spheres and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to or- THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 173 dain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, from the New World to the Old; and we, who are now here to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You will account it an instance of your good fortune, sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a time which enables you to be pres- ent at this solemnity. You now behold the field, the re- nown of which reached you in the heart of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the last extremity, by his lion- hearted valour; and within which the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell, and where Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots fell with him. Those who survived that day, and whose lives have been prolonged to the pres- ent hour, are now around you. Some of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you. Behold! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing of God on you and yours forever. Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this structure. You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, the names of departed patriots. Monu- ments and eulogy belong to the dead. We give, then, this day to Warren and his associates. On other occasions they have been given to your more immediate companions in arms, to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, to Sullivan, and to Lincoln. We have become reluctant to grant these, our highest and last honours, further. We would gladly hold them yet back from the little remnant of that immor- tal band. " Serus in coelum redeas." ^ Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, oh, very far distant be the day when any inscription shall bear your name, or any tongue pro- nounce its eulogy! The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to invite us respects the great changes which have hap- 174 DANIEL WEBSTER pened in the fifty years since the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the character of the pres- ent age that, in looking at these changes, and in estimating their effect on our condition, we are obliged to consider, not what has been done in our country only, but in others also. In these interesting times, while nations are making separate and individual advances in improvement, they make, too, a common progress; like vessels on a common tide, propelled by the gales at different rates, according to their several structure and management, but all moved forward by one mighty current, strong enough to bear onward whatever does not sink beneath it. A chief distinction of the present day is a community of opinions and knowledge among men in different na- tions, existing in a degree heretofore unknown. Knowl- edge has, in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over distance, over difference of languages, over diversity of habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian world is fast learning the great lesson that difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The whole world is be- coming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it. A great choid of sentiment and feeling runs through two continents, and vibrates over both. Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to country, every wave rolls it; all give it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas; there are marts and exchanges for intellectual dis- coveries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make up the mind and opinion of the age. Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately an- swered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by Nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation. From these causes important improvements have taken THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 175 place in the personal condition of individuals. Generally speaking, mankind are not only better fed and better clothed, but they are able also to enjoy more leisure; they possess more refinement and more self-respect. A supe- rior tone of education, manners, and habits prevails. This remark, most true in its application to our own country, is also partly true when applied elsewhere. It is proved by the vastly augmented consumption of those articles of manufacture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts and the decencies of life; an augmentation which has far outrun the progress of population. And while the unexampled and almost incredible use of machinery would seem to supply the place of labour, labour still finds its occupation and its reward, so wisely has Providence ad- justed men's wants and desires to their condition and their capacity. Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made during the last half century in the polite and the mechanic arts, in machinery and manufactures, in commerce and agriculture, in letters and in science, would require vol- umes. I must abstain wholly from these subjects, and turn for a moment to the contemplation of what has been done on the great question of politics and government. This is the master topic of the age; and during the whole fifty years it has intensely occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed and investigated; ancient opinions attacked and defended; new ideas recommended and resisted, by what- ever power the mind of man could bring to the contro- versy. From the closet and the public halls the debate has been transferred to the field; and the world has been shaken by wars of unexampled magnitude and the great- est variety of fortune. A day of peace has at length suc- ceeded; and now that the strife has subsided, and the smoke cleared away, we may begin to see what has actually been done, permanently changing the state and condition of human society. And, without dwelling on particular cir- cumstances, it is most apparent that, from the before-men- 176 DANIEL WEBSTER tioned causes of augmented knowledge and improved indi- vidual condition, a real, substantial, and important change has taken place, and is taking place, highly favourable, on the whole, to human liberty and human happiness. The great wheel of political revolution began to move in America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. Transferred to the other continent, from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular and violent im- pulse; it whirled along with a fearful celerity, till at length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed on- ward, spreading conflagration and terror around. We learn from the result of this experiment how for- tunate was our own condition, and how admirably the character of our people was calculated for setting the great example of popular governments. The possession of power did not turn the heads of the American people, for they had long been in the habit of exercising a great degree of self-control. Although the paramount author- ity of the parent state existed over them, yet a large field of legislation had always been open to our colonial assem- blies. They were accustomed to representative bodies and the forms of free government; they understood the doctrine of the division of power among dififerent branches, and the necessity of checks on each. The character of our countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious; and there was little in the change to shock their feelings of justice and humanity, or even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no domestic throne to overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes of prop- erty to encounter. In the American Revolution no man sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder or for spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not among the instruments of its accomplishment; and we all know that it could not have lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of possessing a tendency adverse to the Christian religion. It need not surprise us that, under circumstances less THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 177 auspicious, political revolutions elsewhere, even when well intended, have terminated differently. It is, indeed, a great achievement, it is the masterwork of the world, to estab- lish governments entirely popular on lasting foundations; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce the popular principle at all into governments to which it has been altogether a stranger. It can not be doubted, however, that Europe has come out of the contest, in which she has been so long engaged, with greatly superior knowledge, and, in many respects, in a highly improved condition. Whatever bene- fit has been acquired is likely to be retained, for it consists mainly in the acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And although kingdoms and provinces may be wrested from the hands that hold them, in the same manner they were obtained; although ordinary and vulgar power may, in human affairs, be lost as it has been won, yet it is the glori- ous prerogative of the empire of knowledge that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power; all its ends become means; all its attainments, helps to new conquests. Its whole abun- dant harvest is but so much seed wheat, and nothing has limited, and nothing can limit, the amount of ultimate product. Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowl- edge the people have begun, in all forms of government, to think, and to reason, on affairs of state. Regarding government as an institution for the public good, they de- mand a knowledge of its operations and a participation in its exercise. A call for the representative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and where there is already intelligence enough to estimate its value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak out, they demand it; where the bayonet is at their throats, they pray for it. When Louis XIV said, " I am the state," he expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited power. By the rules of that system, the people are disconnected from the state; they are its subjects, it is their lord. These ideas, founded in the love of power, and long supported by the 178 DANIEL WEBSTER excess and the abuse of it, are yielding, in our age, to other opinions; and the civilized world seems at last to be pro- ceeding to the conviction of that fundamental and mani- fest truth that the powers of government are but a trust, and that they can not be lawfully exercised but for the good of the community. As knowledge is more and more ex- tended, this conviction becomes more and more general. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with all its beams. The prayer of the Grecian champion, when enveloped in un- natural clouds and darkness, is the appropriate political supplication for the people of every country not yet blessed with free institutions : " Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore, Give me to see — and Ajax asks no more." We may hope that the growing influence of enlight- ened sentiment will promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars to maintain family alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, and to regulate successions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history of mod- ern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less likely to become general and involve many nations, as the great principle shall be more and more established, that the interest of the world is peace, and its first great statute, that every nation possesses the power of establishing a government for itself. But public opinion has attained also an influence over governments which do not admit the popular principle into their organization. A necessary re- spect for the judgment of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over the most unlimited forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth that the in- teresting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on so long, without a direct interference, either to wrest that country from its present masters or to execute the system of pacification by force; and, with united strength, lay the neck of Christian and civilized Greek at the foot of the barbarian Turk. Let us thank God that we live in THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 179 an age when something has influence besides the bayonet, and when the sternest authority does not venture to en- counter the scorching power of pubhc reproach. Any at- tempt of the kind I have mentioned should be met by one universal burst of indignation; the air of the civilized world ought to be made too warm to be comfortably breathed by any one who would hazard it. It is, indeed, a touching reflection that, while, in the fulness of our country's happiness, we rear this monument to her honour, we look for instruction in our undertaking to a country which is now in fearful contest, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but for her own existence. Let her be assured that she is not forgotten in the world; that her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend for her success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency can not extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; moun- tains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquer- able force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven. Among the great events of the half century we must reckon certainly the revolution of South America; and we are not likely to overrate the importance of that revolu- tion, either to the people of the country itself or to the rest of the world. The late Spanish colonies, now independ- ent States, under circumstances less favourable doubtless than attended our own Revolution, have yet success- fully commenced their national existence. They have ac- complished the great object of establishing their independ- ence; they are known and acknowledged in the world; and although in regard to their systems of government, their sentiments on religious toleration, and their provi- sion for public instruction, they may have yet much to learn, it must be admitted that they have risen to the con- dition of settled and established States more rapidly than l8o DANIEL WEBSTER could have been reasonably anticipated. They already fur- nish an exhilarating example of the difference between free governments and despotic misrule. Their commerce, at this moment, creates a new activity in all the great marts of the world. They show themselves able, by an exchange of commodities, to bear a useful part in the intercourse of nations. A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to pre- vail; all the great interests of society receive a salutary impulse; and the progress of information not only testifies to an improved condition, but itself constitutes the highest and most essential improvement. When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the exist- ence of South America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little colonies of North America habitually called themselves the " continent." Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out in beauty to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire. And now let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the benefit which the example of our coun- try has produced, and is likely to produce, on human free- dom and human happiness. Let us endeavour to compre- hend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of rep'resentative and popular governments. Thus far our example shows that such governments are compatible not only with re- spectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with security of personal rights, with good laws, and a just administration. We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred, either as being thought better in themselves THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT i8l or as better suited to existing conditions, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and that with wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent on us is to preserve the consistency of this cheering example, and take care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If, in our case, the representative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be pronounced impossible. No combination of cir- cumstances more favourable to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last hopes of mankind, there- fore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded through- out the earth. These are excitements to duty; but they are not sug- gestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief that popular governments, though subject to occa- sional variations, in form perhaps not always for the better, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and per- manent as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is impossible. The principle of free gov- ernments adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains. And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty and our government are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now descends to new hands, ^et us apply ourselves to that which is presented to us as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defence and preservation; and there is opened to us also a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is im- 1 32 DANIEL WEBSTER provement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be re- membered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condi- tion points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction and an habitual feeling that these twenty-four States are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of op- pression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever! Notes ' Mr. Webster was at this time President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. ' " And a Mind, diffused throughout the- members, gives energy to the whole mass, and mingles with the vast body." • "Late may you return to heaven." HENRY CLAY IN DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM* (Delivered in the Senate of the United States, February 2, 3, and 6, 1832) IN one sentiment, Mr. President, expressed by the hon- ourable gentleman from South Carolina [General Hayne], though perhaps not in the sense intended by him, I entirely concur. I agree with him that the decision on the system of policy embraced in this debate involves the future destiny of this growing country. One way I verily believe, it would lead to deep and general distress, general bankruptcy, and national ruin, without benefit to any part of the Union; the other, the existing prosperity will be preserved and augmented, and the nation will con- tinue rapidly to advance in wealth, power, and greatness, without prejudice to a:ny section of the confederacy. Thus viewing the question, I stand here as the humble but zealous advocate, not of the interests of one State, or seven States only, but of the whole Union. And never before have I felt more intensely the overpowering weight of that share of responsibility which belongs to me in these deliberations. Never before have I had more occasion than I now have to lament my want of those intellectual powers, the possession of which might enable me to un- fold to this Senate, and to illustrate to this people great truths, intimately connected with the lasting welfare of my country. I should, indeed, sink overwhelmed and subdued beneath the appalling magnitude of the task which lies be- fore me if I did not feel myself sustained and fortified by a thorough consciousness of the justness of the. cause which I have espoused, and by a persuasion, I hope not presump- 183 1 84 HENRY CLAY tuous, that it has the approbation of that Providence who has so often smiled upon these United States. Eight years ago it was my painful duty to present to the other House of Congress an unexaggerated picture of the general distress pervading the whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We all know that the people were then oppressed and borne down by an enormous load of debt; that the value of prop- erty was at the lowest point of depression; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were everywhere made of real estate; that stop laws, and relief laws, and paper money were adopted to save the people from impending destruction; that a deficit in the public revenue existed, which com- pelled Government to seize upon and divert from its legiti- mate object the appropriations to the sinking fund to re- deem the national debt; and that our commerce and navi- gation were threatened with a complete paralysis. In short, sir, if I were to select any term of seven years since the adoption of the present Constitution which exhibited a scene of the most widespread dismay and desolation, it would be exactly that term of seven years which immedi- ately preceded the establishment of the tarifif of 1824. I have now to perform the more pleasing task of ex- hibiting an imperfect sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general sur- vey, we behold cultivation extended, the arts flourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibit- ing tranquility, contentment, and happiness. And if we descend into particulars, we have the agreeable contempla- tion of a people out of debt; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready though not extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gam- boling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities expanded, and whole vil- lages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 18$ and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior animated by the perpetual thunder and light- ning of countless steamboats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, embar- rassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of seven years were to be selected of the great- est prosperity which this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present Constitution, it would be ex- actly that period of seven years which immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824, This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity has been mainly the work of American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry. The foes of the American system in 1824, with great boldness and confidence, predicted: i. The ruin of the public rev- enue, and the creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman from South Carolina [General Hayne], I believe, thought that the tariff of 1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight millions of dollars. 2. The destruction of our navigation. 3. The desolation of commercial cities. 4. The augmenta- tion of the price of objects of consumption, and further decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every pre- diction which they made has failed — utterly failed. Instead of the ruin of the public revenue, with which they then sought to deter us from the adoption of the American sys- tem, we are now threatened with its subversion by the vast amount of the public revenue produced by that system. Every branch of our navigation has increased. As to the desolation of our cities, let us take as an example the con- dition of the largest and most commercial of all of them, the great Northern capital. I have in my hands the as- sessed value of real estate in the city of New York from 181 7 to 1 83 1. This value is canvassed, contested, scruti- 1 86 HENRY CLAY nized, and adjudged by the proper sworn authorities. It is therefore entitled to full credence. During the first term, commencing with 1817, and ending in the year of the pas- sage of the tariff of 1824, the amount of the value of real estate was, the first year, $57,799,435; and, after various fluctuations in the intermediate period, it settled down at $52,019,730, exhibiting a decrease in seven years of $5,779,705. During the first year of 1825, after the passage of the tariff, it rose, and, gradually ascending throughout the whole of the latter period of seven years, it finally, in 1831, reached the astonishing height of $95,716,485 ! Now, if it be said that this rapid growth of the city of New York was the effect of foreign commerce, then it was not cor- rectly predicted, in 1824, that the tariff would destroy for- eign commerce and desolate our commercial cities. If, on the contrary, it be the effect of internal trade, then internal trade can not be justly chargeable with the evil conse- quences imputed to it. The truth is, it is the joint effect of both principles, the domestic industry nourishing the foreign trade, and the foreign commerce in turn nourish- ing the domestic industry. Nowhere more than in New York is the combination of both principles so completely developed. In the progress of my argument I will con- sider the effect upon the price of commodities produced by the American system, and show that the very reverse of the prediction of its foes in 1824 actually happened. While we thus behold the entire failure of all that was foretold against the system, it is a subject of just felicitation to its friends that all their anticipations of its benefits have been fulfilled, or are in progress of fulfilment. The hon- ourable gentleman from South Carolina has made an allu- sion to a speech made by me, in 1824, in the other House, in support of the tariff, and to which otherwise I should not have particularly referred. But I would ask any one, who can now command the courage to peruse that long production, what principle there laid down is not true? what prediction then made has been falsified by practical experience? DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 187 It is now proposed to abolish the system to which we owe so much of the public prosperity, and it is urged that the arrival of the period of the redemption of the public debt has been confidently looked to as presenting a suit- able occasion to rid the country of the evils with which the system is alleged to be fraught. Not an inattentive ob- server of passing events, I have been aware that, among those who were most early pressing the payment of the public debt, and upon that ground were opposing appro- priations to other great interests, there were some who cared less about the debt than the accomplishment of other objects. But the people of the United States have not cou- pled the payment of their public debt with the destruction of the protection of their industry against foreign laws and foreign industry. They have been accustomed to regard the extinction of the public debt as relief from a burden, and not as the infliction of a curse. If it is to be attended or followed by the subversion of the American system, and an exposure of our establishments and our productions to the unguarded consequences of the selfish policy of foreign powers, the payment of the public debt will be the bitterest of curses. Its fruit will be like the fruit " Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe. With loss of Eden." If the system of protection be founded on principles erroneous in theory, pernicious in practice — above all, if it be unconstitutional, as is alleged, it ought to be forth- with abolished, and not a vestige of it sufifered to remain. But, before we sanction this sweeping denunciation, let us look a little at this system, its magnitude, its ramifications, its duration, and the high authorities which have sustained it. We shall see that its foes will have accomplished com- paratively nothing, after having achieved their present aim of breaking down our iron-founderies, our woollen, cotton, and hemp manufactories, and our sugar plantations. The destruction of these would, undoubtedly, lead to the sacri- fice of immense capital, the ruin of many thousands of our 1 88 HENRY CLAY fellow-citizens, and incalculable loss to the whole commu- nity. But their prostration would not disfigure, nor pro- duce greater effect upon the whole system of protection, in all its branches, than the destruction of the beautiful domes upon the Capitol would occasion to the magnificent edifice which they surmount. Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest, scarcely a vocation in society, which is not em- braced by the beneficence of this system. It comprehends our coasting tonnage and trade, from which all foreign tonnage is absolutely excluded. It includes all our foreign tonnage, with the inconsider- able exception made by treaties of reciprocity with a few foreign powers. It embraces our fisheries, and all our hardy and enter- prising fishermen. It extends to almost every mechanic art: to tanners, cordwainers, tailors, cabinet-makers, hatters, tinners, brass- workers, clock-makers, coach-makers, tallow-chandlers, trace-makers, rope-makers, cork-cutters, tobacconists, whip-makers, paper-makers, umbrella-makers, glass-blow- ers, stocking-weavers, butter-makers, saddle- and harness- makers, cutlers, brush-makers, bookbinders, dairymen, milk-farmers, blacksmiths, type-founders, musical instru- ment makers, basket-makers, milliners, potters, choco- late-makers, floorcloth-makers, bonnet-makers, haircloth- makers, coppersmiths, pencil-makers, bellows-makers, pocketbook-makers, card-makers, glue-makers, mustard- makers, lumber-sawyers, saw-makers, scale-beam-makers, scythe-makers, woodsaw-makers, and many others. The mechanics enumerated enjoy a measure of protection adapted to their several conditions, varying from twenty to fifty per cent. The extent and importance of some of these artisans may be estimated by a few particulars. The tanners, curriers, boot and shoemakers, and other workers in hides, skins, and leather, produce an ultimate value per annum of forty millions of dollars; the manufacturers of hats and caps produce an annual value of fifteen millions; the cabinet-makers, twelve millions; the manufacturers of DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 189 bonnets and hats for the female sex, lace, artificial flowers, combs, etc., seven millions; and the manufacturers of glass, five millions. It extends to all lower Louisiana, the Delta of which might as well be submerged again in the Gulf of Mexico, from which it has been a gradual conquest, as now to be deprived of the protecting duty upon its great staple. It affects the cotton planter ^ himself, and the tobacco planter, both of whom enjoy protection. The total amount of the capital vested in sheep, the land to sustain them, wool, woollen manufactures, and woollen fabrics, and the subsistence of the various persons directly or indirectly employed in the growth and manu- facture of the article of wool, is estimated at one hundred and sixty-seven millions of dollars, and the number of per- sons at one hundred and fifty thousand. The value of iron, considered as a raw material, and of its manufactures, is estimated at twenty-six millions of dol- lars per annum. Cotton goods, exclusive of the capital vested in the manufacture, and of the cost of the raw mate- rial, are believed to amount annually to about twenty mil- lions of dollars. These estimates have been carefully made by practical men of undoubted character, who have brought together and embodied their information. Anxious to avoid the charge of exaggeration, they have sometimes placed their estimates below what was believed to be the actual amount of these interests. With regard to the quantity of bar and other iron annually produced, it is derived from the known works themselves, and I know some in Western States which they have omitted in their calculations. Such are some of the items of this vast system of pro- tection which it is now proposed to abandon. We might well pause and contemplate, if human imagination could conceive the extent of mischief and ruin from its total overthrow, before we proceed to the work of destruction. Its duration is worthy also of serious consideration. Not to go behind the Constitution, its date is coeval with that 190 HENRY CLAY instrument. It began on the ever-memorable fourth day of July — the fourth day of July, 1789. The second act which stands recorded in the statute-book, bearing the illustrious signature of George Washington, laid the corner- stone of the whole system. That there might be no mis- take about the matter, it was then solemnly proclaimed to the American people and to the world that it was neces- sary for " the encouragement and protection of manufac- tures " that duties should be laid. It is in vain to urge the small amount of the measure of the protection then extended. The great principle was then established by the fathers of the Constitution, with the Father of his Country at their head. And it can not now be questioned that, if the Government had not then been new and the subject un- tried, a greater measure of protection would have been applied if it had been supposed necessary. Shortly after, the master minds of Jefferson and Hamilton were brought to act on this interesting subject. Taking views of it ap- pertaining to the departments of foreign affairs and of the treasury, which they respectively filled, they presented, severally, reports which yet remain monuments of their profound wisdom, and came to the same conclusion of protection to American industry. Mr. Jefferson argued that foreign restrictions, foreign prohibitions, and foreign high duties ought to be met at home by American restric- tions, American prohibitions, and American high duties. Mr. Hamilton, surveying the entire ground, and looking at the inherent nature of the subject, treated it with an ability which, if ever equalled, has not been surpassed, and earnestly recommended protection. The wars of the French Revolution commenced about this period, and streams of gold poured into the United States through a thousand channels, opened or enlarged by the successful commerce which our neutrality enabled us to prosecute. We forgot or overlooked in the general prosperity the necessity of encouraging our domestic manu- factures. Then came the edicts of Napoleon, and the Brit- ish Orders in Council; and our embargo, non-intercourse, DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 191 non-importation, and war, followed in rapid succession. These national measures, amounting to a total suspension, for the period of their duration, of our foreign commerce, afforded the most efficacious encouragement to American manufactures ; and accordingly they everywhere sprang up. While these measures of restriction and this state of war continued, the manufacturers were stimulated in their enterprise by every assurance of support, by public sentiment, and by legislative resolves. It was about that period (1808) that South Carolina bore her high testimony to the wisdom of the policy, in an act of her Legislature, the preamble of which, now before me, reads: " Whereas, the establishment and encouragement of domestic manufactures is conducive to the interests of a State, by adding new incentives to industry, and as being the means of disposing to advantage the surplus produc- tions of the agriculturist; and whereas, in the present un- exampled state of the world, their establishment in our country is not only expedient but politic in rendering us independent of foreign nations." The Legislature, not being competent to afford the most efficacious aid, by imposing duties on foreign rival articles, proceeded to incorporate a company. Peace, under the Treaty of Ghent, returned in 181 5, but there did not return with it the golden days which pre- ceded the edicts levelled at our commerce by Great Britain and France. It found all Europe tranquilly resuming the arts and the business of civil life. It found Europe no longer the consumer of our surplus and the employer of our navigation, but excluding, or heavily burdening, almost all the productions of our agriculture, and our rivals in manufactures, in navigation, and in commerce. It found our country, in short, in a situation totally different from all the past — new and untried. It became necessary to adapt our laws, and especially our laws of impost, to the new circumstances in which we found ourselves. Accord- ingly, that eminent and lamented citizen, then at the head of the treasury [Mr. Dallas], was required, by a resolu- 152 HENRY CLAY tion of the House of Representatives, under date the twenty-third day of February, 1815, to prepare and report to the succeeding session of Congress a system of revenue conformable with the actual condition of the country. He had the circle of a whole year to perform the work, con- sulted merchants, manufacturers, and other practical men, and opened an extensive correspondence. The report which he made at the session of 18 16 was the result of his inquiries and reflections, and embodies the principles which he thought applicable to the subject. It has been said that the tariff of 1816 was a measure of mere revenue, and that it only reduced the war duties to a peace standard. It is true that the question then was. How much and in what way should the double duties of the war be reduced? Now, also, the question is, On what articles shall the duties be reduced so as to subject the amounts of the future rev- enue to the wants of the Government? Then it was deemed an inquiry of the first importance, as it should be now, how the reduction should be made, so as to secure proper en- couragement to our domestic industry. That this was a leading object in the arrangement of the tariff of 1816 I well remember, and it is demonstrated by the language of Mr. Dallas. He says in his report: " There are few, if any, governments which do not re- gard the establishment of domestic manufactures as a chief object of public policy. The United States have always so regarded it. . . . The demands of the country, while the acquisitions of supplies from foreign nations was either prohibited or impracticable, may have afforded a sufficient inducement for this investment of capital and this applica- tion of labour; but the inducement, in its necessary extent, must fail when the day of competition returns. Upon that change in the condition of the country the preserva- tion of the manufactures, which private citizens under favourable auspices have constituted the property of the nation, becomes a consideration of general policy, to be resolved by a recollection of past embarrassments; by the certainty of an increased difficulty of reinstating, upon any DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 193 emergency, the manufactures which shall be allowed to perish and pass away," etc. The measure of protection which he proposed was not adopted in regard to some leading articles, and there was great difficulty in ascertaining what it ought to have been. But the principle was then distinctly asserted and fully sanctioned. The subject of the American system was again brought up in 1820 by the bill reported by the chairman of the Com- mittee of Manufactures, now a member of the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the principle was successfully maintained by the representatives of the people; but the bill which they passed was defeated in the Senate. It was revived in 1824; the whole ground care- fully and deliberately explored, and the bill then intro- duced, receiving all the sanctions of the Constitution, be- came the law of the land. An amendment of the system was proposed in 1828, to the history of which I refer with no agreeable recollections. The bill of that year, in some of its provisions, was framed on principles directly adverse to the declared wishes of the friends of the policy of pro- tection. I have heard, without vouching for the fact, that it was so framed upon the advice of a prominent citizen, now abroad, with the view of ultimately defeating the bill, and with assurances that, being altogether unacceptable to the friends of the American system, the bill would be lost. Be that as it may, the most exceptionable features of the bill were stamped upon it, against the earnest remon- strances of the friends of the system, by the votes of South- ern members, upon a principle, I think, as unsound in legislation as it is reprehensible in ethics. The bill was passed notwithstanding, it having been deemed better to take the bad along with the good which it contained than reject it altogether. Subsequent legislation has corrected the error then perpetrated, but still that measure is vehe- mently denounced by gentlemen who contributed to make it what it was. Thus, sir, has this great system of protection been grad- 13 194 HENRY CLAY ually built, stone upon stone and step by step, from the 4th of July, 1789, down to the present period. In every stage of its progress it has received the deliberate sanction of Congress. A vast majority of the people of the United States has approved and continue to approve it. Every Chief Magistrate of the United States, from Washington to the present, in some form or other, has given to it the au- thority of his name; and, however the opinions of the existing President are interpreted south of Mason and Dixon's line, on the north they are at least understood to favour the establishment of a judicious tarifif. The question, therefore, which we are now called upon to determine is not whether we shall establish a new and doubtful system of policy, just proposed, and for the first time presented to our consideration, but whether we shall break down and destroy a long-established system, pa- tiently and carefully built up and sanctioned, during a series of years, again and again, by the nation and its highest and most revered authorities. And are we not bound delib- erately to consider whether we can proceed to this work of destruction without a violation of the public faith? The people of the United States have justly supposed that the policy of protecting their industry against foreign legisla- tion and foreign industry was fully settled, not by a single act, but by repeated and deliberate acts of Government, performed at distant and frequent intervals. In full confi- dence that the policy was firmly and unchangeably fixed, thousands upon thousands have invested their capital, pur- chased a vast amount of real and other estate, made perma- nent establishments, and accommodated their industry. Can we expose to utter and irretrievable ruin this countless multitude without justly incurring the reproach of violat- ing the national faith? I shall not discuss the constitutional question. With- out meaning any disrespect to those who raise it, if it be debatable, it has been sufificiently debated. The gentle- man from South Carolina sufifered it to fall unnoticed from his budget; and it was not until after he had closed his DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 195 speech and resumed his seat that it occurred to him that he had forgotten it, when he again addressed the Senate, and, by a sort of protestation against any conclusion from his silence, put forward the objection. The recent free- trade convention at Philadelphia, it is well known, were divided on the question; and although the topic is noticed in their address to the public, they do not avow their own belief that the American system is unconstitutional, but represent that such is the opinion of respectable portions of the American people. Another address to the people of the United States, from a high source, during the past year, treating this subject, does not assert the opinion of the distinguished author, but states that of others to be that it is unconstitutional. From which I infer that he did not himself believe it unconstitutional.^ When, sir, I contended with you, side by side, and with perhaps less zeal than you exhibited, in 1816, I did not understand you then to consider the policy forbidden by the Constitution.* I give way with pleasure to these explanations, which I hope will always be made when I say anything bearing on the individual opinions of the Chair. I know the deli- cacy of the position, and sympathize with the incumbent, whoever he may be. It is true, the question was not de- bated in 1816; and why not? Because it was not debat- able; it was then believed not fairly to arise. It never has been made as a distinct, substantial, and leading point of objection. It never was made until the discussion of the tarifif of 1824, when it was rather hinted at as against the spirit of the Constitution than formally announced as being contrary to the provisions of that instrument. What was not dreamed of before, or in 1816, and scarcely thought of in 1824, is now made, by excited imaginations, to assume the imposing form of a serious constitutional barrier. Such are the origin, duration, extent, and sanctions of the policy which we are now called upon to subvert. Its beneficial effects, although they may vary in degree, have been felt in all parts of the Union. To none, I verily be- 196 HENRY CLAY lieve, has it been prejudicial. In the North, everywhere, testimonials are borne to the high prosperity which it has diffused. There, all branches of industry are animated and flourishing — commerce, foreign and domestic, active; cities and towns springing up, enlarging, and beautifying; navigation fully and profitably employed, and the whole face of the country smiling with improvement, cheerful- ness, and abundance. The gentleman from South Caro- lina has supposed that we in the West derive no advantages from this system. He is mistaken. Let him visit us, and he will find, from the head of La Belle Riviere, at Pittsburg, to Cairo, at its mouth, the most rapid and gratifying ad- vances. He will behold Pittsburg itself. Wheeling, Ports- mouth, Maysville, Cincinnati, Louisville, and numerous other towns, lining and ornamenting the banks of the noble river, daily extending their limits, and prosecuting, with the greatest spirit and profit, numerous branches of the manufacturing and mechanic arts. If he will go into the interior, in the State of Ohio, he will there perceive the most astonishing progress in agriculture, in the useful arts, and in all the improvements to which they both directly conduce. Then let him cross over into my own, my favour- ite State, and contemplate the spectacle which is there exhibited. He will perceive numerous villages, not large, but neat, thriving, and some of them highly ornamented; many manufactories of hemp, cotton, wool, and other arti- cles; in various parts of the country, and especially in the Elkhorn region, an endless succession of natural parks; the forests thinned; fallen trees and undergrowth cleared away; large herds and flocks feeding on luxuriant grasses; and interspersed with comfortable, sometimes elegant man- sions, surrounded by extensive lawns. The honourable gentleman from South Carolina says that a profitable trade was carried on from the West, through the Seleuda Gap, in mules, horses, and other live stock, which has been checked by the operation of the tariff. It is true that such a trade was carried on between Kentucky and South Caro- lina, mutually beneficial to both parties; but, several years DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 197 ago, resolutions at popular meetings in Carolina were adopted not to purchase the produce of Kentucky by way of punishment for her attachment to the tarifif. They must have supposed us as stupid as the sires of one of the de- scriptions of the stock of which that trade consisted if they imagined that their resolutions would affect our princi- ples. Our drovers cracked their whips, blew their horns, and passed the Seleuda Gap to other markets, where better humours existed, and equal or greater profits were made. I have heard of your successor in the House of Representa- tives, Mr. President, this anecdote: that he joined in the adoption of thoee resolutions, but when, about Christmas, he applied to one of his South Carolina neighbours to pur- chase the regular supply of pork for the ensuing year, he found that he had to pay two prices for it;* and he declared if that were the patriotism on which the resolutions were based, he would not conform to them, and, in point of fact, laid in his annual stock of pork by purchase from the first passing Kentucky drover. The trade, now partially re- sumed, was maintained by the sale of Western productions on the one side and Carolina money on the other. From that condition of it the gentleman from South Carolina might have drawn this conclusion, that an advantageous trade may exist, although one of the parties to it pays in specie for the production which he purchases from the other; and, consequently, that it does not follow, if we did not purchase British fabrics, that it might not be the in- terest of England to purchase our raw material of cotton. The Kentucky drover received the South Carolina specie, or, taking bills, or the evidences of deposit in the banks, carried these home, and, disposing of them to the mer- chant, he brought out goods, of foreign or domestic manu- facture, in return. Such is the circuitous nature of trade and remittance, which no nation understands better than Great Britain. Nor has the system which has been the parent source of so much benefit to other parts of the Union proved in- jurious to the cotton-growing country. I can not speak 198 HENRY CLAY of South Carolina itself, where I have never been, with so much certainty; but of other portions of the Union in which cotton is grown, especially those bordering on the Mississippi, I can confidently speak. If cotton planting is less profitable than it was, that is the result of increased production; but I believe it to be still the most profitable investment of capital of any branch of business in the United States. And if a committee were raised, with power to send for persons and papers, I take it upon myself to say that such would be the result of the inquiry. In Kentucky I know many individuals who have their cotton planta- tions below, and retain their residence in that State, where they remain during the sickly season; and they are all, I believe, without exception, doing well. Others, tempted by their success, are constailtly engaging in the business, while scarcely any comes from the cotton region to engage in Western agriculture. A friend, now in my eye, a mem- ber of this body, upon a capital of less than seventy thou- sand dollars, invested in a plantation and slaves, made the year before last sixteen thousand dollars. A member of the other House, I understand, who, without removing himself, sent some of his slaves to Mississippi, made last year about twenty per cent. Two friends of mine in the latter State, whose annual income is from thirty to sixty thousand dollars, being desirous to curtail their business, have offered estates for sale which they are willing to show, by regular vouchers of receipt and disbursement, yield eighteen per cent per annum. One of my most opulent acquaintances, in a county adjoining that in which I re- side, having married in Georgia, has derived a large por- tion of his wealth from a cotton estate there situated. The loss of the tonnage of Charleston, which has been dwelt on, does not proceed from the tarifif; it never had a very large amount, and it has not been able to retain what it had, in consequence of the operation of the prin- ciple of free trade on its navigation. Its tonnage has gone to the more enterprising and adventurous tars of the North- ern States, with whom those of the city of Charleston could DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 199 not maintain a successful competition in the freedom of the coasting trade existing between the different parts of the Union. That this must be the true cause is demon- strated by the fact that, however it may be with the port of Charleston, our coasting tonnage generally is constantly increasing. As to the foreign tonnage, about one half of that which is engaged in the direct trade between Charles- ton and Great Britain is English, proving that the tonnage of South Carolina can not maintain itself in a competition under the free and equal navigation secured by our treaty with that power. When gentlemen have succeeded in their design of an immediate or gradual destruction of the American sys- tem, what is their substitute? Free trade? Free trade! The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child in its nurse's arms for the moon, or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It never has existed, it never will exist. Trade implies at least two parties. To be free it should be fair, equal, and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to the admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, what ports of any other for- eign nation shall we find open to the free admission of our surplus produce? We may break down all barriers to free trade on our part, but the work will not be complete until foreign powers shall have removed theirs. There would be freedom on one side, and restrictions, prohibi- tions, and exclusions on the other. The bolts, and the bars, and the chains of all other nations will remain undis- turbed. It is, indeed, possible that our industry and com- merce would accommodate themselves to this unequal and unjust state of things, for such is the flexibility of our na- ture that it bends itself to all circumstances. The wretched prisoner incarcerated in a jail after a long time becomes reconciled to his solitude, and regularly notches down the passing days of his confinement. Gentlemen deceive themselves. It is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is, in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; 200 HENRY CLAY and, if their policy prevail, it will lead substantially to the recolonization of these States under the commercial do- minion of Great Britain. And whom do we find some of the principal supporters out of Congress of this foreign system? Mr. President, there are some foreigners who always remain exotics, and never become naturalized in our country; while, happily, there are many others who readily attach themselves to our principles and our insti- tutions. The honest, patient, and industrious German readily unites with our people, establishes himself upon some of our fat lands, fills his capacious barn, and enjoys in tranquility the abundant fruits which his diligence gath- ers around him, always ready to fly to the standard of his adopted country, or of its laws, when called by the duties of patriotism. The gay, the versatile, the philosophic Frenchman, accommodating himself cheerfully to all the vicissitudes of life, incorporates himself without difficulty in our society. But, of all foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so quickly with our people as the natives of the Emerald Isle. In some of the visions which have passed through my imagination, I have supposed that Ire- land was originally part and parcel of this continent, and that, by some extraordinary convulsion of Nature, it was torn from America, and, drifting across the ocean, was placed in the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain. The same open-heartedness; the same generous hospitality; the same careless and uncalculating indifference about human life, characterize the inhabitants of both countries. Kentucky has been sometimes called the Ireland of Amer- ica. And I have no doubt that if the current of emigration were reversed, and set from America upon the shores of Europe, instead of bearing from Europe to America, every American emigrant to Ireland would there find, as every Irish emigrant here finds, a hearty welcome and a happy home! But, sir, the gentleman to whom I am about to allude, although long a resident of this country, has no feelings, no attachments, no sympathies, no principles, in common DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 201 with our people. Nearly fifty years ago, Pennsylvania took him to her bosom, and warmed, and cherished, and hon- oured him; and how does he manifest his gratitude? By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by a thor- ough conviction that it is indispensable to her prosperity. He has filled at home and abroad some of the highest offices under this Government during thirty years, and he is still at heart an alien. The authority of his name has been invoked, and the labours of his pen, in the form of a memorial to Congress, have been engaged to overthrow the American system and to substitute the foreign. Go home to your native Europe, and there inculcate upon her sovereigns your Utopian doctrines of free trade, and when you have prevailed upon them to unseal their ports, and freely admit the produce of Pennsylvania and other States, come back, and we shall be prepared to become con- verts, and to adopt your faith. A Mr. Sarchet also makes no inconsiderable figure in the common attack upon our system. I do not know the man, but I understand he is an unnaturalized emigrant from the island of Guernsey, situated in the channel which di- vides France and England. The principal business of the inhabitants is that of driving a contraband trade with the opposite shores, and Mr. Sarchet, educated in that school, is, I have been told, chiefly engaged in employing his wits to elude the operation of our revenue laws by introducing articles at less rates of duty than they are justly charge- able with, which he efifects by varying the denominations or slightly changing their forms. This man, at a former session of the Senate, caused to be presented a memorial signed by some one hundred and fifty pretended workers in iron. Of these a gentleman made a careful inquiry and examination, and he ascertained that there were only about ten of the denomination represented; the rest were tavern- keepers, porters, merchants' clerks, hackney coachmen, etc. I have the most respectable authority, in black and white, for this statement."^ Whether Mr. Sarchet got up the late petition presented 202 HENRY CLAY to the Senate from the journeymen tailors of Philadelphia, or not, I do not know. But I should not be surprised if it were a movement of his, and if we should find that he has cabbaged from other classes of society to swell out the number of signatures. To the facts manufactured by Mr. Sarchet, and the theories by Mr. Gallatin, there was yet wanting one cir- cumstance to recommend them to favourable considera- tion, and that was the authority of some high name. There was no difficulty in obtaining one from a British reposi- tory. The honourable gentleman has cited a speech of my Lord Goderich, addressed to the British Parliament, in favour of free trade, and full of deep regret that old Eng- land could not possibly conform her practice of rigorous restriction and exclusion to her liberal doctrines of unfet- tered commerce so earnestly recommended to foreign powers. Sir, I know my Lord Goderich very well, although my acquaintance with him was prior to his being sum- moned to the British House of Peers. We both signed the convention between the United States and Great Britain of 1815. He is an honourable man, frank, pos- sessing business but ordinary talents, about the stature and complexion of the honourable gentleman from South Carolina, a few years older than he, and every drop of blood running in his veins being pure and unadulterated Anglo- Saxon blood. If he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he could not make a speech of such ability and eloquence as that which the gentleman from South Carolina recently delivered to the Senate; and there would be much more fitness in my Lord Goderich making quotations from the speech of the honourable gentleman than his quoting as authority the theoretical doctrines of my Lord Goderich. We are too much in the habit of looking abroad, not merely for manufactured articles, but for the sanction of high names, to support favourite theories. I have seen and closely observed the British Parliament, and, without dero- gating from its justly elevated character, I have no hesi- tation in saying that in all the attributes of order, dignity, DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 203 patriotism, and eloquence the American Congress would not suffer in the smallest degree by a comparison with it. I dislike this resort to authority, and especially foreign and interested authority, for the support of principles of public policy. I would greatly prefer to meet gentlemen upon the broad ground of fact, of experience, and of reason; but, since they will appeal to British names and author- ity, I feel myself compelled to imitate their bad example. Allow me to quote from the speech of a member of the British Parliament, bearing the same family name with my Lord Goderich, but whether or not a relation of his I do not know. The member alluded to was arguing against the violation of the Treaty of Methuen — that treaty not less fatal to the interests of Portugal than would be the system of gentlemen to the best interests of America — and he went on to say: " It was idle for us to endeavour to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called ' free trade.' Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by ' free trade ' was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufactures, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manu- facturing nations. When the system of reciprocity and free trade had been proposed to a French ambassador, his remark was, that the plan was excellent in theory, but, to make it fair in practice, it would be necessary to defer the attempt to put it in execution for half a century, until France should be on the same footing with Great Britain in marine, in manufactures, in capital, and the many other peculiar advantages which it now enjoyed. The policy that France acted on was that of encouraging its native manufactures, and it was a wise policy; because, if it were freely to admit our manufactures, it would speedily be reduced to the rank of an agricultural nation; and, there- fore, a poor nation, as all must be that depend exclusively upon agriculture. America acted, too, upon the same 204 HENRY CLAY principle with France. America legislated for futurity — legislated for an increasing population. America, too, was prospering under this system. In twenty years America would be independent of England for manufactures alto- gether. . . . But since the peace, France, Germany, Amer- ica, and all the other countries of the world, had proceeded upon the principle of encouraging and protecting native manufactures." But I have said that the system nominally called " free trade," so earnestly and eloquently recommended to our adoption, is a mere revival of the British colonial system, forced upon us by Great Britain during the existence of our colonial vassalage. The whole system is fully explained and illustrated in a work published as far back as the year 1750, entitled " The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered, by Joshua Gee," with extracts from which I have been furnished by the diligent researches of a friend. It will be seen from these that the South Carolina policy now is identical with the long-cherished policy of Great Britain, which remains the same as it was when the thirteen colonies were part of the British Empire. In that work the author contends — " I. That manufactures, in American colonies, should be discouraged or prohibited. " Great Britain, with its dependencies, is doubtless as well able to subsist within itself as any nation in Europe. We have an enterprising people, fit for all the arts of peace and war. We have provisions in abundance, and those of the best sort, and are able to raise sufificient for double the number of inhabitants. We have the very best mate- rials for clothing, and want nothing either for use or even for luxury but what we have at home or might have from our colonies : so that we might make such an intercourse of trade among ourselves, or between us and them, as would maintain a vast navigation. But we ought always to keep a watchful eye over our colonies, to restrain them from setting up any of the manufactures which are carried on in Great Britain; and any such attempts should be DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 205 crushed in the beginning; for if they are suffered to grow up to maturity, it will be difficult to suppress them " (pages 177-179). " Our colonies are much in the same state Ireland was in when they began the woollen manufactory, and, as their numbers increase, will fall upon manufactures for clothing themselves if due care be not taken to find employment for them in raising such productions as may enable them to furnish themselves with all their necessaries from us." Then it was the object of this British economist to adapt the means or wealth of the colonists to the supply required by their necessities, and to make the mother-coun- try the source of that supply. Now it seems the policy is only so far to be reversed that we must continue to im- port necessaries from Great Britain, in order to enable her to purchase raw cotton from us. " I should, therefore, think it worthy the care of the Government to endeavour, by all possible means, to en- courage them in raising of silk, hemp, flax, iron (only pig to be hammered in England), potash, etc., by giving them competent bounties in the beginning, and sending over judicious and skilful persons at the public charge to assist and instruct them in the most proper methods of manage- ment, which in my apprehension would lay a foundation for establishing the most profitable trade of any we have. And considering the commanding situation of our colonies along the sea-coast; the great convenience of navigable rivers in all of them; the cheapness of land, and the easi- ness of raising provisions, great numbers of people would transport themselves thither to settle upon such improve- ments. Now, as people have been filled with fears that the colonies, if encouraged to raise rough materials, would set up for themselves, a little regulation would remove all those jealousies out of the way. They have never thrown or wove any silk as yet that we have heard of. Therefore, if a law was made to prohibit the use of every throwster's mill, of doubling or horsling silk with any machine what- ever, they would then send it to us raw. And as they will 206 HENRY CLAY have the providing rough materials to themselves, so shall we have the manufacturing of them. If encouragement be given for raising hemp, flax, etc., doubtless they will soon begin to manufacture if not prevented. Therefore, to stop the progress of any such manufacture, it is proposed that no weaver shall have liberty to set up any looms without first registering at an office kept for that purpose, and the name and place of abode of any journeyman that shall work for him. But if any particular inhabitant shall be inclined to have any linen or woollen made of their own spinning, they should not be abridged of the same liberty that they now make use of — namely, to carry to a weaver (who shall be licensed by the governor) and have it wrought up for the use of the family, but not to be sold to any person in a private manner, nor exposed to any market or fair, upon pain of forfeiture. " And, inasmuch as they have been supplied with all their manufactures from hence, except what is used in building of ships and other country work, one half of our exports being supposed to be in nails — a manufacture which they allow has never hitherto been carried on among them — it is proposed they shall, for time to come, never erect the manufacture of any under the size of a two-shilling nail, horse nails excepted; that all slitting nails and en- gines, for drawing wire, or weaving stockings, be put down, and that every smith who keeps a common forge or shop shall register his name and place of abode, and the name of every servant which he shall employ, which license shall be renewed once every year, and pay for the liberty of working at such trade. That all negroes shall be prohibited from weaving either linen or woollen, or spinning or comb- ing of wool, or working at any manufacture of iron, further than making it into pig or bar iron. That they also be prohibited from manufacturing hats, stockings, or leather of any kind. This limitation will not abridge the planters of any privilege they now enjoy. On the contrary, it will turn their industry to promoting and raising those rough materials." DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 20/ The author then proposes that the Board of Trade and Plantations should be furnished with statistical accounts of the various permitted manufactures, to enable them to encourage or depress the industry of the colonists, and pre- vent the danger of interference with British industry. " It is hoped that this method would allay the heat that some people have shown for destroying the iron works on the plantations, and pulling down all their forges — taking away in a violent manner their estates and properties — pre- venting the husbandmen from getting their ploughshares, carts, and other utensils mended; destroying the manufac- ture of shipbuilding, by depriving them of the liberty of making bolts, spikes, and other things proper for carrying on that work, by which article returns are made for pur- chasing our woollen manufactures " (pages 87-89). Such is the picture of colonists dependent upon the mother-country for their necessary supplies, drawn by a writer who was not among the number of those who de- sired to debar them the means of building a vessel, erect- ing a forge, or mending a ploughshare, but who was willing to promote their growth and prosperity as far as was con- sistent with the paramount interests of the manufacturing or parent state. " 2. The advantages to Great Britain from keeping the colonists dependent on her for their essential sup- plies. " If we examine into the circumstances of the inhabit- ants of our plantations, and our own, it will appear that not one fourth part of their product redounds to their own profit, for, out of all that comes here, they only carry back clothing and other accommodations for their families, all of which is of the merchandise and manufacture of this kingdom." After showing how this system tends to concentrate all the surplus of acquisition over absolute expenditure in England, he says: " All these advantages we receive by the plantations, besides the mortgages on the planters' estates, and the 2o8 HENRY CLAY high interest they pay us, which is very considerable; and therefore very great care ought to be taken in regulating all the affairs of the colonists, that the planters be not put under too many difficulties, but encouraged to go on cheerfully. " New England and the Northern colonies have not commodities and products enough to send us in return for purchasing their necessary clothing, but are under very great difficulties; and therefore any ordinary sort sell with them. And when they have grown out of fashion with us, they are new-fashioned enough there." Sir, I can not go on with this disgusting detail. Their refuse goods, their old shopkeepers, their cast-off clothes good enough for us! Was there ever a scheme more art- fully devised by which the energies and faculties of one people should be kept down and rendered subservient to the pride, and the pomp, and the power of another? The system then proposed differs only from that which is now recommended in one particular; that was intended to be enforced by power, this would not be less effectually exe- cuted by the force of circumstances. A gentleman in Bos- ton [Mr. Lee], the agent of the free-trade convention, from whose exhaustless mint there is a constant issue of reports, seems to envy the blessed condition of dependent Canada, when compared to the oppressed state of this Union; and it is a fair inference from the view which he presents that he would have us hasten back to the golden days of that colonial bondage which is so well depicted in the work from which I have been quoting. Mr. Lee exhibits two tabular statements, in one of which he presents the high duties which he represents to be paid in the ports of the United States, and in the other those which are paid in Canada, generally about two per cent ad valorem. But did it not occur to him that the duties levied in Canada are paid chiefly in British manufactures, or on articles pass- ing from one part to another of a common empire; and that to present a parallel case in the United States he ought to have shown that importations made into one State from DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 209 another, which are now free, are subject to the same or higher duties than are paid in Canada? I will now, Mr. President, proceed to a more particular consideration of the arguments urged against the pro- tective system, and an inquiry into its practical operation, especially on the cotton-growing country. And as I wish to state and meet the argument fairly, I invite the correc- tion of my statement of it if necessary. It is alleged that the system operates prejudicially to the cotton planter, by diminishing the foreign demand for his staple; that we can not sell to Great Britain unless we buy from her; that the import duty is equivalent to an export duty, and falls upon the cotton grower; that South Carolina pays a dispropor- tionate quota of the public revenue; that an abandonment of the protective policy would lead to an augmentation of our exports of an amount not less than one hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and, finally, that the South can not partake of the advantages of manufacturing, if there be any. Let us examine these various propositions in detail: I. That the foreign demand for cotton is diminished, and that we can not sell to Great Britain unless we buy from her. The demand of both our great foreign customers is constantly and annually increasing. It is true that the ratio of the increase may not be equal to that of produc- tion; but this is owing to the fact that the power of pro- ducing the raw material is much greater, and is, therefore, constantly in advance of the power of consumption. A single fact will illustrate. The average produce of labour- ers engaged in the cultivation of cotton may be estimated at five bales, or fifteen hundred weight to the hand. Sup- posing the annual average consumption of each individual who uses cotton cloth to be five pounds, one hand can produce enough of the raw material to clothe three hundred. The argument comprehends two errors, one of fact and the other of principle. It assumes that we do not, in fact, purchase of Great Britain. What is the true state of the case? There are certain but very few articles which 14 210 HENRY CLAY it is thought sound policy requires that we should manu- facture at home, and on these the tariff operates. But, with respect to all the rest, and much the larger number of articles of taste, fashion, and utility, they are subject to no other than revenue duties, and are freely introduced. I have before me from the treasury a statement of our im- ports from England, Scotland, and Ireland, including ten years preceding the last, and three quarters of the last year, from which it will appear that, although there are some fluctuations in the amount of the different years, the largest amount imported in any one year has been since the tariff of 1824, and that the last year's importation, when the re- turns of the fourth quarter shall be received, will probably be the greatest in the whole term of eleven years. Now, if it be admitted that there is a less amount of the protected articles imported from Great Britain, she may be, and probably is, compensated for the deficiency by the increased consumption in America of the articles of her industry not falling within the scope of the policy of our protection. The establishment of manufactures among us excites the creation of wealth, and this gives new powers of consumption, which are gratified by the purchase of foreign objects. A poor nation can never be a great consuming nation. Its poverty will limit its con- sumption to bare subsistence. The erroneous principle which the argument includes is, that it devolves on us the duty of taking care that Great Britain shall be enabled to purchase from us without ex- acting from Great Britain the corresponding duty. If it be true, on one side, that nations are bound to shape their policy in reference to the ability of foreign powers, it must be true on both sides of the Atlantic. And this reciprocal obligation ought to be emphatically regarded toward the nation supplying the raw material by the manufacturing nation, because the industry of the latter gives four or five values to what had been produced by the industry of the former. But does Great Britain practise toward us upon the DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 21 1 principles which we are now required to observe in regard to her? The exports to the United Kingdom, as appears from the same treasury statement just adverted to, during eleven years, from 1821 to 1831, and exclusive of the fourth quarter of the last year, fall short of the amount of imports by upward of forty-six millions of dollars, and the total amount, when the returns of that quarter are received, will exceed fifty millions of dollars! It is surprising how we have been able to sustain for so long a time a trade so very unequal. We must have been absolutely ruined by it if the unfavourable balance had not been neutralized by more profitable commerce with other parts of the world. Of all nations. Great Britain has the least cause to com- plain of the trade between the two countries. Our imports from that single power are nearly one third of the entire amount of our importations from all foreign countries to- gether. Great Britain constantly acts on the maxim of buying only what she wants and can not produce, and sell- ing to foreign nations the utmost amount she can. In conformity with this maxim, she excludes articles of prime necessity produced by us — equally, if not more necessary, than any of her industry which we tax, although the admis- sion of those articles would increase our ability to purchase from her, according to the argument of gentlemen. If we purchased still less from Great Britain than we do, and our conditions were reversed, so that the value of her imports from this country exceeded that of her exports to it, she would only then be compelled to do what we have so long done, and what South Carolina does in her trade with Kentucky — make up for the unfavour- able balance by trade with other places and countries. How does she now dispose of the one hundred and sixty millions of dollars' worth of cotton fabrics which she annually sells? Of that amount the United States do not purchase five per cent. What becomes of the other ninety-five per cent? Is it not sold to other powers, and would not their markets remain if ours were totally shut? Would she not continue, as she now finds it her interest, to purchase the raw mate- 212 HENRY CLAY rial from us to supply those markets? Would she be guilty of the folly of depriving herself of markets to the amount of upward of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars be- cause we refused her a market of some eight or ten millions? But if there were a diminution of the British demand for cotton equal to the loss of a market for the few British fabrics which are within the scope of our protective policy, the question would still remain whether the cotton planter is not amply indemnified by the creation of additional de- mand elsewhere. With respect to the cotton grower, it is the totality of the demand, and not its distribution, which affects his interests. If any system of policy will augment the aggregate of the demand, that system is favourable to his interests, although its tendency may be to vary the theatre of the demand. It could not, for example, be in- jurious to him if, instead of Great Britain continuing to receive the entire quantity of cotton which she now does, two or three hundred thousand bales of it were taken to the other side of the channel, and increased to that extent the French demand. It would be better for him, because it is always better to have several markets than one. Now if, instead of a transfer to the opposite side of the channel of those two or three hundred thousand bales, they are transported to the Northern States, can that be injurious to the cotton grower? Is it not better for him? Is it not better to have a market at home, unafifected by war or other foreign causes, for that amount of his staple? If the establishment of American manufactures, there- fore, had the sole efifect of creating a new and an American demand for cotton, exactly to the same extent in which it lessened the British demand, there would be no just cause of complaint against the tariff. The gain in one place would precisely equal the loss in the other. But the true state of the matter is much more favourable to the cotton grower. It is calculated that the cotton manufac- tories of the United States absorb at least two hundred thousand bales of cotton annually. I believe it to be more. The two ports of Boston and Providence alone received DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 213 during the last year nearly one hundred and ten thousand bales. The amount is annually increasing. The raw mate- rial of that two hundred thousand bales is worth six mil- lions, and there is an additional value conferred by the manufacturer of eighteen millions, it being generally cal- culated that, in such cotton fabrics as we are in the habit of making, the manufacture constitutes three fourths of the value of the article. If, therefore, these twenty-four mil- lions' worth of cotton fabrics were not made in the United States, but were manufactured in Great Britain, in order to obtain them, we should have to add to the already enor- mous disproportion between the amount of our imports and exports, in the trade with Great Britain, the further sum of twenty-four millions, or, deducting the price of the raw material, eighteen millions! And will gentlemen tell me how it would be possible for this country to sustain such a ruinous trade? From all that portion of the United States lying north and east of James River, and west of the mountains. Great Britain receives comparatively noth- ing. How would it be possible for the inhabitants of that largest portion of our territory to supply themselves with cotton fabrics if they were brought from England exclu- sively? They could not do it. But for the existence of the American manufacture, they would be compelled greatly to curtail their supplies, if not absolutely to sufifer in their comforts. By its existence at home the circle of those exchanges is created which reciprocally dififuses among all who are embraced within it the productions of their respective industry. The cotton grower sells the raw material to the manufacturer; he buys the iron, the bread, the meal, the coal, and the countless number of objects of his consumption from his fellow-citizens, and they in turn purchase his fabrics. Putting it upon the ground merely of supplying those with necessary articles who could not otherwise obtain them, ought there to be from any quarter an objection to the only system by which that ob- ject can be accomplished? But can there be any doubt, with those who will reflect, that the actual amount of cotton 214 HENRY CLAY consumed is increased by the home manufacture? The main argument of gentlemen is founded upon the idea of mutual ability resulting from mutual exchanges. They would furnish an ability to foreign nations by purchasing from them, and I to our own people, by exchanges at home. If the American manufacture were discontinued, and that of England were to take its place, how would she sell the additional quantity of twenty-four millions of cotton goods which we now make? To us? That has been shown to be impracticable. To other foreign nations? She has al- ready pushed her supplies to them to the utmost extent. The ultimate consequence would then be to diminish the total consumption of cotton, to say nothing now of the reduction of price that would take place by throwing into the ports of Great Britain the two hundred thousand bales which, no longer being manufactured in the United States, would go thither. 2. That the import duty is equivalent to an export duty, and falls on the producer of cotton.* The framers of our Constitution, by granting the power to Congress to lay imports, and prohibiting that of laying an export duty, manifested that they did not regard them as equivalent. Nor does the common sense of mankind. An export duty fastens upon, and incorporates itself with, the article on which it is laid. The article can not escape from it — it pursues and follows it wherever the article goes; and if, in the foreign market, the supply is above or just equal to the demand, the amount of the export duty will be a clear deduction to the exporter from the price of the article. But an import duty on a foreign article leaves the exporter of the domestic article free : First, to import specie;, secondly, goods which are free from the protect- ing duty; or, thirdly, such goods as being chargeable with the protecting duty he can sell at home and throw the duty on the consumer. But it is confidently argued that the import duty falls upon the grower of cotton; and the case has been put in debate, and again and again in conversation, of the South DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 21$ Carolina planter who exports one hundred bales of cotton to Liverpool, exchanges them for one hundred bales of merchandise, and, when he brings them home, being com- pelled to leave at the custom house forty bales in the form of duties. The argument is founded on the assumption that a duty of forty per cent amounts to a subtraction of forty from the one hundred bales of merchandise. The first objection to it is, that it supposes a case of barter, which never occurs. If it be replied that it nevertheless occurs in the operations of commerce, the answer would be that, since the export of Carolina cotton is chieiiy made by New York or foreign merchants, the loss stated, if it really accrued, would fall upon them, and not upon the planter. But, to test the correctness of the hypothetical case, let us suppose that the duty, instead of forty per cent, should be one hundred and fifty, which is asserted to be the duty in some cases. Then the planter would not only lose the whole hundred bales of merchandise which he had got for his hundred bales of cotton, but he would have to purchase with other means an additional fifty bales in order to enable him to pay the duties accruing on the pro- ceeds of the cotton. Another answer is, that if the pro- ducer of cotton in America exchanged against English fabrics pays the duty, the producer of those fabrics also pays it, and then it is twice paid. Such must be the con- sequence, unless the principle is true on one side of the Atlantic and false on the other. The true answer is, that the exporter of an article, if he invests its proceeds in a foreign market, takes care to make the investment in such merchandise as when brought home he can sell with a fair profit, and, consequently, the consumer would pay the original cost and charges and profit. 3. The next objection to the American system is that it subjects South Carolina to the payment of an undue pro- portion of the public revenue. The basis of this objection is the assumption, shown to have been erroneous, that the producer of the exports from this country pays the duty on its imports, instead of the consumer of those imports. 2i6 HENRY CLAY The amount which South Carolina really contributes to the public revenue, no more than that of any other State, can be precisely ascertained. It depends upon her consump- tion of articles paying duties, and we may make an ap- proximation sufficient for all practical purposes. The cot- ton planters of the valley of the Mississippi with whom I am acquainted generally expend about one third of their income in the support of their families and plantations. On this subject I hold in my hands a statement from a friend of mine, of great accuracy, and a member of the Senate. According to this statement, in a crop of $10,000, the expenses may fluctuate between $2,800 and $3,200. Of this sum, about one fourth, from $700 to $800, may be laid out in articles paying the protecting duty; the residue is disbursed for provisions, mules, horses, oxen, wages of overseer, etc. Estimating the exports of South Carolina at $8,000,000, one third is $2,666,666; of which one fourth will be $666,666|. Now, supposing the protecting duty to be fifty per cent, and that it all enters into the price of the article, the amount paid by South Carolina would only be $333,333^- But the total revenue of the United States may be stated at twenty-five millions, of which the proportion of South Carolina, whatever standard, whether of wealth or population, be adopted, would be about one million. Of course, on this view of the subject, she actually pays only about one third of her fair and legitimate share. I repeat that I have no personal knowledge of the habits of actual expenditure in South Carolina; they may be greater than I have stated in respect to other parts of the cotton country, but if they are, that fact does not arise from any defect in the system of public policy. 4. An abandonment of the American system, it is urged, would lead to an addition to our exports of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. The amount of one hundred and fifty millions of cotton in the raw state would produce four hundred and fifty millions in the manufactured state, supposing no greater measure of value to be com- municated in the manufactured form than that which our HENRY CLAY. Steel engraving by William G. Jackman after a daguerreotype by Brady, ■^•==4»«^, -V.^^ ^j,^.,„"^^l.-''P- DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 217 industry imparts. Now, sir, where would markets be found for this vast addition to the supply? Not in the United States, certainly, nor in any other quarter of the globe, England having already everywhere pressed her cotton manufactures to the utmost point of repletion. We must look out for new worlds; seek for new and unknown races of mortals to consume this immense increase of cotton fabrics.''' What other articles? Agricultural produce — ^bread- stuffs, beef and pork, etc.? Where shall we find markets for them? Whither shall we go? To what country whose ports are not hermetically sealed against their admission? Break down the home market and you are without re- source. Destroy all other interests in the country for the imaginary purpose of advancing the cotton-planting in- terest, and you inflict a positive injury, without the smallest practical benefit to the cotton planter. Could Charleston, or the whole South, when all other markets are prostrated, or shut against the reception of the surplus of our farmers, receive that surplus? Would they buy more than they might want for their own consumption? Could they find markets which other parts of the Union could not? Would gentlemen force the freemen of all north of James River, east and west, like the miserable slave, on the Sabbath day, to repair to Charleston, with a turkey under his arm or a pack upon his back, and beg the clerk of some English or Scotch merchant, living in his gorgeous palace, or rolling in his splendid coach in the streets, to exchange his " truck " for a bit of flannel to cover his naked wife and children? No! I am sure that I do no more than justice to their hearts when I believe that they would reject what I believe to be the inevitable effects of their policy. 5. But it is contended, in the last place, that the South can not, from physical and other causes, engage in the manufacturing arts. I deny the premises, and I deny the conclusion. I deny the fact of inability, and, if it existed, I deny the conclusion that we must, therefore, break down our manufactures, and nourish those of foreign countries. 2l8 HENRY CLAY The South possesses, in an extraordinary degree, two of the most important elements of manufacturing industry — water power and labour. The former gives to our whole country a most decided advantage over Great Britain. But a single experiment stated by the gentleman from South Carolina, in which a faithless slave put the torch to a manufacturing establishment, has discouraged similar enterprises. We have in Kentucky the same description of population, and we employ them, and almost exclusively them, in many of our hemp manufactories. A neighbour of mine, one of our most opulent and respectable citizens, has had one, two, if not three, manufactories burned by in- cendiaries; but he persevered, and his perseverance has been rewarded with wealth. We found that it was less ex- pensive to keep night watches than to pay premiums for insurance, and we employed them. Let it be supposed, however, that the South can not manufacture; must those parts of the Union which can, be, therefore, prevented? Must we support those of for- eign countries? I am sure that injustice would be done to the generous and patriotic nature of South CaroHna if it were believed that she envied or repined at the success of other portions of the Union in branches of industry to which she might happen not to be adapted. Through- out her whole career she has been liberal, national, high- minded. The friends of the American system have been reminded by the honourable gentleman from Maryland [General Smith] that they are the majority, and he has admonished them to exercise their power in moderation. The major- ity ought never to trample upon the feelings or violate the just rights of the minority. They ought never to tri- umph over the fallen, nor to make any but a temperate and equitable use of their power. But these counsels come with an ill grace from the gentleman from Maryland. He, too, is a member of a majority — a political majority. And how has the administration of that majority exercised their power in this country? Recall to your recollection the 4th DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 219 of March, 1829, when the lank, lean, famished forms, from fen and forest, and the four quarters of the Union, gath- ered together in the halls of patronage; or, stealing by evening's twilight into the apartments of the President's mansion, cried out, with ghastly faces and in sepulchral tones: " Give us bread! give us treasury pap! give us our reward! " England's bard was mistaken; ghosts will some- times come, called or uncalled. Go to the families who were driven from the employments on which they were dependent for subsistence, in consequence of their exercise of the dearest right of freemen. Go to mothers, while hug- ging to their bosoms their starving children. Go to fathers, who, after being disqualified by long public service for any other business, were stripped of their humble places, and then sought, by the minions of authority, to be stripped of all that was left them — their good names — and ask, what mercy was shown to them? As for myself, born in the midst of the Revolution, the first air that I ever breathed on my native soil of Virginia having been that of liberty and independence, I never expected justice, nor desired mercy at their hands, and scorn the wrath and defy the oppression of power. I regret, Mr. President, that one topic has, I think, un- necessarily been introduced into this debate. I allude to the charge brought against the manufacturing system, as favouring the growth of aristocracy. If it were true, would gentlemen prefer supporting foreign accumulations of wealth, by that description of industry, rather than in their own country? But is it correct? The joint-stock com- panies of the North, as I understand them, are nothing more than associations, sometimes of hundreds, by means of which the small earnings of many are brought into a common stock, and the associates, obtaining corporate privileges, are enabled to prosecute, under one superin- tending head, their business to better advantage. Nothing can be more essentially democratic or better devised to counterpoise the influence of individual wealth. In Ken- tucky almost every manufactory known to me is in the 220 HENRY CLAY hands of enterprising and self-made men, who have ac- quired whatever weaUh they possess by patient and dili- gent labour. Comparisons are odious, and but in defence would not be made by me. But is there more tendency to aristocracy in a manufactory supporting hundreds of freemen, or in a cotton plantation, with its not less numer- ous slaves, sustaining perhaps only two white families — that of the master and the overseer? I pass with pleasure from this disagreeable topic to two general propositions which cover the entire ground of de- bate. The first is, that under the operation of the Ameri- can system the objects which it protects and fosters are brought to the consumer at cheaper prices than they com- manded prior to its introduction, or than they would com- mand if it did not exist. If that be true, ought not the country to be contented and satisfied with the system, un- less the second proposition, which I mean presently also to consider, is unfounded? And that is, that the tendency of the system is to sustain and that it has upheld the prices of all our agricultural and other produce, including cotton. And is the fact not indisputable that all essential objects of consumption affected by the tarifif are cheaper and better since the act of 1824 than they were for several years prior to that law? I appeal for its truth to common obser- vation and to all practical men. I appeal to the farmer of the country whether he does not purchase on better terms his iron, salt, brown sugar, cotton goods, and wool- lens for his labouring people? And I ask the cotton planter if he has not been better and more cheaply sup- plied with his cotton bagging? In regard to this latter article, the gentleman from South Carolina was mistaken in supposing that I complained that under the existing duty the Kentucky manufacturer could not compete with the Scotch. The Kentuckian furnishes a more substantial and a cheaper article, and at a more uniform and regular price. But it was the frauds, the violations of law of which I did complain; not smuggling, in the common sense of that practice, which has something bold, daring, and enter- DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 221 prising in it, but mean, barefaced cheating, by fraudulent invoices and false denomination. I plant myself upon this fact, of cheapness and superi- ority, as upon impregnable ground. Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity and produce a thousand speculative solu- tions of the fact, but the fact itself will remain undisturbed. Let us look into some particulars. The total consumption of bar iron in the United States is supposed to be about 146,000 tons, of which 112,866 tons are made within the country, and the residue imported. The number of men employed in the manufacture is estimated at 29,254, and the total number of persons subsisted by it at 146,273. The measure of protection extended to this necessary ar- ticle was never fully adequate until the passage of the act of 1828; and what has been the consequence? The annual increase of quantity since that period has been in a ratio of nearly twenty-five per cent, and the wholesale price of bar iron in the Northern cities was, in 1828, one hundred and five dollars per ton; in 1829, one hundred dollars; in 1830, ninety dollars; and in 1831, from eighty-five to sev- enty-five dollars — constantly diminishing. We import very little English iron, and that which we do is very inferior, and only adapted to a few purposes. In instituting a com- parison between that inferior article and our superior iron, subjects entirely different are compared. They are made by different processes. The English can not make iron of equal quality to ours at a less price than we do. They have three classes — ^best-best, best, and ordinary. It is the latter which is imported. Of the whole amount imported, there is only about four thousand tons of foreign iron that pays the high duty, the residue paying only a duty of about thirty per cent, estimated on the prices of the importation of 1829. Our iron ore is superior to that of Great Britain, yielding often from sixty to eighty per cent, while theirs produces only about twenty-five. This fact is so well known that I have heard of recent exportations of iron ore to England. It has been alleged that bar iron, being a raw material. 222 HENRY CLAY ought to be admitted free, or with low duties, for the sake of the manufacturers themselves. But I take this to be the true principle, that if our country is producing a raw material of prime necessity, and with reasonable protection can produce it in sufficient quantity to supply our wants, that raw material ought to be protected, although it may be proper to protect the article also out of which it is manu- factured. The tailor will ask protection for himself, but wishes it denied to the grower of wool and the manufac- turer of broadcloth. The cotton planter enjoys protection for the raw material, but does not desire it to be extended to the cotton manufacturer. The shipbuilder will ask pro- tection for navigation, but does not wish it extended to the essential articles which enter into the construction of his ship. Each in his proper vocation solicits protection, but would have it denied to all other interests which are sup- posed to come into collision with his. Now the duty of the statesman is to elevate himself above these petty conflicts, calmly to survey all the various interests, and deliberately to proportion the measures of protection to each, according to its nature and to the gen- eral wants of society. It is quite possible that, in the de- gree of protection which has been afforded to the various workers in iron, there may be some error committed, although I have lately read an argument of much ability proving that no injustice has really been done to them. If there be, it ought to be remedied. The next article to which I would call the attention of the Senate is that of cotton fabrics. The success of our manufacture of coarse cottons is generally admitted. It is demonstrated by the fact that they meet the cotton fabrics of other countries, in foreign markets, and maintain a successful competition with them. There has been a gradual increase of the exports of this article, which is sent to Mexico and the South American republics, to the Medi- terranean, and even to Asia. The remarkable fact was lately communicated to me that the same individual, who twenty-five years ago was engaged in the importation of DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 223 cotton cloth from Asia for American consumption, is now engaged in the exportation of coarse American cottons to Asia for Asiatic consumption! And my honourable friend from Massachusetts, now in my eye [Mr. Silsbee], in- formed me that on his departure from home, among the last orders which he gave, one was for the exportation of coarse cottons to Sumatra, in the vicinity of Calcutta! I hold in my hand a statement, derived from the most au- thentic source, showing that the identical description of cotton cloth which sold in 181 7 at twenty-nine cents per yard was sold in 18 19 at twenty-one cents, in 1821 at nine- teen and a half cents, in 1823 at seventeen cents, in 1825 at fourteen and a half cents, in 1827 at thirteen cents, in 1829 at nine cents, in 1830 at nine and a half cents, and in 1 83 1 at from ten and a half to eleven. Such is the wonder- ful effect of protection, competition, and improvement in skill combined! The year 1829 was one of some suffering to this branch of industry, probably owing to the principle of competition being pushed too far. Hence we observe a small rise in the article of the next two years. The intro- duction of calico printing into the United States consti- tutes an important era in our manufacturing industry. It commenced about the year 1825, and has since made such astonishing advances that the whole quantity now annually printed is but little short of forty millions of yards — about two thirds of our whole consumption. It is a beautiful manufacture, combining great mechanical skill with scien- tific discoveries in chemistry. The engraved cylinders for making the impression require much taste, and put in requi- sition the genius of the fine arts of design and engraving. Are the fine, graceful forms of our fair countrywomen less lovely when enveloped in the chintzes and calicoes pro- duced by native industry than when clothed in the tinsel of foreign drapery? Gentlemen are no doubt surprised at these facts. They should not underrate the energies, the enterprise, and the skill of our fellow-citizens. I have no doubt they are every way competent to accomplish whatever can be effected 224 HENRY CLAY by any other people if encouraged and protected by the fostering care of our own Government. Will gentlemen believe the fact, which I am authorized now to state, that the United States at this time manufacture one half the quantity of cotton which Great Britain did in 1816! We possess three great advantages: i. The raw material. 2. Water power instead of that of steam, generally used in England. 3. The cheaper labour of females. In England, males spin with the mule and weave; in this country women and girls spin with the throstle, and superintend the power loom. And can there be any employment more appropriate? Who has not been delighted with contem- plating the clockwork regularity of a large cotton manufac- tory? I have often visited them at Cincinnati and other places, and always with increasing admiration. The women, separated from the other sex, work in apartments large, airy, well warmed, and spacious. Neatly dressed, with ruddy complexions and happy countenances, they watch the work before them, mend the broken threads, and replace the exhausted balls or broaches. At stated hours they are called to their meals, and go and return with light and cheerful step. At night they separate and repair to their respective houses, under the care of a mother, guardian, or friend. " Six days shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Accordingly, we behold them, on that sacred day, assembled together in his tem- ples, and in devotional attitudes and with pious counte- nances offering their prayers to Heaven for all its blessings, of which it is not the least that a system of policy has been adopted by their country which admits of their obtaining a comfortable subsistence. Manufactures have brought into profitable employment a vast amount of female labour, which, without them, would be lost to the country. In respect to woollens, every gentleman's own observa- tion and experience will enable him to judge of the great reduction of price which has taken place in most of these articles since the tariff of 1824. It would have been still DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 22$ greater but for the high duty on the raw material, imposed for the particular benefit of the farming interest. But, without going into particular details, I shall limit myself to inviting the attention of the Senate to a single article of general and necessary use. The protection given to flannels in 1828 was fully adequate. It has enabled the American manufacturer to obtain complete possession of the American market; and now let us look at the effect. I have before me a statement from a highly respectable mercantile house, showing the price of four descriptions of flannel during six years. The average price of them, in 1826, was thirty-eight and three quarter cents; in 1827, thirty-eight; in 1828 (the year of the tariff), forty-six; in 1829, thirty-six; in 1830 (notwithstanding the advance in the price of wool), thirty-two; and in 1831, thirty-two and one quarter. These facts require no comments. I have before me another statement of a practical and respectable man, well versed in the flannel manufacture in America and England, demonstrating that the cost of manufacture is precisely the same in both countries; and that, although a yard of flannel which would sell in England at fifteen cents would command here twenty-two, the difference of seven cents is the exact difference between the duties in the two countries which are paid on the six ounces of wool contained in a yard of flannel. Brown sugar during ten years, from 1792 to 1802, with a duty of one and a half cent per pound, averaged four- teen cents per pound. The same article during ten years, from 1820 to 1830, with a duty of three cents, has aver- aged only eight cents per pound. Nails, with a duty of five cents per pound, are selling at six cents. Window glass, eight by ten, prior to the tariff of 1824 sold at twelve or thirteen dollars per hundred feet; it now sells for three dollars and seventy-five cents. The gentleman from South Carolina, sensible of the incontestable fact of the very great reduction in the price of the necessaries of life protected by the American system, has felt the full force of it, and has presented various ex- 15 226 HENRY CLAY planations of the causes to which he ascribes it. The first is the diminished production of the precious metals, in con- sequence of the distressed state of the countries in which they are extracted, and the consequent increase of their value relative to that of the commodities for which they are exchanged. But, if this be the true cause of the reduc- tion of price, its operation ought to have been general on all objects, and of course upon cotton among the rest. And, in point of fact, the diminished price of that staple is not greater than the diminution of the value of other staples of our agriculture. Flour, which commanded some years ago ten or twelve dollars per barrel, is now sold for five. The fall of tobacco has been still more. The kite- foot of Maryland, which sold at from sixteen to twenty dollars per hundred, now produces only four or five. That of Virginia has sustained an equal decline. Beef, pork, every article almost produced by the farmer, has decreased in value. Ought not South Carolina then to submit quietly to a state of things which is general, and proceeds from an uncontrollable cause? Ought she to ascribe to the " ac- cursed " tariff what results from the calamities of civil and foreign war raging in many countries? But, sir, I do not subscribe to this doctrine implicitly. I do not believe that the diminished production of the precious metals, if that be the fact, satisfactorily accounts for the fall in prices: for I think that the augmentation of the currency of the world, by means of banks, public stocks, and other facilities arising out of exchange and credit, has more than supplied any deficiency in the amount of the precious metals. It is further urged that the restoration of peace in Eu- rope after the battle of Waterloo, and the consequent re- turn to peaceful pursuits of large masses of its population, by greatly increasing the aggregate amount of eflfective labour, had a tendency to lower prices; and undoubtedly such ought to have been its natural tendency. The same cause, however, must also have operated to reduce the price of our agricultural produce, for which there was no DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 227 longer the same demand in peace as in war — and it did so operate. But its influence on the price of manufactured articles, between the general peace of Europe in 181 5 and the adoption of our tarifif in 1824, was less sensibly felt, because, perhaps, a much larger portion of the labour, lib- ■ erated by the disbandment of armies, was absorbed by manufactures than by agriculture. It is also contended that the invention and improvement of labour-saving ma- chinery has tended to lessen the prices of manufactured objects of consumption; and undoubtedly this cause has had some eflfect. Ought not America to contribute her quota of this cause, and has she not, by her skill and ex- traordinary adaptation to the arts, in truth, largely contrib- uted to it? This brings me to consider what I apprehend to have been the most efficient of all the causes in the reduction of the prices of manufactured articles — and that is com- petition. By competition the total amount of the supply is increased, and by increase of the supply a competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition. It is action and reaction. It operates between individuals in the same nation, and between different nations. It re- sembles the meeting of the mountain torrent, grooving by its precipitous motion its own channel and ocean's tide. Unopposed, it sweeps everything before it; but, counter- poised, the waters become calm, safe, and regular. It is like the segments of a circle or an arch; taken separately, each is nothing; but in their combination they produce efficiency, symmetry, and perfection. By the American system this vast power has been excited in America, and brought into being to act in co-operation or collision with European industry. Europe acts within itself, and with America; and America acts within itself, and with Europe. The consequence is, the reduction of prices in both hemi- spheres. Nor is it fair to argue from the reduction of prices in Europe to her own presumed skill and labour exclu- , 228 HENRY CLAY sively. We affect her prices, and she affects ours. This must always be the case, at least in reference to any arti- cles as to which there is not a total non-intercourse; and if our industry, by diminishing the demand for her supplies, should produce a diminution in the price of those supplies, it would be very unfair to ascribe that reduction to her in- genuity, instead of placing it to the credit of our own skill and excited industry. Practical men understand very well this state of the case, whether they do or do not comprehend the causes which produce it. I have in my possession a letter from a respectable merchant, well known to me, in which he says, after complaining of the operation of the tariff of 1828 on the articles to which it applies, some of which he had imported, and that his purchases having been made in England before the passage of that tariff was known, it produced such an effect upon the English market that the articles could not be resold without loss, he adds, " For it really appears that, when additional duties are laid upon an article, it then becomes lower instead of higher." This would not probably happen where the supply of the foreign article did not exceed the home demand, unless upon the supposition of the increased duty having excited or stimu- lated the measure of the home production. The great law of price is determined by supply and de- mand. Whatever affects either affects the price. If the supply is increased, the demand remaining the same, the price declines; if the demand is increased, the supply re- maining the same, the price advances; if both supply and demand are undiminished, the price is stationary, and the price is influenced exactly in proportion to the degree of disturbance to the demand or supply. It is, therefore, a great error to suppose that an existing or new duty neces- sarily becomes a conlponent element to its exact amount of price. If the proportions of demand and supply are varied by the duty, either in augmenting the supply or diminishing the demand, or vice versa, price is affected to the extent of that variation. But the duty never becomes DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 229 an integral part of the price, except in the instances where the demand and the supply remain, after the duty is im- posed, precisely what they were before, or the demand, is increased, and the supply remains stationary. Competition, therefore, wherever existing, whether at home or abroad, is the parent cause of cheapness. If a high duty excites production at home, and the quantity of the domestic article exceeds the amount which had been previously imported, the price will fall. This accounts for an extraordinary fact stated by a senator from Missouri. Three cents were laid as a duty upon a pound of lead by the act of 1828. The price at Galena and the other lead mines afterward fell to one and a half cents per pound. Now it is obvious that the duty did not in this case enter into the price, for it was twice the amount of the price. What produced the fall? It was stimulated production at home, excited by the temptation of the exclusive posses- sion of the home market. This state of things could not last. Men would not continue an unprofitable pursuit; some abandoned the business, or the total quantity pro- duced was diminished, and living prices have been the con- sequence. But break down the domestic supply, place us again in a state of dependence on the foreign source, and can it be doubted that we should ultimately have to supply ourselves at dearer rates? It is not fair to credit the for- eign market with the depression of prices produced there by the influence of our competition. Let the competition be withdrawn, and their prices would instantly rise. On this subject great mistakes are committed. I have seen some most erroneous reasoning in a late report of Mr. Lee, of the free-trade convention, in regard to the article of sugar. He calculates the total amount of brown sugar produced in the world, and then states that what is made in Louisiana is not more than two and a half per cent of that total. Although his data may be questioned, let us assume their truth, and what might be the result? Price being determined by the proportions of supply and de- mand, it is evident that when the supply exceeds the de- 230 HENRY CLAY mand the price will fall. And the fall is not always regu- lated by the amount of that excess. If the market at a given price required five or fifty millions of hogsheads of sugar, a surplus of only a few hundred might materially influence the price and diffuse itself throughout the whole mass. Add, therefore, the eighty or one hundred thousand hogsheads of Louisiana sugar to the entire mass produced in other parts of the world, and it can not be doubted that a material reduction of the price of the article throughout Europe and America would take place. The Louisiana sugar substituting foreign sugar in the home market to the amount of its annual produce would force an equal amount of foreign sugar into other markets, which, being glutted, the price would necessarily decline, and this decline of price would press portions of the foreign sugar into com- petition in the United States with Louisiana sugar, the price of which would also be brought down. The fact has been in exact conformity with this theory. But now let us suppose the Louisiana sugar to be entirely with- drawn from the general consumption — ^what, then, would happen? A new demand would be created in America for foreign sugar, to the extent of the eighty or one hundred thousand hogsheads made in Louisiana; a less amount by that quantity would be sent to the European markets, and the price would consequently everywhere rise. It is not, therefore, those who, by keeping on duties, keep down prices, that tax the people, but those who, by repealing duties, would raise prices, that really impose burdens upon the people. But it is argued that if, by the skill, experience, and perfection which we have acquired in certain branches of manufacture, they can be made as cheap as similar articles abroad, and enter fairly into competition with them, why not repeal the duties as to those articles? And why should we? Assuming the truth of the supposition, the foreign article would not be introduced in the regular course of trade, but would remain excluded by the possession of the home market, which the domestic article had obtained. DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 23 1 The repeal, therefore, would have no legitimate effect. But might not the foreign article be imported in vast quantities to glut our markets, break down our establishments, and ultimately to enable the foreigner to monopolize the sup- ply of our consumption? America is the greatest foreign market for European manufactures. It is that to which European attention is constantly directed. If a great house becomes bankrupt there, its storehouses are emptied, and the goods are shipped to America, where, in consequence of our auctions and our custom-house credits, the greatest facilities are afforded in the sale of them. Combinations among manufacturers might take place, or even the opera- tions of foreign governments might be directed to the de- struction of our establishments. A repeal, therefore, of one protecting duty from some one or all of these causes would be followed by flooding the country with the for- eign fabric, surcharging the market, reducing the price, and a complete prostration of our manufactories; after which the foreigner would leisurely look about to in- demnify himself in the increased prices which he would be enabled to command by his monopoly of the supply of our consumption. What American citizen, after the Govern- ment had displayed this vacillating policy, would be again tempted to place the smallest confidence in the public faith, and adventure once more in this branch of industry? Gentlemen have allowed to the manufacturing portions of the community no peace; they have been constantly threatened with the overthrow of the American system. From the year 1820, if not from 1816, down to this time, they have been held in a condition of constant alarm and insecurity. Nothing is more prejudicial to the great inter- ests of a nation than unsettled and varying policy. Al- though every appeal to the national legislature has been responded to in conformity with the wishes and sentiments of the great majority of the people, measures of protection have only been carried by such small majorities as to ex- cite hopes on the one hand and fears on the other. Let the country breathe, let its vast resources be developed, 232 HENRY CLAY let its energies be fully put forth, let it have tranquility, and my word for it the degree of perfection in the arts which it will exhibit will be greater than that which has been presented, astonishing as our progress has been. Although some branches of our manufactures might, and in foreign markets now do, fearlessly contend with similar foreign fabrics, there are many others yet in their infancy struggling with the difficulties which encompass them. We should look at the whole system, and recollect that time, when we contemplate the great movements of a nation, is very different from the short period which is allotted for the duration of individual life. The honour- able gentleman from South Carolina well and eloquently said, in 1824: " No great interest of any country ever yet grew up in a day; no new branch of industry can become firmly and profitably established but in a long course of years; everything, indeed, great or good, is matured by slow degrees: that which attains a speedy maturity is of small value, and is destined to a brief existence. It is the order of Providence that powers gradually developed shall alone attain permanency and perfection. Thus must it be with our national institutions, and national character itself." I feel most sensibly, Mr. President, how much I have trespassed upon the Senate. My apology is a deep and deliberate conviction that the great cause under debate involves the prosperity and the destiny of the Union. But the best requital I can make for the friendly indulgence which has been extended to me by the Senate, and for which I shall ever retain sentiments of lasting gratitude, is to proceed with as little delay as practicable to the con- clusion of a discourse which has not been more tedious to the Senate than exhausting to me. I have now to con- sider the remaining of the two propositions which I have already announced. That is: Secondly. That under the operation of the American system the products of our agriculture command a higher price than they would do without it by the creation of a DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 233 home market, and by the augmentation of wealth produced by manufacturing industry, which enlarges our powers of consumption both of domestic and foreign articles. The importance of the home market is among the established maxims which are universally recognised by all writers and all men. However some may differ as to the relative ad- vantages of the foreign and the home market, none deny to the latter great value and high consideration. It is nearer to us; beyond the control of foreign legislation; and undisturbed by those vicissitudes to which all inter- national intercourse is more or less exposed. The most stupid are sensible of the benefit of a residence in the vicin- ity of a large manufactory, or of a market town, of a good road, or of a navigable stream, which connects their farms with some great capital. If the pursuits of all men were perfectly the same, although they would be in possession of the greatest abundance of the particular produce of their industry, they might, at the same time, be in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence. The uni- formity of the general occupation would preclude all ex- changes, all commerce. It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members of a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges which conduce to the general prosperity. And the greater that diversity, the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange. Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of the interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could never profitably reach the foreign market. But let us quit this field of theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical opera- tion of the system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our agriculture. In considering this staple, the first circumstance that excites our surprise is the rapidity with which the amount of it has annually increased. Does not this fact, however, demonstrate that the cultivation of it could not have been so very unprofitable? If the business were ruinous, would 234 HENRY CLAY more and more have annually engaged in it? The quan- tity in 1816 was eighty-one millions of pounds; in 1826, two hundred and four millions; and in 1830, near three hundred millions ! The ground of greatest surprise is, that it has been able to sustain even its present price with such an enormous augmentation of quantity. It could not have been done but for the combined operation of three causes, by which the consumption of cotton fabrics has been greatly extended, in consequence of their reduced prices: First, competition; secondly, the improvement of labour- saving machinery; and, thirdly, the low price of the raw material. The crop of 18 19, amounting to eighty-eight millions of pounds, produced twenty-one millions of dol- lars; the crop of 1823, when the amount was swelled to one hundred and seventy-four millions (almost double that of 1819), produced a less sum by more than half a million of dollars; and the crop of 1824, amounting to thirty mil- lions of pounds less than that of the preceding year, pro- duced a million and a half of dollars more. If there be any foundation for the established law of price, supply, and demand, ought not the fact of this great increase of the supply to account satisfactorily for the alleged low price of cotton? Is it necessary to look beyond that single fact to the tariff — ^to the diminished price of the mines furnishing the precious metals, or to any other cause, for the solution? This subject is well understood in the South, and although I can not approve the practice which has been introduced of quoting authority, and still less the authority of newspapers, for favourite theories, I must ask permission of the Senate to read an article from a Southern newspaper.^ Let us suppose that the home demand for cotton, which has been created by the American system, were to cease, and that the two hundred thousand ® bales which the home market now absorbs were thrown into the glutted markets of foreign countries — would not the effect inevitably be to produce a further and great reduction in the price of the article? If there be any truth in the facts and principles DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 235 which I have before stated and endeavoured to illustrate, it can not be doubted that the existence of American manu- factures has tended to increase the demand and extend the consumption of the raw material; and that, but for this increased demand, the price of the article would have fallen, possibly one half lower than it now is. The error of the opposite argument is in assuming one thing, which being denied, the whole fails — that is, it assumes that the whole labour of the United States would be profitably employed without manufactures. Now, the truth is that the system excites and creates labour, and this labour creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates additional ability to consume, which acts on all the objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. The amount of cotton imported into the two ports of Boston and Providence alone during the last year (and it was imported exclusively for the home manufacture), was 109,517 bales. On passing from that article to others of our agricul- tural productions, we shall find not less gratifying facts. The total quantity of flour imported into Boston during the same year was 284,504 barrels and 3,955 half barrels; of which there were from Virginia, Georgetown, and Alex- andria 114,222 barrels; of Indian corn, 681,131 bushels; of oats, 239,809 bushels; of rye, about 50,000 bushels; and of shorts, 33,489 bushels. Into the port of Providence, 71,369 barrels of flour, 216,662 bushels of Indian corn, and JtTJ^ bushels of rye. And there were discharged at the port of Philadelphia 420,353 bushels of Indian corn, 201,878 bush- els of wheat, and 1 10,557 bushels of rye and barley. There were slaughtered in Boston during the same year, 1831 (the only Northern city from which I have obtained re- turns), 33,922 beef cattle, 15,400 calves, 84,453 sheep, and 26,871 swine. It is confidently believed that there is not a less quantity of Southern flour consumed at the North than 800,000 barrels — a greater amount probably than is shipped to all the foreign markets of the world together. What would be the condition of the farming country of the United States — of all that portion which lies north, 236 HENRY CLAY east, and west of James River, including a large part of North Carolina — if a home market did not exist for this immense amount of agricultural produce? Without that market, where could it be sold? In foreign markets? If their restrictive laws did not exist, their capacity would not enable them to purchase and consume this vast addi- tion to their present supplies, which must be thrown in, or thrown away, but for the home market. But their laws exclude us from their markets. I shall content myself by calling the attention of the Senate to Great Britain only. The duties in the ports of the United Kingdom on bread- stuffs are prohibitory, except in times of dearth. On rice, the duty is fifteen shillings sterling per hundredweight, being more than one hundred per cent. On manufactured tobacco it is nine shillings sterling per pound, or about two thousand per cent. On leaf tobacco, three shillings per pound, or one thousand two hundred per cent. On lumber and some other articles they are from four hundred to fifteen hundred per cent more than on similar articles imported from British colonies. In the British West Indies the duty on beef, pork, hams, and bacon is twelve shillings sterling per hundred, more than one hundred per cent on the first cost of beef and pork in the Western States. And yet Great Britain is the power in whose behalf we are called upon to legislate, so that we may enable her to purchase our cotton! — Great Britain, that thinks only of herself in her own legislation! When have we experienced justice, much less favour, at her hands? When did she shape her legislation in reference to the interests of any foreign power? She is a great, opulent, and power- ful nation, but haughty, arrogant, and supercilious — not more separated from the rest of the world by the sea that girts her island than she is separated in feeling, sympathy, or friendly consideration of their welfare. Gentlemen, in supposing it impracticable that we should successfully com- pete with her in manufactures, do injustice to the skill and enterprise of their own country. Gallant as Great Britain undoubtedly is, we have gloriously contended with her, DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 237 man to man, gun to gun, ship to ship, fleet to fleet, and army to army. And I have no doubt we are destined to achieve equal success in the more useful, if not nobler, contest for superiority in the arts of civil life. I could extend and dwell on the long list of articles — the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and other items for which a demand is created in the home market by the operation of the American system — but I should exhaust the patience of the Senate. Where, where should we find a market for all these articles if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of prime neces- sity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in the price of all these articles but for the home market? And allow me, Mr. President to say that of all the agricul- tural parts of the United States which are benefited by the operation of this system, none are equally so with those which border the Chesapeake Bay, the lower parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and the two shores of Maryland. Their facilities of transportation and proximity to the North give them decided advantages. But if all this reasoning were totally fallacious — if the price of manufactured articles were really higher under the American system than without it, I should still argue that high or low prices were themselves relative — relative to the ability to pay them. It is in vain to tempt, to tan- talize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than our own if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them. If by the home exchanges we can be supplied with neces- sary, even if they are dearer and worse, articles of Ameri- can production than the foreign, it is better than not to be supplied at all. And how would the large portion of our country which I have described be supplied but for the home exchanges? A poor people, destitute of wealth or of exchangeable commodities, has nothing to purchase for- eign fabrics. To them they are equally beyond their reach, whether their cost be a dollar or a guinea. It is in this view 238 HENRY CLAY of the matter that Great Britain by her vast wealth — her excited and protected industry — is enabled to bear a burden of taxation which, when compared to that of other nations, appears enormous, but which, when her immense riches are compared to theirs, is light and trivial. The gentleman from South Carolina has drawn a lively and flattering pic- ture of our coasts, bays, rivers, and harbours, and he argues that these proclaimed the design of Providence that we should be a commercial people. I agree with him. We differ only as to the means. He would cherish the foreign and neglect the internal trade. I would foster both. What is navigation without ships, or ships without cargoes? By penetrating the bosoms of our mountains, and extracting from them their precious treasures; by cultivating the earth, and securing a home market for its rich and abun- dant products; by employing the water power with which we are blessed; by stimulating and protecting our native industry in all its forms — ^we shall but nourish and promote the prosperity of commerce, foreign and domestic. I have hitherto considered the question in reference only to a state of peace; but a season of war ought not to be entirely overlooked. We have enjoyed nearly twenty years of peace; but who can tell when the storm of war shall again break forth? Have we forgotten so soon the privations to which not merely our brave soldiers and our gallant tars were subjected, but the whole community, dur- ing the last war for the want of absolute necessaries? To what an enormous price they rose! And how inadequate the supply was at any price ! The statesman who justly ele- vates his views will look behind as well as forward and at the existing state of things; and he will graduate the policy which he recommends to all the probable exigencies which may arise in the republic. Taking this comprehensive range, it would be easy to show that the higher prices of peace, if prices were higher in peace, were more than compensated by the lower prices of war, during which sup- plies of all essential articles are indispensable to its vigor- ous, effectual, and glorious prosecution. I conclude this DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 239 part of the argument with the hope that my humble exer- tions have not been altogether unsuccessful in showing — 1. That the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to be regarded as the genuine American system. 2. That the free-trade system, which is proposed as its substitute, ought really to be considered as the British colonial system. 3. That the American system is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion. 4. That the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld and a decline averted by the protective system. 5. That if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished by the operation of that system, the diminu- tion has been more than compensated in the additional de- mand created at home. 6. That the constant tendency of the system, by cre- ating competition among ourselves, and between Ameri- can and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects. 7. That, in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price. 8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign sup- ply might be cut ofif, they would be much more exten- sively felt. 9. And, finally, that the substitution of the British co- lonial system for the American system, without benefit- ing any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general improvement, and ultimate ruin. And now, Mr. President, I have to make a few observa- tions on a delicate subject, which I approach with all the respect that is due to its serious and grave nature. They have not, indeed, been rendered necessary by the speech 240 HENRY CLAY from the gentleman from South Carolina, whose forbear- ance to notice the topic was commendable, as his argument throughout was characterized by an ability and dignity worthy of him and of the Senate. The gentleman made one declaration which might possibly be misinterpreted, and I submit to him whether an explanation of it be not proper. The declaration, as reported in his printed speech, is " the instinct of self-interest might have taught us an easier way of relieving ourselves from this oppression. It wanted but the will to have supplied ourselves with every article embraced in the protective system free of duty, with- out any other participation on our part than a simple con- sent to receive them." ^*' I am happy to hear this explanation. But, sir, it is im- possible to conceal from our view the facts that there is a great excitement in South Carolina; that the protective system is openly and violently denounced in popular meet- ings; and that the Legislature itself has declared its purpose of resorting to counteracting measures — a suspension of which has only been submitted to for the purpose of allow- ing Congress time to retrace its steps. With respect to this Union, Mr. President, the truth can not be too gen- erally proclaimed, nor too strongly inculcated, that it is necessary to the whole and to all the parts — necessary to those parts, indeed, in dififerent degrees, but vitally neces- sary to each — and that threats to disturb or dissolve it, coming from any of the parts, would be quite as indiscreet and improper as would be threats from the residue to ex- clude those parts from the pale of its benefits. The great principle which lies at the foundation of all free govern- ments is, that the majority must govern, from which there is or can be no appeal but to the sword. That majority ought to govern wisely, equitably, moderately, and consti- tutionally, but govern it must, subject only to that terrible appeal. If ever one or several States, being a minority, can, by menacing a dissolution of the Union, succeed in forcing an abandonment of great measures deemed essen- tial to the interests and prosperity of the whole, the Union DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 24 1 from that moment is practically gone. It may linger on, in form and name, but its vital spirit has fled forever! Entertaining these deliberate opinions, I would entreat the patriotic people of South Carolina — the land of Marion, Sumter, and Pickens; of Rutledge, Laurens, the Pinck- neys and Lowndes — of living and present names, which I would mention if they were not living or present — to pause, solemnly pause ! and contemplate the frightful preci- pice which lies directly before them. To retreat may be painful and mortifying to their gallantry and pride, but it is to retreat to the Union, to safety, and to those brethren with whom or with whose ancestors they or their ancestors have won, on fields of glory, imperishable renown. To advance is to rush on certain and inevitable disgrace and destruction. We have been told of deserted castles, of uninhabited halls, and of mansions, once the seats of opulence and hos- pitality, now abandoned and mouldering in ruins. I never had the honour of being in South Carolina, but I have heard and read of the stories of its chivalry and of its gen- erous and open-hearted liberality. I have heard, too, of the struggles for power between the lower and upper coun- try. The same causes which existed in Virginia, with which I have been acquainted, I presume, have had their influence in Carolina. In whose hands now are the once proud seats of Westover Curl, Maycox, Shirley,^^ and others, on James River and in lower Virginia? Under the operation of laws abolishing the principle of primogeni- ture, and providing the equitable rule of an equal distribu- tion of estates among those in equal degree of consanguin- ity, they have passed into other and stranger hands. Some of the descendants of illustrious families have gone to the far West, while others, lingering behind, have contrasted their present condition with that of their venerated ances- tors. They behold themselves excluded from their fathers' houses, now in the hands of those who were once their fathers' overseers, or sinking into decay; their imagina- tions paint ancient renown, the fading honours of their 16 242 HENRY CLAY name — glories gone by; too poor to live, too proud to work, too high-minded and honourable to resort to ignoble means of acquisition, brave, daring, chivalrous; what can be the cause of their present unhappy state? The " ac- cursed " tarif? presents itself to their excited imaginations, and they blindly rush into the ranks of those who, unfurl- ing the banner of nullification, would place a State upon its sovereignty! The danger to our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the American system, but on that of its aban- donment. If, as I have supposed and believed, the inhabit- ants of all north and east of James River, and all west of the mountains, including Louisiana, are deeply interested in the preservation of that system, would they be recon- ciled to its overthrow? Can it be expected that two thirds, if not three fourths, of the people of the United States would consent to the destruction of a policy believed to be indispensably necessary to their prosperity? When, too, the sacrifice is made at the instance of a single interest which they verily believe will not be promoted by it? In estimating the degree of peril which may be incident to two opposite courses of human policy, the statesman would be short-sighted who should content himself with view- ing only the evils, real or imaginary, which belong to that course which is in practical operation. He should lift him- self up to the contemplation of those greater and more certain dangers which might inevitably attend the adop- tion of the alternative course. What would be the con- dition of this Union if Pennsylvania and New York, those mammoth members of our confederacy, were firmly per- suaded that their industry was paralyzed and their pros- perity blighted by the enforcement of the British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade? They are now tranquil and happy and contented, conscious of their welfare, and feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home manufactures and home industry throughout all their great arteries. But let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to predominate, and DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 243 the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up; Ifet New England and the West, and the Middle States, all feel that they too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of our country despair of any favour- able change, and then indeed might we tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union! And need I remind you, sir, that this dereliction of the duty of protecting our domestic industry, and abandon- ment of it to the fate of foreign legislation, would be di- rectly at war with leading considerations which prompted the adoption of the present Constitution? The States re- spectively surrendered to the General Government the whole power of laying imposts on foreign goods. They stripped themselves of all power to protect their own manu- factures by the most efficacious means of encouragement — the imposition of duties on rival foreign fabrics. Did they create that great trust? Did they voluntarily subject themselves to this self-restriction, that the power should remain in the Federal Government inactive, unexecuted, and lifeless? Mr. Madison, at the commencement of the government, told you otherwise. In discussing at that early period this very subject, he declared that a failure to exercise this power would be a " fraud " upon the North- ern States, to which may now be added the Middle and Western States.^ ^ Gentlemen are greatly deceived as to the hold which this system has in the affections of the people of the United States. They represent that it is the policy of New Eng- land, and that she is most benefited by it. If there be any part of this Union which has been most steady, most unani- mous, and most determined in its support, it is Pennsyl- vania. Why is not that powerful State attacked? Why pass her over, and aim the blow at New England? New England came reluctantly into the policy. In 1824 a ma- jority of her delegation was opposed to it. From the largest State of New England there was but a solitary vote in favour of the bill. That enterprising people can readily accommodate their industry to any policy, provided it be 244 HENRY CLAY settled. They supposed this was fixed, and they submitted to the decrees of Government. And the progress of public opinion has kept pace with the developments of the bene- fits of the system. Now, all New England, at least in this House (with the exception of one small still voice), is in favour of the system. In 1824 all Maryland was against it; now the majority is for it. Then Louisiana, with one exception, was opposed to it; now, without any exception, she is in favour of it. The march of public sentiment is to the South. Virginia will be the next convert; and in less than seven years, if there be no obstacles from political causes, or prejudices industriously instilled, the majority of eastern Virginia will be, as the majority of western Vir- ginia now is, in favour of the American system. North Carolina will follow later, but not less certainly. Eastern Tennessee is now in favour of the system. And, finally, its doctrines will pervade the whole Union, and the won- der will be that they ever should have been opposed. I have now to proceed to notice some objections which have been urged against the resolution under considera- tion. With respect to the amendment which the gentle- man from South Carolina has ofifered, as he has intimated his purpose to modify it, I shall forbear for the present to comment upon it. It is contended that the resolution proposes the repeal of duties on luxuries, leaving those on necessaries to remain, and that it will, therefore, relieve the rich without lessening the burdens of the poor. And the gentleman from South Carolina has carefully selected, for ludicrous efifect, a number of the unprotected articles, cosmetics, perfumes, oranges, etc. I must say that this exhibition of the gentleman is not in keeping with the candour which he has generally displayed; that he knows very well that the duties upon these articles are trifling, and that it is of little consequence whether they are repealed or retained. Both systems, the American and the foreign, comprehend some articles which may be deemed luxuries. The Senate knows that the unprotected articles which yield the principal part of the revenue, with which this measure DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 245 would dispense, are coffee, tea, spices, wines, and silks. Of all these articles, wines and silks alone can be pro- nounced to be luxuries; and as to wines, we have already- ratified a treaty, not yet promulgated, by which the duties on them are to be considerably reduced. If the universal- ity of the use of objects of consumption determines their classification, coffee, tea, and spices, in the present condi- tion of civilised society, may be considered necessaries. Even if they were luxuries, why should not the poor, by cheapening their prices, if that can be effected, be allowed to use them? Why should not a poor man be allowed to tie a silk handkerchief on his neck, occasionally regale him- self with a glass of cheap French wine, or present his wife or daughter with a silk gown to be worn on Sabbath or gala days? I am quite sure that I do not misconstrue the feelings of the gentleman's heart in supposing that he would be happy to see the poor as well as the rich moderately indulging themselves in those innocent grati- fications. For one, I am delighted to see the condition of the poor attracting the consideration of the opponents of the tariff. It is for the great body of the people, and especially for the poor, that I have ever supported the American system. It affords them profitable employment, and supplies the means of comfortable subsistence. It se- cures to them, certainly, necessaries of life manufactured at home, and places within their reach and enables them to acquire a reasonable share of foreign luxuries; while the system of gentlemen promises them necessaries made in foreign countries, and which are beyond their power, and denies to them luxuries which they would possess no means to purchase. The constant complaint of South Carolina against the tariff is, that it checks importations, and disables foreign powers from purchasing the agricultural productions of the United States. The effect of the resolution will be to increase importations, not so much, it is true, from Great Britain as from the other powers, but not the less acceptable on that account. It is a misfortune that so 246 HENRY CLAY large a portion of our foreign commerce concentrates in one nation; it subjects us too much to the legislation and the policy of that nation, and exposes us to the influence of her numerous agents, factors, and merchants. And it is not among the smallest recommendations of the meas- ure before the Senate that its tendency will be to expand our commerce with France, our great Revolutionary ally — the land of our Lafayette. There is much greater prob- ability also of an enlargement of the present demand for cotton in France than in Great Britain. France engaged later in the manufacture of cotton, and has made, there- fore, less progress. She has, moreover, no colonies pro- ducing the article in abundance, whose industry she might be tempted to encourage. The honourable gentleman from Maryland [General Smith], by his reply to a speech which, on the opening of the subject of this resolution, I had occasion to make, has rendered it necessary that I should take some notice of his observations. The honourable gentleman stated that he had been accused of partiality to the manufacturing interest. Never was there a more groundless and malicious charge preferred against a calumniated man. Since this question has been agitated in the public councils, although I have often heard from him professions of attachment to this branch of industry, I have never known any member a more uniform, determined, and uncompromising oppo- nent of them than the honourable senator has invariably been. And if hereafter the calumny should be repeated of his friendship to the American system, I shall be ready to furnish to him, in the most solemn manner, my testi- mony to his innocence. The honourable gentleman sup- posed that I had advanced the idea that the permanent revenue of this country should be fixed at eighteen mil- lions of dollars. Certainly I had no intention to announce such an opinion, nor do my expressions, fairly interpreted, imply it. I stated, on the occasion referred to, that, esti- mating the ordinary revenue of the country at twenty-five millions, and the amount of the duties on the unprotected DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 247 articles proposed to be repealed by the resolution at seven millions, the latter sum taken from the former would leave eighteen. But I did not intimate any belief that the rev- enue of the country ought for the future to be permanently fixed at that or any other precise sum. I stated that, after having effected so great a reduction, we might pause, cau- tiously survey the whole ground, and deliberately deter- mine upon other measures of reduction, some of which I indicated. And now I say, preserve the protective system in full vigour; give us the proceeds of the public domain for internal improvements, or, if you please, partly for that object and partly for the removal of the free blacks, with their own consent, from the United States; and for one I have no objection to the reduction of the public revenue to fifteen, to thirteen, or even to nine millions of dollars. In regard to the scheme of the Secretary of the Treas- ury for paying off the whole of the remaining public debt, by the fourth day of March, 1833, including the three per cents, and for that purpose selling the bank stock, I had remarked that, with the exception of the three per cents, there was not more than about four millions of dollars of the debt due and payable within this year; that, to meet this, the secretary had stated in his annual report that the treasury would have from the receipts of this year fourteen millions of dollars appHcable to the principal of the debt; that I did not perceive any urgency for paying off the three per cents by the precise day suggested ; and that there was no necessity, according to the plaiis of the treasury, as- suming them to be expedient and proper, to postpone the repeal of the duties on unprotected articles. The gentle- man from Maryland imputed to me ignorance of the act of the 24th of April, 1830, according to which, in his opin- ion, the secretary was obliged to purchase the three per cents. On what ground the senator supposed I was igno- rant of that act he has not stated. Although when it passed I was at Ashland, I assure him that I was not there alto- gether uninformed of what was passing in the world. I regularly received the " Register " of my excellent friend 248 HENRY CLAY [Mr. Niles], published in Baltimore, the " National Intel- ligencer," and other papers. There are two errors to which gentlemen are sometimes liable: one is to magnify the amount of knowledge which they possess themselves, and the second is to depreciate that which others have ac- quired. And will the gentleman from Maryland excuse me for thinking that no man is more prone to commit both errors than himself? I will not say that he is ignorant of the true meaning of the act of 1830, but I certainly place a different construction upon it from what he does. It does not oblige the Secretary of the Treasury, or rather the commissioners of the sinking fund, to apply the surplus of any year to the purchase of the three per cent stock par- ticularly, but leaves them at liberty " to apply such sur- plus to the purchase of any portion of the public debt at such rates as in their opinion may be advantageous to the United States." This vests a discretionary authority, to be exercised under oflficial responsibility. And if any Secre- tary of the Treasury, when he had the option of purchasing a portion of the debt bearing a higher rate of interest at par or about par, were to execute the act by purchasing the three per cents at their present price, he would merit im- peachment. Undoubtedly a state of fact may exist, such as there being no public debt remaining to be paid, but the three per cent stock, with a surplus in the treasury, idle and unproductive, in which it might be expedient to apply that surplus to the reimbursement of the three per cents. But while the interest of money is at a greater rate than three per cent it would not, I think, be wise to pro- duce an accumulation of public treasure for such a purpose. The postponement of any reduction of the amount of the revenue at this session must, however, give rise to that very accumulation, and it is, therefore, that I can not perceive the utility of the postponement. We are told by the gentleman from Maryland that offers have been made to the Secretary of the Treasury to exchange three per cents at their market price of ninety- six per cent for the bank stock of the Government at its DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 249 market price, which is about one hundred and twenty-six, and he thinks it would be wise to accept them. If the char- ter of the bank is renewed, that stock will be probably worth much more than its present price; if not renewed, much less. Would it be fair in Government, while the question is pending and undecided, to make such an ex- change? The difference in value between a stock bearing three per cent and one bearing seven per cent must be really much greater than the difference between ninety-six and one hundred and twenty-six per cent. Supposing them to be perpetual annuities, the one would be worth more than twice the value of the other. But my objection to the treasury plan is, that it is not necessary to execute it — ^to continue these duties as the secretary proposes. The secretary has a debt of twenty-four millions to pay; he has from the accruing receipts of this year fourteen mil- lions, and we are now told by the senator from Maryland that this sum of fourteen millions is exclusive of any of the duties accruing this year. He proposes to raise eight millions by sale of the bank stock, and to anticipate from the revenue receivable next year two millions more. These three items, then, of fourteen millions, eight millions, and two millions make up the sum required, of twenty-four millions, without the aid of the duties to which the resolu- tion relates. The gentleman from Maryland insists that the General Government has been liberal toward the West in its ap- propriations of public lands for internal improvements; and, as to fortifications, he contends that the expenditures near the mouth of the Mississippi are for its especial benefit. The appropriations of land to the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama have been liberal; but it is not to be overlooked that the General Government is itself the greatest proprietor of land, and that a tendency of the im- provements which these appropriations were to effect is to increase the value of the unsold public domain. The erection of the fortifications for the defence of Louisiana was highly proper; but the gentleman might as well place 2SO HENRY CLAY to the account of the West the disbursement for the forti- fications intended to defend BaUimore, Philadelphia, and New York, to all which capitals Western produce is sent, and in the security of all of which the Western people feel a Hvely interest. They do not object to expenditures for the army, for the navy, for fortifications, or for any other offensive or commercial object on the Atlantic, but they do think that their condition ought also to receive friendly attention from the General Government. With respect to the State of Kentucky, not one cent of money or one acre of land has been applied to any object of internal improve- ment within her limits. The subscription to the stock of the canal at Louisville was for an object in which many States were interested. The senator from Maryland com- plains that he has been unable to obtain any aid for the railroad which the enterprise of Baltimore has projected and in part executed. That was a great work, the concep- tion of which was bold and highly honourable, and it deserves national encouragement. But how has the Com- mittee on Roads and Canals at this session been consti- tuted? The senator from Maryland possessed a brief authority to organize it, and, if I am not misinformed, a majority of the members composing it, appointed by him, are opposed both to the constitutionality of the power and the expediency of exercising it. And now, sir, I would address a few words to the friends of the American system in the Senate. The revenue must — ought to be reduced. The country will not, after, by the payment of the public debt, ten or twelve millions of dollars become unnecessary, bear such an annual surplus. Its distribution would form a subject of perpetual conten- tion. Some of the opponents of the system understand the stratagem by which to attack it, and are shaping their course accordingly. It is to crush the system by the ac- cumulation of revenue, and by the effort to persuade the people that they are unnecessarily taxed, while those would really tax them who would break up the native sources of supply, and render them dependent upon the foreign. But DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 2$ I the revenue ought to be reduced, so as to accommodate it to the fact of the payment of the pubUc debt. And the ahernative is or may be to preserve the protecting system, and repeal the duties on the unprotected articles, or to preserve the duties on unprotected articles, and endanger if not destroy the system. Let us, then, adopt the measure before us, which will benefit all classes: the farmer, the professional man, the merchant, the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the cotton planter more than all. A few months ago there was no diversity of opinion as to the expediency of this measure. All then seemed to unite in the selection of these objects for a repeal of duties which were not produced within the country. Such a repeal did not touch our domestic industry, violated no principle, of- fended no prejudice. Can we not all, whatever may be our favourite theories, cordially unite on this neutral ground? When that is occu- pied, let us look beyond it, and see if anything can be done in the field of protection to modify, to improve it, or to satisfy those who are opposed to the system. Our South- ern brethren believe that it is injurious to them, and ask its repeal. We believe that its abandonment will be preju- dicial to them, and ruinous to every other section of the Union. However strong their convictions may be, they are not stronger than ours. Between the points of the preservation of the system and its absolute repeal there is no principle of union. If it can be shown to operate im- moderately on any quarter — if the measure of protection to any article can be demonstrated to be undue and inordi- nate, it would be the duty of Congress to interpose and apply a remedy. And none will co-operate more heartily than I shall in the performance of that duty. It is quite probable that beneficial modifications of the system may be made without impairing its efficacy. But to make it fulfil the purposes of its institution, the measure of pro- tection ought to be adequate. If it be riot, all interests will be injuriously affected. The manufacturer, crippled in his exertions, will produce less perfect and dearer fabrics, 2S2 HENRY CLAY and the consumer will feel the consequence. This is the spirit and these are the principles only on which, it seems to me, that a settlement of the great question can be made satisfactorily to all parts of our Union. Notes ' Mr. Clay retired from Congress soon after the establishment of the American system, by the passage of the tariff of 1824, and did not return to it until 1831-32. At that time the opponents of this system had covertly acquired the ascendency, and were bent on its destruction. An act reduc- ing the duties on many of the protected articles was devised and passed. While the bill was under consideration in the Senate, Mr. Clay made this speech. ' To say nothing of cotton produced in other foreign countries, the cultivation of this article, of a very superior quality, is constantly ex- tending in the adjacent Mexican provinces, and, but for the duty, proba- bly a large amount would be introduced into the United States down Red River and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. ' Here the Vice-President interposed, and remarked that if the senator from Kentucky alluded to him, he must say that his opinion was that the measure was unconstitutional. * The Vice-President again interposed, and said that the constitutional question was not debated at that time, and that he had never expressed an opinion contrary to that now intimated. ' Here General Hayne asked. Who? and was he a manufacturer? Mr. Clay replied. Colonel Murray, of New York, a gentleman of the highest standing for honour, probity, and veracity ; that he did not know whether he was a manufacturer or not, but the gentleman might take him as one. ' Here General Hayne explained, and said that he never contended that an import duty was equivalent to an export duty, under all circum- stances ; he had explained in his speech his ideas of the precise operation of the existing system. To which Mr. Clay replied that he had seen the argument so stated in some of the ingenious essays from the South Caro- lina press, and would therefore answer it. ' General Hayne said that he did not mean tTiat the increase of one hundred and fifty millions to the amount of our exports would be of cotton alone, but of other articles. * Here General Hayne requested Mr. Clay to give the name of the au- thority, that it might appear whether it was not some other than a Southern paper expressing Southern sentiments. Mr. Clay stated that it was from the Charleston "City Gazette;" one, he believed, of the oldest and most respectable prints in that city, although he was not sure what might be its sentiments on the question which at that time divided the people of South Carolina. The article comprised a full explanation of the low price of. cotton, and assigned it to its true cause — increased production. ' Mr. Clay stated that he assumed the quantity which was generally computed, but he believed it much greater, and subsequent information justifies his belief. It appears from the report of the cotton committee DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 253 appointed by the New York Convention, that partial returns show a con- sumption of upward of two hundred and fifty thousand bales ; that the cotton manufacture employs nearly forty thousand females and about five thousand children ; that the total dependents on it are one hundred and thirty-one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine ; that the annual wages paid are $12,155,723 ; the annual value of its products, $32,306,076 ; the capital, $44,914,984 ; the number of mills, 795 ; of spindles, 1,246,503 ; and of cloth made, 260,461,990 yards. This statement does not compre- hend the Western manufactures. '° Here General Hayne rose and remarked that the passage which immediately preceded and followed the paragraph cited he thought plainly indicated his meaning, which related to evasions of the system, by illicit introduction of goods, which they were not disposed to counte- nance in South Carolina. " As to Shirley, Mr. Clay acknowledges his mistake, made in the warmth of debate. It is yet the abode of the respectable and hospitable descendants of its former opulent proprietor. " Governor Miller asked to what expression of Mr. Madison's opinion Mr. Clay referred ; and Mr. Clay replied, his opinion, expressed in the House of Representatives in 1789, as reported in "Lloyd's Congressional Debates." RICHARD LALOR SHEIL ON THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL (Delivered in the House of Commons, February 22, 1837) THE right honourable baronet [Sir James Graham] began the speech, in many particulars remarkable, which he has just concluded amid the applause of those whose approbation, at one period of his political life, he would have blushed to incur — by intimating that he was regarded as a " bigot " on this side of the House. Whether he deserved the appellation by which he has in- formed us that he is designated, his speech to-night afifords some means of determining. I will not call him a bigot — I am not disposed to use an expression in any degree ofifensive to the right honourable baronet, but I will pre- sume to call him a convert, who exhibits all the zeal for which conversion is proverbially conspicuous. Of that zeal we have manifestations in his references to pamphlets about Spain, in his allusions to the mother of Cabrera, in his remarks on the Spanish clergy, and the practice of con- fession in the Catholic Church. I own that when he takes in such bad part the strong expressions employed in refer- ence to the Irish Church (expressions employed by Protes- tants, and not by Roman Catholics), I am surprised that he should not himself abstain from observations offensive to the religious feelings of Roman Catholic members of this House. The right honourable baronet has done me the honour to produce an extract from a speech of mine, delivered nearly two years ago at the Coburg Gardens; and at the same time expressed himself in terms of praise of the humble individual who now addresses you. I can assure the right honourable baronet that I feel at least 254 THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 255 as much pleasure in listening to him as he has the good- ness to say that he derives from hearing me. He has many of the accomplishments attributed by Milton to a distin- guished speaker in a celebrated council. He is " in act most graceful and humane — his tongue drops manna." I can not but feel pride that he should entertain so high an opinion of me as to induce him to peruse and collect all that I say even beyond these walls. He has spent the recess, it appears, in the diligent selection of such passages as he has read to-night, and which I little thought, when they were uttered, that the right honourable baronet would think worthy of his comments. However, he owes me the return of an obligation. The last time I spoke in this House I referred to a celebrated speech of his at Cocker- mouth, in which he pronounced an eloquent invective against "a recreant Whig"; and as he found that I was a diligent student of those models of eloquence which the right honourable baronet used formerly to supply in advo- cating the popular rights, he thought himself bound, I sup- pose, to repay me by the citation, which has, I believe, produced less effect than he had anticipated. The right honourable baronet also adverted to what he calls " the Lichfield House compact." It is not worth while to go over the same ground, after I have already proved, by reading in the House the speech which has been the subject of so much remark — how much I have been misrepresented; I never said that there was a " compact "; I did say, and I repeat it, that there was " a compact alli- ance." Was that the first occasion on which an alliance was entered into? Was Lichfield House the only spot ever dedicated to political reconciliations? Has the right honourable baronet forgotten, or has the noble lord [Stan- ley] who sits beside him, succeeded in dismissing from his recollection, a meeting at Brookes's Club at which the Irish and English reformers assembled, and, in the emer- gency which had taken place, agreed to relinquish their dififerences and make a united stand against the common foe? Does the noble lord forget an admirable speech (it 256 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL was the best post-prandial oration it was ever my good fortune to have heard) delivered by a right honourable gentleman who was not then a noble lord, and was accom- panied by a vehemence of gesture and a force of intonation not a little illustrative of the emotions of the orator, on his anticipated ejectment from ofifice? That eloquent in- dividual, whom I now see on the Tory side of the House, got up on a table, and with vehement and almost appalling gesture pronounced an invective against the Duke of Wel- lington, to which, in the records of vituperation, few paral- lels can be found. I shall not repeat what the noble lord then said. Lord Stanley. — You may. Mr. Sheil. — No; my object is not to excite personal animosities among new but ardent friends. I have no malevolent motive in adverting to that remarkable occa- sion. If I have at all referred to it, it is because the right honourable baronet has been sufficiently indiscreet to talk of Lichfield House — let him, for the future, confine him- self to the recollections of Brookes's, instead of selecting as the subject of his sarcasms the meeting in which that reconciliation took place to which Ireland is indebted for the exclusion of the noble lord opposite, and his associates, from power. The right honourable baronet has been guilty of another imprudence: he has charged Lord Mulgrave with the promotion of Mr. Pigot to a forensic office in Dublin Castle. Mr. Pigot's offence, it seems, consists in his having been a member of the Precursor Association. Does the right honourable baronet recollect where he sits in this House — ^with whom he is co-operating — ^with what party he and the noble lord opposite have entered into con- federacy — ^when he makes matters of this kind the ground- work of imputation? Who were the first men selected for promotion by the Tories? To what association did they belong? Let the right honourable baronet look back, and behind him he will see the treasurer, the grand treasurer, of the Orange Association, whom the member for Tam- worth appointed Treasurer of the Ordnance — when his THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 257 sovereign placed him at the head of the government of his country. What are the offences of the National Asso- ciation when compared with the proceedings of the Orange Institution? Are our proceedings clandestine? Are fig- ures and symbols resorted to by us? Have we tampered with the army, as the Orange Society has been convicted by a committee of this House of having done? Colonel Perceval. — I deny that the Orange Society tampered with the army. I admit that such warrants were issued. Mr. Sheil. — I will not dispute with the gallant colo- nel about a word. If the phrase " tampered " be objected to, I will adopt any word the gallant colonel will do me the favour to suggest, in order to express a notorious and indisputable fact. It was proved beyond all doubt, and even beyond all controversy, that the Orange Society made the utmost efforts to extend itself into the army; that a number of regimental warrants were issued, and that reso- lutions were actually passed, at meetings of the society, upon the subject. From this society the gallant officer, who was one of its functionaries, was selected, in order to place him in the Ordnance; and a curious coincidence, having been treasurer to the Orange Institution, he was appointed to the same fiscal office in the Ordnance, to whose treasureship he was raised. How, then, can gentle- men be guilty of the imprudence of talking of Mr. Pigot's appointment (he is a gentleman conspicuous for his talents and high personal character) when their own party made, within a period so recent, such an appointment as that to which I have reluctantly but unavoidably adverted. But, sir, can we not discuss the great measure of mu- nicipal reform without descending to such small and transi- tory considerations as the selection of this or that man for office? Talk of Lord Mulgrave's government as you will, you can not deny that his administration has been, be- yond all example, successful. He has acted on the wise and obvious policy of adapting the spirit of his govern- ment to the feelings of the numerous majority of that 17 258 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL Irish nation by whom he is respected and beloved. His measures have been founded on the determination to re- gard the rights of the many, instead of consulting the fac- tious interests of the few; and, by the just and wise system on which he has acted, he has effected a complete recon- ciliation between the government and the people. You speak of his liberating prisoners from jails. I disdain even to advert, in reply, to the comments which have been made on this act of clemency by men who are naturally the ad- vocates of incarceration. I meet these gentlemen with the broad fact that the country has, under Lord Mul- grave's government, made a great progress toward that pacification which I make no doubt that, under his aus- pices, Ireland will attain. Look to the county which I have the honour to repre- sent, and which has been unhappily conspicuous for the disturbances of which it was once the scene. Mr. Howley, the assistant barrister for that county — a gentleman whose authority is unimpeachable, and who, by his impartial con- duct, his admirable temper, his knowledge, and his talents, has won the applause of all parties — states, in his charge delivered at Nenagh, that there is an end to the savage combats at fairs; and, in a return made by the clerk of the Crown for the county, it appears that, in every class of crime, there has been, within the last year, a most ex- traordinary diminution. This surely is better evidence than the assertions made in Tory journals, and adopted by gentlemen whose political interests are at variance with their amiable aspirations for the establishment of order in their country. But, sir, the most remarkable incident to the administration of my Lord Mulgrave has been its effect upon the great political question which, not very long ago, produced so much excitement in one country, and not a little apprehension in the other. Without having recourse to coercive bills — ^without re- sorting to a single measure of severity — by impressing the people of Ireland with a conviction that he was deter- mined to do them justice, Lord Mulgrave has laid the Re- THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 259 peal question at rest. It is, if not dead, at least deeply dormant; and although such a policy as that of the noble lord opposite would soon awaken or resuscitate it again, as long as the principles on which the government of Lord Mulgrave and of the noble lord, the member for Yorkshire, Lord Morpeth, is carried on, are adhered to, so long you will find that the people of Ireland will remain in a relation not only of amity, but of attachment to the administration. It may be asked how the good results of the policy I have been describing can affect the ques- tion before the House? Thus: the executive has, by its judicious measures, by adapting itself to the political con- dition of the country, and by its preference of the nation to a faction, completely succeeded. It has held out a model which the legislature ought to imitate. Let the Parlia- ment enact laws in the spirit in which the laws, even as they stand, have been carried into effect in Ireland. Let the good of the country, instead of the monopoly of a party, supply the standard by which Parliament shall regu- late its legislation; and to what the Irish government has so nobly commenced, a perfect and glorious completion will one day be given. I turn from the consideration of those topics connected with the existing condition of affairs in Ireland to the dis- cussion of the broader ground on which the question ought to be debated. I ask you to do justice to Ireland. Every man in this House will probably say that he is anxious to do Ireland justice; but what is justice to Ireland? It will assist us, in investigating that question, to determine, in the first place, what is justice to England? In this coun- try the Corporation and Test Acts were always regarded as the muniments of the Church; and corporations, through their effects, as its chief bulwarks. Mr. Canning was so strongly persuaded of this that in 1827, while he declared himself the advocate of emancipation, he announced his firm resolve to stand by the Protestant corporations, and not to consent to the repeal of the law which gave them their peculiar character, and connected them with the es- 26o RICHARD LALOR SHEIL tablishment. Those laws were, however, repealed by the member for Tamworth; he could not help repealing them; he then began to undergo that process of soft compulsion, in submitting to which he afterward acquired those habits of useful complaisance — in which we shall furnish him with the strongest motives to persevere. The Test and Corporation Acts having been repealed, still, through the machinery of self-election, the body of the people were deprived of the practical advantages which ought to have resulted from that repeal. The reformed House of Commons determined to place corporations under popular control. The Lords thought it imprudent to resist. No one was found bold enough to state that because a transfer of power would take place from the Tories to the Reformers, therefore corporations should be abolished. Take Liverpool as an example. A transfer of influence has taken place there, to such an extent that, very much to the noble lord's astonishment, his plan for the mutilation of the Word of God has been adopted in the schools under the superintendence of the corporations. Let us now pass to Ireland. I will admit, for the sake of argument, that corporations were established to pro- tect the Protestant Church; they would thus rest on the same ground as the Test and Corporation Acts: the latter having been abandoned in England, and having been fol- lowed by corporate reform, the same reasons apply to the relinquishment of the principle of exclusion in Ireland which is utterly incompatible with the ground on which Catholic emancipation was acknowledged to have been conceded. What took place when emancipation was car- ried? Was it intimated that we should be excluded from corporations? The direct contrary was asserted. " Roman Catholics " (said the right honourable member for Tam- worth, in the admirable speech in which he acknowledged the gentle violence by which the rights of Ireland were ravished from his reluctant coyness) — " Roman Catholics shall be admitted to all corporate ofifices in Ireland." This was strong; but he did more. In the bill framed under THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 261 his superintendence, two clauses were introduced provid- ing for the admission of CathoHcs into corporations. Was the right honourable gentleman sincere? Did he intend that to the heart of Ireland, beating as it was with hope, the word of promise should be kept? Who can doubt it? Who can believe that the right honourable baronet would be capable of practising a delusion? What he did, he did unwillingly; but he did with honesty whatever he did. His act of enfranchisement was baflfled in this regard, and, by a combination among corporators. Catholics were ex- cluded. From that day to this not a single Roman Catho- lic — ^not one — has been admitted into the corporations at- tached to the metropolis of our country. I boldly ask the right honourable baronet whether he approves of this exclusion, and of the means by which it was effected? Was it not a fraud upon the law, by which, clearly and unequivocally, admission into corporations was secured to us? If it was intended that we should not have the benefit of Catholic emancipation in this particular, it ought, in common candour, to have been told us; but to pass an act making us admissible — to allow seven years to pass, and permit the law to be frustrated in that inter- val — and then when a measure is brought forward in order to give us the advantage of that law, to destroy corpora- tions lest we should be admitted — ^is not consistent with English fairness, with that honest dealing for which you are conspicuous, nor, let me add, with the personal char- acter of the right honourable baronet. Ay, but the Church may be injured. Why did you not think of that when emancipation was being carried? Why make your argu- ment in favour of the Church posterior to your legislation against it? I call on the right honourable baronet, not only in the name of justice to us, but in the name of his own dignity, as he would preserve that amity with him- self which results from the consciousness of honest and noble dealing — I call on him to abandon his party, in adherence to his pledge; and if, between his politics and his integrity, he must make a choice, I know that 262 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL he will not hesitate for a moment in making his elec- tion. He fears an injury to the Church. This Church, by which a single object contemplated in a national establish- ment has never yet been attained — this Church of yours is made the burden of every speech by which the cause of Toryism is sought to be maintained; and to every proj- ect for the improvement of the country, and the asser- tion of the people's rights, is presented as an insuperable obstacle. When we call on you to abolish the fatal im- post which keeps the country in a paroxysm of excite- ment, you cry out, "The Church!" When we bid you rescue the country from the frightful litigation which turns our courts of justice into an arena for the combat of the political passions, you cry out, " The Church ! " And when we implore you to fulfil your contract at the union, to redeem your pledge, given with emancipation, to extend to us British privileges, and grant us British institutions, you cry out, "The Church!" The two countries must have the same church, and for that purpose the two coun- tries must not have the same corporations! They are in- compatible; we must then elect between them; which shall we prefer — the Church of one million, or the corporation of seven. What an argument do the auxiliaries of the establishment advance when they admit that the sacrifice of the national rights is necessary for its sustainment. But if this position be founded, wherefore was parliamentary reform ever conceded to us? Are we qualified to elect members of the House of Commons, but unfit to elect members of the Common Council? Are we unworthy of being the managers of our own local concerns — while here, in this great imperial assembly, with the legislators of the British Empire, with the arbiters of the destiny of the noblest nation in the world, we stand on a lofty level? Never was there any inconsistency comparable to this! I have a right to rise up here and to demand justice for my country, as representative of the second county in Ire- land; and I am unworthy of being a corporator of Cashel THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 263 or of Clonmel. I may be told that the Tories resisted the extension of parliamentary reform to Ireland, and on the very grounds on which they oppose the application of corporate reform. I must acknowledge it: they did in- sist that the close boroughs of Ireland were intended as the bulwarks of the Protestant interest ; they did contend that a Catholic ascendency would be the result of a par- liamentary reform; and they urged with great zeal and strenuousness that the demolition of the Established Church would be its inevitable consequence. In what a burst of lofty eloquence did the noble lord, who now sits opposite, refute them! "What" he exclaimed, "deny to Ireland the benefits of the reform you give to England — withhold from Ireland the advantages which, at the union, you pledged yourselves to grant her! deny her a commu- nity in your privileges, and an equal participation in your rights! Then you may repeal the union at once, for you will render it a degrading and dishonourable compact." But I do injustice to that admirable passage; and as the noble lord may have forgotten it, as his recollections may be as evanescent as his opinions, I think it better to read what, from memory, I have imperfectly referred to. The passage will be found in the seventeenth volume of the " Mirror of Parliament," page 2288. He begins with a panegyric on the Irish members. We were agitators then, just as much as we now are; we held and professed exactly the same opinions; we had an association at full work, just as we now have; but the noble lord did not, at that time, think it judicious to appeal to passages to which he has since addressed himself. The passage runs thus: " We have been told that the English bill does not in any case apply to Ireland, and that the circumstances of the two countries are different: but I am sure that honour- able gentlemen will find that the principle of reform is the same, whether it is applied to England or Ireland; and if it be just here, so it must be there. I would entreat those who advocate the Conservative interest, and who consider themselves the supporters of Protestant institu- 264 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL tions, to look to the danger to which these institutions will be exposed in Ireland by withholding the privileges which this bill is to confer. If they wish to give Ireland a real, solid, substantial grievance — ^if they wish to give some handle to excitement, and to present a solid argu- ment for the repeal of the Union — they need only show that, in the British House of Commons, English interests are treated in one way, and Irish interests in another, that in England the government rule by free representation, and by the voice of the people — ^while in Ireland that voice is stifled, and the people are shut out from a fair share in the choice of their representatives. I fear that, if we do not concede in a spirit of fairness and justice, agitation will break out in a manner which it has never done before. I can not conceive anything more clear than that the pres- ent measure is only the extension of the principle of the English bill to Ireland. I can not conceive upon what principle we can refuse to place both countries on an equal- ity, and make the same principle applicable to the election of all members of the united legislature of the British Empire." The House has heard this passage with surprise; and although every sentence that I have read has produced a sensation, there is not, in the entire, a sentiment which has called forth more astonishment than the reference made to the repeal of the Union as a result of the denial of equal privileges to the English and to the Irish people. And here let me turn to the right honourable member for Cum- berland, and ask him what he now thinks of his expostula- tion with the Irish attorney-general, on his assertion that injustice would furnish an argument for repeal? Did not his noble friend when in office, when Secretary for Ireland, solemnly assert the same thing? I will read the passage again: " If they wish to give Ireland a real, solid, substan- tial grievance — ^if they wish to give some handle to ex- citement, and to present a solid argument for the repeal of the Union — they need only show that, in the British House of Commons, English interests are treated in one THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 265 way, and Irish interests in another." This is nobly ex- pressed; but, in the midst of our admiration of such fine sentiments, founded on such lofty principles, and con- veyed in language at once so beautiful and perspicuous, what melancholy feeling, what mournful reflections arise! Alas! that the man who uttered what I have just read, who was capable of feeling and of expressing himself thus, in whom such a union of wisdom and eloquence was then exhibited — alas! that he should now be separated from his old associates, and that, united to his former antago- nists, he should not only act on principles diametrically the reverse, but denounce his colleagues, and enter with the men whom he formerly represented as the worst ene- mies of his country into a derogatory league. But, not contented with joining them, in the transports of his en- thusiasm he has gone beyond them; and on the first night of this debate, taking up the part of a prophet, when he had ceased to perform that of a statesman, he told the people of Ireland, in a burst of intemperate prediction, that never — no, never — should the municipal privileges granted to the people of England be extended to them. Lord Stanley. — I never said so. Mr. Sheil. — Then the noble lord has been grievously misrepresented. I acknowledge that I was not present when he spoke, but I was told by several persons that he had stated that this measure never should be carried. Lord Stanley. — I did not state that the measure never should be carried. I did state that the people of England would not yield to alarm and intimidation, and that the advocates of this measure were taking the worst means to efifect their object. The honourable and learned gentleman confesses that he was not present when I spoke, and he should therefore be cautious in attributing to me the opinions which he has ascribed to me in this attack which he has been making, knowing, as he does, that it is out of my power to reply. Mr. Sheil. — ^When the noble lord denies the use of certain expressions, and disclaims the sentiment conveyed 266 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL by them, I at once accede to his interpretation of what he said, or rather meant to say. The noble lord observes that I am making an attack on him, knowing that he has no reply. The noble lord is well aware, from experience, that whether he has a right to reply or not, I never have the least dread of him, and that on no occasion in this House have I ever, in the performance of my duty to my country, shrank from an encounter with him. He calls my speech an attack on him. I am not pronouncing a personal invective against the noble lord. I am not ex- ceeding the limits of fair discussion, or violating either the ordinances of good breeding or the rules of this House. I am exhibiting the inconsistencies and incongruities of the noble lord, and stripping his opinions of any value which they may possess, by proving him, at a period not remote, to have acted on and to have enforced principles directly opposite to those of which he is now the intol- erant advocate. This is the extent of my attack on him. He will, however, pardon me for suggesting to him that, if I did assail him with far more acrimony than I am dis- posed to do, he is the last man in this House who ought to complain. Who is there that shows less mercy to a political adversary? Who is so relentless in the infliction of his sarcasms, even on his old friends and associates? However, I ought not to feel much surprise that he should be so sensitive as he shows himself to be: no man fears an operation so much as a surgeon, and the drummer of a regiment trembles at the lash. But the noble lord mistakes: it is not any attack from me which he has cause to apprehend — he bears that within his own bosom which reproaches him far more than I do. But, from his emotions, from his resentments, and from his consciousness, let us turn to something more deserving of regard, and consider how far it is probable that this measure can be successfully resisted. I wish to avoid all minacious intimations, and, therefore, I will not say that it must and shall be carried ; but, adopting the calmer tone of deliberation, I entreat the noble lord opposite, and the THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 267 House, to consider what the probabilities are which are connected with this question, and whether it is Hkely that the demand made by Ireland for justice can be long treated by any branch of the legislature with disregard. I assert that Ireland, sustained as she is by the sympa- thies of a very large portion of the people of this country, must prevail in the cause in which her feelings are so deeply engaged, and on whose prosecution she is firmly and un- alterably determined. I undertake to prove this proposi- tion, and it will certainly be felt to be most important to consider whether it be just; for if men are once persuaded that this measure must ultimately be carried, they will feel that it is better to do at once what must be done at last, and that discussion ought to cease where necessity has begun to operate. I put the case of Ireland thus: if the Catholic millions, by their union, by their organization, by their associated power, carried their emancipation, what is the likelihood of their success in the pursuit of their present objects? If we forced the right honourable mem- ber for Tamworth to yield to us (a man not only of great eloquence in debate, but of great discretion, of great influ- ence, free from ebullitions of intemperance, and whose per- sonal character entitles him to the confidence of his party), shall we not now overcome any obstacles which the noble lord may present to our progress? Let him remember that our power is more than trebled, and if, contending with such disadvantages as we had to struggle with, we prevailed — where are the impediments by which our career in the pursuit of what remains to be achieved for the hon- our of our country shall be even long retarded? It be- hoves the noble lord to look attentively at Ireland. Wher- ever we turn our eyes, we see the national power dilating, expanding, and ascending — never did a liberated nation spring on in the career that freedom throws open toward improvement with such a bound as we have — in wealth, in intelligence, in high feeling, in all the great constituents of a state, we have made in a few years an astonishing progress. 268 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL The character of our country is completely changed: we are free, and we feel as if we never had been slaves. Ireland stands as erect as if she had never stooped; al- though she once bowed her forehead to the earth, every mark and trace of her prostration have been effaced. But these are generalities — these are vague and abstract vaunt- ings, without detail. Well — if you stand in need of speci- fication, it shall be rapidly, but not inconclusively, given. But hold: I was going to point to the first law offices in the country, filled by Roman Catholics — I was going to point to the second judicial office in Ireland filled by a Roman Catholic — I was going to point to the crowds of Roman Catholics who, in every profession and walk of life, are winning their way to eminence in the walks that lead to affluence or to honour. But one single fact suf- fices for my purpose: emancipation was followed by re- form, and reform has thrown sixty men, devoted to the interests of Ireland, into the House of Commons. If the Clare election was a great incident — if the Clare election afforded evidence that emancipation could not be resisted — look at sixty of us (what are Longford and Carlow but a realization of the splendid intimations that Clare held out?) — ^look, I say, at sixty of us — the majority, the great majority of the representatives of Ireland — leagued and confederated by an obligation and a pledge as sacred as any with which men, associated for the interests of their country, were ever bound together. Thank God, we are here! I remember the time when the body to which I belong were excluded from all participation in the great legisla- tive rights of which we are now in the possession. I re- member to have felt humiliated at the tone in which I heard the cause of Ireland pleaded, when I was occasionally admitted under the gallery of the House of Commons. I felt pain at hearing us represented as humble suppliants for liberty, and as asking freedom as if it were alms that we were soliciting. Perhaps that tone was unavoidable: thank God, it is no longer necessary or appropriate ! Here THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 269 we are, in all regards your equals, and demanding our rights as the representatives of Britons would demand their own. We have less eloquence, less skill, less astute- ness than the great men to whom, of old, the interests of Ireland were confided; but we make up for these imper- fections by the moral port and national bearing that be- come us. In mastery of diction we may be defective; in resource of argument we may be wanting; we may not be gifted with the accomplishments by which persuasion is produced; but in energy, in strenuousness, in union, in fidelity to our country and to each other, and, above all, in the undaunted and dauntless determination to enforce equality for Ireland, we stand unsurpassed. This, then, is the power with which the noble lord courts an encounter, foretells his own victories, and triumphs in their anticipa- tion in the House of Commons. Where are his means of discomfiting us? To what resources does he look for the accomplishment of the wonders which he is to perform? Does he rely upon the excitement of the religious and national prejudices of England; and does he find it in his heart to resort to the " no popery " cry? Instead of tell- ing him what he is doing, I'll tell the country what thirty years ago was done. In 1807 the Whigs were in possession of Downing Street, and the Tories were in possession of St. James's Palace; but, without the people, the possession of St. James's was of no avail. The Whigs proposed that Roman Catholics should be admitted to the higher grades in the army and navy. The Tories saw that their opportunity was come, and the " no popery " cry was raised. There existed at that time a great mass of prejudice in England. You had conquered Ireland and enslaved her; you hated her for the wrongs that you had done her, and despised her, and perhaps justly, for her endurance: the victim of oppression naturally becomes the object of scorn: you loathed our country, and you abhorred our creed. Of this feeling the Tories took advantage; the tocsin of fanaticism was rung; the war-whoop of religious discord, the savage 270 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL yell of infuriated ignorance, resounded through the coun- try. Events that ought to have been allowed to remain buried in the oblivion of centuries were disinterred; every misdeed of Catholics, when Catholics and Protestants im- brued their hands alternately in blood, was recalled — the ashes of the Smithfield fires were stirred for sparks with which the popular passions might be ignited. The re-establishment of popery — the downfall of every Protestant institution — the annihilation of all liberty, civil or religious, these were the topics with which crafty men, without remorse of conscience, worked on the popular de- lusion. At public assemblies, senators, more remarkable for Protestant piety than Christian charity, delivered them- selves of ferocious effusions amid credulous and enthusi- astic multitudes — then came public abuses, at which liba- tions to the worst passions of human nature were prodi- gally poured out. " Rally round the king, rally round the Church, rally round the religion of your forefathers! " — these were the invocations with which the English people were wrought into frenzy; and having by these expedients driven their antagonists from office, the Tories passed themselves the very measure for which they made their competitors the objects of their denunciation. Are you playing the same game? If you are, then shame, shame upon you ! I won't pronounce upon your motives : let the facts be their interpreters. What is the reason that a new edition of Fox's " Martyrs," with hundreds of subscribers, and with the name of the Duke of Cumberland at their head, has been announced? Wherefore, from one extrem- ity of the country to the other, in every city, town, and hamlet, is a perverse ingenuity employed, in order to in- spire the people of this country with a detestation of the religion of millions of their fellow-citizens? Why is popery, with her racks, her tortures, and her fagots, conjured up in order to appal the imagination of the English people? Why is perjury to our God — treason to our sovereign — a disregard of every obligation, divine and human, attrib- uted to us? I leave you to answer those questions, and THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 27 1 to give your answers, not only to the interrogatories which thus vehemently and, I will own, indignantly I put to you, but to reply to those which must be administered to you, in your moments of meditation, by your own hearts. But, whatever be your purpose in the religious excitement which you are endeavouring to get up in this country, of this I am convinced — that the result of your expedients will correspond with their deserts, and that as we have prevailed over you before, we shall again and again dis- comfit you. Yes, we, the Irish millions, led on by men like those that plead the cause of those millions in this House, must (it is impossible that we should not) prevail; and I am convinced that the people of England, so far from being disposed to array themselves against us, despite any remains of the prejudices which are fast passing away in this country, feel that we are entitled to the same privi- leges, and extend to us their sympathies in this good and glorious cause. What is that cause? I shall rapidly tell you. You took away our Parliament — you took from us that Parliament which, like the House of Commons of this country, must have been under the control of the great majority of the people of Ireland, and would not, and could not, have withheld what you so long refused us. Is there a man here who doubts that if the Union had not been conceded, we should have extorted emancipation and reform from our own House of Commons? That House of Commons you bought, and paid for your bargain in gold! ay, and paid for it in the most palpable and sordid form in which gold can be paid down. But, while this transaction was pending, you told us that all distinctions should be abol- ished between us, and that we should become like unto yourselves. The great minister of the time, by whom that unexampled sale of our legislature was negotiated, held out equality with England as the splendid equivalent for the loss of our national representation; and, with classical references, elucidated the nobleness of the compact into which he had persuaded the depositants of the rights of 272 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL their countrymen to enter. The act of union was passed, and twenty-nine years elapsed before any effectual measure was taken to carry its real and substantial terms into efifect. At last, our enfranchisement was won by our own en- ergy and determination; and, when it was in progress, we received assurances that in every respect we should be placed on a footing with our fellow-citizens; and it was more specially announced to us that to corporations, and to all offices connected with them, we should be at once admissible. Pending this engagement, a bill is passed for the reform of the corporations of this country; and in every important municipal locality in England councillors are selected by the people as their representatives. This important measure having been carried here, the Irish people claim an extension of the same advantages; and ground their title on the union, on emancipation, on re- form, and on the great principle of perfect equality be- tween the two countries, on which the security of one country and the prosperity of both must depend. This demand, on the part of Ireland, is rejected; and that which to England no one was bold enough to deny, from Ire- land you are determined, and you announce it, to withhold. Is this justice? You will say that it is, and I should be sur- prised if you did not say so. I should be surprised, indeed, if, while you are doing us wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to do us justice. From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Enghshmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice — even Strafiford, the deserter of the people's cause — the renegade Wentworth, who gave evidence in Ireland of the spirit of instinctive tyranny which predominated in his character — even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights, and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland. What marvel is it, then, that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehement protesta- tions? There is, however, one man, of great abilities, not a member of this House, but whose talents and whose bold- THE IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL 273 ness have placed him in the topmost place in his party — who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national an- tipathies of the people of this country — abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his politi- cal associates affect to cover, although they can not hide, their motives — distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; and pronounces them, in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circum- stances by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, iden- tity, and religion — ^to be aliens — to be aliens in race — to be aliens in country — to be aliens in religion. Aliens! good God! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, " Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty "? The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I can not help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic country- men (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as ofifensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply — I can not help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. " The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed " ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to the last and surpassing -com- bat which has made his name imperishable — ^from Assaye to Waterloo — the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valour climbed the steeps and filled the moats of Badajos? All his victories should 18 274 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL have rushed and crowded back upon his memory — Vimi- era, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and, last of all, the greatest . Tell me, for you were there — I ap- peal to the gallant soldier before me [Sir Henry Hardinge], from whose opinions I dififer, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast — tell me, for you must needs remember — on that day when the destinies of man- kind were trembling in the balance — while death fell in showers — when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science — when her legions, excited by the voice, and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset — tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the " aliens " blenched? And when at length the moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, and the valour which had so long been wisely checked was at last let loose — when, with words familiar, but im- mortal, the great captain commanded the great assault — tell me, if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valour than the natives of this your own glorious country, precipitated herself upon the foe? The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together — in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited — the ^reen corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust — the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril — in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate; and shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life blood was poured out? JOHN BRIGHT ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND » (Delivered in Birmingham, October 29, 1858) THE frequent and far too complimentary manner in which my name has been mentioned to-night, and the most kind way in which you have received me, have placed me in a position somewhat humiliating, and really painful; for to receive laudation which one feels one can not possibly have merited is much more painful than to be passed by in a distribution of commendation to which possibly one might lay some claim. If one-twentieth part of what has been said is true, if I am entitled to any measure of your approbation, I may begin to think that my public career and my opinions are not so un-English and so anti-national as some of those who profess to be the best of our public instructors have sometimes assumed. How, indeed, can I, any more than any of you, be un-English and anti-national? Was I not born upon the same soil? Do I not come of the same English stock? Are not my family committed irrevocably to the fortunes of this country? Is not whatever property I may have depending, as much as yours is depending, upon the good government of our common fatherland? Then how shall any man dare to say to any one of his countrymen, because he happens to hold a different opin- ion on questions of great public policy, that therefore he is un-English, and is to be condemned as anti-national? There are those who would assume that between my coun- trymen and me, and between my constituents and me, there has been, and there is now, a great gulf fixed, and 275 276 JOHN BRIGHT that if I can not pass over to them and to you, they and you can by no possibiHty pass over to me. Now, I take the liberty here, in the presence of an audi- ence as intelligent as can be collected within the limits of this island, and of those who have the strongest claims to know what opinions I do entertain relative to certain great questions of public policy, to assert that I hold no views, that I have never promulgated any views, on those con- troverted questions with respect to which I can not bring as witnesses in my favour, and as fellow-believers with my- self, some of the best and most revered names in the his- tory of English statesmanship. About one hundred and twenty years ago the govern- ment of this country was directed by Sir Robert Walpole, a great minister, who for a long period preserved the country in peace, and whose pride it was that during those years he had done so. Unfortunately, toward the close of his career, he was driven by faction into a policy which was the ruin of his political position. Sir Robert Walpole declared, when speaking of the question of war as afifecting this country, that nothing could be so foolish, nothing so mad, as a policy of war for a trading nation. And he went so far as to say that any peace was better than the most successful war. I do not give you the precise language made use of by the minister, for I speak only from memory; but I am satisfied I am not misrepresenting him in what I have now stated. Come down fifty years nearer to our own time, and you find a statesman, not long in office, but still strong in the afifections of all persons of Liberal principles in this country, and in his time representing fully the sentiments of the Liberal party — Charles James Fox. Mr. Fox, referring to the policy of the government of his time, which was one of constant interference in the affairs of Europe, and by which the country was con- tinually involved in the calamities of war, said that al- though he would not assert or maintain the principle, that ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 277 under no circumstances could England have any cause of interference with the afifairs of the continent of Europe, yet he would prefer the policy of positive non-interference and of perfect isolation rather than the constant inter- meddling to which our recent policy had subjected us, and which brought so much trouble and suffering upon the country. In this case also I am not prepared to give you his exact words, but I am sure that I fairly describe the sentiments which he expressed. Come down fifty years later, and to a time within the recollection of most of us, and you find another states- man, once the most popular man in England, and still re- membered in this town and elsewhere with respect and affection. I allude to Earl Grey. When Earl Grey came into office for the purpose of carrying the question of par- liamentary reform, he unfurled the banner of peace, re- trenchment, and reform, and that sentiment was received in every part of the United Kingdom, by every man who was or had been in favour of Liberal principles, as predict- ing the advent of a new era which should save his country from many of the calamities of the past. Come down still nearer, and to a time that seems but the other day, and you find another minister, second to none of those whom I have mentioned — ^the late Sir Robert Peel. I had the opportunity of observing the conduct of Sir Robert Peel from the time when he took office in 1841 ; I watched his proceedings particularly from the year 1843, when I entered Parliament, up to the time of his lamented death; and during the whole of that period, I venture to say, his principles, if they were to be discovered from his conduct and his speeches, were precisely those which I have held, and which I have always endeavoured to press upon the attention of my countrymen. If you have any doubt upon that point, I would refer you to that last, that beautiful, that most solemn speech, which he delivered with an earnestness and a sense of responsibility as if he had known he was leaving a legacy to his country. If you refer to that speech, delivered on the morning of the 278 JOHN BRIGHT very day on which occurred the accident which terminated his Hfe, you will find that its whole tenor is in conformity with all the doctrines that I have urged upon my country- men for years past with respect to our policy in foreign afifairs. When Sir Robert Peel went home just before the dawn of day, upon the last occasion that he passed from the House of Commons, the scene of so many of his tri- umphs, I have heard, from what I think a good authority, that after he entered his own house he expressed the ex- ceeding relief which he experienced at having delivered himself of a speech which he had been reluctantly obliged to make against a ministry which he was anxious to sup- port, and he added, if I am not mistaken, " I have made a speech of peace." Well, if this be so, if I can give you four names like these — if there were time I could make a longer list of still eminent, if inferior, men — I should like to know why I, as one of a small party, am to be set down as teaching some new doctrine which is not fit for my countrymen to hear, and why I am to be assailed in every form of lan- guage, as if there was one great department of govern- mental affairs on which I was incompetent to offer any opinion to my countrymen. But leaving the opinions of individuals, I appeal to this audience, to every man who knows anything of the views and policy of the Liberal party in past years, whether it is not the fact that, up to 1832, and indeed to a much later period, probably to the year 1850, those sentiments of Sir Robert Walpole, of Mr. Fox, of Earl Grey, and of Sir Robert Peel, the sentiments which I in humbler mode have propounded, were not received unanimously by the Liberal party as their fixed and unchangeable creed? And why should they not? Are they not founded upon reason? Do not all statesmen know, as you know, that upon peace, and peace alone, can be based the successful industry of a nation, and that by successful industry alone can be cre- ated that wealth which, permeating all classes of the people, not confined to great proprietors, great merchants, and ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 279 great speculators, not running in a stream merely down your principal streets, but turning fertilizing rivulets into every by-lane and every alley, tends so powerfully to pro- mote the comfort, happiness, and contentment of a na- tion? Do you not know that all progress comes from successful and peaceful industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure of education, of morals, of self-respect among your people, as well as every measure for extending and consolidating freedom in your public institutions? I am not afraid to acknowledge that I do oppose — that I do utterly condemn and denounce — a great part of the foreign policy which is practised and adhered to by the government of this country. You know, of course, that about one hundred and sev- enty years ago there happened in this country what we have always been accustomed to call a " glorious revolu- tion " — a revolution which had this effect: that it put a bit into the mouth of the monarch, so that he was not able of his own free will to do, and he dared no longer at- tempt to do, the things which his predecessors had done without fear. But if at the revolution the monarchy of England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the great territorial families of England were enthroned: and from that period until the year 1831 or 1832 — until the time when Birmingham politically became famous — those terri- torial families reigned with an almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the industry of the people of these king- doms. If you turn to the history of England from the period of the revolution to the present, you will find that an entirely new policy was adopted, and that, while we had endeavoured in former times to keep ourselves free from European complications, we now began to act upon a system of constant entanglement in the affairs of for- eign countries, as if there were neither property nor hon- ours, nor anything worth striving for, to be acquired in any other field. The language coined and used then has con- tinued to our day. Lord Somers, in writing for William III, speaks of the endless and sanguinary wars of that 28o JOHN BRIGHT period as wars " to maintain the liberties of Europe." There were wars " to support the Protestant interest," and there were many wars to preserve our old friend " the bal- ance of power." We have been at war since that time, I believe, with, for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. We fought to put down a pretended French supremacy under Louis XIV. We fought to prevent France and Spain coming under the sceptre of one monarch, although, if we had not fought, it would have been impossible in the course of things that they should have become so united. We fought to maintain the Italian provinces in connection with the house of Austria. We fought to put down the supremacy of Napoleon Bonaparte; and the minister who was employed by this country at Vienna, after the great war, when it was determined that no Bonaparte should ever again sit on the throne of France, was the very man to make an alliance with another Bonaparte for the pur- pose of carrying on a war to prevent the supremacy of the late Emperor of Russia. So that we have been all around Europe, and across it over and over again, and after a policy so distinguished, so pre-eminent, so long continued, and so costly, I think we have a fair right — I have, at least — to ask those who are in favour of it to show us its visible result. Europe is not at this moment, so far as I know, speaking of it broadly, and making allowance for certain improvements in its general civilization, more free politi- cally than it was before. The balance of power is like per- petual motion, or any of those impossible things which some men are always racking their brains and spending their time and money to accomplish. We all know and deplore that at the present moment a larger number of the grown men of Europe are employed, and a larger portion of the industry of Europe is absorbed, to provide for, and maintain, the enormous armaments which are now on foot in every considerable continental state. Assuming, then, that Europe is not much better in consequence of the sacrifices we have made, let us in- ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 28 1 quire what has been the result in England, because, after all, that is the question which it becomes us most to con- sider. I believe that I understate the sum when I say- that, in pursuit of this Will-o'-the-wisp (the liberties of Eu- rope and the balance of power), there has been extracted from the industry of the people of this small island no less an amount than two billion pounds sterling. I can not imagine how much two billion pounds sterling is, and therefore I shall not attempt to make you comprehend it. I presume it is something like those vast and incom- prehensible astronomical distances with which we have been lately made familiar; but, however familiar, we feel that we do not know one bit more about them than we did before. When I try to think of that sum of two billion pounds sterling there is a sort of vision passes before my mind's eye. I see your peasant labourer delve and plough, sow and reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old before the winter's blast. I see your noble mechanic with his manly countenance and his match- less skill toiling at his bench or his forge. I see one of the workers in our factories in the north, a woman — a girl it may be — gentle and good, as many of them are, as your sisters and daughters are — I see her intent upon the spindle, whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye fails altogether to detect them, or watching the alternating flight of the unresting shuttle. I turn again to another portion of your population, which, " plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made," and I see the man who brings up from the secret chambers of the earth the elements of the riches and greatness of his country. When I see all this, I have before me a mass of produce and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend than I am that two billion pounds sterling of which I have spoken, but I behold in its full proportions the hideous error of your governments, whose fatal policy consumes in some cases a half, never less than a third, of all the results of that in- dustry which God intended should fertilize and bless every home in England, but the fruits of which are squandered 282 JOHN BRIGHT in every part of the surface of the globe, without producing the smallest good to the people of England. We have, it is true, some visible results that are of a more positive character. We have that which some people call a great advantage — the national debt — a debt which is now so large that the most prudent, the most econom- ical, and the most honest have given up all hope, not of its being paid off, but of its being diminished in amount. We have, too, taxes which have been during many- years so onerous that there have been times when the patient beasts of burden threatened to revolt — so onerous that it has been utterly impossible to levy them with any kind of honest equality, according to the means of the people to pay them. We have that, moreover, which is a standing wonder to all foreigners who consider our con- dition — an amount of apparently immovable pauperism which to strangers is wholly irreconcilable with the fact that we, as a nation, produce more of what should make us all comfortable than is produced by any other nation of similar numbers on the face of the globe. Let us like- wise remember that during the period of those great and so-called glorious contests on the continent of Europe every description of home reform was not only delayed, but actually crushed out of the minds of the great bulk of the people. There can be no doubt whatever that in 1793 England was about to realize political changes and reforms such as did not appear again until 1830, and dur- ing the period of that war, which now almost all men agree to have been wholly unnecessary, we were passing through a period which may be described as the dark age of EngHsh politics; when there was no more freedom to write or -speak, or politically to act, than there is now in the most despotic country of Europe. But, it may be asked, did nobody gain? If Europe is no better, and the people of England have been so much worse, who has benefited by the new system of foreign policy? What has been the fate of those who were en- throned at the revolution, and whose supremacy has been ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 283 for so long a period undisputed among us? Mr. King- lake, the author of an interesting book on Eastern travel, describing the habits of some acquaintances that he made in the Syrian deserts, says that the jackals of the desert follow their prey in families like the place-hunters of Eu- rope. I will reverse, if you like, the comparison, and say that the great territorial families of England, which were enthroned at the revolution, have followed their prey like the jackals of the desert. Do you not observe at a glance that, from the time of William III, by reason of the for- eign policy which I denounce, wars have been multiplied, taxes increased, loans made, and the sums of money which every year the government has to expend augmented, and that so the patronage at the disposal of ministers must have increased also, and the families who were enthroned and made powerful in the legislation and administration of the country must have had the first pull at, and the largest profit out of, that patronage? There is no actuary in ex- istence who can calculate how much of the wealth, of the strength, of the supremacy of the territorial families of England has been derived from an unholy participation in the fruits of the industry of the people, which have been wrested from them by every device of taxation, and squan- dered in every conceivable crime of which a government could possibly be guilty. The more you examine this matter the more you will come to the conclusion which I have arrived at, that this foreign policy, this regard for the " liberties of Europe," this care at one time for " the Protestant interests," this excessive love for " the balance of power," is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain. [Great laughter.] I observe that you receive that declaration as if it were some new and important discovery. In 181 5, when the great war with France was ended, every Liberal in England, whose politics, whose hopes, and whose faith had not been crushed out of him by the tyranny of the time of that war, was fully aware of this, and openly admitted it, and up to 1832, 284 JO^N BRIGHT and for some years afterward, it was the fixed and un- doubted creed of the great Liberal party. But somehow all is changed. We, who stand upon the old landmarks, who walk in the old paths, who would conserve what is wise and prudent, are hustled and shoved about as if we were come to turn the world upside down. The change which has taken place seems to confirm the opinion of a lamented friend of mine, who, not having succeeded in all his hopes, thought that men made no progress whatever, but went round and round like a squirrel in a cage. The idea is now so general that it is our duty to meddle every- where, that it really seems as if we had pushed the Tories from the field, expelling them by our competition. I should like to lay before you a list of the treaties which we have made, and of the responsibilities under which we have laid ourselves with respect to the various countries of Europe. I do not know where such an enu- meration is to be found, but I suppose it would be possible for antiquaries and men of investigating minds to dig them out from the recesses of the Foreign Office, and perhaps to make some of them intelligible to the country. I be- lieve, however, that if we go to the Baltic we shall find that we have a treaty to defend Sweden, and the only thing which Sweden agrees to do in return is not to give up any portion of her territories to Russia. Coming down a little south, we have a treaty which invites us, enables us, and perhaps, if we acted fully up to our duty with regard to it, would compel us to interfere in the question between Denmark and the duchies. If I mistake not, we have a treaty which binds us down to the maintenance of the little kingdom of Belgium, as established after its separa- tion from Holland. We have numerous treaties with France. We are understood to be bound by treaty to maintain constitutional government in Spain and Portu- gal. If we go round into the Mediterranean, we find the little kingdom of Sardinia, to which we have lent some millions of money, and with which we have entered into important treaties for preserving the balance of power in ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 285 Europe. If we go beyond the kingdom of Italy, and cross the Adriatic, we come to the small kingdom of Greece, against which we have a nice account that will never be settled; while we have engagements to maintain that re- spectable but diminutive country under its present con- stitutional government. Then leaving the kingdom of Greece, we pass up the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and from Greece to the Red Sea, wherever the authority of the Sultan is more or less admitted, the blood and the industry of England are pledged to the permanent susten- tation of the " independence and integrity " of the Otto- man Empire. I confess that as a citizen of this country, wishing to live peaceably among my fellow-countrymen, and wishing to see my countrymen free, and able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, I protest against a system which binds us in all these networks and complications from which it is im- possible that one can gain one single atom of advantage for this country. It is not all glory, after all. Glory may be worth something, but it is not always glory. We have had within the last few years despatches from Vienna and from St. Petersburg, which, if we had not deserved them, would have been very offensive and not a little insolent. We have had the ambassador of the Queen expelled sum- marily from Madrid, and we have had an ambassador driven almost with ignominy from Washington. We have block- aded Athens for a claim which was known to be false. We have quarrelled with Naples, for we chose to give ad- vice to Naples which was not received in the submissive spirit expected from her, and our minister was therefore withdrawn. Not three years ago, too, we seized a con- siderable kingdom in India, with which our government had but recently entered into the most solemn treaty, which every lawyer in England and in Europe, I believe, would consider binding before God and the world. We deposed its monarch; we committed a great immorality and a great crime, and we have reaped an almost instan- taneous retribution in the most gigantic and sanguinary 286 JOHN BRIGHT revolt which probably any nation ever made against its conquerors. Within the last few years we have had two wars with a great empire, which we are told contains at least one third of the whole human race. The first war was called, and appropriately called, the Opium War. No man, I believe, with a spark of morality in his composi- tion, no man who cares anything for the opinion of his fellow-countrymen, has dared to justify that war. The war which has just been concluded, if it has been concluded, had its origin in the first war; for the enormities com- mitted in the first war are the foundations of the implacable hostility which it is said the inhabitants of Canton bear to all persons connected with the English name. Yet, though we have these troubles in India — a vast country which we do not know how to govern — and a war with China — a country with which, though everybody else can remain at peace, we can not — such is the inveterate habit of conquest, such is the insatiable lust of territory, such is, in my view, the depraved, unhappy state of opinion of the country on this subject, that there are not a few persons. Chambers of Commerce, to wit, in different parts of the kingdom (though I am glad to say it has not been so with the Chamber of Commerce at Birmingham), who have been urging our government to take possession of a prov- ince of the greatest island in the Eastern seas — a possession which must at once necessitate increased estimates and increased taxation, and which would probably lead us into merciless and disgraceful wars with the half-savage tribes who inhabit that island. I will not dwell upon that question. The gentleman who is principally concerned in it is at this moment, as you know, stricken down with affliction, and I am un- willing to enter here into any considerable discussion of the case which he is urging upon the public; but I say that we have territory enough in India; and if we have not troubles enough there, if we have not difificulties enough in China, if we have not taxation enough, by all means gratify your wishes for more; but I hope that what- ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 287 ever may be the shortcomings of the government with regard to any other questions in which we are all inter- ested — and may they be few!— they will shut their eyes, they will turn their backs obstinately from adding in this mode, or in any mode, to the English possessions in the East. I suppose that if any ingenious person were to prepare a large map of the world, as far as it is known, and were to mark upon it, in any colour that he Uked, the spots where Englishmen have fought and English blood has been poured forth, and the treasures of English industry squandered, scarcely a country, scarcely a prov- ince of the vast expanse of the habitable globe, would be thus undistinguished. Perhaps there are in this room, I am sure there are in the country, many persons who hold a superstitious traditionary belief that, somehow or other, our vast trade is to be attributed to what we have done in this way, that it is thus we have opened markets and advanced com- merce, that English greatness depends upon the extent of English conquests and English military renown. But I am inclined to think that, with the exception of Aus- tralia, there is not a single dependency of the Crown which, if we come to reckon what it has cost in war and protec- tion, would not be found to be a positive loss to the people of this country. Take the United States, with which we have such an enormous and constantly increasing trade. The wise statesmen of the last generation, men whom your school histories tell you were statesmen, serving under a monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch, spent one hundred and thirty million pounds of the fruits of the industry of the people in a vain — ^happily a vain — endeav- our to retain the colonies of the United States in subjec- tion to the monarchy of England. Add up the interest of that one hundred and thirty mil- lion pounds for all this time, and how long do you think it will be before there will be a profit on the trade with the United States which will repay the enormous sum we invested in a war to retain those States as colonies of this 288 JOHN BRIGHT empire? It never will be paid off. Wherever you turn, you vnll find that the opening of markets, developing of new countries, introducing cotton cloth with cannon balls, are vain, foolish, and wretched excuses for wars, and ought not to be listened to for a moment by any man who under- stands the multiplication table, or who can do the simplest sum in arithmetic. Since the " glorious revolution," since the enthroniza- tion of the great Norman territorial families, they have spent in wars, and we have worked for, about two billion pounds. The interest on that is one hundred million pounds per annum, which alone, to say nothing of the principal sum, is three or four times as much as the whole amount of your annual export trade from that time to this. Therefore, if war has provided you with a trade, it has been at an enormous cost; but I think it is by no means doubtful that your trade would have been no less in amount and no less profitable, had peace and justice been inscribed on your flag instead of conquest and the love of military renown. But even in this year, 1858 — ^we have got a long way into the century — ^we find that within the last seven years our public debt has greatly increased. Whatever be the increase of our population, of our machinery, of our industry, of our wealth, still our national debt goes on increasing. Although we have not a foot more territory to conserve, or an enemy in the world who dreams of attacking us, we find that our annual military expenses during the last twenty years have risen from twelve million pounds to twenty-two million pounds. Some people believe that it is a good thing to pay a great revenue to the state. Even so eminent a man as Lord John Russell is not without a delusion of this sort. Lord John Russell, as you have heard, while speaking of me in flattering and friendly terms, says he is unfortunately obliged to differ from me frequently; therefore I suppose there is no particular harm in my saying that I am some- times obliged to differ from him. Some time ago he was ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 289 a great star in the northern hemisphere, shining, not with unaccustomed, but with his usual brilliancy at Liverpool. He made a speech, in which there was a great deal to be admired, to a meeting composed, it was said, to a great extent of working men; and in it he stimulated them to a feeling of pride in the greatness of their country, and in being citizens of a state which enjoyed a revenue of one hundred million pounds a year, which included the rev- enues of the United Kingdom and of British India. But I think it would have been far more to the purpose if he could have congratulated the working men of Liverpool on this vast empire being conducted in an orderly manner, on its laws being well administered and well obeyed, its shores sufficiently defended, its people prosperous and happy, on a revenue of twenty million pounds. The state, indeed, of which Lord John Russell is a part, may enjoy a revenue of one hundred million pounds, but I am afraid the working men can only be said to enjoy it in the sense in which men not very choice in their expres- sions say that for a long time they have enjoyed very bad health. I am prepared to admit that it is a subject of congratu- lation that there is a people so great, so free, and so in- dustrious that it can produce a sufficient income out of which one hundred million pounds a year, if need abso- lutely were, could be spared for some great and noble object; but it is not a thing to be proud of that our gov- ernment should require us to pay that enormous sum for the simple purposes of government and defence. Nothing can by any possibility tend more to the cor- ruption of a government than enormous revenues. We have heard lately of instances of certain joint-stock institu- tions with very great capital collapsing suddenly, bringing disgrace upon their managers and ruin upon hundreds of families. A great deal of that has arisen, not so much from intentional fraud as from the fact that weak and incapable men have found themselves tumbling about in an ocean of bank-notes and gold, and they appear to have lost all 19 290 JOHN BRIGHT sight of where it came from, to whom it belonged, and whether it was possible by any maladministration ever to come to an end of it. That is absolutely what is done by governments. You have read in the papers lately some accounts of the proceedings before a commission appointed to inquire into alleged maladministration with reference to the supply of clothing to the army, but if anybody had said anything in the time of the late government about any such maladministration, there is not one of those great statesmen, of whom we are told we ought always to speak with so much reverence, who would not have got up and declared that nothing could be more admirable than the system of book-keeping at Weedon, nothing more eco- nomical than the manner in which the War Department spent the money provided by public taxation. But we know that it is not so. I have heard a gentleman — one who is as competent as any man in England to give an opinion about it — a man of business, and not surpassed by any one as a man of business, declare, after a long ex- amination of the details of the question, that he would undertake to do everything that is done not only for the defence of the country, but for many other things which are done by your navy, and which are not necessary for that purpose, for half the annual cost that is voted in the estimates. I think the expenditure of these vast sums, and espe- cially of those which we spend for military purposes, leads us to adopt a defiant and insolent tone toward foreign countries. We have the freest press in Europe, and the freest platform in Europe, but every man who writes an article in a newspaper, and every man who stands on a platform, ought to do it under a solemn sense of responsi- bility. Every word he writes, every word I utter, passes with a rapidity of which our forefathers were utterly igno- rant to the very ends of the earth; the words become things and acts, and they produce on the minds of other nations efifects which a man may never have intended. Take a recent case; take the case of France. I am not expected ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 29 1 to defend, and I shall certainly not attack, the present gov- ernment of France. The instant that it appeared in its present shape the minister of England conducting your foreign afifairs, speak- ing ostensibly for the cabinet, for his sovereign, and for the English nation, offered his congratulations, and the support of England was at once accorded to the recreated French Empire. Soon after this an intimate alliance was entered into between the Queen of England, through her ministers, and the Emperor of the French. I am not about to defend the policy which flowed from that alliance, nor shall I take up your time by making any attack upon it. An alliance was entered into and a war was entered into. English and French soldiers fought on the same field, and they sufifered, I fear, from the same neglect. They now lie buried on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and except by their mothers, who do not soon forget their children, I suppose they are mostly forgotten. I have never heard it suggested that the French Govern- ment did not behave with the most perfect honour to this government and to this country all through these grave transactions; but I have heard it stated by those who must know that nothing could be more honourable, nothing more just, than the conduct of the French emperor to this government throughout the whole of that struggle.' More recently, when the war in China was begun by a govern- ment which I have condemned and denounced in the House of Commons, the Emperor of the French sent his ships and troops to co-operate with us, but I never heard that anything was done there to create a suspicion of a feeling of hostility on his part toward us. The Emperor of the French came to London, and some of those power- ful organs of the press that have since taken the line of which I am complaining, did all but invite the people of London to prostrate themselves under the wheels of the chariot which conveyed along our streets the revived mon- archy of France. The Queen of England went to Paris, and was she not received there with as much affection and 292 JOHN BRIGHT as much respect as her high position and her honourable character entitled her to? What has occurred since? If there was a momentary unpleasantness, I am quite sure every impartial man will agree that, under the peculiarly irritating circumstances of the time, there was at least as much forbearance shown on one side of the Channel as on the other. Then we have had much said lately about a naval fortification recently completed in France, which has been more than one hun- dred years in progress, and which was not devised by the present Emperor of the French. For one hundred years great sums had been spent on it, and at last, like every other great work, it was brought to an end. The English Queen and others were invited over, and many went who were not invited. And yet in all this we are told that there is something to create ex- treme alarm and suspicion; we, who "never fortified any places; we, who have not a greater than Sebastopol at Gibraltar; we, who have not an impregnable fortress at Malta, who have not spent the fortune of a nation almost in the Ionian Islands, and who are doing nothing at Alder- ney; we are to take offence at the fortifications of Cher- bourg! There are few persons who at some time or other have not been brought into contact with a poor unhappy fellow-creature who has some peculiar delusion or sus- picion pressing on his mind. I recollect a friend of mine going down from Derby to Leeds in the train with a very quiet and respectable looking gentleman sitting opposite to him. They had both been staying at the Midland Hotel, and they began talking about it. All at once the gentle- man said, " Did you notice anything particular about the bread at breakfast? " " No," said my friend, " I did not." "Oh! but I did," said the poor gentleman, "and I am convinced there was an attempt made to poison me, and it is a very curious thing that I never go to an hotel .with- out I discover some attempt to do me mischief." The unfortunate man was labouring under one of the greatest calamities which can befall a human creature. But what ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 293 are we to say of a nation which lives under a perpetual delusion that it is about to be attacked — a nation which is the most combined on the face of the earth, with little less than thirty million people all united under a govern- ment which, though we intend to reform we do not the less respect, and which has mechanical power and wealth to which no other country offers any parallel? There is no causeway to Britain; the free waves of the sea flow day and night forever round her shores, and yet there are people going about with whom this hallucination is so strong that they do not merely discover it quietly to their friends, but they write it down in double-leaded columns, in leading articles — ^nay, some of them actually get up on platforms and proclaim it to hundreds and thousands of their fellow-countrymen. I should like to ask you whether these delusions are to last forever, whether this policy is to be the perpetual policy of England, whether these re- sults are to go on gathering and gathering until there come, as come there must inevitably, some dreadful catas- trophe on our country. I should like to-night, if I could, to inaugurate one of the best and holiest revolutions that ever took place in this country. We have had a dozen revolutions since some of us were children. We have had one revolution in which you had a great share — a great revolution of opinion on the question of the suffrage. Does it not read like mad- ness that men thirty years ago were frantic at the idea of the people of Birmingham having a ten-pound franchise? Does it not seem something like idiocy to be told that a banker in Leeds, when it was proposed to transfer the seats of one rotten borough to the town of Leeds, should say (and it was repeated in the House of Commons on his authority) that if the people of Leeds had the franchise conferred upon them it would not be possible to keep the bank doors open with safety, and that he should remove his business to some quiet place, out of danger from the savage race that peopled that town? But now all con- fess that the people are perfectly competent to have votes, 294 JOHN BRIGHT and nobody dreams of arguing that the privilege will make them less orderly. Take the question of colonial government. Twenty years ago the government of our colonies was a huge job. A small family party in each, in connection with the Colonial OfHce, ruled our colonies. We had then discon- tent, and now and then a little wholesome insurrection, especially in Canada. The result was that we have given up the colonial policy which had hitherto been held sacred, and since that time not only have our colonies greatly ad- vanced in wealth and material resources, but no parts of the empire are more tranquil and loyal. Take also the question of protection. Not thirty years ago, but twelve years ago, there was a great party in Par- liament, led by a duke in one House and by a son and brother of a duke in the other, which declared that utter ruin must come, not only on the agricultural interest, but upon the maufactures and commerce of England, if we departed from our old theories upon this subject of protection. They told us that the labourer — the unhappy labourer — of whom it may be said in this country: " Here landless labourers hopeless toil and strive, But taste no portion of the sweets they hive," that the labourer was to be ruined — that is, that the pau- pers were to be pauperized. These gentlemen were over- thrown. The plain, honest, common sense of the country swept away their cobweb theories, and they are gone. What is the result? From 1846 to 1857 we have received into this country of grain of all kinds, including flour, maize, or India corn — all objects heretofore not of abso- lute prohibition, but which were intended to be prohibited until it was not safe for people to be starved any more — not less than an amount equal in value to £224,000,000. That is equal to £18,700,000 per annum on the average of twelve years. During that period, too, your home growth has been stimulated to an enormous extent. You have imported annually two hundred thousand tons of guano, ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 29S and the result has been a proportionate increase in the pro- ductions of the soil, for two hundred thousand tons of guano will grow an equal weight and value of wheat. With all this, agriculture was never more prosperous, while manufactures were never, at the same time, more exten- sively exported; and with all this, the labourers, for whom the tears of the protectionist were shed, have, according to the admission of the most violent of the class, never been in a better state since the beginning of the great French war. One other revolution of opinion has been in regard to our criminal law. I have lately been reading a book which I would advise every man to read — the " Life of Sir Samuel Romilly." He tells us in simple language of the almost insuperable difficulties he had to contend with to persuade the legislature of this country to abolish the pun- ishment of death for stealing from a dwelling house to the value of five shillings, an offence which now is punished by a few weeks' imprisonment. Lords, bishops, and states- men opposed these efforts year after year, and there have been some thousands of persons put to death publicly for offences which are not now punishable with death. Now every man and woman in the kingdom would feel a thrill of horror if told that a fellow-creature was to be put to death for such a cause. These are revolutions in opinion, and let me tell you that when you accomplish a revolution in opinion upon a great question, when you alter it from bad to good, it is not like charitably giving a beggar sixpence and seeing him no more, but it is a great beneficent act, which affects not merely the rich and the powerful, but penetrates every lane, every cottage in the land, and wherever it goes brings blessings and happiness. It is not from statesmen that these things come. It is not from them that have pro- ceeded these great revolutions of opinion on the questions of reform, protection, colonial government, and criminal law — it was from public meetings such as this, from the intelligence and conscience of the great body of the people 296 JOHN BRIGHT who have no interest in wrong, and who never go from the right but by temporary error and under momentary passion. It is for you to decide whether our greatness shall be only temporary, or whether it shall be enduring. When I am told that the greatness of our country is shown by the £100,000,000 of revenue produced, may I not also ask how it is that we have 1,100,000 paupers in this kingdom, and why it is that £7,000,000 should be taken from the in- dustry chiefly of the labouring classes to support a small nation, as it were, of paupers? Since your legislation upon the Corn Laws, you have not only had nearly £20,000,000 of food brought into the country annually, but such an extraordinary increase of trade that your exports are about doubled, and yet I understand that in the year 1856 — for I have no later return — there were no less than 1,100,000 paupers in the United Kingdom, and the sum raised in poor-rates was not less than £7,200,000. And that cost of pauperism is not the full amount, for there is a vast amount of temporary, casual, and vagrant pauperism that does not come in to swell that sum. Then do not you well know — I know it, because I live among the population of Lancashire, and I doubt not the same may be said of the population of this city and county — that just above the level of the 1,100,000 there is at least an equal number who are ever oscillating between inde- pendence and pauperism, who, with a heroism which is not the less heroic because it is secret and unrecorded, are doing their very utmost to maintain an honourable and independent position before their fellow-men? While Irish labour, notwithstanding the improvement which has taken place in Ireland, is only paid at the rate of about one shilling a day; while in the straths and glens of Scotland there are hundreds of shepherd families whose whole food almost consists of oatmeal porridge from day to day, and from week to week; while these .things con- tinue, I say that we have no reason to be self-satisfied and contented with our position; but that we who are in Par- ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 297 liament and are more directly responsible for affairs, and you who are also responsible though in a lesser degree, are bound by the sacred duty which we owe our country to examine why it is that with all this trade, all this industry, and all this personal freedom, there is still so much that is unsound at the base of our social fabric? Let me direct your attention now to another point which I never think of without feelings that words would altogether fail to express. You hear constantly that woman, the helpmate of man, who adorns, dignifies, and blesses our lives, that woman in this country is cheap; that vast numbers whose names ought to be synonyms for purity and virtue, are plunged into profligacy and infamy. But do you not know that you sent forty thousand men to perish on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and that the revolt in India, caused, in part at least, by the grievous iniquity of the seizure of Oude, may tax your country to the extent of one hundred thousand lives before it is ex- tinguished; and do you not know that for the one hun- dred and forty thousand men thus drafted off and con- signed to premature graves Nature provided in your coun- try one hundred and forty thousand women? If you have taken the men who should have been the husbands of these women, and if you have sacrificed one hundred million pounds, which as capital reserved in the country would have been an ample fund for their employment and for the sustentation of their families, are you not guilty of a great sin in involving yourselves in such a loss of life and of money in war, except on grounds and under circumstances which, according to the opinions of every man in the coun- try, should leave no kind of option whatever for your choice? I know perfectly well the kind of observations which a certain class of critics will make upon this speech. I have been already told by a very eminent newspaper publisher in Calcutta, who, commenting on a speech I made at the close of the session with regard to the con- dition of India, and our future policy in that country, said 298 JOHN BRIGHT that the policy I recommended was intended to strike at the root of the advancement of the British Empire, and that its advancement did not necessarily involve the calami- ties which I pointed out as likely to occur. My Calcutta critic assured me that Rome pursued a similar policy for a period of eight centuries, and that for those eight centuries she remained great. Now, I do not think that examples taken from pagan, sanguinary Rome are proper models for the imitation of a Christian country, nor would I limit my hopes of the greatness of England even to the long duration of eight hundred years. But what is Rome now? The great city is dead. A poet has described her as " the lone mother of dead em- pires." Her language even is dead. Her very tombs are empty; the ashes of her most illustrious citizens are dis- persed. " The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now." Yet I am asked — I, who am one of the legislators of a Christian country — to measure my policy by the policy of ancient and pagan Rome! I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for mili- tary greatness or military renown. I care for the condi- tion of the people among whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak irreverently of the crown and monarchy of England than I am; but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge empire are, in my view, all trifles, light as air, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cot- tage; and unless the light of your constitution can shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excel- lence of your statesmanship are impressed there on the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it you have yet to learn the duties of government. ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY 299 I have not, as you have observed, pleaded that this country should remain without adequate and scientific means of defence. I acknowledge it to be the duty of your statesmen, acting upon the known opinions and principles of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in the coun- try, at all times, with all possible moderation, but with all possible efficiency, to take steps which shall preserve order within and on the confines of your kingdom. But I shall repudiate and denounce the expenditure of every shilling, the engagement of every man, the employment of every ship, which has no object but intermeddling in the affairs of other countries, and endeavouring to extend the boundaries of an empire which is already large enough to satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for the highest statesmanship to which any man has yet attained. The most ancient of profane historians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they elevated an old scimitar upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this scimitar they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than to all the rest of their gods. I often ask myself'^whether we are at all advanced in one respect beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions to charity, to education, to moral- ity, to religion, to justice, and to civil government, when compared with the wealth we expend in sacrifices to the old scimitar? Two nights ago I addressed in this hall a vast assembly composed to a great extent of your country- men who have no political power, who are at work from the dawn of the day to the evening, and who have there- fore limited means of informing themselves on these great subjects. Now I am privileged to speak to a somewhat different audience. You represent those of your great community who have a more complete education, who have on some points greater intelligence, and in whose hands reside the power and influence of the district. I 300 JOHN BRIGHT am speaking, too, within the hearing of those whose gentle nature, whose finer instincts, whose purer minds, have not suffered as some of us have suffered in the turmoil and strife of life. You can mould opinion, you can create political power — you can not think a good thought on this subject and communicate it to your neighbours — you can not make these points topics of discussion in your social circles and more general meetings, without affecting sen- sibly and speedily the course which the government of your country will pursue. May I ask you, then, to believe, as I do most devoutly believe, that the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime; but rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says: " The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite. Nor yet doth linger." We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. We know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how far we have wandered, but we are not left without a guide. It is true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim — ^those oracular gems on Aaron's breast — from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. Note ' Cobden and Bright had severely criticised the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston in the Crimean War, and in consequence of this criticism Bright had lost his seat for Manchester. He was at once elected by Birmingham ; and this speech was delivered in the Town Hall on the occasion of his first visit to his constituents. WENDELL PHILLIPS— TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE (Delivered in New York and Boston, December, 1861) This oration is published by arrangement with Messrs. Lee and Shepard, the pub- lishers of Mr. Phillips's works, and is protected by their copyright. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have been requested to ofifer you a sketch, made some years since, of one ^ of the most remarkable men of the last generation — the great St. Domingo chief, Toussaint L'Ouverture, an unmixed negro, with no drop of white blood in his veins. My sketch is at once a biography and an argument — a biography, of course very brief, of a negro soldier and statesman, which I ofifer you as an argument in behalf of the race from which he sprung. I am about to compare and weigh races; indeed, I am engaged to-night in what you will think the absurd effort to convince you that the negro race, instead of being that object of pity or contempt which we usually consider it, is entitled, judged by the facts of history, to a place close by the side of the Saxon. Now, races love to be judged in two ways — by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race. We Saxons are proud of Bacon, Shakespeare, Hampden, Washington, Franklin, the stars we have lent to the galaxy of history; and then we turn with equal pride to the average merit of Saxon blood since it streamed from its German home. So, again, there are three tests by which races love to be tried. The first, the basis of all, is courage — the element which says, here and to-day, " This continent is mine, from the Lakes to the Gulf: let him be- ware who seeks to divide it ! " [Cheers.] And the second is the recognition that force is doubled by purpose; liberty regulated by law is the secret of Saxon progress. And 301 302 WENDELL PHILLIPS the third element is persistency, endurance; first a pur- pose, then death or success. Of these three elements is made that Saxon pluck which has placed our race in the van of modern civilization. In the hour you lend me to-night I attempt the Quix- otic effort to convince you that the negro blood, instead of standing at the bottom of the list, is entitled, if judged either by its great men or its masses, either by its courage, its purpose, or its endurance, to a place as near ours as any other blood known in history. And, for the purpose of my argument, I take an island, St. Domingo, about the size of South Carolina, the third spot in America upon which Columbus placed his foot. Charmed by the mag- nificence of its scenery and fertility of its soil, he gave it the fondest of all names, Hispaniola, Little Spain. His successor, more pious, rebaptized it from St. Dominic, St. Domingo; and when the blacks, in 1803, drove our white blood from its surface, they drove our names with us, and began the year 1804 under the old name, Hayti, the land of mountains. It was originally tenanted by fiHbusters, French and Spanish, of the early commercial epochs, the pirates of that day as of ours. The Spanish took the east- ern two thirds, the French the western third of the island, and they gradually settled into colonies. The French, to whom my story belongs, became the pet colony of the mother land. Guarded by peculiar privileges, enriched by the scions of wealthy houses, aided by the unmatched fertility of the soil, it soon was the richest gem in the Bourbon crown; and at the period to which I call your attention, about the era of our Constitution, 1789, its wealth was almost incredible. The effeminacy of the white race rivalled that of the Sybarite of antiquity, while the splendour of their private life outshone Versailles, and their luxury found no mate but in the mad prodigality of the Caesars. At this time the island held about thirty thou- sand whites, twenty or thirty thousand mulattoes, and five hundred thousand slaves. The slave-trade was active. About twenty-five thousand slaves were imported annually; TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 303 and this only sufficed to fill the gap which the murderous culture of sugai; annually produced. The mulattoes, as with us, were children of the slaveholders, but, unlike us, the French slaveholder never forgot his child by a bond- woman. He gave him everything but his name — ^wealth, rich plantations, gangs of slaves; sent him to Paris for his education, summoned the best culture of France for the instruction of his daughters, so that in 1790 the mulatto race held one third of the real estate and one quarter of the personal estate of the island. But though educated and rich, he bowed under the same yoke as with us. Sub- jected to special taxes, he could hold no public office, and, if convicted of any crime, was punished with double se- verity. His son might not sit on the same seat at school with a white boy; he might not enter a church where a white man was worshipping; if he reached a town on horse- back, he must dismount and lead his horse by the bridle; and when he died, even his dust could not rest in the same soil with a white body. Such was the white race and the mulatto — the thin film of a civilization beneath which surged the dark mass of five hundred thousand slaves. It was over such a population — the white man melted in sensuality; the mulatto feeling all the more keenly his degradation from the very wealth and culture he enjoyed; the slave, sullen and indififerent, heeding not the quarrels or the changes of the upper air — it was over this popula- tion that there burst, in 1789, the thunder-storm of the French Revolution. The first words which reached the island were the motto of the Jacobin Club — " Liberty, Equality." The white man heard them aghast. He had read of the streets of Paris running blood. The slave heard them with indifference; it was a quarrel in the upper air, between other races, which did not concern him. The mulatto heard them with a welcome which no dread of other classes could quell. Hastily gathered into conven- tions, they sent to Paris a committee of the whole body, laid at the feet of the National Convention the free gift of six millions of francs, pledged one fifth of their annual 304 WENDELL PHILLIPS rental toward the payment of the national debt, and only asked in return that this yoke of civil and social contempt should be lifted from their shoulders. You may easily imagine the temper in which Mirabeau and Lafayette welcomed this munificent gift of the free mulattoes of the West Indies, and in which the petition for equal civil rights was received by a body which had just resolved that all men were equal. The convention hastened to express its gratitude, and issued a decree which commences thus, " All freeborn French citizens are equal before the law." Oge was selected — the friend of Lafay- ette, a lieutenant colonel in the Dutch service, the son of a wealthy mulatto woman, educated in Paris, the comrade of all the leading French Republicans — to carry the decree and the message of French democracy to the island. He landed. The decree of the National Convention was laid on the table of the General Assembly of the island. One old planter seized it, tore it in fragments, and trampled it under his feet, swearing by all the saints in the calendar that the island might sink before they would share their rights with bastards. They took an old mulatto, worth a million, who had simply asked for his rights under that decree, and hung him. A white lawyer of seventy, who drafted the petition, they hung at his side. They took Oge, broke him on the wheel, ordered him to be drawn and quartered, and one quarter of his body to be hung up in each of the four principal cities of the island, and then they adjourned. You can conceive better than I can describe the mood in which Mirabeau and Danton received the news that their decree had been torn in pieces and trampled under foot by the petty legislature of an island colony, and their comrade drawn and quartered by the orders of its gov- ernor. Robespierre rushed to the tribune and shouted, " Perish the colonies rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles! " The convention reafifirmed their decree, and sent it out a second time to be executed. But it was not then as now, when steam has married TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 305 the continents. It took months to communicate; and while this news of the death of Oge and the defiance of the National Convention was going to France, and the answer returning, great events had taken place in the island itself. The Spanish, or the eastern section, perceiving these divisions, invaded the towns of the western, and con- quered many of its cities. One half of the slaveholders were Republicans, in love with the new constellation which had just gone up in our northern sky, seeking to be admitted a State in this republic, plotting for annexation. The other half were loyalists, anxious, deserted as they sup- posed themselves by the Bourbons, to make alliance with George III. They sent to Jamaica, and entreated its gov- ernor to assist them in their intrigue. At first he lent them only a few hundred soldiers. Some time later. General Howe and Admiral Parker were sent with sev- eral thousand men, and finally, the English Government entering more seriously into the plot, General Maitland landed with four thousand Englishmen on the north side of the island and gained many successes. The mulattoes were in the mountains, awaiting events. They distrusted the government, which a few years before they had as- sisted to put down an insurrection of the whites, and which had forfeited its promise to grant them civil privileges. Deserted by both sections, Blanchelande, the governor, had left the capital and fled for refuge to a neighbouring city. In this state of affairs the second decree reached the island. The whites forgot their quarrel, sought out Blanchelande, and obliged him to promise that he never would publish the decree. Affrighted, the governor con- sented to that course, and they left him. He then began to reflect that in reality he was deposed, that the Bour- bons had lost the sceptre of the island. He remembered his successful appeal to the mulattoes, five years before, to put down an insurrection. Deserted now by the whites and by the mulattoes, only one force was left him in the island — ^that was the blacks: they had always remembered with gratitude the code noir — black code — of Louis XIV, 3o6 WENDELL PHILLIPS the first interference of any power in their behalf. To the blacks Blanchelande appealed. He sent a deputation to the slaves. He was aided by the agents of Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X, who was seeking to do in St. Domingo what Charles II did in Virginia (whence its name of Old Dominion), institute a reaction against the rebellion at home. The two joined forces, and sent first to Toussaint. Nature made him a Metternich, a di- plomatist. He probably wished to avail himself of this offer, foreseeing advantage to his race, but to avail him- self of it so cautiously as to provide against failure, risking as little as possible till the intentions of the other party had been tested, and so managing as to be able to go on or withdraw as the best interest of his race demanded. He had practised well the Greek rule, " Know thyself," and thoroughly studied his own part. Later in life, when criti- cising his great mulatto rival Rigaud, he showed how well he knew himself. " I know Rigaud," he said; " he drops the bridle when he gallops, he shows his arm when he strikes. For me, I gallop also, but know where to stop: when I strike I am felt, not seen. Rigaud works only by blood and massacre. I know how to put the people in movement : but when I appear all must be calm." He said, therefore, to the envoys, " Where are your credentials? " " We have none." " I will have nothing to do with you." They then sought Frangois and Biassou, two other slaves of strong passions, considerable intellect, and great influence over their fellow-slaves, and said, "Arm, assist the government, put down the EngHsh on the one hand, and the Spanish on the other " ; and on the 2 1 St of August, 1 791, fifteen thousand blacks, led by Fran- <;ois and Biassou, supplied with arms from the arsenal of the government, appeared in the midst of the colony. It is believed that Toussaint, unwilling himself to head the movement, was still desirous that it should go forward, trusting, as proved the case, that it would result in benefit to his race. He is supposed to have advised Francois in his course, saving himself for a more momentous hour. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 307 This is what Edward Everett calls the insurrection of St. Domingo. It bore for its motto on one side of its ban- ner, " Long live the King "; and on the other, " We claim the Old Laws." Singular mottoes for a rebellion! In fact, it was the posse comitatus; it was the only French army on the island; it was the only force that had a right to bear arms; and what it undertook, it achieved. It put Blanchelande in his seat; it put the island beneath his rule. When it was done, the blacks said to the governor they had created: " Now, grant us one day in seven; give us one day's labour; we will buy another, and with the two buy a third " — the favourite method of emancipation at that time. Like the Blanchelande of five years before, he refused. He said, " Disarm! Disperse! " and the blacks answered, " The right hand that has saved you, the right hand that has saved the island for the Bourbons, may per- chance clutch some of our own rights " ; and they stood still. [Cheering.] This is the first insurrection, if any such there were in St. Domingo — the first determined purpose on the part of the negro, having saved the gov- ernment, to save himself. Now let me stop a moment to remind you of one thing. I am about to open to you a chapter of bloody history — no doubt of it. Who set the example? Who dug up from its grave of a hundred years the hideous punishment of the wheel, and broke Oge, every bone, a living man? Who flared in the face of indignant and astonished Europe the forgotten barbarity of quartering the yet palpitating body? Our race. And if the black man learned the les- son but too well, it does not lie in our lips to complain. During this Whole struggle, the record is — ^written, mark you, by the white man — the whole picture from the pen- cil of the white race — ^that for one life the negro took in battle, in hot and bloody fight, the white race took, in the cool malignity of revenge, three to answer for it. Notice, also, that up to this moment the slave had taken no part in the struggle, except at the bidding of the government; and even then, not for himself, but only to sustain the laws. 3o8 WENDELL PHILLIPS At this moment, then, the island stands thus: The Spaniard is on the east triumphant; the EngHshman is on the northwest intrenched; the mulattoes are in the mountains waiting; the blacks are in the valleys victori- ous; one half the French slaveholding element is republi- can, the other half royalist; the white race against the mulatto and the black; the black against both; the French- man against the English and Spaniard; the Spaniard against both. It is a war of races and a war of nations. At such a moment Toussaint L'Ouverture appeared. He had been born a slave on a plantation in the north of the island — an unmixed negro — his father stolen from Africa. If anything, therefore, that I say of him to-night moves your admiration, remember, the black race claims it all — we have no part nor lot in it. He was fifty years old at this time. An old negro had taught him to read. His favourite books were Epictetus, Raynal, " MiUtary Memoirs," Plutarch. In the woods he learned some of the qualities of herbs, and was village doctor. On the estate the highest place he ever reached was that of coachman. At fifty he joined the army as physician. Before he went he placed his master and mistress on shipboard, freighted the vessel with a cargo of sugar and cofifee, and sent them to Baltimore, and never afterward did he forget to send them, year by year, ample means of support. And I might add that, of all the leading negro generals, each one saved the man under whose roof he was born, and protected the family. [ Cheering. J Let me add another thing. If I stood here to-night to tell the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. Were I here to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts — you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. [Applause.] I am about to tell you the story of a negro who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of Britons, Frenchmen, Span- TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 309 iards — men who despised him as a negro and a slave, and hated him because he had beaten them in many a battle. All the materials for his biography are from the lips of his enemies. The second story told of him is this: About the time he reached the camp, the army had been subjected to two insults. First, their commissioners, summoned to meet the French committee, were ignominiously and insult- ingly dismissed; and when, afterward, Franqois, their gen- eral, was summoned to a second conference, and went to it on horseback, accompanied by two officers, a young lieutenant, who had known him as a slave, angered at seeing him in the uniform of an officer, raised his riding- whip and struck him over the shoulders. If he had been the savage which the negro is painted to us, he had only to breathe the insult to his twenty-five thousand soldiers, and they would have trodden out the Frenchmen in blood. But the indignant chief rode back in silence to his tent, and it was twenty-four hours before his troops heard of this insult to their general. Then the word went forth, " Death to every white man! " They had fifteen hundred prisoners. Ranged in front of the camp, they were about to be shot. Toussaint, who had a vein of religious fanati- cism, like most great leaders — ^like Mohammed, like Napo- leon, like Cromwell, like John Brown [cheers] — he could preach as well as fight — mounting a hillock, and getting the ear of the crowd, exclaimed : " Brothers, this blood will not wipe out the insult to our chief; only the blood in yonder French camp can wipe it out. To shed that is courage; to shed this is cowardice and cruelty beside" — and he saved fifteen hundred lives. [Applause.] I can not stop to give in detail every one of his efiforts. This was in 1793. Leap with me over seven years; come to 1800; what has he achieved? He has driven the Span- iard back into his own cities, conquered him there, and put the French banner over every Spanish town; and for the first time, and almost the last, the island obeys one law. He has put the mulatto under his feet. He has at- 3IO WENDELL PHILLIPS tacked Maitland, defeated him in pitched battles, and per- mitted him to retreat to Jamaica; and when the French army rose upon Laveaux, their general, and put him in chains, Toussaint defeated them, took Leveaux out of prison, and put him at the head of his own troops. The grateful French in return named him general-in-chief. Cet homme fait I'ouverture partout, said one — " This man makes an opening everywhere " — hence his soldiers named him L'Ouverture, the opening. This was the work of seven years. Let us pause a moment, and find something to measure him by. You remember Macaulay says, comparing Cromwell with Na- poleon, that Cromwell showed the greater military genius, if we consider that he never saw an army till he was forty ; while Napoleon was educated from a boy in the best mili- tary schools in Europe. Cromwell manufactured his own army; Napoleon at the age of twenty-seven was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. They were both successful; but, says Macaulay, with such dis- advantages, the Englishman showed the greater genius. Whether you allow the inference or not, you will at least grant that it is a fair mode of measurement. Apply it to Toussaint. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army — out of what? Englishmen — the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen — the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen — their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoral- ized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thou- sand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered [cheers] ; at the most wariike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 311 pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. [Applause.] Now if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. I know it was a small territory; it was not as large as the continent; but it was as large as that Attica which, with Athens for a capi- tal, has filled, the earth with its fame for two thousand years. We measure genius by quality, not by quantity. Further, Cromwell was only a soldier; his fame stops there. Not one line in the statute-book of Britain can be traced to Cromwell; not one step in the social life of Eng- land finds its motive power in his brain. The state he founded went down with him to his grave. But this man no sooner put his hand on the helm of state than the ship steadied with an upright keel, and he began to evince a statesmanship as marvellous as his military genius. His- tory says that the most statesmanlike act of Napoleon was his proclamation of 1802, at the peace of Amiens, when, believing that the indelible loyalty of a native-born heart is always a sufficient basis on which to found an empire, he said : " Frenchmen, come home. I pardon the crimes of the last twelve years; I blot out its parties; I found my throne on the hearts of all Frenchmen " — and twelve years of unclouded success showed how wisely he judged. That was in 1802. In 1800 this negro made a proclama- tion; it runs thus: " Sons of St. Domingo, come home. We never meant to take your houses or your lands. The negro only asked that liberty which God gave him. Your houses wait for you; your lands are ready; come and cul- tivate them " — and from Madrid and Paris, from Balti- more and New Orleans, the emigrant planters crowded home to enjoy their estates, under the pledged word that was never broken of a victorious slave. [Cheers.] Again, Carlyle has said, " The natural king is one who melts all wills into his own." At this moment he turned to his armies — poor, ill-clad, and half-starved — and said to them: " Go back and work on these estates you have conquered; for an empire can be founded only on order and industry, and you can learn these virtues only there." 312 WENDELL PHILLIPS And they went. The French admiral, who witnessed the scene, said that in a week his army melted back into peasants. It was 1800. The world waited fifty years before, in 1846, Robert Peel dared to venture, as a matter of prac- tical statesmanship, the theory of free trade. Adam Smith theorized, the French statesmen dreamed, but no man at the head of affairs had ever dared to risk it as a practical measure. Europe waited till 1846 before the most prac- tical intellect in the world, the English, adopted the great economic formula of unfettered trade. But in 1800 this black, with the instinct of statesmanship, said to the com- mittee who were drafting for him a constitution, " Put at the head of the chapter of commerce that the ports of St. Domingo are open to the trade of the world." [Cheers.] With lofty indifiference to race, superior to all envy or prejudice, Toussaint had formed this committee of eight white proprietors and one mulatto — ^not a soldier nor a negro on the list, although Haytian history proves that, with the exception of Rigaud, the rarest genius has always been shown by pure negroes. Again, it was 1800, at a time when England was poi- soned on every page of her statute-book with religious in- tolerance, when a man could not enter the House of Com- mons without taking an Episcopal communion, when every State in the Union, except Rhode Island, was full of the intensest religious bigotry. This man was a negro. You say that is a superstitious blood. He was uneducated. You say that makes a man narrow-minded. He was a Catholic. Many say that is but another name for intoler- ance. And yet — negro. Catholic, slave — he took his place by the side of Roger Williams, and said to his committee, " Make it the first line of my constitution that I know no difference between religious beliefs." [Applause.] Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European; let him have a brain the result of six gen- TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 313 erations of culture; let him have the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the better education of practical life; crown his temples with the silver of sev- enty years; and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro — rare military skill, profound knowledge of human na- ture, content to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons — anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams before any Englishman or American had won the right — and yet this is the record which the history of rival states makes up for this inspired black of St. Do- mingo. [Cheers. J It was 1 80 1. The Frenchmen who lingered on the island described its prosperity and order as almost incred- ible. You might trust a child with a bag of gold to go from Samana to Port-au-Prince without risk. Peace was in every household; the valleys laughed with fertility; cul- ture climbed the mountains; the commerce of the world was represented in its harbours. At this time Europe con- cluded the peace of Amiens, and Napoleon took his seat on the throne of France. He glanced his eyes across the Atlantic, and, with a single stroke of his pen, reduced Cayenne and Martinique back into chains. He then said to his council, " What shall I do with St. Domingo? " The slaveholders said, " Give it to us." Napoleon turned to the Abbe Gregoire, " What is your opinion? " " I think those men would change their opinions if they changed their skins." Colonel Vincent, who had been private secretary to Toussaint, wrote a letter to Napoleon, in which he said: " Sire, leave it alone; it is the happiest spot in your dominions; God raised this man to govern; races melt under his hand. He has saved you this island; for I know of my own knowledge that, when the repub- lic could not have lifted a finger to prevent it, George III offered him any title and any revenue if he would hold the island under the British crown. He refused, and saved 314 WENDELL PHILLIPS it for France." Napoleon turned away from his council, and is said to have remarked : " I have sixty thousand idle troops; I must find them something to do." He meant to say: " I am about to seize the crown; I dare not do it in the faces of sixty thousand republican soldiers: I must give them work at a distance to do." The gossip of Paris gives another reason for his expedition against St. Domin- go. It is said that the satirists of Paris had christened Toussaint the Black Napoleon, and Bonaparte hated his black shadow. Toussaint had unfortunately once ad- dressed him a letter, " The first of the blacks to the first of the whites." He did not like the comparison. You would think it too slight a motive. But let me remind you of the present Napoleon, that when the epigrammatists of Paris christened his wasteful and tasteless expense at Versailles Soulouquerie, from the name of Soulouque, the Black Emperor, he deigned to issue a specific order for- bidding the use of the word. The Napoleon blood is very sensitive. So Napoleon resolved to crush Toussaint from one motive or another, from the prompting of ambition, or dislike of this resemblance — which was very close. If either imitated the other, it must have been the white, since the negro preceded him several years. They were very much alike, and they were very French — French even in vanity, common to both. You remember Bonaparte's vainglorious words to his soldiers at the Pyramids, " Forty centuries look down upon us." In the same mood, Tous- saint said to the French captain who urged him to go to France in his frigate, " Sir, your ship is not large enough to carry me." Napoleon, you know, could never bear the military uniform. He hated the restraint of his rank; he loved to put on the gray coat of the Little Corporal and wander in the camp. Toussaint also never could bear a uniform. He wore a plain coat, and often the yellow Madras handkerchief of the slaves. A French lieutenant once called him a maggot in a yellow handkerchief. Tous- saint took him prisoner next day, and sent him home to his mother. Like Napoleon, he could fast many days; TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 315 could dictate to three secretaries at once; could wear out four or five horses. Like Napoleon, no man ever divined his purpose or penetrated his plan. He was only a negro, and so, in him, they called it hypocrisy. In Bonaparte we style it diplomacy. For instance, three attempts made to assassinate him all failed, from not firing at the right spot. If they thought he was in the north in a carriage, he would be in the south on horseback; if they thought he was in the city in a house, he would be in the field in a tent. They once riddled his carriage with bullets; he was on horseback on the other side. The seven French- men who did it were arrested. They expected to be shot. The next day was some saint's day; he ordered them to be placed before the high altar, and, when the priest reached the prayer for forgiveness, came down from his high seat, repeated it with him, and permitted them to go unpunished. [Cheers. J He had that wit common to all great commanders, which makes its way in a camp. His soldiers getting disheartened, he filled a large vase with powder, and, scattering six grains of rice in it, shook them up and said: " See, there is the white, there is the black; what are you afraid of? " So when people came to him in great numbers for office, as it is reported they do some- times even in Washington, he learned the first words of a Catholic prayer in Latin, and, repeating it, would say, "Do you understand that?" "No, sir." "What! want an office, and not know Latin? Go home and learn it!" Then, again, like Napoleon — ^like genius always — he had confidence in his power to rule men. You remember when Bonaparte returned from Elba, and Louis XVIII sent an army against him, Bonaparte descended from his carriage, opened his coat, oflfering his breast to their mus- kets, and saying, " Frenchmen, it is the Emperor! " and they ranged themselves behind him, his soldiers, shouting, " Vive I'Empereur! " That was in 1815. Twelve years before, Toussaint, finding that four of his regiments had deserted and gone to Leclerc, drew his sword, flung it on 3i6 WENDELL PHILLIPS the grass, went across the field to them, folded his arms, and said, " Children, can you point a bayonet at me? " The blacks fell on their knees, praying his pardon. His bitterest enemies watched him, and none of them charged him with love of money, sensuality, or cruel use of power. The only instance in which his sternest critic has charged him with severity is this: During a tumult a few white proprietors who had returned, trusting his proclamation, were killed. His nephew. General Moise, was accused of indecision in quelling the riot. He assembled a court-mar- tial, and, on its verdict, ordered his own nephew to be shot, sternly Roman in thus keeping his promise of protection to the whites. Above the lust of gold, pure in private life, generous in the use of his power, it was against such a man that Napoleon sent his army, giving to General Leclerc, the husband of his beautiful sister Pauline, thirty thou- sand of his best troops, with orders to reintroduce slavery. Among these soldiers came all of Toussaint's old mulatto rivals and foes. Holland lent sixty ships. England promised by special message to be neutral; and you know neutrality means sneering at freedom, and sending arms to tyrants. [Loud and long-continued applause.] England promised neu- trality, and the black looked out on the whole civilized world marshalled against him. America, full of slaves, of course was hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets at a very high price. [Laughter.] Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end of the island, Sa- mana, he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe, rounded the point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like Caesar's, had shaken Europe — soldiers who had scaled the Pyra- mids, and planted the French banners on the walls of Rome. He looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and, turning to Chris- tophe, exclaimed: "All France is come to Hayti; they can only come to make us slaves; and we are lost! " He TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 317 then recognised the only mistake of his hfe — his confidence in Bonaparte, which had led him to disband his army. Returning to the hills, he issued the only proclamation which bears his name and breathes vengeance: " My chil- dren, France comes to make us slaves. God gave us lib- erty; France has no right to take it away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvest, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells, show the white man the hell he comes to make " — and he was obeyed. [Applause.] When the great Wil- liam of Orange saw Louis XIV cover Holland with troops, he said, " Break down the dikes, give Holland back to ocean "; and Europe said, " Sublime! " When Alexander saw the armies of France descend upon Russia, he said, " Burn Moscow, starve back the invaders " ; and Europe said, " Sublime ! " This black saw all Europe marshalled to crush him, and gave to his people the same heroic ex- ample of defiance. It is true, the scene grows bloodier as we proceed. But, remember, the white man fitly accompanied his in- famous attempt to reduce freemen to slavery with every bloody and cruel device that bitter and shameless hate could invent. Aristocracy is always cruel. The black man met the attempt, as every such attempt should be met, with war to the hilt. In his first struggle to gain his free- dom he had been generous and merciful, saved lives and pardoned enemies, as the people in every age and clime have always done when rising against aristocrats. Now, to save his liberty, the negro exhausted every means, seized every weapon, and turned back the hateful invaders with a vengeance as terrible as their own, though even now he refused to be cruel. Leclerc sent word to Christophe that he was about to land at Cape City. Christophe said : " Toussaint is gov- ernor of the island. I will send to him for permission. If without it a French soldier sets foot on shore, I will burn the town, and fight over its ashes." Leclerc landed. Christophe took two thousand white men, women, and children, and carried them to the moun- 3i8 WENDELL PHILLIPS tains in safety, then with his own hands set fire to the splendid palace which French architects had just finished for him, and in forty hours the place was in ashes. The battle was fought in its streets, and the French driven back to their boats. [Cheers.] Wherever they went, they were met with fire and sword. Once, resisting an attack, the blacks. Frenchmen born, shouted the Marseilles hymn, and the French soldiers stood still; they could not fight the " Marseillaise." And it was not till their officers sabred them on that they advanced, and then they were beaten. Beaten in the field, the French then took to lies. They issued proclamations, saying: " We do not come to make you slaves; this man Toussaint tells you lies. Join us, and you shall have the rights you claim." They cheated every one of his officers, except Christophe and Dessa- lines, and his own brother Pierre, and finally these also deserted him, and he was left alone. He then sent word to Leclerc: " I will submit. I could continue the struggle for years — could prevent a single Frenchman from safely quitting your camp. But I hate bloodshed. I have fought only for the liberty of my race. Guarantee that, I will submit and come in." He took the oath to be a faithful citizen; and on the same crucifix Leclerc swore that he should be faithfully protected, and that the island should be free. As the French general glanced along the line of his splendidly equipped troops, and saw, opposite, Toussaint's ragged, ill-armed followers, he said to him, " L'Ouverture, had you continued the war, where could you have got arms? " " I would have taken yours," was the Spartan reply. [Cheers.] He went down to his house in peace; it was summer. Leclerc remembered that the fever months were coming, when his army would be in hospitals, and when one motion of that royal hand would sweep his troops into the sea. He was too dangerous to be left at large. So they summoned him to attend a coun- cil; and here is the only charge made against him — the only charge. They say he was fool enough to go. Grant it; what was the record? The white man lies shrewdly TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 319 to cheat the negro. Knight-errantry was truth. The foul- est insult you can ofifer a man since the Crusades is, You lie. Of Toussaint, Hermona, the Spanish general, who knew him well, said, "He was the purest soul God ever put into a body." Of him history bears witness, " He never broke his word." Maitland was travelling in the depths of the woods to meet Toussaint, when he was met by a messenger and told that he was betrayed. He went on, and met Toussaint, who showed him two letters — one from the French general, offering him any rank if he would put Maitland in his power, and the other his reply. It was, " Sir, I have promised the Englishman that he shall go back." [Cheers.] Let it stand, therefore, that the negro, truthful as a knight of old, was cheated by his lying foe. Which race has reason to be proud of such a record? But he was not cheated. He was under espionage. Suppose he had refused: the government would have doubted him — would have found some cause to arrest him. He probably reasoned thus : " If I go willingly, I shall be treated accordingly " ; and he went. The moment he en- tered the room the officers drew their swords and told him he was a prisoner; and one young lieutenant who was pres- ent says, " He was not at all surprised, but seemed very sad." They put him on shipboard, and weighed anchor for France. As the island faded from his sight, he turned to the captain, and said : " You think you have rooted up the tree of liberty, but I am only a branch; I have planted the tree so deep that all France can never root it up." [Cheers. J Arrived in Paris, he was flung into jail, and Napoleon sent his secretary, CaffarelU, to him, supposing he had buried large treasures. He listened a while, then replied, " Young man, it is true I have lost treasures, but they are not such as you come to seek." He was then sent to the Castle of St. Joux, to a dungeon twelve feet by twenty, built wholly of stone, with a narrow window, high up on the side, looking out on the snows of Switzer- land. In winter, ice covers the floor; in summer, it is damp and wet. In this living tomb the child of the sunny 320 WENDELL PHILLIPS tropic was left to die. From this dungeon he wrote two letters to Napoleon. One of them ran thus: " Sire, I am a French citizen. I never broke a law^ By the grace of God, I have saved for you the best island of your realm. Sire, of your mercy grant me justice." Napoleon never answered the letters. The command- ant allowed him five francs a day for food and fuel. Na- poleon heard of it, and reduced the sum to three. The luxurious usurper, who complained that the English Gov- ernment was stingy because it allowed him only six thou- sand dollars a month, stooped from his throne to cut down a dollar to a half, and still Toussaint did not die quick enough. This dungeon was a tomb. The story is told that, in Josephine's time, a young French marquis was placed there, and the girl to whom he was betrothed went to the Empress and prayed for his release. Said Josephine to her, " Have a model of it made, and bring it to me." Josephine placed it near Napoleon. He said, " Take it away — it is horrible ! " She put it on his footstool, and he kicked it from him. She held it to him the third time, and said, " Sire, in this horrible dungeon you have put a man to die." "Take him out!" said Napoleon, and the girl saved her lover. In this tomb Toussaint was buried, but he did not die fast enough. Finally, the commandant was told to go into Switzerland, to carry the keys of the dungeon with him, and to stay four days; when he re- turned, Toussaint was found starved to death. That im- perial assassin was taken twelve years after to his prison at St. Helena, planned for a tomb, as he had planned that of Toussaint, and there he whined away his dying hours in pitiful complaints of curtains and titles, of dishes and rides. God grant that when some future Plutarch shall weigh the great men of our epoch, the whites against the blacks, he do not put that whining child at St. Helena into one scale, and into the other the negro meeting death like a TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 321 Roman, without a murmur, in the solitude of his icy dun- geon! From the moment he was betrayed the negroes began to doubt the French, and rushed to arms. Soon every negro but Maurepas deserted the French. Leclerc sum- moned Maurepas to his side. He came, loyally bringing with him five hundred soldiers. Leclerc spiked his epau- lettes to his shoulders, shot him, and flung him into the sea. He took his five hundred soldiers on shore, shot them on the edge of a pit, and tumbled them in. Des- salines from the mountain saw it, and, selecting five hun- dred French officers from his prisons, hung them on sepa- rate trees in sight of Leclerc's camp; and born, as I was, not far from Bunker Hill, I have yet found no reason to think he did wrong. [Cheers.] They murdered Pierre Toussaint's wife at his own door, and after such treatment that it was mercy when they killed her. The maddened husband, who had but a year before saved the lives of twelve hundred white men, carried his next thousand pris- oners and sacrificed them on her grave. The French exhausted every form of torture. The negroes were bound together and thrown into the sea; any one who floated was shot — others sunk with cannon balls tied to their feet; some smothered with sulphur fumes — others strangled, scourged to death, gibbeted; sixteen of Toussaint's officers were chained to rocks in desert islands — others in marshes, and left to be devoured by poisonous reptiles and insects. Rochambeau sent to Cuba for bloodhounds. When they arrived, the young girls went down to the wharf, decked the hounds with ribbons and flowers, kissed their necks, and, seated in the amphi- theatre, the women clapped their hands to see a negro thrown to these dogs, previously starved to rage. But the negroes besieged this very city so closely that these same girls, in their misery, ate the very hounds they had welcomed. Then flashed forth that defying courage and sublime endurance which show how alike all races are when tried 322 WENDELL PHILLIPS in the same furnace. The Roman wife, whose husband faltered when Nero ordered him to kill himself, seized the dagger, and, mortally wounding her own body, cried, " Poetus, it is not hard to die." The world records it with proud tears. Just in the same spirit, when a negro colonel was ordered to execution, and trembled, his wife seized his sword, and, giving herself a death-wound, said, " Husband, death is sweet when liberty is gone." The war went on. Napoleon sent over thirty thousand more soldiers. But disaster still followed his efforts. What the sword did not devour, the fever ate up. Leclerc died. Pauline carried his body back to France. Napoleon met her at Bordeaux, saying, " Sister, I gave you an army — you bring me back ashes." Rochambeau — the Rocham- beau of our history — left in command of eight thousand troops, sent word to Dessalines: "When I take you, I will not shoot you like a soldier, or hang you like a white man; I will whip you to death like a slave." Dessalines chased him from battlefield to battlefield, from fort to fort, and finally shut him up in Samana. Heating cannon-balls to destroy his fleet, Dessalines learned that Rochambeau had begged of the British admiral to cover his troops with the English flag, and the generous negro suffered the boaster to embark undisturbed. Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best sol- diers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the negro's sword. And if that does not satisfy you, go to France, to the splendid mausoleum of the Counts of Rochambeau, and to the eight thousand graves of French- men who skulked home under the English flag, and ask them. And if that does not satisfy you, come home, and if it had been October, 1859, you might have come by way of quaking Virginia, and asked her what she thought of negro courage. You may also remember this — that we Saxons were slaves about four hundred years, sold with the land^ and our fathers never raised a finger to end that slavery. They TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 323 waited till Christianity and civilization, till commerce and the discovery of America, melted away their chains. Spar- tacus in Italy led the slaves of Rome against the Empress of the world. She murdered him, and crucified them. There never was a slave rebellion successful but once, and that was in St. Domingo. Every race has been, some time or other, in chains. But there never was a race that, weak- ened and degraded by such chattel slavery, unaided, tore oflf its own fetters, forged them into swords, and won its liberty on the battlefield but one, and that was the black race of St. Domingo. God grant that the wise vigour of our Government may avert that necessity from our land — may raise into peaceful liberty the four million committed to our care, and show under democratic institutions a statesmanship as far-sighted as that of England, as brave as the negro of Hayti! So much for the courage of the negro. Now look at his endurance. In 1805 he said to the white men, " This island is ours; not a white foot shall touch it." Side by side with him stood the South American republics, planted by the best blood of the countrymen of Lope de Vega and Cervantes. They topple over so often that you could no more daguerrotype their crumbling fragments than you could the waves of the ocean. And yet, at their side, the negro has kept his island sacredly to himself. It is said that at first, with rare patriotism, the Haytien Government ordered the destruction of all the sugar plantations remain- ing, and discouraged its culture, deeming that the tempta- tion which lured the French back again to attempt their enslavement. Burn over New York to-night, fill up her canals, sink every ship, destroy her railroads, blot out every remnant of education from her sons, let her be ignorant and penniless, with nothing but her hands to begin the world again — how much could she do in sixty years? And Europe, too, would lend you money, but she will not lend Hayti a dollar. Hayti, from the ruins of her colonial in- dependence, is become a civilized state, the seventh na- tion in the catalogue of commerce with this country, in- 324 WENDELL PHILLIPS ferior in morals and education to none of the West Indian isles. Foreign merchants trust her courts as willingly as they do our own. Thus far she has foiled the ambition of Spain, the greed of England, and the malicious states- manship of Calhoun. Toussaint made her what she is. In this work there was grouped around him a score of men, mostly of pure negro blood, who ably seconded his efforts. They were able in war and skilful in civil affairs, but not, like him, remarkable for that rare mingling of high quali- ties which alone makes true greatness, and insures a man leadership among those otherwise almost his equals. Tous- saint was indisputably their chief. Courage, purpose, en- durance — these are the tests. He did plant a state so deep that all the world has not been able to root it up. I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. " No retalia- tion " was his great motto and the rule of his life; and the last words uttered to his son in France were these: " My boy, you will one day go back to St. Domingo; for- get that France murdered your father." I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave- trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of His- tory will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noonday [thunders of applause] ; then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. [Long-continued applause.] HENRY WARD BEECHER— UNION AND EMANCIPATION (Delivered in Manchester, England, October g, 1863)* This oration is published by arrangpement with Messrs. Fords, Howard, and Hul- bert, the publishers of Mr. Beecher's works, and is protected by their copyright. M' [R. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: The address which you have kindly presented to me contains matters both personal and national. [In- terruption.] My friends, we will have a whole night ses- sion, but we will be heard. I have not come to England to be surprised that those men whose cause can not bear the light are afraid of free speech. I have had practice of more than twenty-five years in the presence of tumultu- ous assemblies opposing those very men whose representa- tives now attempt to forestall free speech. Little by little, I doubt not, I shall be permitted to speak to-night. Little by little I have been permitted in my own country to speak, until at last the day has come there when nothing but the utterance of speech for freedom is popular. You have been pleased to speak of me as one connected with the great cause of civil and religious liberty. I covet no higher honour than to have my name joined to the list of that great company of noble Englishmen from whom we derived our doctrines of liberty. For although there is some opposition to what are here called American ideas, what are these American ideas? They are simply Eng- lish ideas bearing fruit in America. We bring back Ameri- can sheaves, but the seed-corn we got in England; and if, on a larger sphere, and under circumstances of unobstruc- tion, we have reared mightier harvests, every sheaf con- tains the grain that has made Old England rich for a hun- 325 326 HENRY WARD BEECHER dred years. [Great cheering.] I am also not a little grati- fied that my first appearance to speak on secular topics in England is in this goodly town of Manchester, for I would rather have praise from men who understand the quality praised than from those who speak at hazard and with little knowledge of the thing praised. And where else, more than in these great central portions of England, and in what town more than Manchester, have the doctrines of human rights been battled for, and where else have there been gained for them nobler victories than here? It is not indiscriminate praise therefore: you know what you talk about. You have had practice in these doctrines yourselves, and to be praised by those who are illustrious is praise indeed. Allusion has been made by one of the gentlemen — a cautionary allusion, a kind of deference evidently paid to some supposed feeling — an allusion has been made to words or deeds of mine that might be supposed to be offensive to Englishmen. I can not say how that may be. I am sure that I have never thought, in the midst of this mighty struggle at home, which has taxed every power and energy of our people — I have never stopped to meas- ure and to think whether my words spoken in truth and with fidelity to duty would be liked in this shape or in that shape by one or another person either in England or America. I have had one simple, honest purpose, which I have pursued ever since I have been in public life, and that was with all the strength that God has given to me to maintain the cause of the poor and of the weak in my own country. And if, in the height and heat of conflict, some words have been over-sharp, and some positions have been taken heedlessly, are you the men to call one to ac- count? What if some exquisite dancing-master, standing on the edge of a battle, where Richard Coeur de Lion swung his axe, criticised him by saying that " his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of pohte life "? When dandies fight they think how they look, but when men fight they think only of deeds. UNION AND EMANCIPATION 327 But I am not here either on trial or on defence. It matters not what I have said on other occasions and under different circumstances. Here I am before you, willing to tell you what I think about England, or any person in it. Let me say one word, however, in regard to this meet- ing, and the peculiar gratification which I feel in it. The same agencies which have been at work to misrepresent good men in our country to you have been at work to misrepresent to us good men here; and when I say to my friends in America that I have attended such a meeting as this, received such an address, and beheld such enthu- siasm, it will be a renewed pledge of amity. I have never ceased to feel that war, or even unkind feelings between two such great nations, would be one of the most unpar- donable and atrocious offences that the world ever be- held, and I have regarded everything, therefore, which needlessly led to those feelings out of which war comes as being in itself wicked. The same blood is in us. We are your children, or the children of your fathers and an- cestors. You and we hold the same substantial doctrines. We have the same mission among the nations of the earth. Never were mother and daughter set forth to do so queenly a thing in the kingdom of God's glory as England and America. Do you ask why we are so sensitive, and why have we hewn England with our tongue as we have? I will tell you why. There is no man who can offend you so deeply as the one you love most. Men point to France and Napoleon, and say he has joined England in all that she has done, and why are the press of America silent against France, and why do they speak as they do against England? It is because we love England. I well remember the bitterness left by the war of our independence, and the outbreak of the flame of 1812 from its embers. To hite England was in my boyhood almost the first lesson of patriotism; but that result of conflict gradually died away as peace brought forth its proper fruits: interests, reciprocal visits, the interchanges of Chris- 328 HENRY WARD BEECHER tian sympathy, and co-operative labours in a common cause lessened and finally removed ill-feelings. In their place began to arise affection and admiration. For when we searched our principles, they all ran back to rights wrought out and established in England; when we looked at those institutions of which we were most proud, we beheld that the very foundation stones were taken from the quarry of your history; when we looked for those men that had illustrated our own tongue, orators, or eloquent ministers of the Gospel, they were English; we borrowed nothing from France, but here a fashion and there a gesture or a custom: while what we had to dignify humanity — ^that made life worth having — were all brought from Old Eng- land. And do you suppose that under such circumstances, with this growing love, with this growing pride, with this gladness to feel that we were being associated in the his- toric glory of England, it was with feelings of indifference that we beheld in our midst the heir-apparent to the Brit- ish throne? There is not reigning on the globe a sover- eign who commands our simple, unpretentious, and un- affected respect as does your own beloved Queen. I have heard multitudes of men say that it was their joy and their pleasure to pay respect to the Prince of Wales, even if he had not won personal sympathy, that his mother might know that through him the compliment was meant to her. It was an unarranged and unexpected spontaneous and universal outbreak of popular enthusiasm; it began in the colonies of Canada, the fire rolled across the border, all through New England, all through New York and Ohio, down through Pennsylvania and the adjacent States; nor was the element quenched until it came to Richmond. I said, and many said — the past of enmity and prejudice is now rolled below the horizon of memory — a new era is come, and we have set our hand and voices as a sacred seal to our cordial affection and co-operation with England. Now (whether we interpreted it aright or not, is not the question) when we thought England was seeking oppor- tunity to go with the South against us of the North, it UNION AND EMANCIPATION 329 hurt US as no other nation's conduct could hurt us on the face of the globe; and if we spoke some words of intem- perate heat, we spoke them in the mortification of disap- pointed affection. It has been supposed that I have afore- time urged or threatened war with England. Never! This I have said — and this I repeat now and here — ^that the cause of constitutional government and of universal lib- erty as associated with it in our country was so dear, so sacred, that rather than betray it we would give the last child we had — that we would not reHnquish this conflict though other States rose, and entered into a league with the South — and that, if it were necessary, we would main- tain this great doctrine of representative government in America against the armed world — against England and France.^ Let me be permitted to say, then, that it seems to me the darker days of embroilment between this country and America are past. The speech of Earl Russell at Blair- gowrie, the stopping of those armed ships, and the present attitude of the British Government will go far toward satisfying our people. Understand me; we do not accept Earl Russell's doctrine of belligerent rights nor of neu- trality, as applied to the action of the British Government and nation at the beginning of our civil war, as right doc- trine, but we accept it as an accomplished fact. We have drifted so far away from the time when it was profitable to discuss the questions of neutrality or belligerency, and circumstances with you and with us are so much changed by the progress of the war, that we now only ask of the government strict neutrality and of the liberty-loving peo- ple of England moral sympathy. Nothing more! We ask no help, and no hindrance. If you do not send us a man, we do not ask for a man. If you do not send us another pound of powder, we are able to make our own powder. If you do not send us another musket nor another cannon, we have cannon that will carry five miles already. We do not ask for material help. We shall be grateful for moral sympathy; but if you can not give us moral sympathy, 330 HENRY WARD BEECHER we shall still endeavour to do without it. All that we say is, let France keep away, let England keep hands off; if we can not manage this rebellion by ourselves, then let it be not managed at all. We do not allow ourselves to doubt the issue of this conflict. It is only a question of time. For such inesti- mable principles as are at stake — of self-government, of representative government, of any government at all, of free institutions rejected because they inevitably will bring liberty to slaves unless subverted — of national honour and fidelity to solemn national trusts — for all these war is waged, and if by war these shall be secured, not one drop of blood will be wasted, not one life squandered. The suf- fering will have purchased a glorious future of inconceiv- able peace and happiness! Nor do we deem the result doubtful. The population is in the North and West. The wealth is there. The popular intelligence of the country is there. There only is there an educated common people. The right doctrines of civil government are with the North. [Cheers, and a voice, "Where's the justice?"] It will not be long before one thing more will be with the North — Victory. [Loud and enthusiastic rounds of cheers.] Men on this side are impatient at the long delay; but if we can bear it, can't you? You are quite at ease [" Not yet "] ; we are not. You are not materially affected in any such degree as many parts of our own land are. But if the day shall come in one year, in two years, or in ten years hence, when the old Stars and Stripes shall float over every State of America — [loud cheers, and some disturbance from one or two] — oh, let him [the chief disturber] have a chance. [Laughter.] I was saying, when interrupted by that sound from the other side of the hall, that if the day shall come, in one or five or ten years, in which the old honoured and historic banner shall float again over every State of the South; if the day shall come when that which was the accursed cause of this dire and atrocious war — slavery — shall be done away; if the day shall have come when through all the Gulf States there shall be liberty of UNION AND EMANCIPATION 331 speech, as there never has been; when there shall be lib- erty of the press, as there never has been; when men shall have common schools to send their children to, which they never have had in the South; if the day shall come when the land shall not be parcelled into gigantic plantations, in the hands of a few rich oligarchs; but shall be divided to honest farmers, every man owning his little — in short, if the day shall come when the simple ordinances, the fru- ition and privileges, of civil liberty, shall prevail in every part of the United States, it will be worth all the dreadful blood, and tears, and woe. You are impatient; and yet God dwelleth in eternity, and has an infinite leisure to roll forward the affairs of men, not to suit the hot impatience of those who are but children of a day, and can not wait or linger long, but according to the infinite circle on which he measures time and events! He expedites or retards as it pleases him; and yet if he heard our cries or prayers, not thrice would the months revolve but peace would come. Yet the strong crying and prayers of millions have not brought peace, but only thickening war. We accept the Providence; the duty is plain. [Cheers and interrup- tion.] I repeat, the duty is plain. So rooted is this English people in the faith of liberty that it were an utterly hope- less task for any minion or sympathizer of the South to sway the popular sympathy of England if this English people believed that this was none other than a conflict between liberty and slavery. It is just that. The conflict may be masked by our institutions. Every people must shape public action through their laws and institutions. We often can not reach an evil directly, but only circuit- ously, through the channels of law and custom. It is none the less a contest for liberty and against slavery, because it is primarily a conflict for the Union. It is by that Union, vivid with liberty, that we have to scourge oppression and establish liberty. Union, in the future, means justice, lib- erty, popular rights. Only slavery has hitherto prevented Union from bearing such fruit. 332 HENRY WARD BEECHER Slavery was introduced into our country at a time, and in a manner, when neither England nor America knew well what were the results of that atrocious system. It was ignorantly received and propagated on our side; little by little it spread through all the thirteen States that then were: for slavery in the beginning was in New England, as really as now it is in the Southern States. But when the great struggle for our independence came on, the study of the doctrines of human rights had made such progress that the whole public mind began to think it was wrong to wage war to defend our rights, while we were holding men in slavery, depriving them of theirs. It is an historical fact that all the great and renowned men that flourished at the period of our Revolution were abolition- ists. Washington was; so was Benjamin Franklin; so was Thomas Jefiferson; so was James Monroe; so were the principal Virginian and Southern statesmen, and the first abolition society ever founded in America was founded not in the North, but in the Middle and a portion of the South- ern States. Before the war of independence slavery was decaying in the North, from moral and physical causes com- bined. It ceased in New England with the adoption of our Constitution [1787]. It has been unjustly said that they sold their slaves, and preached a cheap emancipation to others. Slavery ceased in Massachusetts as follows: When suit was brought for the services of a slave, the chief jus- tice laid down as law that our Declaration of Independ- ence, which pronounced all men " equal," and equally en- titled to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," was itself a bill of emancipation, and he refused to yield up that slave for service. At a later period New York passed an emancipation act. It has been said that she sold her slaves. No slander was ever greater. The most careful provision was made against sale. No man travelling out of the State of New York after the passing of the emancipation act was permitted to have any slave with him, unless he gave bonds for his reappearance with him. As a matter of fact, the slaves were emancipated without compensation on the UNION AND EMANCIPATION 333 spot, to take effect gradually class by class. But after a trial of half a score of years the people found this grad- ual emancipation was intolerable. It was like gradual am- putation. They therefore, by another act of legislation, de- clared immediate emancipation, and that took effect; and so slavery perished in the State of New York. Substantial- ly so it was in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania ; never was there an example of States that emancipated slaves more purely from moral conviction of the wrong of slavery. I know that it is said that Northern capital and North- ern ships were employed in the slave-trade. To an extent it was so. But is there any community that lives in which there are not miscreants who violate the public conscience? Then and since, the man who dared to use his capital and his ships in this infamous traffic hid himself, and did by agents what he was ashamed to be known to have done himself. Any man in the North who notoriously had part or lot in a trade so detested would have been branded with the mark of Cain. It is true that the port of New York has been employed in this infernal traffic, but it was because it was under the influence either of that " Democratic " party that was then unfortunately in alliance with the Southern slavery, or because it was under the dark political control of the South itself. For when the South could ap- point our marshals — could, through the national adminis- tration, control the appointment of every Federal officer, our collectors, and every custom-house officer — how could it be but that slavery flourished in our harbours? For years together New York has been as much controlled by the South, in matters relating to slavery, as Mobile or New Orleans! But, even so, the slave-trade was clandes- tine. It abhorred the light: it crept in and out of the har- bour stealthily, despised and hated by the whole commu- nity. Is New York to be blamed for demoniac deeds done by her limbs while yet under possession of the devil? She is now clothed and in her right mind. There was one Judas; is Christianity, therefore, a hoax? There are hiss- ing men in this audience; are you not respectable? The 334 HENRY WARD BEECHER folly of the few is that light which God casts to irradiate the wisdom of the many. And let me say one word here about the Constitution of America. It recognises slavery as a fact; but it does not recognise the doctrine of slavery in any way whatever. It was a fact; it lay before the ship of state, as a rock lies in the channel of the ship as she goes into harbour; and because a ship steers round a rock, does it follow that that rock is in the ship? And because the Constitution of the United States made some circuits to steer round that great fact, does it follow that therefore slavery is recognised in the Constitution as a right or a system? [" No."] See how carefully that immortal document worded itself. In the slave laws the slave is declared to be — what? Expressly, and by the most repetitious phraseology, he is denuded of all the attributes and characteristics of manhood, and is pronounced a " chattel." ["Shame!"] Now, you have just that same word in your farming language with the h left out, " cattle." And the difference between cattle and chattel is the difference between quadruped and biped. So far as animate property is concerned, and so far as in- animate property is concerned, it is just the difference between locomotive property and stationary property. The laws in all the slave States stand on the radical principle that a slave is not for purposes of law any longer to be ranked in the category of human beings, but that he is a piece of property, and is to be treated, to all intents and purposes, as a piece of property; and the law did not blush, nor do the judges blush nowadays who interpret that law. But how does the Constitution of the United States, when it speaks of these same slaves, name them? Does it call them chattels or slaves? Nay, it refused even the softer words serf and servitude. Conscientiously aware of the dignity of man, and that service is not opposed to the grandeur of his nature, it alludes to the slaves barely as persons (not chattels) held to service (not servitude). Go to South Carolina, and ask what she calls slaves, and her laws reply, "They are things"; but the old Capitol at UNION AND EMANCIPATION 335 Washington sullenly reverberates, " No, persons! " Go to Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis, and her funda- mental law pronounces the slave to be only a "thing"; and again the Federal Constitution sounds back, " Per- sons! " Go to Louisiana and its constitution, and still that doctrine of devils is enunciated — it is " chattel," it is " thing." Looking upon those for whom Christ felt mor- tal anguish in Gethsemane, and stretched himself out for death on Calvary, their laws call them " things " and " chat- tels " ; and still in tones of thunder the Constitution of the United States says " Persons! " The slave States, by a definition, annihilate manhood; the Constitution, by a word, brings back the slave to the human family. What was it, then, when the country had advanced so far toward universal emancipation in the period of our national formation that stopped this onward tide? Two things, commercial and political. First, the wonderful de- mand for cotton throughout the world, precisely when, from the invention of the cotton gin, it became easy to turn it to service. Slaves that before had been worth from three to four hundred dollars began to be worth six hun- dred dollars. That knocked away one third of adherence to the moral law. Then they became worth seven hundred dollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hun- dred dollars, and then there was no such thing as moral law; then one thousand or twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes. The other cause which checked the progress of emancipation that had already so auspiciously begun was political. It is very singular that, in what are called the " compromises " of the Constitution, the North, while attempting to pre- vent advantage to slavery, gave to the slave power the peculiar advantage which it has had ever since. In Congress the question early arose. How should the rev- enue be raised in the United States? For a long time it was proposed, and there was an endeavour, to raise it by a tax upon all the cultivated land in the different States. When this was found unjust and unequal, the next pro- 336 HENRY WARD BEECHER posal was to raise taxes on the " polls," or heads of the voters, in the different States. That was to be the basis of the calculation upon which taxes should be apportioned. Now when that question came up, it was said that it was not right to levy Federal taxes upon the Indians in Georgia, who paid no taxes to the Georgian State ex- chequer. So the North consented; but in making up the list of men to be taxed, and excluding the Indians, it in- sisted that the slaves should, nevertheless, be included. That is to say, if Georgia was to pay to the Federal ex- chequer in proportion to her population, it was the inter- est of the North that her population should be swelled by counting all her slaves. There was a long debate on this subject; and not to detain you with all the turns on this matter, the two things were coupled together at last — representation and taxation. Their eyes being fixed solely upon the assessment of taxes, it was agreed that five slaves should count as three men, and that it was supposed would give some advantage to the North against slavery. But in a very few years the Government ceased to raise taxa- tion by " poll," and raised it by tariff. Thenceforward, as representatives had to be chosen in the same way, and as five slaves counted as three white men, the South has had the advantage; and it has come to this point, that while in the North representatives represent men, in the South representatives stand for men and property to- gether. I want to drop a word as an egg for you to brood over. It will illustrate the policy of the South. The proposition to make a government undeniably national, as distinct from a mere confederacy, came from Virginia and South Carolina. The North, having more individuality, was jealous of yielding up the rights of the separate States; but the South, with the love of power characteristic of the Normans, wanted to have a national government in dis- tinction to a union of several States. In result, when the National Government was established, the South came into power; and for fifty years everything that the South .said UNION AND EMANCIPATION 337 should be done has been done, and whatever she said should not be done has not been done. The institutions of America were shaped by the North; but the policy of her government for half a hundred years by the South. All the aggression and filibustering, all the threats to Eng- land and tauntings of Europe, all the bluster of war which our Government has assumed, have been under the inspira- tion and under the almost monarchical sway of the South- ern oligarchy. And now, since Britain has been snubbed by the Southerners, and threatened by the Southerners, and domineered over by the Southerners — [" No "] — yet now Great Britain has thrown her arms of love around the Southerners and turns from the Northerners. [" No."] She don't? I have only to say that she has been caught in very suspicious circumstances. [Laughter.] I so speak, perhaps as much as anything else, for this very sake — ^to bring out from you this expression — to let you know what we know, that all the hostility felt in my country toward Great Britain has been sudden, and from suppos- ing that you sided with the South, and sought the breaking up of our country; and I want you to say to me, and through me to my countrymen, that those irritations against the North, and those likings for the South, that have been expressed in your papers, are not the feelings of the great mass of your nation. [Great cheering, the audience rising.] Those cheers already sound" in my ears as the coming acclamations of friendly nations — those wav- ing handkerchiefs are the white banners that symbolize peace for all countries. [Cheers.] Join with us, then, Britons. From you we learned the doctrine of what a man was worth; from you we learned to detest all op- pressions; from you we learned that it was the noblest thing a man could do to die for a right principle. And now, when we are set in that very course, and are giving our iaest blood for the most sacred principles, let the world understand that the common people of Great Britain sup- port us. [Cheers.] You have been pleased to say in this address that I have 338 HENRY WARD BEECHER been one of the " pioneers." No. I am only one of their eldest sons. The Birneys, the Baileys, the Rankins, the Dickeys, the Thorns of the West, the Garrisons, the Quin- cys, the Slades, the Welds, the Stewarts, the Smiths, the Tappans, the Goodalls of the East, and unnamed hundreds more, these .were indeed pioneers. I unloosed the shoe- latchets of the pioneers, and that is all: I was but little more than a boy: I bear witness that the hardest blows and the most cruel sufferings were endured by men before I was thrust far enough into public life to take any par- ticular share; and I do not consider myself entitled to rank among the pioneers. They were better men than I. Those noble men did resist this downward tendency of the North. They were rejected by society. To be called an abolition- ist excluded a man from respectable society in those days. To be called an abolitionist blighted any man's prospects in political life. To be called an abolitionist marked a man's store — his very customers avoided him as if he had the plague. To be called an abolitionist in those days shut up the doors of confidence from him in the church; where he was regarded as a disturber of the peace. Neverthe- less, the witnesses for liberty maintained their testimony. Little by little they reached the conscience — they gained the understanding. And as, when old Luther spoke, thun- dering in the ears of Europe the long-buried treasures of the Bible, there were hosts against him, yet the elect few gathered little by little, and became no longer few; just so did many a Luther among ourselves thunder forth a long-buried truth from God, the essential right of human liberty; and these were followed for half a score of years, until they began to be numerous enough to be an influ- ential party in the State elections. In 1848, I think it was, that the Buffalo platform was laid. It was the first en- deavour in the Northern States to form a platform that should carry rebuke to the slaveholding ideas in the North. Before this, however, I can say that, under God, the South itself had unintentionally done more than we to UNION AND EMANCIPATION 339 bring on this work of emancipation. First they began to declare, after the days of Mr. Calhoun, that they accepted slavery no longer as a misfortune, but as a divine blessing. Mr. Calhoun advanced the doctrine, which is now the marrow of secession, that it was the duty of the General Government not merely to protect the local States from interference, but to make slavery equally national with liberty! In effect, the Government was to see to it that slavery received equivalents for every loss and disadvan- tage which, by the laws of Nature, it must sustain in a race against free institutions. These monstrous doctrines began to be the development of future ambitions. The South, having the control of Government, knew from the inher- ent weakness of their system that if it were confined it was like huge herds feeding on small pastures, that soon gnaw the grass to the roots, and must have other pasture or die. Slavery is of such a nature that if you do not give it con- tinual change of feeding ground it perishes. And then came one after another from the South assertions of rights never before dreamed of. From them came the Mexican War for territory; from them came the annexation of Texas and its entrance as a slave State; from them came that organized rowdyism in Congress that browbeat every Northern man who had not sworn fealty to slavery; that filled all the courts of Europe with ministers holding slave doctrines; that gave the majority of the seats on the bench to slave-owning judges; and that gave, in fact, all our chief offices of trust either to slave-owners or to men who licked the feet of slave-owners. Then came that ever-memor- able period when, for the very purpose of humbling the North, and making it drink the bitter cup of humiliation, and showing to its people that the South was their natural lord, was passed the Fugitive Slave Bill. [Loud hisses.] There was no need of that. There was already existing just as good an instrument for so infernal a purpose as any fiend could have wished. Against that infamy my soul revolted, and these lips protested, and I defied the Government to its face and told them " I will execute 340 HENRY WARD BEECHER none of your unrighteous laws; send to me a fugitive who is fleeing from his master, and I will step between him and his pursuer." [Loud and prolonged cheers.] Not once, nor twice, have my doors been shut between oppression and the oppressed; and the church itself over which I min- ister has been the unknown refuge of many and many a one. [Cheers.] But whom the devil entices he cheats. Our promised " peace " with the South, which was the thirty pieces of silver paid to us, turned into fire and burned the hands that took it. For how long was it after this promised peace that the Missouri compromise was abolished in an infamous disregard of solemn compact? It never ought to have been made; but having been made, it ought never to have been broken by the South. And with no other pretence than the robber's pretence, that might makes right, they did destroy it, that they might carry slavery far North. That sufficed. That alone was needed to arouse the long-reluctant patriotism of the North. In hope that time would curb and destroy slavery, that forbearance would lead to like forbearance, the North had suffered insult, wrong, political treachery, and risk to her very in- stitutions of liberty. By the abolition of this compromise another slave State was immediately to have been brought into the Union to balance the ever-growing free Territories of the Northwest. Then arose a majesty of self-sacrifice that had no parallel before. Instead of merely protesting, young men and maidens, labouring men, farmers, me- chanics, sped with a sacred desire to rescue free territory from the toils of slavery; and emigrated in thousands, not to better their own condition, but in order that, when this Territory should vote, it should vote as a free State, Never was a worse system of cheating practised than the perjury, intimidation, and prostituted use of the United States army, by which the South sought to force a vile institu- tion upon the men who had voted almost unanimously for liberty and against slavery in Kansas. But at last the day of utter darkness had passed, and the gray twilight UNION AND EMANCIPATION 341 was on the morning horizon. At length (for the first time, I believe, in the whole conflict between the South and the North) the victory went to the North, and Kansas became a free State. Now I call you to witness that in a period of twenty- five or thirty years of constant conflicts at every single step the South gained the political advantage, with the single exception of Kansas. What was the conduct of the North? Did it take any steps for secession? Did it threaten vio- lence? So sure were the men of the North of the ultimate triumph of that which was right, provided free speech was left to combat error and wrong, that they patiently bided their time. By this time the North was cured alike of love for slavery and of indifiference. By this time a new conscience had been formed in the North, and a vast ma- jority of all the Northern men at length stood fair and square on antislavery doctrine. We next had to flounder through the quicksands of four infamous years under President Buchanan, in which senators, sworn to the Constitution, were plotting -to-de^ stroy that Constitution — in which the members of the Cabi- net, who drew their pay month by month, used their official position, by breach of public trust and oath of allegiance, to steal arms, to prepare fortifications, and make ready disruption and war. The most astounding spectacle that the world ever saw was then witnessed — a great people paying men to sit in the places of power and office to betray them. During all those four years what did we? We protested and waited, and said: " God shall give us the victory. It is God's truth that we wield, and in his own good time he will give us the victory." In all this time we never made an inroad on the rights of the South. We never asked for retaliatory law. We never taxed their commerce, or touched it with our little finger. We envied them none of their manufactures, but sought to promote them. We did not attempt to abate by one ounce their material prosperity; we longed for their prosperity. Slav- ery we always hated; the Southern men never. They were 342 HENRY WARD BEECHER wrong. And in our conflicts with them we have felt as all men in conflict feel. We were jealous, and so were they. We were in the right cause; they in the wrong. We were right, or liberty is a delusion; they were wrong, or slavery is a blessing. We never envied them their territory; and it was the faith of the whole North that, in seeking for the abatement of slavery, and its final abolition, we were con- ferring upon the South itself the greatest boon which one nation — or part of a nation — could confer upon another. That she was to pass through difificulties in her transition to free labour, I had no doubt; but it was not in our heart to humble her, but rather to help and sympathize with her. I defy time and history to point to a more honourable conduct than that of the free North toward the South dur- ing all these days. In i860 Mr. Lincoln was elected. I ask you to take notice of the conduct of the two sides at this point. For thirty years we had been experiencing sectional defeats at the hands of the Southerners. For thirty years and more we had seen our sons proscribed because loyal to lib- erty, or worse than proscribed — suborned and made sub- servient to slavery. We had seen our judges corrupt, our ministers apostate, our merchants running headlong after gold against principle; but we maintained fealty to the law and to the Constitution, and had faith in victory by legitimate means. But when, by the means pointed out in the Constitution and sanctified by the usage of three quarters of a century, Mr. Lincoln, in fair open field, was elected President of the United States, did the South sub- mit? [Cries of " No," and cheers.] No ofifence had been committed — none threatened; but the allegation was, that the election of a man known to be pledged against- the ex- tension of slavery was not compatible with the safety of slavery as it existed. On that ground they took steps for secession. Every honest mode to prevent it, all patience on the part of the North, all pusillanimity on the part of Mr. Buchanan, were anxiously employed. Before his suc- cessor came into ofifice, he left nothing undone to make UNION AND EMANCIPATION 343 matters worse, did nothing to make things better. The North was patient then, the South impatient. Soon camb the issue. The question was put to the South, and, with the exception of South Carolina, every State in the South gave a popular vote against secession; and yet, such was the jugglery of political leaders, that before a few months had passed they had precipitated every State into seces- sion. That never could have occurred had there been in the Southern States an educated common people. But the slave power cheats the poor whites of intelligence, in order to rob the poor blacks. This is important testi- mony to the nature and tendency of the Union and Gov- ernment of the United States; and reveals clearly, by the judgment of the very men who of all others best know, that to maintain the Union is, in the end, to destroy slavery. It justifies the North against the slanders of those who de- clare that she is not fighting for liberty, but only for the Union — as if that were not the very way to destroy slav- ery and establish freedom! The Government of the United States is such that, if it be administered equitably, in the long run it will destroy slavery; and it was the foresight of this which led the South to its precipitate secession. Against all these facts it is attempted to make England believe that slavery has had nothing to do with this war. You might as well have attempted to persuade Noah that the clouds had nothing to do with the flood ; it is the most monstrous absurdity ever born from the womb of folly. Nothing to do with slavery? It had to do with nothing else. Against this withering fact — against this damning allegation — ^what is their escape? They reply, The North is just as bad as the South. Now we are coming to the marrow of it. If the North is as bad as the South, why did not the South find it out before you did? If the North had been in favour of oppressing the black man, and just as much in favour of slavery as the South, how is it that the South has gone to war against the North because of their belief to the contrary? Gentlemen, I hold in my hand 344 HENRY WARD BEECHER a published report of the speech of the amiable, intelli- gent, and credulous president, I believe, of the (English) Society for Southern Independence. There are some curi- osities in it. That you may know that Southerners are not all dead yet, I will read a paragraph: " The South had laboured hitherto under the imputa- tion, and it had constantly been thrown in the teeth of all who supported that struggling nation, that they by their proceedings were tending to support the existence of slav- ery. This was an impression which he thought they ought carefully to endeavour to remove, because it was one which was injurious to their cause, not only among those who had the feeling of all Englishmen — of a horror of slavery — but also because strong religious bodies in this country made a point of it, and felt it very strongly indeed." I never like to speak behind a man's back — I like to speak to men's faces what I have to say — and I could wish that the happiness had been accorded to me to-night to have Lord Wharncliffe present, that I might address to him a few simple Christian inquiries. For there can be no question that there is a strong impression that the South has " supported the existence of slavery." Indeed, on our side of the water there are many persons that affirm it. And, as his lordship thinks that it is the peculiar duty of the new association to do away with that sad error, I beg to submit to it that, in the first place, it ought to do away with four million slaves in the South; for there are un- charitable men living who think that a nation that has four ■ million slaves has at least some " tendency " to support slavery. And when his lordship's association has done that, it might be pertinent to suggest to him instantly to revise the new " Montgomery Constitution " of the South, which is changed from the old Federal Constitution in only one or two points. The most essential point is that it for the first time introduces and legalizes slavery as a national institution, and makes it unconstitutional ever to do it UNION AND EMANCIPATION 345 away. Now, I submit that this wants polishing a little. Then I would also respectfully lay at his lordship's feet — more beautifully engrossed, if I could, than is this ad- dress to me — ^the speech of Vice-President Stephens, in which he declares that all nations have been mistaken, and that to trample on the manhood of an inferior race is the only proper way to maintain the liberty of a superior; in which he lays down to Calvary a new lesson; in which he gives the lie to the Saviour himself, who came to teach us that by as much as a man is stronger than another he owes himself to that other. Not alone are Christ's blood- drops our salvation, but those word-drops of sacred truth, which cleanse the heart and conscience by precious prin- ciples, these also are to us salvation; and if there be in the truths of Christ one more eminent than another, it is, " He that would be chief, let him be the servant of all." But this audacious hierarch of an anti-Christian gospel — Mr. Stephens — in the face of God, and to the ears of all mankind, in this day of all but universal Christian senti- ment, pronounces that for a nation to have manhood it must crush out the liberty of an inferior and weaker race. And he declares ostentatiously and boastingly that the foundation of the Southern republic is on that corner- stone. [Loud cheers, " No, no," and renewed cheers.] When next Lord Wharnclifife speaks for the edification of this English people, I beg leave to submit that this speech of Mr. Stephens's requires more than a little pol- ishing; in fact, a little scouring, cleansing, and flooding. And if all the other crimson evidences that the South is upholding slavery are to be washed pure by the new asso- ciation, not Hercules in the Augean stable had such a task before him as they have got. Lord Wharnclifife may bid farewell to the sweets of domestic leisure and to the interests of state. All his amusement hereafter must be derived from the endeavour to purge the Southern cause of the universal conviction that " by their proceedings they are tending to support the existence of slavery." But there is another paragraph that I will read: 346 HENRY WARD BEECHER " He believed that the strongest supporters of slavery- were the merchants of New York and Boston. He always understood, and had never seen the statement contra- dicted, that the whole of the ships fitted out for the trans- port of slaves from Africa to Cuba were owned by North- erners." His lordship, if he will do me the honour to read my speech, shall hear it contradicted in most explicit terms. There have been enough Northern ships engaged, but not by any means all, nor the most. Baltimore has a pre- eminence in that matter; Charleston, and New Orleans, and Mobile, all of them. And those ships fitted out in New York were just as much despised, and loathed, and hissed by the honourable merchants of that great metropo- lis as if they had put up the black flag of piracy. Does it conduce to good feeling between two nations to utter slanders such as these? His lordship goes on to say that " in the Northern States the slave is placed in even a worse position than in the South. He spoke from experience, having visited the country twice." I am most surprised, and yet gratified, to learn that Lord Wharnclifife speaks of the suffering of the slave from experience. I never was aware that he had been put in that unhappy situation. Has he toiled on the sugar plantation? Has he taken the night for his friend, avoiding the day? Has he sped through cane brakes, hunted by hounds, suffering hunger, and heat, and cold by turns, until he has made his way to the far Northern States? Has he had this experience? It is the word experience I call attention to. If his lord- ship says that it is his observation, I will accept the cor- rection. I continue: " In railway carriages and hotels the ne- groes were treated as pariahs and outcasts and never looked upon as men and brothers, but rather as dogs." In all railway cars where Southerners travel, in all hotels where Southerners' money was the chief support, this is true. But I concede most frankly that there has been oc- UNION AND EMANCIPATION 347 casion for such a statement : there has been a vicious prejudice in the North against the negro. It has been part of my duty for the last sixteen years to protest against it. No decently dressed and well-behaved coloured man has ever had molestation or question on entering my church and taking any seat he pleases; not because I had influence with my people to prevent it, but because God gave me a people whose own good sense and conscience led them aright without me. But from this vantage ground it has been my duty to mark out the unrighteous prejudice from which the coloured people have suflfered in the North; and it is a part of the great moral revolu- tion which is going on that the prejudices have been in a great measure vanquished, and are now well-nigh trodden down. In the city of New York there is one street rail- road where coloured people can not ride, but in the others they may, and in all the railroads of New England there is not one in which a coloured man would be questioned. I believe that the coloured man may start from the line of the British dominions in the North and traverse all New England and New York till he touches the waters of the Western lakes and never be molested or questioned, passing on as any decent white man would pass. But let me ask you how came there to be these prejudices? They did not exist before the war of independence. How did they grow up? As one of the accursed offshoots of slav- ery. Where you make a race contemptible by oppression, all that belong to that race will participate in the odium, whether they be free or slave. The South itself, by main- taining the oppressive institution, is the guilty cause of whatever insult the free African has had to endure in the North. How next did that prejudice grow strong? It was on account of the multitude of Irishmen who came to the States. I declare my admiration for the Irish peo- ple, who have illustrated the page of history in every de- partment of society. It is part of the fruit of ignorance, and, as they allege, of the oppression which they have suffered — that it has made them oppressors. I bear wit- 348 . HENRY WARD BEECHER ness that there is no class of people in America who are so bitter against the coloured people, and so eager for slavery, as the ignorant, the poor, uninstructed Irishmen. But although there have been wrongs done to them in the North, the condition of the free coloured people in the North is unspeakably better than in the South. They own their wives and children. They have the right to select their place and their kind of labour; their rights of property are protected just as much as ours are. The right of education is accorded to them. There is in the city of New York more than ten million of dollars of prop- erty owned by free coloured people. They have their own schools; they have their own churches; their own orators, and there is no more gifted man, and no man whose superb eloquence more deserves to be listened to, than Frederick Douglass. [Loud cheering.] Further, after the break- ing out of this war, the good conduct of the slaves at the South and of the free coloured people at the North has increased the kind feelings of the whites toward them; and since they have begun to fight for their rights of man- hood, a popular enthusiasm for them is arising. I will ven- ture to say that there is no place on the earth where mil- lions of coloured people stand in a position so auspicious for the future as the free coloured men of the North and the freed slaves of the South. I meant to have said a good deal more to you than I have said or than I shall have time to say. [" Go on! "] I have endeavoured to place before you some of the facts which show that slavery was the real cause of this war, and that if it had to be legally decided whether North or South were guilty in this matter, there could be no question be- fore any honourable tribunal, any jury, any deliberative body, that the South, from beginning to end, for the sake of slavery, has been aggressive, and the North patient. Since the war broke out the North has been more and more coming upon the high ground of moral principle, until at length the Government has decreed emancipation. UNION AND EMANCIPATION 349 It has been said very often in my hearing, and I have read it oftener since I have been in England — the last reading I had of it was from the pen of Lord Brougham — that the North is fighting for the Union, and not for the emancipa- tion of the African. Why are we fighting for the Union but because we believe that the Union and its government, administered now by Northern men, will work out the emancipation of every living being on the continent of America? [Loud cheering.] If it be meant that the North went into this war with the immediate object of the eman- cipation of the slaves, I answer that it never professed to do that; but it went into war for the Union with the distinct and expressed conviction on both sides that, if the Union were maintained, slavery could not live long. Do you suppose that it is wise to separate the interest of the slave from the interest of the other people on the con- tinent, and to inaugurate a policy which takes in him alone? He must stand or fall with all of us, and the only sound policy for the North is that which shall benefit the North, the South, the blacks, and the whites. We hold that the maintenance of the Union as expounded in its fundamental principles by the Declaration of Independ- ence and the Constitution, is the very best way to secure to the African ultimately his rights and his best estate. The North was like a ship carrying passengers, tempest- tossed, and while the sailors were labouring, and the cap- tain and officers directing, some grumblers came up from among the passengers and said, " You are all the time working to save the ship, but you don't care to save the passengers." I should like to know how you would save the passengers so well as by taking care of the ship.^ Allow me to say this of the coloured people, our citi- zens (for in New York coloured people vote, as they do also in Massachusetts and in several other Northern States, Lord Wharncliffe notwithstanding) : It is a subject of uni- versal remark that no men on either side have carried themselves more gallantly, more bravely, than the col- oured regiments that have been fighting for their govern- 350 HENRY WARD BEECHER ment and their liberty. My youngest brother is colonel of one of those regiments, and from him I learn many most interesting facts concerning them. The son of one of the most estimable and endeared of my friends in my congre- gation was the colonel of the regiment which scaled the rampart of Fort Wagner. Colonel Shaw fell at the head of his men — hundreds fell — and when inquest was made for his body, it was reported by the Southern men in the fort that he had been " buried with his niggers "; and on his gravestone yet it shall be written, " The man that dared to lead the poor and the oppressed out of their oppression died with them and for them, and was buried with them." On the Mississippi the conduct of the Federal coloured regiments is so good that, although many of the officers who command them are Southern born, and until recently had the strongest Southern prejudices, those prejudices are almost entirely broken down, and there is no difficulty whatever in finding officers. Northern or Southern, to take command of just as many of these regiments as can be raised. It is an honourable testimony to the good con- duct and courage of these long-abused men, whom God is now bringing by the Red Sea of war out of the land of Egypt and into the land of promise. I have said that it would give me great pleasure to an- swer any courteous questions that might be proposed to me. If I can not answer them, I will do the next best thing — tell you so. The length to which this meeting has been protracted, and the very great conviction that I seem to have wrought by my remarks on this Pente- costal occasion in yonder Gentile crowd — [loud laughter] — admonish me that we had better open some kind of " meeting of inquiry." It will give me great pleasure, as a gentleman, to receive questions from any gentleman, and to give such reply as is in my power.* Notes ' On Friday [evening, October g, 1863, a meeting was held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England, according to announcement, " to wel- come the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher on his public appearance in this UNION AND EMANCIPATION 351 country." The hall was crowded, and there were probably 6,000 persons present. The entrance of Mr. Beecher, accompanied by Mr. Bazley, M. P., and some prominent members of the Union and Emancipation Society, was the signal for enthusiastic and repeated cheering. After being intro- duced, Mr. Beecher turned to the audience to speak, but for several minutes he was prevented by deafening cheers, followed by a few hisses, which only provoked a renewed outburst of applause. ' Here followed great cheering, and some disturbance, in reference to which the chairman rose and cautioned an individual under the gallery whom he had observed persisting in interruption. ' At this point the chairman read to the meeting a telegram relative to the seizure and detention by the Government of the rams prepared for the Southerners at Liverpool. The effect was startling. The audience rose to their feet, while cheer after cheer was given. * Mr. Beecher remained standing for a few moments, as if to give the opportunity of interrogation, but no one rising to question him, he sat down amid great cheers. The speech lasted nearly two and a quarter hours. ABRAHAM LINCOLN— THE GETTYS- BURG ADDRESS (Delivered November 19, 1863) FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Hberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have con- secrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced./? It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of free- dom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. 352 SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Delivered March 4, 1865) FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: At this second appear- ing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in re- gard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, in- surgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union' by war, while the Government claimed no right to do morei than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 23 353 354 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither an- ticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease when, or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be an- swered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world be- cause of ofifences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those of- fences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern there any de- parture from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it con- tinue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. LORD BEACONSFIELD ON THE PRIN- CIPLES OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY' (Delivered in Manchester, April 3, 1872) GENTLEMEN : The chairman has correctly re- minded you that this is not the first time that my voice has been heard in this hall. But that was an occasion very different from that which now assembles us together — ^was nearly thirty years ago, when I endeav- oured to support and stimulate the flagging energies of an institution in which I thought there were the germs of future refinement and intellectual advantage to the rising generation of Manchester, and since I have been here on this occasion I have learned with much gratification that it is now counted among your most flourishing institu- tions. There was also another and more recent occasion when the gracious office fell to me to distribute among the members of the Mechanics' Institution those prizes which they had gained through their study in letters and in science. Gentlemen, these were pleasing offices, and if life consisted only of such offices you would not have to complain of it. But life has its masculine duties, and we are assembled here to fulfil some of the most impor- tant of these, when, as citizens of a free country, we are assembled together to declare our determination to main- tain, to uphold the constitution to which we are debtors, in our opinion, for our freedom and our welfare. Gentlemen, there seems at first something incongru- ous that one should be addressing the population of so influential and intelligent a county as Lancashire who is not locally connected with them; and, gentlemen, I will frankly admit that this circumstance did for a long time 3S5 356 LORD BEACONSFIELD make me hesitate in accepting your cordial and generous invitation. But, gentlemen, after what occurred yester- day, after receiving more than two hundred addresses from every part of this great county, after the welcome which then greeted me, I feel that I should not be doing justice to your feelings, I should not do my duty to myself, if I any longer considered my presence here to-night to be an act of presumption. Gentlemen, though it may not be an act of presumption, it still is, I am told, an act of great difficulty. Our opponents assure us that the Con- servative party has no political programme; and, there- fore, they must look with much satisfaction to one whom you honour to-night by considering him the leader and representative of your opinions when he comes forward, at your invitation, to express to you what that programme is. The Conservative party are accused of having no pro- gramme of policy. If by a programme is meant a plan to despoil churches and plunder landlords, I admit we have no programme. If by a programme is meant a policy which assails or menaces every institution and every in- terest, every class and every calling in the country, I admit we have no programme. But if to have a policy with dis- tinct ends, and these such as most deeply interest the great body of the nation, be a becoming programme for a politi- cal party, then I contend we have an adequate programme, and one which, here or elsewhere, I shall always be pre- pared to assert and to vindicate. Gentlemen, the programme of the Conservative party is to maintain the constitution of the country. I have not come down to Manchester to deliver an essay on the Eng- lish constitution; but when the banner of republicanism is unfurled — when the fundamental principles of our institu- tions are controverted — I think, perhaps, it may not be inconvenient that I should make some few practical re- marks upon the character of our constitution — upon that monarchy limited by the co-ordinate authority of the es- tates of the realm, which, under the title of Queen, Lords, and Commons, has contributed so greatly to the pros- CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 357 perity of this country, and with the mairitenance of which I believe that prosperity is bound up. Gentlemen, since the settlement of that constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experi- enced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, what- ever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been some- thing in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the ad- ministration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honour. Now, gentlemen, it is well clearly to comprehend what is meant by a country not having a revolution for two centuries. It means, for that space, the unbroken exercise and enjoyment of the ingenuity of man. It means for that space the continuous application of the discoveries of science to his comfort and convenience. It means the accumulation of capital, the elevation of labour, the estab- lishment of those admirable factories which cover your district; the unwearied improvement of the cultivation of the land, which has extracted from a somewhat churlish soil harvests more exuberant than those furnished by lands nearer to the sun. It means the continuous order which is the only parent of personal liberty and political right; And you owe all these, gentlemen, to the throne. There is another powerful and most beneficial influence which is also exercised by the Crown. Gentlemen, I am a party man. I believe that, without party, parliamentary government is impossible. I look upon parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly the one most suited to England. But without the discipline of political connection, animated by the principle of private honour, I feel certain that a popular assembly would sink before the power or the corruption of 358 LORD BEACONSFIELD a minister. Yet, gentlemen, I am not blind to the faults of party government. It has one great defect. Party has a tendency to warp the intelligence, and there is no min- ister, however resolved he may be in treating a great public question, who does not find some difficulty in emanci- pating himself from the traditionary prejudice on which he has long acted. It is, therefore, a great merit in our constitution that before a minister introduces a measure to Parliament he must submit it to an intelligence superior to all party, and entirely free from influences of that char- acter. I know it will be said, gentlemen, that, however beauti- ful in theory, the personal influence of the sovereign is now absorbed in the responsibility of the minister. Gen- tlemen, I think you will find there is great fallacy in this view. The principles of the English constitution do not contemplate the absence of personal influence on the part of the sovereign; and if they did, the principles of human nature would prevent the fulfilment of such a theory. Gen- tlemen, I need not tell you that I am now making on this subject abstract observations of general application to our institutions and our history. But take the case of a sover- eign of England who accedes to his throne at the earliest age the law permits, and who enjoys a long reign — take an instance like that of George III. From the earliest moment of his accession that sovereign is placed in con- stant communication with the most able statesmen of the period and of all parties. Even with average ability it is impossible not to perceive that such a sovereign must soon attain a great mass of political information and political experience. Information and experience, gentlemen, whether they are possessed by a sovereign or by the hum- blest of his subjects, are irresistible in life. No man with the vast responsibility that devolves upon an English min- ister can afford to treat with indifiference a suggestion that has not occurred to him, or information with which he had not been previously supplied. But, gentlemen, pursue this view of the subject. The longer the reign, CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 359 the influence of that sovereign must proportionately in- crease. All the illustrious statesmen who served his youth disappear. A new generation of public servants rises up, there is a critical conjuncture in affairs — a moment of perplexity and peril. Then it is that the sovereign can appeal to a similar state of affairs that occurred perhaps thirty years before. When all are in doubt among his servants, he can quote the advice that was given by the illustrious men of his early years, and though he may main- tain himself within the strictest limits of the constitution, who can suppose when such information and such sugges- tions are made by the most exalted person in the country that they can be without effect? No, gentlemen; a min- ister who could venture to treat such influence with in- difference would not be a constitutional minister, but an arrogant idiot. Gentlemen, the influence of the Crown is not confined merely to political affairs. England is a domestic country. Here the home is revered and the hearth is sacred. The nation is represented by a family — the royal family — and if that family is educated with a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, it is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence they may exercise over a nation. It is not merely an influence upon manners ; it is not merely that they are a model for refinement and for good taste — they affect the heart as well as the intelligence of the people; and in the hour of public adversity, or in the anx- ious conjuncture of public affairs, the nation rallies round the family and the throne, and its spirit is animated and sustained by the expression of public affection. Gentle- men, there is yet one other remark that I would make upon our monarchy, though had it not been for recent circumstances I should have refrained from doing so. An attack has recently been made upon the throne on account of the costliness of the institution. Gentlemen, I shall not dwell upon the fact that if the people of England appre- ciate the monarchy, as I believe they do, it would be pain- ful to them that their royal and representative family 360 LORD BEACONSFIELD should not be maintained with becoming dignity, or fill in the public eye a position inferior to some of the nobles of the land. Nor will I insist upon what is unquestionably the fact, that the revenues of the Crown estates, on which our sovereign might live with as much right as the Duke of Bedford or the Duke of Northumberland has to his estates, are now paid into the public exchequer. All this, upon the present occasion, I am not going to insist upon. What I no.w say is this: that there is no sovereignty of any first-rate state which costs so little to the people as the sovereignty of England. I will not compare our civil list with those of European empires, because it is known that in amount they treble and quadruple it; but I will compare it with the cost of sovereignty in a republic, and that a republic with which you are intimately acquainted — the republic of the United States of America. Gentlemen, there is no analogy between the position of our sovereign Queen Victoria and that of the President of the United States. The President of the United States is not the sovereign of the United States. There is a very near analogy between the position of the President of the United States and that of the Prime Minister of England, and both are paid at much the same rate — the income of a second-class professional man. The sovereign of the United States is the people; and I will now show you what the sovereignty of the United States costs. Gentlemen, you are aware of the Constitution of the United States. There are thirty-seven independent States, each with a sovereign Legislature. Besides these, there is a confedera- tion of States to conduct their external affairs, which con- sists of the House of Representatives and a Senate. There are two hundred and eighty-five members of the House of Representatives, and there are seventy-four members of the Senate, making altogether three hundred and fifty- nine members of Congress. Now each member of Con- gress receives one thousand pounds sterling per annum. In addition to this, he receives an allowance called " mile- age," which varies according to the distance which he CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 361 travels, but the aggregate cost of which is about thirty- thousand pounds per annum. That makes three hundred and eighty-nine thousand pounds, almost the exact amount of our civil list. But this, gentlemen, will allow you to make only a very imperfect estimate of the cost of sovereignty in the United States. Every member of every Legislature in the thirty-seven States is also paid. There are, I believe, five thousand and ten members of State Legislatures, who re- ceive about three hundred and fifty dollars per annum each. As some of the returns are imperfect, the average which I have given of expenditure may be rather high, and there- fore I have not counted the mileage, which is also uni- versally allowed. Five thousand and ten members of State Legislatures at three hundred and fifty dollars each make $i,7S3i500> or £350,700 a year. So you see, gentlemen, that the immediate expenditure for the sovereignty of the United States is between seven hundred thousand and ■ eight hundred thousand pounds a year. Gentlemen, I have not time to pursue this interesting theme, otherwise I could show that you have still but imperfectly ascertained the cost of sovereignty in a republic. But, gentlemen, I can not resist giving you one further illustration. The government of this country is considerably car- ried on by the aid of royal commissions. So great is the increase of public business that it would be probably im- possible for a minister to carry on affairs without this as- sistance. The Queen of England can command for these objects the services of the most experienced statesmen, and men of the highest position in society. If necessary, she can summon to them distinguished scholars or men most celebrated in science and in art; and she receives from them services that are unpaid. They are only too proud to be described in the commission as her Majesty's " trusty councillors "; and if any member of these commissions per- forms some transcendent services, both of thought and of labour, he is munificently rewarded by a public distinction conferred upon him by the fountain of honour. Gentle- 362 LORD BEACONSFIELD men, the Government of the United States has, I believe, not less availed itself of the services of commissions than the Government of the United Kingdom; but in a coun- try where there is no fountain of honour every member of these commissions is paid. Gentlemen, I trust I have now made some suggestions to you respecting the monarchy of England which at least may be so far serviceable that when we are separated they may not be altogether without advantage; and now, gen- tlemen, I would say something on the subject of the House of Lords. It is not merely the authority of the throne that is now disputed, but the character and influence of the House of Lords that are held up by some to public disregard. Gentlemen, I shall not stop for a moment to offer you any proofs of the advantage of a second cham- ber; and for this reason: That subject has been discussed now for a century, ever since the establishment of the Gov- ernment of the United States, and all great authorities — American, German, French, Italian — have agreed in this, that a representative government is impossible without a second chamber. And it has been, especially of late, main- tained by great political writers in all countries, that the repeated failure of what is called the French Republic is mainly to be ascribed to its not having a second chamber. But, gentlemen, however anxious foreign countries have been to enjoy this advantage, that anxiety has only been equalled by the difficulty which they have found in fulfilling their object. How is a second chamber to be constituted? By nominees of the sovereign power? What influence can be exercised by a chamber of nominees? Are they to be boiind by popular election? In what man- ner are they to be elected? If by the same constituency as the popular body, what claim have they, under such cir- cumstances, to criticise or to control the decisions of that body? If they are to be elected by a more select body, qualified by a higher franchise, there immediately occurs the objection, Why should the majority be governed by the minority? The United States of America were for- CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 363 tunate in finding a solution of this difficulty; but the United States of America had elements to deal with which never occurred before, and never probably will occur again, be- cause they formed their illustrious Senate from materials that were ofifered them by the thirty-seven States. We, gentlemen, have the House of Lords, an assembly which has historically developed and periodically adapted itself to the wants and necessities of the times. What, gentlemen, is the first quality which is required in a second chamber? Without doubt, independence. What is the best foundation of independence? Without doubt, property. The Prime Minister of England has only recently told you, and I believe he spoke quite accu- rately, that the average income of the members of the House of Lords is twenty thousand pounds per annum. Of course, there are some who have more, and some who have less; but the influence of a public assembly, so far as property is concerned, depends upon its aggregate prop- erty, which, in the present case, is a revenue of nine mil- lion pounds a year. But, gentlemen, you must look to the nature of this property. It is visible property, and therefore it is responsible property, which every rate-payer in the room knows to his cost. But, gentlemen, it is not only visible property; it is, generally speaking, territorial property; and one of the elements of territorial property is that it is representative. Now, for illustration, suppose — ^which God forbid! — ^there was no House of Commons, and any Englishman — I will take him from either end of the island — a Cumberland or a Cornish man — finds him- self aggrieved, the Cumbrian says: "This conduct I ex- perience is most unjust. I know a Cumberland man in the House of Lords, the Earl of Carlisle or the Earl of Lonsdale; I will go to him; he will never see a Cumberland man ill-treated." The Cornish man will say: " I will go to the Lord of Port Eliot; his family have sacrificed them- selves before this for the liberties of Englishmen, and he will get justice done me." But, gentlemen, the charge against the House of 364 LORD BEACONSFIELD Lords is that the dignities are hereditary, and we are told that if we have a House of Peers they should be peers for life. There are great authorities in favour of this, and even my noble friend near me [Lord Derby] the other day gave in his adhesion to a limited application of this principle. Now, gentlemen, in the first place, let me observe that every peer is a peer for life, as he can not be a peer after his death; but some peers for life are succeeded in their dignities by their children. The question arises. Who is most responsible — a peer for life whose dignities are not discernible, or a peer for life whose dignities are hereditary? Now, gentlemen, a peer for life is in a very strong position. He says: " Here I am; I have got power and I will ex- ercise it." I have no doubt that, on the whole, a peer for life would exercise it for what he deemed was the pub- lic good. Let us hope that. But, after all, he might and could exercise it according to his own will. Nobody can call him to account; he is independent of everybody. But a peer for life whose dignities descend is in a very different position. He has every inducement to study public opin- ion, and, when he believes it just, to yield; because he natu- rally feels that if the order to which he belongs is in con- stant collision with public opinion, the chances are that his dignities will not descend to his posterity. Therefore, gentlemen, I am not prepared myself to believe that a solution of any difficulties in the public mind on this subject is to be found by creating peers for life. I know there are some philosophers who believe that the best substitute for the House of Lords would be an assem- bly formed of ex-governors of colonies. I have not suffi- cient experience on that subject to give a decided opinion upon it. When the Muse of Comedy threw her frolic grace over society, a retired governor was generally one of the characters in every comedy ; and the last of our great actors — who, by-the-bye, was a great favourite at Man- chester — Mr. Farren, was celebrated for his delineation of the character in question. Whether it be the recollec- tion of that performance or not, I confess I am inclined CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 365 to believe that an English gentleman — ^born to business, managing his own estate, administering the affairs of his county, mixing with all classes of his fellow-men, now in the hunting field, now in the railway direction, unaf- fected, unostentatious, proud of his ancestors, if they have contributed to the greatness of our common country — is, on the whole, more likely to form a senator agreeable to English opinion and English taste than any substitute that has yet been produced. Gentlemen, let me make one observation more on the subject of the House of Lords before I conclude. There is some advantage in political experience. I remember the time when there was a similar outcry against the House of Lords, but much more intense and powerful; and, gen- tlemen, it arose from the same cause. A Liberal govern- ment had been installed in office, with an immense Liberal majority. They proposed some violent measures. The House of Lords modified some, delayed others, and some they threw out. Instantly there was a cry to abolish or to reform the House of Lords, and the greatest popular orator [Daniel O'Connell] that probably ever existed was sent on a pilgrimage over England to excite the people in favour of this opinion. What happened? That hap- pened, gentlemen, which may happen to-morrow. There was a dissolution of Parliament. The great Liberal ma- jority vanished. The balance of parties was restored. It was discovered that the House of Lords had behind them at least half of the English people. We heard no more cries for their abolition or their reform, and before two years more passed England was really governed by the House of Lords, under the wise influence of the Duke of Wellington and the commanding eloquence of Lyndhurst ; and such was the enthusiasm of the nation in favour of the second chamber that at every public meeting its health was drunk, with the additional sentiment, for which we are indebted to one of the most distinguished members that ever represented the House of Commons: " Thank God, there is the House of Lords! " 366 LORD BEACONSFIELD Gentlemen, you will perhaps not be surprised that, having made some remarks upon the monarchy and the House of Lords, I should say something respecting that House in which I have literally passed the greater part of my life, and to which I am devotedly attached. It is not likely, therefore, that I should say anything to depreciate the legitimate position and influence of the House of Commons. Gentlemen, it is said that the diminished power of the throne and the assailed authority of the House of Lords are owing to the increased power of the House of Commons, and the new position which of late years, and especially during the last forty years, it has assumed in the English constitution. Gentlemen, the main power of the House of Commons depends upon its command over the public purse and its control of the public expenditure; and if that power is possessed by a party which has a large major- ity in the House of Commons, the influence of the House of Commons is proportionately increased, and, under some circumstances, becomes more predominant. But, gentle- men, this power of the House of Commons is not a power which has been created by any reform act, from the days of Lord Grey in 1832 to 1867. It is the power which the House of Commons has enjoyed for centuries, which it has frequently asserted and sometimes even tyrannically exercised. Gentlemen, the House of Commons represents the constitution of England, and I am here to show you that no addition to the elements of that constituency has placed the House of Commons in a different position with regard to the throne and the House of Lords from that it has always constitutionally occupied. Gentlemen, we speak now on this subject with great advantage. We recently have had published authentic documents upon this matter which are highly instructive. We have, for example, just published the census of Great Britain, and we are now in possession of the last registra- tion of voters for the United Kingdom. Gentlemen, it appears that by the census the population at this time is about thirty-two million. It is shown by the last registra- CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 367 tion that, after making the usual deductions for deaths, removals, double entries, and so on, the constituency of the United Kingdom may be placed at two million two hundred thousand. So, gentlemen, it at once appears that there are thirty million people in this country who are as much represented by the House of Lords as by the House of Commons, and who, for the protection of their rights, must depend upon them and the majesty of the throne. And now, gentlemen, I will tell you what was done by the last reform act. Lord Grey, in his measure of 1832, which was no doubt a statesmanlike measure, committed a great, and for a time it appeared an irretrievable, error. By that measure he fortified the legitimate influence of the aristocracy; and accorded to the middle classes great and salutary fran- chises; but he not only made no provision for the repre- sentation of the working classes in the constitution, but he absolutely abolished those ancient franchises which the working classes had peculiarly enjoyed and exercised from time immemorial. Gentlemen, that was the origin of Chartism, and of that electoral uneasiness which existed in this country more or less for thirty years. The Liberal party, I feel it my duty to say, had not acted fairly by this question. In their adversity they held out hopes to the working classes, but when they had a strong government they laughed their vows to scorn. In 1848 there was a French revolution, and a republic was established. No one can have forgotten what the effect was in this country. I remember the day when not a woman could leave her house in London, and when can- non were planted on Westminster Bridge. When Lord Derby became prime minister affairs had arrived at such a point that it was of the first moment that the question should be sincerely dealt with. He had to encounter great difficulties, but he accomplished his purpose with the sup- port of a united party. And, gentlemen, what has been the result? A year ago there was another revolution in France, and a republic was again established of the most 368 LORD BEACONSFIELD menacing character. What happened in this country? You could not get half a dozen men to assemble in a street and grumble. Why? Because the people had got what they wanted. They were content, and they were grateful. But, gentlemen, the constitution of England is not merely a constitution in state, it is a constitution in church and state. The wisest sovereigns and statesmen have ever been anxious to connect authority with religion — some to increase their power, some, perhaps, to mitigate its exercise. But the same difficulty has been experienced in effecting this union which has been experienced in form- ing a second chamber — either the spiritual power has usurped upon the civil, and established a sacerdotal soci- ety, or the civil power has invaded successfully the rights of the spiritual, and the ministers of religion have been degraded into stipendiaries of the state and instruments of the government. In England we accomplish this great result by an alliance between church and state, between two originally independent powers. I will not go into the history of that alliance, which is rather a question for those archaeological societies which occasionally amuse and instruct the people of this city. Enough for me that this union was made and has contributed for centuries to the civilization of this country. Gentlemen, there is the same assault against the Church of England and the union be- tween the state and the Church as there is against the mon- archy and against the House of Lords. It is said that the existence of nonconformity proves that the Church is a failure. I draw from these premises an exactly contrary conclusion; and I maintain that to have secured a na- tional profession of faith with the unlimited enjoyment of private judgment in matters spiritual is the solution of the most difificult problem, and one of the triumphs of civilization. It is said that the existence of parties in the Church also proves its incompetence. On that matter, too, I en- tertain a contrary opinion. Parties have always existed in the Church; and some have appealed to them as argu- CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 369 ments in favour of its divine institution, because in the services and doctrines of the Church have been found rep- resentatives of every mood in the human mind. Those who are influenced by ceremonies find consolation in forms which secure to them the beauty of holiness. Those who are not satisfied except with enthusiasm find in its minis- trations the exaltation they require, while others who be- lieve that the " anchor of faith " can never be safely moored except in the dry sands of reason find a religion within the pale of the Church which can boast of its irrefragable logic and its irresistible evidence. Gentlemen, I am inclined sometimes to believe that those who advocate the abolition of the union between church and state have not carefully considered the conse- quences of such a course. The Church is a powerful cor- poration of many millions of her Majesty's subjects, with a consummate organization and wealth which in its aggre- gate is vast. Restricted and controlled by the state, so powerful a corporation may be only fruitful of public ad- vantage, but it becomes a great question what might be the consequences of the severance of the controlling tie between these two bodies. The state would be enfeebled, but the Church would probably be strengthened. Whether that is a result to be desired is a grave question for all men. For my own part, I am bound to say that I doubt whether it would be favourable to the cause of civil and religious liberty. I know that there is a common idea that if the union between church and state was severed, the wealth of the Church would revert to the state; but it would be well to remember that the great proportion of ecclesias- tical property is the property of individuals. Take, for ex- ample, the fact that the great mass of church patronage is patronage in the hands of private persons. That you could not touch without compensation to the patrons. You have established that principle in your late Irish bill, where there was very little patronage. And in the present state of the public mind on the subject there is very little doubt that there would be scarcely a patron in England 24 3;o LORD BEACONSFIELD — irrespective of other aid the Church would receive — who would not dedicate his compensation to the spiritual wants of his neighbours. It was computed some years ago 'that the property of the Church in this manner, if the union was terminated, would not be less than between eighty million and ninety million pounds, and since that period the amount of pri- vate property dedicated to the purposes of the Church has very largely increased. I therefore trust that when the occasion ofifers for the country to speak out it will speak out in an unmistakable manner on this subject; and recognising the inestimable services of the Church, that it will call upon the government to maintain its union with the state. Upon this subject there is one remark I would make. Nothing is more surprising to me than the plea on which the present outcry is made against the Church of England. I could not believe that in the nineteenth century the charge against the Church of England should be that churchmen, and especially the clergy, had edu- cated the people. If I were to fix upon one circumstance more than another which redounded to the honour of churchmen, it is that they should fulfil this noble office; and, next to being "the stewards of divine mysteries," I think the greatest distinction of the clergy is the admi- rable manner in which they have devoted their lives and their fortunes to this greatest of national objects. Gentlemen, you are well acquainted in this city with this controversy. It was in this city — I don't know whether it was not in this hall — that that remarkable meeting was held of the nonconformists to effect important alterations in the Education Act, and you are acquainted with the discussion in Parliament which arose in consequence of that meeting. Gentlemen, I have due and great respect for the nonconformist body. I acknowledge their serv- ices to their country, and though I believe that the political reasons which mainly called them into existence have en- tirely ceased, it is impossible not to treat with considera- tion a body which has been eminent for its conscience, its CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 371 learning, and its patriotism; but I must express my mor- tification that, from a feeling of envy or of pique, the non- conformist body, rather than assist the Church in their great enterprise, should absolutely have become the parti- sans of a merely secular education. I believe myself, gen- tlemen, that without the recognition of a superintending Providence in the affairs of this world all national educa- tion will be disastrous, and I feel confident that it is impos- sible to stop at that mere recognition. Religious education is demanded by the nation generally and by the instincts of human nature. I should like to see the Church and the nonconformists work together; but I trust, whatever may be the result, the country will stand by the Church in its efforts to maintain the religious education of the people. Gentlemen, I foresee yet trials for the Church of England; but I am confident in its future. I am confident in its fu- ture because I believe there is now a very general feeling that to be national it must be comprehensive. I will not use the word " broad," because it is an epithet applied to a system with which I have no sympathy. But I would wish churchmen, and especially the clergy, always to re- member that in our " Father's home there are many man- sions," and I believe that comprehensive spirit is perfectly consistent with the maintenance of formularies and the belief in dogmas without which I hold no practical re- ligion can exist. Gentlemen, I have now endeavoured to express to you my general views upon the most important subjects that can interest Englishmen. They are subjects upon which, in my mind, a man should speak with frankness and clear- ness to his countrymen, and, although I do not come down here to make a party speech, I am bound to say that the manner in which those subjects are treated by the lead- ing subject of this realm is to me most unsatisfactory. Although the Prime Minister of England is always writ- ing letters and making speeches, and particularly on these topics, he seems to me ever to send forth an " uncertain sound." If a member of Parliament announces himself 372 LORD BEACONSFIELD a Republican, Mr. Gladstone takes the earliest opportunity of describing him as a " fellow-worker " in public life. If an inconsiderate multitude calls for the abolition or re- form of the House of Lords, Mr. Gladstone says that it is no easy task, and that he must think once or twice, or perhaps even thrice, before he can undertake it. If your neighbour the member for Bradford, Mr. Miall, brings forward a motion in the House of Commons for the sev- erance of church and state, Mr. Gladstone assures Mr. Miall with the utmost courtesy that he believes the opin- ion of the House of Commons is against him, but that if Mr. Miall wishes to influence the House of Commons he must address the people out of doors; whereupon Mr. Miall immediately calls a public meeting, and alleges as its cause the advice he has just received from the prime minister. But, gentlemen, after all, the test of political institu- tions is the condition of the country whose fortunes they regulate; and I do not mean to evade that test. You are the inhabitants of an island of no colossal size; which, geo- graphically speaking, was intended by Nature as the ap- pendage of some continental empire — either of Gauls and Franks on the other side of the Channel, or of Teutons and Scandinavians beyond the German Sea. Such, indeed, and for a long period, was your early history. You were invaded; you were pillaged and you were conquered; yet amid all these disgraces and vicissitudes there was grad- ually formed that English race which has brought about a very different state of affairs. Instead of being invaded, your land is proverbially the only " inviolate land " — " the inviolate land of the sage and free." Instead of being plundered, you have attracted to your shores all the capital of the world. Instead of being conquered, your flag floats on many waters, and your standard waves in either zone. It may be said that these achievements are due to the race that inhabited the land, and not to its institutions. Gen- tlemen, in political institutions are the embodied experi- ences of a race. You have established a society of classes CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 373 which give vigour and variety to life. But no class pos- sesses a single exclusive privilege, and all are equal before the law. You possess a real aristocracy, open to all who desire to enter it. You have not merely a middle class, but a hierarchy of middle classes, in which every degree of wealth, refinement, industry, energy, and enterprise is duly represented. And now, gentlemen, what is the condition of the great body of the people? In the first place, gentlemen, they have for centuries been in the full enjoyment of that which no other country in Europe has ever completely attained — complete rights of personal freedom. In the second place, there has been a gradual, and therefore a wise, dis- tribution on a large scale of political rights. Speaking with reference to the industries of this great part of the country, I can personally contrast it with the condition of the working classes forty years ago. In that period they have attained two results — ^the raising of their wages and the diminution of their toil. Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man. That the working classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire have proved not unworthy of these boons may be easily maintained;' but their progress and elevation have been during this in- terval wonderfully aided and assisted by three causes, which are not so distinctively attributable to their own energies. The first is the revolution in locomotion, which has opened the world to the working man, which has enlarged the ■ horizon of his experience, increased his knowledge of Na- ture and of art, and added immensely to the salutary recreation, amusement, and pleasure of his existence. The second cause is the cheap postage, the moral benefits of which can not be exaggerated. And the third is that un- shackled press which has furnished him with endless sources of instruction, information, and amusement. Gentlemen, if you would permit me, I would now make an observation upon another class of the labouring popu- lation. This is not a civic assembly, although we meet in a city. That was for convenience, but the invitation 374 LORD BEACONSFIELD which I received was to meet the county and all the bor- oughs of Lancashire; and I wish to make a few observa- tions upon the condition of the agricultural labourer. That is a subject which now greatly attracts public attention. And, in the first place, to prevent any misconception, I beg to express my opinion that an agricultural labourer has as much right to combine for the bettering of his con- dition as a manufacturing labourer or a worker in metals. If the causes of his combination are natural — that is to say, if they arise from his own feelings and from the neces- sities of his own condition, the combination will end in results mutually beneficial to employers and employed. If, on the other hand, it is factitious, and he is acted upon by extraneous influences and extraneous ideas, the combina- tion will produce, I fear, much loss and misery both to employers and employed; and after a time he will find himself in a similar, or in a worse, position. Gentlemen, in my opinion, the farmers of England can not as a body afford to pay higher wages than they do, and those who will answer me by saying that they must find their ability by the reduction of rents are, I think, involving themselves with economic laws which may prove too difficult for them to cope with. The profits of a farmer are very moderate. The interest upon capital invested in land is the smallest that any property furnishes. The farmer will have his profits and the investor in land will have his interest, even though they may be obtained at the cost of changing the mode of the cultivation of the country. Gentlemen, I should deeply regret to see the tillage of this country reduced, and a recurrence to pas- ture take place. I should regret it principally on account of the agricultural labourers themselves. Their new friends call them Hodge, and describe them as a stolid race. I must say that, from my experience of them, they are sufficiently shrewd and open to reason. I would say to them with confidence, as the great Athenian said to the Spartan who rudely assailed him, " Strike, but hear me." CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 375 First, a change in the cultivation of the soil of this country would be very, injurious to the labouring class; and, secondly, I am of opinion that that class, instead of being stationary, has made, if not as much progress as the manufacturing class, very considerable progress dur- ing the last forty years. Many persons write and speak about the agricultural labourer with not so perfect a knowledge of his condition as is desirable. They treat him always as a human being who in every part of the country finds himself in an identical condition. Now, on the contrary, there is no class of labourers in which there is greater variety of condition than that of the agri- cultural labourers. It changes from north to south, from east to west, and from county to county. It changes even in the same county, where there is an alteration of soil and of configuration. The hind in Northumberland is in a very different condition from the famous Dorsetshire labourer; the tiller of the soil in Lincolnshire is different from his fellow-agriculturist in Sussex. What the effect of manufactures is upon the agricultural districts in their neighbourhood it would be presumption in me to dwell upon; your own experience must tell you whether the agricultural labourer in North Lancashire, for example, has had no rise in wages and no diminution in toil. Take the case of the Dorsetshire labourer — ^the whole of the agricultural labourers on the southwestern coast of Eng- land for a very long period worked only half the time of the labourers in other parts of England, and received only half the wages. In the experience of many, I dare say, who are here present, even thirty years ago a Dorsetshire labourer never worked after three o'clock in the day; and why? Because the whole of that part of England was de- moralized by smuggling. No one worked after three o'clock in the day, for a very good reason — ^because he had to work at night. No farmer allowed his team to be employed after three o'clock, because he reserved his horses to take his illicit cargo at night and carry it rapidly into the interior. Therefore, as the men were employed 376 LORD BEACONSFIELD and remunerated otherwise, they got into a habit of half work and half play so far as the land was concerned, and when smuggling was abolished — and it has only been abol- ished for thirty years — these imperfect habits of labour continued, and do even now continue to a great extent. That is the origin of the condition of the agricultural la- bourer in the southwestern part of England. But now, gentlemen, I want to test the condition of the agricultural labourer generally; and I will take a part of England with which I am familiar, and can speak as to the accuracy of the facts — I mean the group described as the south-midland counties. The conditions of labour there are the same, or pretty nearly the same, throughout. The group may be described as a strictly agricultural com- munity, and they embrace a population of probably a mil- lion and a half. Now, I have no hesitation in saying that the improvement in their lot during the last forty years has been progressive and is remarkable. I attribute it to three causes. In the first place, the rise in their money wages is no less than fifteen per cent. The second great cause of their improvement is the almost total disappear- ance of excessive and exhausting toil, from the general in- troduction of machinery. I don't know whether I could get a couple of men who could, or, if they could, would thrash a load of wheat in my neighbourhood. The third great cause which has improved their condition is the very gen- eral, not to say universal, institution of allotment grounds. Now, gentlemen, when I find that this has been the course of afifairs in our very considerable and strictly agricultural portion of the country, where there have been no excep- tional circumstances, like smuggling, to degrade and de- moralize the race, I can not resist the conviction that the condition of the agricultural labourers, instead of being stationary, as we are constantly told by those not ac- quainted with them, has been one of progressive improve- ment, and that in those counties — and they are many — ■ where the stimulating influence of a manufacturing neigh- bourhood acts upon the land, the general conclusion at CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 377 which I arrive is that the agricultural labourer has had his share in the advance of national prosperity. Gentlemen, I am not here to maintain that there is nothing to be done to increase the well-being of the working classes of this country, generally speaking. There is not a single class in the country which is not susceptible of improvement, and that makes the life and animation of our society. But in all we do we must remember, as my noble friend told them at Liverpool, that much depends upon the working classes themselves; and what I know of the working classes in Lancashire makes me sure that they will respond to this appeal. Much also may be expected from that sympathy between classes which is a distinctive feature of the pres- ent day; and, in the last place, no inconsiderable results may be obtained by judicious and prudent legislation-. But, gentlemen, in attempting to legislate upon social mat- ters, the great object is to be practical — ^to have before us some distinct aims and some distinct means by which they can be accomplished. Gentlemen, I think public attention as regards these matters ought to be concentrated upon sanitary legisla- tion. That is a wide subject, and, if properly tre"kted, com- prises almost every consideration which has a just claim upon legislative interference. Pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food — ^these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the legislature; and I am bound to say the legislature is not idle upon them; for we have at this time two important measures before Parliament on the sub- ject. One — by a late colleague of mine. Sir Charles Ad- derley — is a large and comprehensive measure, founded upon a sure basis, for it consolidates all existing public acts, and improves them. A prejudice has been raised against that proposal by stating that it interferes with the private acts of the great towns. I take this opportunity of contradicting that. The bill of Sir Charles Adderley does not touch the acts of the great towns. It only allows them, if they think fit, to avail themselves of its new provisions. 378 LORD BEACONSFIELD The other measure by the government is of a partial character. What it comprises is good, so far as it goes, but it shrinks from that bold consolidation of existing acts which I think one of the great merits of Sir Charles Ad- derley's bill, which permits us to become acquainted with how much may be done in favour of sanitary improve- ment by existing provisions. Gentlemen, I can not im- press upon you too strongly my conviction of the impor- tance of the legislature and society uniting together in favour of these important results. A great scholar and a great wit, three hundred years ago, said that, in his opin- ion, there was a great mistake in the Vulgate, which, as you all know, is the Latin translation of the Holy Scrip- tures, and that, instead of saying, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity " — Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas — the wise and witty king really said, " Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sani- tas." Gentlemen, it is impossible to overrate the impor- tance of the subject. After all, the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people. A land may be covered with historic trophies, with museums of science and galleries of art, with universities, and with libra- ries; the people may be civilized and ingenious; the coun- try may be even famous in the annals and action of the world, but, gentlemen, if the population every ten years decreases, and the stature of the race every ten years diminishes, the history of that country will soon be the history of the past. Gentlemen, I said I had not come here to make a party speech. I have addressed you upon subjects of grave, and I will venture to believe of general, interest; but to be here and altogether silent upon the present state of public afifairs would not be respectful to you, and, perhaps, on the whole, would be thought incongruous. Gentlemen, I can not pretend that our position either at home or abroad is in my opinion satisfactory. At home, at a period of immense prosperity, with a people contented and natu- rally loyal, we find to our surprise the most extravagant doctrines professed and the fundamental principles of our CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 379 most valuable institutions impugned, and that, too, by- persons of some authority. Gentlemen, this startling in- consistency is accounted for, in my mind, by the circum- stances under which the present administration was formed. It is the first instance in my knowledge of a British admin- istration being avowedly formed on a principle of vio- lence. It is unnecessary for me to remind you of the circumstances which preceded the formation of that gov- ernment. You were the principal scene and theatre of the development of statesmanship that then occurred. You witnessed the incubation of the portentous birth. You remember when you were informed that the policy to se- cure the prosperity of Ireland and the content of Irish- men was a policy of sacrilege and confiscation. Gentle- men, when Ireland was placed under the wise and able administration of Lord Abercorn, Ireland was prosperous, and I may say content. But there happened at that time a very peculiar conjuncture in politics. The civil war in America had just ceased; and a band of military adven- turers — Poles, Italians, and many Irishmen — concocted in New York a conspiracy to invade Ireland, with the belief that the whole country would rise to welcome them. How that conspiracy was bafifled, how those plots were con- founded, I need not now remind you. For that we were mainly indebted to the eminent qualities of a great man who has just left us. You remember how the constitu- encies were appealed to to vote against the government which had made so unfit an appointment as that of Lord Mayo to the Viceroyalty of India. It was by his great qualities when Secretary for Ireland, by his vigilance, his courage, his patience, and his perseverance that this con- spiracy was defeated. Never was a minister better in- formed. He knew what was going on at New York just as well as what was going on in the city of Dublin. When the Fenian conspiracy had been entirely put down, it became necessary to consider the policy which it was expedient to pursue in Ireland; and it seemed to us at that time that what Ireland required, after all the 38o LORD BEACONSFIELD excitement which it had experienced, was a policy which should largely develop its material resources. There were one or two subjects of a different character, which, for the advantage of the state, it would have been desirable to have settled, if that could have been effected with a gen- eral concurrence of both the great parties in that country. Had we remained in office, that would have been done. But we were destined to quit it, and we quitted it without a murmur. The policy of our successors was different. Their specific was to despoil churches and plunder land- lords, and what has been the result? Sedition rampant, treason thinly veiled, and whenever a vacancy occurs in the representation a candidate is returned pledged to the disruption of the realm. Her Majesty's new ministers pro- ceeded in their career like a body of men under the influ- ence of some delirious drug. Not satiated with the spolia- tion and anarchy of Ireland, they began to attack every institution and every interest, every class and calling in the country. It is curious to observe their course. They took into hand the army. What have they done? I will not com- ment on what they have done. I will historically state it, and leave you to draw the inference. So long as constitu- tional England has existed there has been a jealousy among all classes against the existence of a standing army. As our empire expanded, and the existence of a large body of disciplined troops became a necessity, every precau- tion was taken to prevent the danger to our liberties which a standing army involved. It was a first principle not to concentrate in the island any overwhelming number of troops, and a considerable portion was distributed in the colonies. Care was taken that the troops generally should be officered by a class of men deeply interested in the property and the liberties of England. So extreme was the jealousy that the relations between that once constitutional force, the militia, and the sovereign were rigidly guarded, and it was carefully placed under local influences. All this is changed. We CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 38 1 have a standing army of large amount, quartered and brigaded and encamped permanently in England, and fed by a considerable and constantly increasing reserve. It will in due time be officered by a class of men emi- nently scientific, but with no relations necessarily with so- ciety; while the militia is withdrawn from all local influ- ences, and placed under the immediate command of the Secretary of War. Thus, in the nineteenth century, we have a large standing army established in England, con- trary to all the traditions of the land, and that by a Liberal government, and with the warm acclamations of the Lib- eral party. Let us look what they have done with the Admiralty. You remember, in this country especially, the denuncia- tions of the profligate expenditure of the Conservative government, and you have since had an opportunity of comparing it with the gentler burden of Liberal estimates. The navy was not merely an instance of profligate expendi- ture, but of incompetent and inadequate management. A great revolution was promised in its administration. A gentleman [Mr. Childers], almost unknown to English politics, was strangely preferred to one of the highest places in the councils of her Majesty. He set to at his task with ruthless activity. The Consultative Council, under which Nelson had gained all his victories, was dissolved. The Secretaryship of the Admiralty, an office which exercised a complete supervision over every division of that great de- partment — an office which was to the Admiralty what the Secretary of State is to the kingdom — ^which, in the quali- ties which it required and the duties which it fulfilled, was rightly a stepping-stone to the cabinet, as in the instances of Lord Halifax, Lord Herbert, and many others — ^was reduced to absolute insignificance. Even the office of Con- trol, which of all others required a position of independ- ence, and on which the safety of the navy mainly depended, was deprived of all its important attributes. For two years the Opposition called the attention of Parliament to these destructive changes, but Parliament and the nation were 382 LORD BEACONSFIELD alike insensible. Full of other business, they could not give a thought to what they looked upon merely as cap- tious criticism. It requires a great disaster to command the attention of England; and when the Captain was lost, and when they had the detail of the perilous voyage of the Megara, then public indignation demanded a com- plete change in this renovating administration of the navy. And what has occurred? It is only a few weeks since that in the House of Commons I heard the naval state- ment made by a new First Lord [Mr. Goschen], and it con- sisted only of the rescinding of all the revolutionary changes of his predecessor, the mischief of every one of which dur- ing the last two years has been pressed upon the atten- tion of Parliament and the country by that constitutional and necessary body the Opposition. Gentlemen, it will not do for me — considering the time I have already occu- pied, and there are still some subjects of importance that must be touched — to dwell upon any of the other similar topics, of which there is a rich abundance. I doubt not there is in this hall more than one farmer who has been alarmed by the suggestion that his agricultural machinery should be taxed. I doubt not there is in this hall more than one publican who remembers that last year an act of Parliament was introduced to denounce him as a " sinner." I doubt not there are in this hall a widow and an orphan who remem- ber the profligate proposition to plunder their lonely herit- age. But, gentlemen, as time advanced it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the government. The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alter- nated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat opposite the treasury bench the ministers reminded me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coast of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situ- CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 383 ation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea. But, gentlemen, there is one other topic on which I must touch. If the management of our domestic affairs has been founded upon a principle of violence, that cer- tainly can not be alleged against the management of our external relations. I know the difficulty of addressing a body of Englishmen on these topics. The very phrase " foreign affairs " makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no con- cern. Unhappily the relations of England to the rest of the world, which are " foreign affairs," are the matters which most influence his lot. Upon them depends the in- crease or reduction of taxation. Upon them depends the enjoyment or the embarrassment of his industry. And yet, though so momentous are the consequences of the mismanagement of our foreign relations, no one thinks of them till the mischief occurs, and then it is found how the most vital consequences have been occasioned by mere inadvertence. I wU illustrate this point by two anecdotes. Since I have been in public life there has been for this country a great calamity and there is a great danger, and both might have been avoided. The calamity was the Crimean War. You know what were the consequences of the Crimean War: A great addition to your debt, an enormous addition to your taxation, a cost more precious than your treasure — the best blood of England. Half a million of men, I believe, perished in that great undertaking. Nor are the evil consequences of that war adequately described by what I have said. All the disorders and disturbances of Europe, those immense armaments that are an incubus on national industry and the great obstacle to progressive civilization, may be traced and justly attributed to the Crimean War. And yet the Crimean War need never have occurred. When Lord Derby acceded to office, against his own wishes, in 1852, the Liberal party most unconstitutionally forced him to dissolve Parliament at a certain time by stop- 384 LORD BEACONSFIELD ping the supplies, or at least by limiting the period for which they were voted. There was not a single reason to justify that course, for Lord Derby had only accepted office, having once declined it, on the renewed application of his sovereign. The country, at the dissolution, increased the power of the Conservative party, but did not give to Lord Derby a majority, and he had to retire from power. There was not the slightest chance of a Crimean War when we retired from office; but the Emperor of Russia, be- lieving that the successor of Lord Derby was no enemy to Russian aggression in the East, commenced those pro- ceedings, with the result of which you are familiar. I speak of what I know, not of what I believe, but of what I have evidence in my possession to prove — that the Cri- mean War never would have happened if Lord Derby had remained in office. The great danger is the present state, of our relations with the United States. When I acceded to office I did so, so far as regarded the United States of America, with some advantage. During the whole of the civil war in America both my noble friend near me and I had main- tained a strict and fair neutrality. This was fully appre- ciated by the Government of the United States, and they expressed their wish that with our aid the settlement of all dififerences between the two governments should be accomplished. They sent here a plenipotentiary, an hon- ourable gentleman, very intelligent, and possessing general confidence. My noble friend near me, with great ability, negotiated a treaty for the settlement of all these claims. He was the first minister who proposed to refer them to arbitration, and the treaty was signed by the American Government. It was signed, I think, on November loth, on the eve of the dissolution of Parliament. The borough elections that first occurred proved what would be the fate of the ministry, and the moment they were known in Amer- ica the American Government announced that Mr. Rev- erdy Johnson [the American minister] had mistaken his instructions, and they could not present the treaty to the CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 385 Senate for its sanction — the sanction of which there had been previously no doubt. But the fact is that, as in the case of the Crimean War it was supposed that our successors would be favourable to Russian aggression, so it was supposed that by the ac- cession to office of Mr. Gladstone and a gentleman you know well, Mr. Bright, the American claims would be considered in a very different spirit. How they have been considered is a subject which, no doubt, occupies deeply the minds of the people of Lancashire. Now, gentlemen, observe this — the question of the Black Sea involved in the Crimean War, the question of the American claims in- volved in our negotiations with Mr. Johnson, are the two questions that have again turned up, and have been the two great questions that have been under the management of his government. How have they treated them? Prince Gortschakoff, thinking he saw an opportunity, announced his determina- tion to break from the Treaty of Paris and terminate all the conditions hostile to Russia which had been the result of the Crimean War. What was the first movement on the part of our government is at present a mystery. This we know, that they selected the most rising diplomatist of the day [Mr. Odo Russell, later Lord Ampthill], and sent him to Prince Bismarck with a declaration that the policy of Russia if persisted in was war with England. Now, gentlemen, there was not the slightest chance of Russia going to war with England, and no necessity, as I shall always maintain, of England going to war with Rus- sia. I believe I am not wrong in stating that the Russian Government were prepared to withdraw from the position they had rashly taken; but suddenly her Majesty's govern- ment, to use a technical phrase, threw over the plenipo- tentiary, and, instead of threatening war if the Treaty of Paris was violated, they agreed to arrangements by which the violation of that treaty should be sanctioned by Eng- land, 'and, in the form of a congress, they showed them- selves guaranteeing their own humiliation. That Mr. Odo 25 386 LORD BEACONSFIELD Russell made no mistake is quite obvious, because he has since been selected to be her Majesty's ambassador at the most important court of Europe. Gentlemen, what will be the consequence of this extraordinary weakness on the part of the British Government it is difficult to foresee. Already we hear that Sebastopol is to be refortified, nor can any man doubt that the entire command of the Black Sea will soon be in the possession of Russia. The time may not be distant when we may hear of the Russian power in the Persian Gulf, and what effect that may have upon the dominions of England and upon those possessions on the productions of which you every year more and more depend, are questions upon which it will be well for you on proper occasions to meditate. I come now to that question which most deeply inter- ests you at this moment, and that is our relations with the United States. I approved the government referring this question to arbitration. It was only following the policy of Lord Stanley. My noble friend disapproved the nego- tiations being carried on at Washington. I confess that I would willingly have persuaded myself that this was not a mistake, but reflection has convinced me that my noble friend was right. I remember the successful negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by Sir Henry Bulwer. I flattered myself that treaties at Washington might be suc- cessfully negotiated; but I agree with my noble friend that his general view was far more sound than my own. But no one, when that commission was sent forth, for a mo- ment could anticipate the course of their conduct under the strict injunctions of the government. We believed that commission was sent to ascertain what points should be submitted to arbitration, to be decided by the principles of the law of nations. We had not the slightest idea that that commission was sent with power and instructions to alter the law of nations itself. When that result was an- nounced, we expressed our entire disapprobation; and yet trusting to the representations of the government that matters were concluded satisfactorily, we had to decide CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 387 whether it were wise, if the great result was obtained, to wrangle upon points, however important, such as those to which I have referred. Gentlemen, it appears that, though all parts of Eng- land were ready to make those sacrifices, the two negoti- ating states — the government of the United Kingdom and the government of the United States — placed a different interpretation upon the treaty when the time had arrived to put its provisions into practice. Gentlemen, in my mind, and in the opinion of my noble friend near me, there was but one course to take under the circumstances, painful as it might be, and that was at once to appeal to the good feeling and good sense of the United States, and, stating the difficulty, to invite confidential conference whether it might not be removed. But her Majesty's government took a different course. On December 15th her Majesty's government were aware of a contrary interpretation being placed on the Treaty of Washington by the American Gov- ernment. The prime minister received a copy of their counter case, and he confessed he had never read it. He had a considerable number of copies sent to him to dis- tribute among his colleagues, and you remember, prob- ably, the remarkable statement in which he informed the House that he had distributed those copies to everybody except those for whom they were intended. Time went on, and the adverse interpretation of the American Government oozed out, and was noticed by the press. Public alarm and public indignation were excited; and it was only seven weeks afterward, on the very eve of the meeting of Parliament — some twenty-four hours before the meeting of Parliament — that her Majesty's gov- ernment felt they were absolutely obliged to make a " friendly communication " to the United States that they had arrived at an interpretation of the treaty the reverse of that of the American Government. What was the posi- tion of the American Government? Seven weeks had passed without their having received the slightest intima- tion from her Majesty's ministers. They had circulated 388 LORD BEACONSFIELD their case throughout the world. They had translated it into every European language. It had been sent to every court and cabinet, to every sovereign and prime minister. It was impossible for the American Government to recede from their position, even if they had believed it to be an erroneous one. And then, to aggravate the difficulty, the prime minister goes down to Parliament, declares that there is only one interpretation to be placed on the treaty, and defies and attacks everybody who believes it suscep- tible of another. Was there ever such a combination of negligence and blundering? And now, gentlemen, what is about to hap- pen? All we know is that her Majesty's ministers are doing everything in their power to evade the cognizance and criticism of Parliament. They have received an answer to their " friendly communication " ; of which, I believe, it has been ascertained that the American Government ad- here to their interpretation; and yet they prolong the con- troversy. What is about to occur it is unnecessary for one to predict; but if it be this — if after a fruitless ratiocination worthy of a schoolman, we ultimately agree so far to the interpretation of the American Government as to submit the whole case to arbitration, with feeble reservation of a protest, if it be decided against us, I venture to say that we shall be entering on a course not more distinguished by its feebleness than by its impending peril. There is before us every prospect of the same incompetence that distinguished our negotiations respecting the independ- ence of the Black Sea; and I fear that there is every chance that this incompetence will be sealed by our ultimately acknowledging these direct claims of the United States, which, both as regards principle and practical results, are fraught with the utmost danger to this country. Gentle- men, don't suppose, because I counsel firmness and de- cision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favourable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a great part of my life. I am not unaware that the relations of England to CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES 389 Europe have undergone a vast change during the century that has just elapsed. The relations of England to Europe are not the same as they were in the days of Lord Chat- ham or Frederick the Great. The Queen of England has become the sovereign of the most powerful of Oriental states. On the other side of the globe there are now estab- lishments belonging to her, teeming with wealth and popu- lation, which will in due time exercise their influence over the distribution of power. The old establishments of this country, now the United States of America, throw their lengthening shades over the Atlantic, which mix with European waters. These are vast and novel elements in the distribution of power. I acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be a policy of reserve, but protid reserve; and in answer to those states- men — those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its re- sources — I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and in- exhaustible. And yet, gentlemen, it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which I believe was never prouder of the imperial country to which they belong. Gentlemen, it is to that spirit that I above all things trust. I look upon the people of Lancashire as a fair representative of the people of England. I think the manner in which they have invited me here, locally a stranger, to receive the expression of their cordial sympa- thy, and only because they recognise some effort on my part to maintain the greatness of their country, is evidence of the spirit of the land. I must express to you again my deep sense of the generous manner in which you have wel- comed me, and in which you have permitted me to ex- press to you my views upon public afifairs. Proud of your confidence, and encouraged by your sympathy, I now de- 390 LORD BEACONSFIELD liver to you, as my last words, the cause of the Tory party, the English constitution, and of the British Empire. Note ' In November, 1871, Sir Charles Dilke delivered an address at New- castle, in which he denounced the cost of royalty. The popular agitation that followed throughout the country was very considerable ; and, as Mr. Gladstone was then prime minister, there were not a few that supposed this attack upon the support of the Crown to be a premonition of a policy to be adopted by the government. The agitation that followed had not a little influence in bringing on the downfall of Gladstone's ministry in 1874. Lord Beaconsfield was at the head of the Opposition, and the following speech was at once the most effective assault made upon the policy of Gladstone, and the most comprehensive statement of the prin- ciples advocated by the Conservative party. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE- DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS M" (Delivered in West Calder, November 27, 1879) ' [R. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN : In ad- dressing you to-day, as in addressing like audiences assembled for a like purpose in other places of the county, I am warmed by the enthusiastic welcome which you have been pleased in every quarter and in every form to accord to me. I am, on the other hand, daunted when I recollect, first of all, what large demands I have to make on your patience; and, secondly, how inadequate are my powers, and how inadequate almost any amount of time you can grant me, to set forth worthily the whole of the case which ought to be laid before you in connection with the coming election. To-day, gentlemen, as I know that many among you are interested in the land, and as I feel that what is termed " agricultural distress " is at the present moment a topic too serious to be omitted from our consideration, I shall say some words upon the subject of that agricultural dis- tress, and particularly, because in connection with it there have arisen in some quarters of the country proposals, which have received a countenance far beyond their de- serts, to reverse or to compromise the work which it took us one whole generation to achieve, and to revert to the mischievous, obstructive, and impoverishing system of protection. Gentlemen, I speak of agricultural distress as a matter now undoubtedly serious. Let none of us with- hold our sympathy from the farmer, the cultivator of the soil, in the struggle he has to undergo. His struggle is 391 392 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE a struggle of competition with the United States. But I do not fully explain the case when I say the United States. It is not with the entire United States, it is with the west- ern portion of these States — that portion remote from the seaboard; and I wish, in the first place, gentlemen, to state to you all a fact of very great interest and importance, as it seems to me, relating to and defining the point at which the competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt. I have in my hand a letter received recently from one well known, and honourably known, in Scotland — Mr. Lyon Playfair, who has recently been a traveller in the United States, and who, as you well know, is as well qualified as any man upon earth for accurate and careful investigation. The point, gentlemen, at which the com- petition of the Western States of America is most severely felt is in the Eastern States of America. Whatever be agri- cultural distress in Scotland, whatever it be, where un- doubtedly it is more felt, in England, it is greater by much in the Eastern States of America. In the States of New England the soil has been to some extent exhausted, by careless methods of agriculture, and these, gentlemen, are the greatest of all the enemies with which the farmer has to contend. But the foundation of the statement I make, that the Eastern States of America are those that most feel the competition of the West, is to be found in facts — in this fact above all, that not only they are not in America, as we are here, talking about the shortness of the annual re- turns, and in some places having much said on the subject of rents, and of temporary remission or of permanent re- duction. That is not the state of things; they have actually got to this point, that the capital values of land, as tested by sales in the market, have undergone an enormous dimi- nution. Now I will tell you something that actually hap- pened, on the authority of my friend Mr. Playfair. I will tell you something that has happened in one of the New England States — not, recollect, in a desert or a remote country — in an old cultivated country, and near one of D.Appleton ^Company DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 393 the towns of these States, a town that has the honourable name of Wellesley. Mr. Playfair tells me this: Three weeks ago — that is to say, about the first of this month, so you will see my information is tolerably recent — three weeks ago a friend of Mr. Playfair bought a farm near Wellesley for thirty- three dollars an acre, for six pounds twelve shillings an acre — agricultural land, remember, in an old settled coun- try. That is the present condition of agricultural prop- erty in the old States of New England. I think by the simple recital of that fact I have tolerably well established my case, for you have not come in England, and you have not come in Scotland, to the point at which agricultural land is to be had — not wild land, but improved and old cul- tivated land — is to be had for the price of six pounds twelve shillings an acre. He mentions that this is by no means a strange case, an isolated case, that it fairly represented the average transactions that have been going on; and he says that in that region the ordinary price of agricultural land at the present time is from twenty to fifty dollars an acre, or from four to ten pounds. In New York the soil is better, and the population is greater; but even in the State of New York land ranges for agricultural pur- poses from fifty to one hundred dollars — that is to say, from ten to twenty pounds an acre. I think those of you, gentlemen, who are farmers will perhaps derive some comfort from perceiving that if the pressure here is heavy the pressure elsewhere and the pres- sure nearer to the seat of this very abundant production is greater and far greater still. It is most interesting to consider, however, what this pressure is. There has been developed in the astonish- ing progressive power of the United States — there has been developed a faculty of producing corn for the sub- sistence of man with a rapidity and to an extent unknown in the experience of mankind. There is nothing like it in history. Do not let us conceal, gentlemen, from our- selves the fact; I shall not stand the worse with any of 394 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE you who are farmers if I at once avow that this greater and comparatively immense abundance of the prime article of subsistence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Providence to mankind. In part I believe that the cheapness has been increased by special causes. The lands from which the great abundance of American wheat comes are very thinly peopled as yet. They will become more thickly peopled, and as they become more thickly peopled a larger proportion of their produce will be wanted for home consumption and less of it will come to you, and at a higher price. Again, if we are rightly informed, the price of American wheat has been unnaturally reduced by the extraordinary depression in recent times of trade in America, and especially of the mineral trades, upon which many railroads are dependent in America, and with which these railroads are connected in America in a degree and manner that in this country we know but little of. With a revival of trade in America it is to be expected that the freights of corn will increase, and all other freights, because the employment of the railroads will be a great deal more abundant, and they will not be content to carry corn at nominal rates. In some respects, therefore, you may expect a mitigation of the pressure, but in other re- spects it is likely to continue. Nay, the prime minister is reported as having not long ago said — and he ought to have the best information on this subject, nor am I going to impeach in the main what he stated — he gave it to be understood that there was about to be a development of corn production in Canada which would entirely throw into the shade this corn production in the United States. Well, that certainly was very cold comfort, as far as the British agriculturist is concerned, . because he did not say — ^he could not say — that the corn production of the United States was to fall ofif, but there was to be added an enormous corn production from Mani- toba, the great province which forms now a part of the Canada Dominion. There is no doubt, I believe, that it is a correct expectation that vast or very large quantities DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 395 of corn will proceed from that province, and therefore we have to look forward to a state of things in which, for a considerable time to come, large quantities of wheat will be forthcoming from America, probably larger quantities, and perhaps frequently at lower prices than those at which the corn-producing and corn-exporting districts of Eu- rope have commonly been able to supply us. Now that I believe to be, gentlemen, upon the whole, not an unfair representation of the state of things. How are you to meet that state of things? What are your fair claims? I will tell you. In my opinion your fair claims are, in the main, two. One is to be allowed to pur- chase every article that you require in the cheapest market, and have no needless burden laid upon anything that comes to you and can assist you in the cultivation of your land. But that claim has been conceded and fulfilled. I do not know whether there is an object, an instru- ment, a tool of any kind, an auxiliary of any kind, that you want for the business of the farmer, which you do not buy at this moment in the cheapest market. But beyond that, you want to be relieved from every unjust and un- necessary legislative restraint. I say every unnecessary legislative restraint, because taxation, gentlemen, is un- fortunately a restraint upon us all, but we can not say that it is always unnecessary, and we can not say that it is al- ways unjust. Yesterday I ventured to state — and I will therefore not now return to the subject — a number of mat- ters connected with the state of legislation in which it appears to me to be of vital importance, both to the agri- cultural interest and to the entire community, that the occupiers and cultivators of the land of this country should be relieved from restraints under the operation of which they now sufifer considerably. Beyond those two great heads, gentlemen, what you have to look to, I believe, is your own energy, your own energy of thought and action, and your care not to undertake to pay rents greater than, in reasonable calculation, you think you can afford. I am by no means sure, though I speak subject to the correc- 396 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE tion of higher authority — I am by no means sure that in Scotland within the last fifteen or twenty years something of a speculative character has not entered into rents, and particularly, perhaps, into the rents of hill farms. I re- member hearing of the augmentations which were taking place, I believe, all over Scotland — I verified the fact in a number of counties — about twelve or fourteen years ago, in the rents of hill farms, which I confess impressed me with the idea that the high prices that were then ruling, and ruling increasingly from year to year, for meat and wool, were perhaps for once leading the wary and shrewd Scottish agriculturist a little beyond the mark in the rents he undertook to pay. But it is not this only which may press. It is, more broadly, in a serious and manful strug- gle that you are engaged, in which you will have to exert yourselves to the uttermost, in which you will have a right to claim everything that the legislature can do for you; and I hope it may perhaps possibly be my privilege and honour to assist in procuring for you some of those pro- visions of necessary liberation from restraint; but beyond that it is your own energies, of thought and action, to which you will have to trust. Now, gentlemen, having said thus much, my next duty is to warn you against quack remedies, against delusive remedies, against the quack remedies that there are plenty of people found to propose, not so much in Scotland as in England; for, gentlemen, from Mid-Lothian at present we are speaking to England as well as to Scotland. Let me give a friendly warning from this northern quarter to the agriculturist of England not to be deluded by those who call themselves his friends in a degree of special and superior excellence, and who have been too much given to delude him in other times; not to be deluded into hoping relief from sources from which it can never come. Now, gentlemen, there are three of these remedies. The first of them, gentlemen, I will not call a quack remedy at all, but I will speak of it notwithstanding in the tone of rational and dispassionate discussion. I am not now DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 397 SO much upon the controversial portion of the land ques- tion — a field which, Heaven knows, is wide enough! — as I am upon matters of deep and universal interest to us in our economic and social condition. There are some gen- tlemen, and there are persons for whom I for one have very great respect, who think that the difficulties of our agriculture may be got over by a fundamental change in the land-holding system of this country. I do not mean, now pray observe, a change as to the law of entail and settlement, and all those restraints which, I hope, were tolerably well disposed of yesterday at Dal- keith; but I mean those who think that if you can cut up the land, or a large part of it, into a multitude of small properties, that of itself will solve the difficulty, and start everybody on a career of prosperity. Now, gentlemen, to a proposal of that kind I for one am not going to object upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with the privileges of landed proprietors. In my opinion, if it is known to be for the welfare of the com- munity at large, the legislature is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed proprietors. It is not intended probably to confiscate the property of a landed proprietor more than the property of any other man; but the state is per- fectly entitled, if it please, to buy out the landed proprietors as it may think fit for the purpose of dividing the property into small lots. I don't wish to recommend it, because I will show you the doubts that to my mind hang about that proposal; but I admit that in principle no objection can be taken. Those persons who possess large portions of the spaces of the earth are not altogether in the same posi- tion as the possessors of mere personalty; that personalty does not impose the same limitations upon the action and industry of man, and upon the well-being of the commu- nity, as does the possession of land; and, therefore, I freely own that compulsory expropriation is a thing which for an adequate public object is in itself admissible and so far sound in principle. Now, gentlemen, this idea about small proprietors, 398 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE however, is one which very large bodies and parties in this country treat with the utmost contempt; and they are ac- customed to point to France, and say, " Look at France." In France you have got five milHons — I am not quite sure whether it is five milHons or even more; I do not wish to be beyond the mark in anything — ^you have five million of small proprietors, and you do not produce in France as many bushels of wheat per acre as you do in England. Well, now I am going to point out to you a very remark- able fact with regard to the condition of France. I will not say that France produces — for I believe it does not produce — as many bushels of wheat per acre as England does, but I should like to know whether the wheat of France is pro- duced mainly upon the small properties of France. I be- lieve that the wheat of France is produced mainly upon the large properties of France, and I have not any doubt that the large properties of England are, upon the whole, better cultivated and more capital is put into the land than in the large properties of France. But it is fair that justice should be done to what is called the peasant proprietary. Peasant proprietary is an excellent thing, if it can be had, in many points of view. It interests an enormous num- ber of the people in the soil of the country, and in the stability of its institutions and its laws. But now look at the effect that it has upon the progressive value of the land — and I am going to give you a very few figures which I will endeavour to relieve from all complication, lest I should unnecessarily weary you. But what will you think when I tell you that the agricultural value of France — ^the taxable income derived from the land, and therefore the income of the proprietors of that land — has advanced dur- ing our lifetime far more rapidly than that of England? When I say England I believe the same thing is appli- cable to Scotland, certainly to Ireland; but I shall take England for my test, because the difference between Eng- land and Scotland, though great, does not touch the prin- ciple; and because it so happens that we have some means of illustration from former times for England DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 399 which are not equally applicable for all the three king- doms. Here is the state of the case. I will not go back any- further than 1 85 1. I might go back much further; it would only strengthen my case. But for 1851 I have a statement made by French official authority of the agri- cultural income of France, as well as the income of other real property — viz., houses. In 185 1 the agricultural in- come of France was seventy-six million pounds. It was greater in 1851 than the whole income from land and houses together had been in 1821. This is a tolerable. evi- dence of progress; but I will not enter into the detail of it, because I have no means of dividing the two — the house income and the land income — for the earlier year, namely, 1 82 1. In 1 85 1 it was seventy-six million pounds — the agricultural income — ^and in 1864 it had risen from seventy- six million pounds to one hundred and six million pounds. That is to say, in the space of thirteen years the increase of agricultural values in France — annual values — ^was no less than forty per cent, or three per cent per annum. Now, I go to England. Wishing to be quite accurate, I shall limit myself to that with respect to which we have positive figures. In England the agricultural income in 1813-14 was thirty-seven million pounds; in 1842 it was forty-two million pounds, and that year is the one I will take as my starting point. I have given you the years 185 1 to 1864 in France. I could only give you those thirteen years with a certainty that I was not misleading you, and I believe I have kept within the mark. I believe I might have put my case more strongly for France. In 1842, then, the agricultural income of England was forty-two million pounds; in 1876 it was fifty-two million pounds — ^that is to say, while the agricultural income of France increased forty per cent in thirteen years, the agri- cultural income of England increased twenty per cent in thirty-four years. The increase in France was three per cent per annum; the increase in England was about one half or three fifths per cent per annum. Now, gentlemen. 400 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE I wish this justice to be done to a system where peasant proprietary prevails. It is of great importance. And will you allow me, you who are Scotch agriculturists, to as- sure you that I speak to you not only with the respect which is due from a candidate to a constituency, but with the deference which is due from a man knowing very little of agricultural matters to those who know a great deal? And there is one point at which the considerations that I have been opening up, and this rapid increase of the value of the soil in France, bear upon our discussions. Let me try to explain it. I believe myself that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the distri- bution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those economic laws will allow it to remain cut up into a multi- tude of small properties like the small properties of France. As to small holdings, I am one of those who attach the utmost value to them. I say that in the Lothians — I say that in the portion of the country where almost beyond any other large holdings prevail — in some parts of which large holdings exclusively are to be found — I attach the utmost value to them. But it is not on that point I am going to dwell, for we have no time for what is unneces- sary. What I do wish very respectfully to submit to you, gentlemen, is this: When you see this vast increase of the agricultural value of France, you know at once it is perfectly certain that it has not been upon the large prop- erties of France, which, if anything, are inferior in culti- vation to the large properties of England. It has been upon those very peasant properties which some people are so ready to decry. -What do the peasant properties mean? They mean what, in France, is called the small cultivation — that is to say, cultivation of superior articles, pursued upon a small scale — cultivation of flowers, culti- vation of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every kind, and all that, in fact, which rises above the ordinary character of farming produce, and rather approaches the produce of the gardener. Gentlemen, I can not help having this belief, that, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 401 among other means of meeting the difficulties in which we may be placed, our destiny is that a great deal more attention will have to be given than heretofore by the agriculturists of England, and perhaps even by the agri- culturists of Scotland, to the production of fruits, of vegetables, of flowers, of all that variety of objects which are sure to find a market in a rich and wealthy country like this, but which have hitherto been consigned almost exclusively to garden production. You know that in Scot- land, in Aberdeenshire — and I am told also in Perthshire — a great example of this kind has been set in the culti- vation of strawberries — the cultivation of strawberries is carried on over hundreds of acres at once. I am ashamed, gentlemen, to go further into this matter, as if I was at- tempting to instruct you. I am sure you will take my hint as a respectful hint — I am sure you will take it as a friendly hint. I do not believe that the large properties of this country, generally or universally, can or will be broken up into small ones. I do not believe that the land of this country will be owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it. I believe we shall continue to have, as we have had, a class of landlords and a class of cultivators, but I most earnestly desire to see — not only to see the re- lations of those classes to one another harmonious and; sound, their interests never brought into conflict; but I desire to see both flourishing and prospering, and the soil of my country producing, as far as may be, under the influence of capital and skill, every variety of product which may give an abundant livelihood to those who live upon it. I say, therefore, gentlemen, and I say it with all respect, I hope for a good deal from the small culture, the culture in use among the small proprietors of France; but I do not look to a fundamental change in the distribution of landed property in this country as a remedy for agri- cultural distress. But I go on to another remedy which is proposed, and I do it with a great deal less of respect; nay, I now come to the region of what I have presumed to call quack reme- 26 402 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE dies. There is a quack remedy which is called reciprocity, and this quack remedy is under the special protection of quack doctors, and among the quack doctors, I am sorry to say, there appear to be some in very high station in- deed; and if I am rightly informed, no less a person than her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been moving about the country, and indicating a very con- siderable expectation that possibly by reciprocity agricul- tural distress will be relieved. Let me test, gentlemen, the efificacy of this quack remedy for your, in some places, agricultural pressure, and generally distress — the pressure that has been upon you, the struggle in which you are engaged. Pray watch its operation; pray note what is said by the advocates of reciprocity. They always say. We are the soundest and best free-traders. We recom- mend reciprocity because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade. At present America im- poses enormous duties upon our cotton goods and upon our iron goods. Put reciprocity into play, and America will become a free-trading country. Very well, gentlemen, how would that operate upon you agriculturists in particu- lar? Why, it would operate thus: If your condition is to be regretted in certain particulars, and capable of amend- ment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condition of the American agriculturist. It has been very well said, and very truly said — though it is a smart antith- esis — the American agriculturist has got to buy every- thing that he wants at prices which are fixed in Washing- ton by the legislation of America, but he has got to sell everything that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool — fixed by the free competition of the world. How would you like that, gentlemen — to have protective prices to pay for everything that you use — for your ma- nures, for your animals, for your implements, for all your farming stock, and at the same time to have to sell what you produce in the free and open market of the world? But bring reciprocity into play, and then, if reciprocity doctors are right, the Americans will remove all their pro- DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 403 tective duties, and the American farmer, instead of pro- ducing, as he does now, under the disadvantage, and the heavy disadvantage, of having to pay protective prices for everything that constitutes his farming stock, will have all his tools, and implements, and manures, and everything else purchased in the free, open market of the world at free-trade prices. So he will be able to produce his corn to compete with you even cheaper than he does now. So much for reciprocity considered as a cure for distress. I am not going to consider it now in any other point of view. But, gentlemen, there are another set of men who are bolder still, and who are not for reciprocity; who are not content with that milder form of quackery, but who rec- ommend a reversion, pure and simple, to what I may fairly call, I think, the exploded doctrine of protection. And upon this, gentlemen, I think it necessary, if you will allow me, to say to you a few words, because it is a very serious matter, and it is all the more serious because her Majesty's government — I do not scruple to say — are coquetting with this subject in a way which is not right. They are tampering with it; they are playing with it. A protective speech was made in the House of Commons, in a debate last year by Mr. Chaplin, on the part of what is called " the agricultural interest." Mr. Chaplin did not use the word protection, but what he did say was this: he said he de- manded that the malt tax should be abolished, and the revenue supplied by a tax upon foreign barley or some other foreign commodity. Well, if he has a measure of that kind in his pocket, I don't ask him to affix the word protection to it. I can do that for myself. Not a word of rebuke, gentlemen, was uttered to the doctrines of Mr. Chaplin. He was complimented upon the ability of his speech and the well-chosen terms of his motion. Some of the members of her Majesty's government — the minor members of her Majesty's government — the humbler luminaries of that great constellation — have been going about the country and telling their farming constituents that they think the time has come when a return to pro- 404 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE tection might very wisely be tried. But, gentlemen, what delusions have been practised upon the unfortunate Brit- ish farmer! When we go back for twenty years, what is now called the Tory party was never heard of as the Tory party. It was always heard of as the party of protection. As long as the chiefs of the protective party were not in ofifice, as long as they were irresponsible, they recom- mended themselves to the good-will of the farmer as pro- tectionists, and said they would set him up and put his interests on a firm foundation through protection. We brought them into ofifice in the year 1852. I gave with pleasure a vote that assisted to bring them into ofifice. I thought bringing them into ofifice was the only way of putting their professions to the test. They came into of- fice, and before they had been six months in ofifice they had thrown protection to the winds. And that is the way in which the British farmer's expectations are treated by those who claim for themselves in the special sense the desig- nation of his friends. It is exactly the same with the malt tax. Gentlemen, what is done with the malt tax? The malt tax is held by them to be a great grievance on the British farmer. When- ever a Liberal government is in ofifice, from time to time they have a great muster from all parts of the country to vote for the abolition of the malt tax. But when a Tory government comes into ofifice, the abolition of the malt tax is totally forgotten; and we have now had six years of a Tory government without a word said, as far as I can recollect — and my friend in the chair could correct me if I were wrong — ^without a motion made, or a vote taken, on the subject of the malt tax. The malt tax, great and important as it is, is small in reference to protection. Gen- tlemen, it is a very serious matter indeed if we ought to go back to protection, because how did we come out of protection to free trade? We came out of it by a strug- gle which in its crisis threatened to convulse the country, which occupied Parliaments, upon which elections turned, which took up twenty years of our legislative life, which DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 405 broke up parties. In a word, it effected a change so seri- ous that if, after the manner in which we effected that change, it be right that we should go back upon our steps, then all I can say is, that we must lose that which has ever been one of the most honourable distinctions of Brit- ish legislation in the general estimation of the world — that British legislation, if it moves slowly, always moves in one direction — that we never go back upon our steps. But are we such children that, after spending twenty years — as I may say from 1840 to i860 — ^in breaking down the huge fabric of protection, in 1879 we are seriously to set about building it up again? If that be right, gentle- men, let it be done, but it will involve on our part a most humiliating confession. In my opinion it is not right. Protection, however, let me point out, now is asked for in two forms, and I am next going to quote Lord Beacons- field for the purpose of expressing my concurrence with him. Mostly, I am bound to say, as far as my knowledge goes, protection has not been asked for by the agricul- tural interest, certainly not by the farmers of Scotland. It has been asked for by certain injudicious cliques and classes of persons connected with other industries — con- nected with some manufacturing industries. They want to have duties laid upon manufactures. But here Lord Beaconsfield said — and I cordially agree with him — that he would be no party to the institution of a system in which protection was to be given to manu- factures, and to be refused to agriculture. That one-sided protection I deem to be totally intol- erable, and I reject it even at the threshold as unworthy of a word of examination or discussion. But let us go on to two-sided protection, and see whether that is any better — that is to say, protection in the shape of duties on manufactures, and protection in the shape of duties upon corn, duties upon meat, duties upon butter and cheese and eggs, and everything that can be produced from the land. Now, gentlemen, in order to 4o6 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE see whether we can here find a remedy for our difficulties, I prefer to speculation and mere abstract argument the method of reverting to experience. Experience will give us very distinct lessons upon this matter. We have the power, gentlemen, of going back to the time when pro- tection was in full and unchecked force, and of examining the effect which it produced upon the wealth of the coun- try. How, will you say, do I mean to test that wealth? I mean to test that wealth by the exports of the country, and I will tell you why, because your prosperity depends upon the wealth of your customers — that is to say, upon their capacity to buy what you produce. And who are your customers? Your customers are the industrial popu- lation of the country, who produce what we export and send all over the world. Consequently, when exports in- crease, your customers are doing a large business, are growing wealthy, are putting money in their pockets, and are able to take that money out of their pockets in order to fill their stomachs with what you produce. When, on the contrary, exports do not increase, your customers are poor, your prices go down, as you have felt within the last few years, in the price of meat, for example, and in other things, and your condition is proportionally de- pressed. Now, gentlemen, down to the year 1842 no pro- fane hand had been laid upon the august fabric of pro- tection. For recollect that the farmers' friends always told us that it was a very august fabric, and that if you pulled it down it would involve the ruin of the country. That, you remember, was the commonplace of every Tory speech delivered from a country hustings to a farming constitu- ency. But before 1842 another agency had come into force, which gave new life in a very considerable degree to the industry of the country, and that was the agency of railways, of improved communication, which shortened distance and cheapened transit, and effected in that way an enormous economical gain and addition to the wealth of the country. Therefore, in order to see what we owe to our friend protection, I won't allow that friend to take DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 407 credit for what was done by railways in improving the wealth of the country. I will go to the time when I may say there were virtually no railways — that is, the time be- fore 1830. Now, gentlemen, here are the official facts which I shall lay before you in the simplest form, and, remember, using round numbers. I do that because, al- though round numbers can not be absolutely accurate, they are easy for the memory to take in, and they involve no material error, no falsification of the case. In the year 1800, gentlemen, the exports of British produce were thirty-nine and a half millions sterling in value. The popu- lation at that time — no, I won't speak of the exact figure of the population, because I have not got it for the three kingdoms. In the years 1826 to 1830 — that is, a^ter a medium period of eight-and-twenty years — the average of our exports for those five years, which had been thirty- nine and a half millions in 1800, was thirty-seven millions. It is fair to admit that in 1800 the currency was somewhat less sound, and therefore I am quite willing to admit that the thirty-seven millions probably meant as much in value as the thirty-nine and a half millions; but substantially, gentlemen, the trade of the country was stationary, prac- tically stationary, under protection. The condition of the people grew, if possible, rather worse than better. The wealth of the country was nearly stationary. But now I show you what protection produced; that it made no addition, it gave no onward movement to the profits of those who are your customers. But on these profits you depend; because, under all circumstances, gentlemen, this, I think, nobody will dispute — a considerable portion of what the Englishman or the Scotchman produces will, some way or other, find its way down his throat. What has been the case, gentlemen, since we cast off the superstition of protection, since we discarded the im- posture of protection? I will tell you what happened be- tween 1830, when there were no railways, and 1842, when no change, no important change, had been made as to protection, but when the railway system was in operation. 4d8 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE hardly in Scotland, but in England to a very great extent, to a very considerable extent upon the main lines of com- munication. The exports which in 1830 had been some- where about thirty-seven million pounds, between 1840 and 1842 showed an average amount of fifty million pounds. That seems due, gentlemen, to the agency of railways; and I wish you to bear in mind the increasing benefit now derived from that agency, in order that I may not claim any undue credit for freedom of trade. From 1842, gentlemen, onward, the successive stages of free trade began; in 1842, in 1845, in 1846, in 1853, and again in i860, the large measures were carried which have com- pletely reformed your customs tarifif, and reduced it from a taxation of twelve hundred articles to a taxation of, I think, less than twelve. Now, under the system of protection, the export trade of the country, the wealth and the power of the manu- facturing and producing classes to purchase your agricul- tural products, did not increase at all. In the time when railways began to be in operation, but before free trade, the exports of the country increased, as I have shown you, by thirteen million pounds in somewhere about thirteen years — that is to say, taking it roughly, at the rate of one million pounds a year. But since 1842, and down to the present time, we have had, along with railways, always increasing their benefits — we have had the successive adoption of free-trade meas- ures; and what has been the state of the export business of the country? It has risen in this degree, that that which from 1840 to 1842 averaged fifty million pounds, from 1873 to 1878 averaged two hundred and eighteen million pounds. Instead of increasing, as it had done between 1830 and 1842, when railways only were at work, at the rate of one million pounds a year — instead of remaining stagnant as it did when the country was under protection pure and simple, with no augmentation of the export trade to enlarge the means of those who buy your products, the total growth in a period of thirty-five years was no less DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 409 than one hundred and sixty-eight million pounds, or, tak- ing it roughly, a growth in the export trade of the country to the extent of between four and five million pounds a year. But, gentlemen, you know the fact. You know very well that, while restriction was in force, you did not get the prices that you have been getting for the last twen- ty years. The price of wheat has been much the same as it had been before. The price of oats is a better price than was to be had on the average of protective times. But the price, with the exception of wheat, of almost every agricultural commodity, the price of wool, the price of meat, the price of cheese, the price of everything that the soil produces, has been largely increased in a market free and open to the world; because, while the artificial ad- vantage which you got through protection, as it was sup- posed to be an advantage, was removed, you were brought into that free and open market, and the energy of free trade so enlarged the buying capacity of your customers that they were willing and able to give you, and did give you, a great deal more for your meat, your wool, and your products in general than you would ever have got under the system of protection. Gentlemen, if that be true — and it can not, I believe, be impeached or impugned — if that be true, I don't think I need further discuss the mat- ter, especially when so many other matters have to be discussed. I will therefore ask you again to cross the seas with me. I see that the time is flying onward, and, gentlemen, it is very hard upon you to be so much vexed upon the subject of policy abroad. You think generally, and I think, that your domestic afifairs are quite enough to call for all your attention. There was a saying of an ancient Greek orator, who, unfortunately, very much undervalued what we generally call the better portion of the community — namely, women — ^he made a very disrespectful observa- tion, which I am going to quote, not for the purpose of concurring with it, but for the purpose of an illustration. Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, said with re- 410 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE gard to women, their greatest merit was to be never heard of. Now, what Pericles untruly said of women, I am very much disposed to say of foreign affairs — their great merit would be to be never heard of. Unfortunately, instead of being never heard of, they are always heard of, and you hear almost of nothing else; and I can't promise you, gen- tlemen, that you will be relieved from this everlasting din, because the consequences of an unwise meddling with foreign afifairs are consequences that will for some time necessarily continue to trouble you, and that will find their way to your pockets in the shape of increased taxation. Gentlemen, with that apology I ask you again to go with me beyond the seas. And as I wish to do full jus- tice, I will tell you what I think to be the right principles of foreign policy; and then, as far as your patience and my strength will permit, I will, at any rate for a short time, illustrate those right principles by some of the departures from them that have taken place of late years. I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy. The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby produc- ing two of the great elements of national power — namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and con- tentment, which are moral elements — and to reserve the strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this: that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world — and especially, were it but for shame, when we recollect the sacred name we bear as Christians, especially to the Christian nations of the world — the blessings of peace. That is my second principle. My third principle is this: Even, gentlemen, when you DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 411 do a good thing, you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the beneficial effect; and if we were to make ourselves the apostles of peace in the sense of con- veying to the minds of other nations that we thought our- selves more entitled to an opinion on that subject than they are, or to deny their rights — well, very likely we should destroy the whole value of our doctrines. In my opinion the third sound principle is this: to strive to cul- tivate and maintain, ay, to the very uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe; to keep the powers of Eu- rope in union together. And why? Because by keeping all in union together you neutralize, and fetter, and bind up the selfish aims of each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They have selfish aims, as, un- fortunately, we in late years have too sadly shown that we too have had selfish aims; but their common action is fatal to selfish aims. Common action means common ob- jects; and the only objects for which you can unite to- gether the powers of Europe are objects connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen, is my third principle of foreign policy. My fourth principle is: that you should avoid needless and entangling engagements. You may boast about them, you may brag about them, you may say you are procur- ing consideration for the country. You may say that an Englishman can now hold up his head among the nations. You may say that he is now not in the hands of a Liberal ministry, who thought of nothing but pounds, shillings, and pence. But what does all this come to, gentlemen? It comes to this, that you are increasing your engagements without increasing your strength; and if you increase en- gagements without increasing strength, you diminish strength, you abolish strength; you really reduce the em- pire and do not increase it. You render it less capable of performing its duties; you render it an inheritance less precious to hand on to future generations. My fifth principle is this, gentlemen: to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathize with 412 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE one nation more than another. Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more than an- other. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but espe- cially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a misjudging friend of your country, and in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it. I have now given you, gentlemen, five principles of foreign policy. Let me give you a sixth, and then I have done. And that sixth is: that in my opinion foreign policy, subject to all the limitations that I have described, the foreign policy of England should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon vision- ary ideas, but upon the long experience of many genera- tions within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations for the development of individual character, and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large. In the foreign policy of this country the name of Canning ever will be honoured. The name of Russell ever will be honoured. The name of Palmerston ever will be honoured by those who recollect the erection of the kingdom of Belgium, and the union of the disjoined provinces of Italy. It is that sympathy, not a sympathy with disorder, but, on the contrary, founded upon the deepest and most profound love of order — it is that sym- pathy which in my opinion ought to be the very atmos- DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 413 phere in which a foreign secretary of England ought to Hve and to move. Gentlemen, it is impossible for me to do more to-day than to attempt very slight illustrations of those principles. But in uttering those principles I have put myself in a position in which no one is entitled to tell me-r-you will hear me out in what I say — that I simply object to the acts of others, and lay down no rules of action myself. I am not only prepared to show what are the rules of action which in my judgment are the right rules, but I am pre- pared to apply them, nor will I shrink from their applica- tion. I will take, gentlemen, the name which, most of all others, is associated with suspicion, and with alarm, and with hatred in the minds of many Englishmen. I will take the name of Russia, and at once I will tell you what I think about Russia, and how I am prepared as a mem- ber of Parliament to proceed in anything that respects Russia. You have heard me, gentlemen, denounced some- times, I believe, as a Russian spy, sometimes as a Russian agent, sometimes as perhaps a Russian fool, which is not so bad, but still not very desirable. But, gentlemen, when you come to evidence, the worst thing that I have ever seen quoted out of any speech or writing of mine about Russia is that I did one day say, or I believe I wrote, these terrible words: I recommended Englishmen to imitate Russia in her good deeds. Was not that a terrible proposi- tion? I can not recede from it. I think we ought to imi- tate Russia in her good deeds, and if the good deeds of few, I am sorry for it, but I am not the less disposed on that account to imitate them when they come. I will now tell you what I think just about Russia. I make it one of my charges against the foreign policy of her Majesty's government that, while they have com- pletely estranged from this country — ^let us not conceal the fact — the feelings of a nation of eighty millions, for that is the number of the subjects of the Russian Empire — while they have contrived completely to estrange the feelings of that nation, they have aggrandized the power of Rus- 414 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE sia. They have aggrandized the power of Russia in two ways, which I will state with perfect distinctness. They have augmented her territory. Before the European powers met at Berlin, Lord Salisbury met with Count Schouvaloff, and Lord Salisbury agreed that, unless he could convince Russia by his arguments in the open Con- gress of Berlin, he would support the restoration to the despotic power of Russia of that country north of the Danube which at the moment constituted a portion of the free state of Roumania. Why, gentlemen, what had been done by the Liberal government, which, forsooth, at- tended to nothing but pounds, shillings, and pence? The Liberal government had driven Russia back from the Dan- ube. Russia, which was a Danubian power before the Crimean War, lost this position on the Danube by the Crimean War; and the Tory government, which has been incensing and inflaming you against Russia, yet neverthe- less, by binding itself beforehand to support, when the judgment was taken, the restoration of that country to Russia, has aggrandized the power of Russia. It further aggrandized the power of Russia in Armenia; but I would not dwell upon that matter if it were not for a very strange circumstance. You know that an Armenian province was given to Russia after the war, but about that I own to you I have very much less feeling of objection. I have objected from the first, vehemently, and in every form, to the granting of territory on the Danube to Rus- sia, and carrying back the population of a certain country from a free state to a despotic state; but with regard to the transfer of a certain portion of the Armenian people from the government of Turkey to the government of Russia. I must own that I contemplate that transfer with much greater equanimity. I have no fear myself of the territorial extensions of Russia in Asia, no fear of them whatever. I think the fears are no better than old women's fears. And I don't wish to encourage her aggressive tend- encies in Asia, or anywhere else. But I admit it may be, and probably is, the case that there is some benefit attend- DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 415 ing upon the transfer of a portion of Armenia from Turkey to Russia. But here is a very strange fact. You know that that portion of Armenia includes the port of Batoum. Lord Salisbury has lately stated to the country that, by the Treaty of Berlin, the port of Batoum is to be only a com- mercial port. If the Treaty of Berlin stated that it was to be only a commercial port, which, of course, could not be made an arsenal, that fact would be very important. But happily, gentlemen, although treaties are concealed from us nowadays as long and as often as is possible, the Treaty of Berlin is an open instrument. We can consult it for ourselves; and when we consult the Treaty of Berlin, we find it states that Batoum shall be essentially a com- mercial port, but not that it shall be only a commercial port. Why, gentlemen, Leith is essentially a commercial port, but there is nothing to prevent the people of this country, if in their wisdom or their folly they should think fit, from constituting Leith as a great naval arsenal or fortification; and there is nothing to prevent the Emperor of Russia, while leaving to Batoum a character that shall be essentially commercial, from joining with that another character that is not in the slightest degree excluded by the treaty, and making it as much as he pleases a port of military defence. Therefore I challenge the assertion of Lord Salisbury; and as Lord Salisbury is fond of writing letters to the " Times " to bring the Duke of Argyll to book, he perhaps will be kind enough to write another letter to the " Times," and tell in what clause of the Treaty of Berlin he finds it written that the port of Batoum shall be only a commercial port. For the present, I simply leave it on record that he has misrepresented the Treaty of Berlin. With respect to Russia, I take two views of the position of Russia. The position of Russia in Central Asia I be- lieve to be one that has, in the main, been forced upon her against her will. She has been compelled — and this is the impartial opinion of the world — she has been com- 4l6 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE pelled to extend her frontier southward in Central Asia by causes in some degree analogous to, but certainly more stringent and imperative than, the causes which have com- monly led us to extend, in a far more important manner, our frontier in India; and I think it, gentlemen, much to the credit of the late government, much to the honour of Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, that, when we were in office, we made a covenant with Russia, in which Rus- sia bound herself to exercise no influence or interference whatever in Afghanistan, we, on the other hand, making known our desire that Afghanistan should continue free and independent. Both the powers acted with uniform strictness and fidelity upon this engagement until the day when we were removed from office. But Russia, gentle- men, has another position — her position in respect to Tur- key; and here it is that I have complained of the govern- ment for aggrandizing the power of Russia; it is on this point that I most complain. The policy of her Majesty's government was a policy of repelling and repudiating the Slavonic populations of Turkey-in-Europe, and of declining to make England the advocate for their interests. Nay, more, she became in their view the advocate of the interests opposed to theirs. Indeed, she was rather the decided advocate of Turkey; and now Turkey is full of loud complaints — and com- plaints, I must say, not unjust — that we allured her on to her ruin; that we gave the Turks a right to believe that we should support them ; that our ambassadors, Sir Henry Elliot and Sir Austin Layard, both of them said we had most vital interests in maintaining Turkey as it was, and consequently the Turks thought if we had vital interests, we should certainly defend them; and they were thereby lured on into that ruinous, cruel, and destructive war with Russia. But by our conduct to the Slavonic populations we alienated those populations from us. We made our name odious among them. They had every disposition to sympathize with us, every disposition to confide in us. They are, as a people, desirous of freedom, desirous of DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 417 self-government, with no aggressive views, but hating the idea of being absorbed in a huge despotic empire Uke Rus- sia. But when they found that we, and the other powers of Europe under our unfortunate guidance, declined to become in any manner their champions in defence of the rights of life, of property, and of female honour — when they found that there was no call which could find its way to the heart of England through its government, or to the hearts of other powers, and that Russia alone was dis- posed to fight for them, why naturally they said, Russia is our friend. We have done everything, gentlemen, in our power to drive these populations into the arms of Russia. If Russia has aggressive dispositions in the direc- tion of Turkey — and I think it probable that she may have them — it is we who have laid the ground upon which Russia may make her march to the south — ^we who have taught the Bulgarians, the Servians, the Roumanians, the Montenegrins, that there is one power in Europe, and only one, which is ready to support in act and by the sword her professions of sympathy with the oppressed popula- tions of Turkey. That power is Russia, and how can you blame these people if, in such circumstances, they are dis- posed to say, Russia is our friend? But why did we make them say it? Simply because of the policy of the govern- ment, not because of the wishes of the people of this coun- try. Gentlemen, this is the most dangerous form of ag- grandizing Russia. If Russia is aggressive anywhere, if Russia is formidable anywhere, it is by movements toward the south, it is by schemes for acquiring command of the Straits or of Constantinople; and there is no way by which you can possibly so much assist her in giving reality to these designs as by inducing and disposing the popula- tions of these provinces, who are now in virtual possession of them, to look upon Russia as their champion and their friend, to look upon England as their disguised, perhaps, but yet real and effective enemy. Why, now, gentlemen, I have said that I think it not unreasonable either to believe, or at any rate to admit it 27 41 8 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE to be possible, that Russia has aggressive designs in the east of Europe. I do not mean immediate aggressive designs. I do not believe that the Emperor of Russia is a man of aggressive schemes or policy. It is that, looking to that question in the long run, looking at what has hap- pened, and what may happen in ten or twenty years, in one generation, in two generations, it is highly probable that in some circumstances Russia may develop aggressive tendencies toward the south. Perhaps you will say I am here guilty of the same in- justice to Russia that I have been deprecating, because I say that we ought not to adopt the method of condemn- ing anybody without cause, and setting up exceptional principles in proscription of a particular nation. Gentle- men, I will explain to you in a moment the principle upon which I act, and the grounds upon which I form my judg- ment. They are simply these grounds: I look at the posi- tion of Russia, the geographical position of Russia rela- tively to Turkey. I look at the comparative strength of the two empires; I look at the importance of the Darda- nelles and the Bosporus as an exit and a channel for the military and commercial marine of Russia to the Mediter- ranean; and what I say to myself is this: If the United Kingdom were in the same position relatively to Turkey which Russia holds upon the map of the globe, I feel quite sure that we should be very apt indeed both to entertain and to execute aggressive designs upon Turkey. Gentle- men, I will go further, and will frankly own to you that I believe if we, instead of happily inhabiting this island, had been in the possession of the Russian territory, and in the circumstances of the Russian people, we should most likely have eaten up Turkey long ago. And consequently, in saying that Russia ought to be vigilantly watched in that quarter, I am only applying to her the rule which in parallel circumstances I feel convinced ought to be ap- plied, and would be justly applied, to judgments upon our own country. Gentlemen, there is only one other point on which I DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 419 must still say a few words to you, although there are a great many upon which I have a great many words yet to say somewhere or other. Of all the principles, gentlemen, of foreign policy which I have enumerated, that to which I attach the greatest value is the principle of the equality of nations; because, without recognising that principle, there is no such thing as public right, and without public international right there is no instrument available for settling the transac- tions of mankind except material force. Consequently the principle of equality among nations lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Christian civilization, and when that principle is compromised or abandoned, with it must depart our hopes of tranquility and of progress for mankind. I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that I feel it my absolute duty to make this charge against the foreign policy under which we have lived for the last two years, since the resig- nation of Lord Derby. It has been a foreign policy, in my opinion, wholly, or to a perilous extent, unregardful of public right, and it has been founded upon the basis of a false, I think an arrogant and a dangerous, assumption, although I do not question its being made conscientiously and for what was believed the advantage of the country — an untrue, arrogant, and dangerous assumption that we are entitled to assume for ourselves some dignity, which we should also be entitled to withhold from others, and to claim on our own part authority to do things which we would not permit to be done by others. For example, when Russia was going to the Congress at Berlin, we said: " Your Treaty of San Stefano is of no value. It is an act between you and Turkey; but the concerns of Turkey by the Treaty of Paris are the concerns of Europe at large. We insist upon it that the whole of your Treaty of San Stefano shall be submitted to the Congress at Berlin, that they may judge how far to open it in each and every one of its points, because the concerns of Turkey are the com- mon concerns of the powers of Europe acting in concert." 420 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE Having asserted that principle to the world, what did we do? These two things, gentlemen: secretly, without the knowledge of Parliament, without even the forms of official procedure. Lord Salisbury met Count Schouvalofif in London, and agreed with him upon the terms on which the two powers together should be bound in hon- our to one another to act upon all the most important points when they came before the Congress at Berlin. Having alleged against Russia that she should not be al- lowed to settle Turkish affairs with Turkey, because they were but two powers, and these affairs were the common affairs of Europe, and of European interest, we then got Count Schouvaloff into a private room, and on the part of England and Russia, they being but two powers, we settled a large number of the most important of these affairs in utter contempt and derogation of the very prin- ciple for which the government had been contending for months before, for which they had asked Parliament to grant a sum of six million pounds, for which they had spent that six million pounds in needless and mischievous arma- ments. That which we would not allow Russia to do with Turkey, because we pleaded the rights of Europe, we ourselves did with Russia, in contempt of the rights of Europe. Nor was that all, gentlemen. That act was done, I think, on one of the last days of May, in the year 1878, and the document was published, made known to the world, made known to the Congress at Berlin, to its infinite astonishment, unless I am very greatly misin- formed. But that was not all. Nearly at the same time we per- formed the same operation in another quarter. We ob- jected to a treaty between Russia and Turkey as having no authority, though that treaty was made in the light of day — namely, to the Treaty of San Stefano — and what did we do? We went not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the night — not in the knowledge and cog- nizance of other powers, all of whom would have had the faculty and means of watching all along, and of preparing DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 421 and taking their own objections and shaping . their own policy — not in the hght of day, but in the darkness of the night, we sent the ambassador of England in Con- stantinople to the minister of Turkey, and there he framed, even while the Congress of Berlin was sitting to deter- mine these matters of common interest, he. framed that which is too famous, shall I say, or rather too notorious, as the Anglo-Turkish Convention. Gentlemen, it is said, and said truly, that truth beats fiction; that what happens in fact from time to time is of a character so daring, so strange, that if the novelist were to imagine it and put it upon his pages, the whole world would reject it from its improbability. And that is the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. For who would have believed it possible that we should assert before the world the principle that Europe only could deal with the affairs of the Turkish Empire, and should ask Parliament for six millions to support us in asserting that principle, should send ministers to Berlin who declared that unless that principle was acted upon they would go to war with the material that Parliament had placed in their hands, and should at the same time be concluding a separate agreement with Turkey, under which those matters of European jurisdiction were coolly transferred to English jurisdiction; and the whole matter was sealed with the worthless bribe of the possession and administration of the island of Cyprus! I said, gentlemen, the worthless bribe of the island of Cyprus, and that is the truth. It is worthless for our purposes — not worthless in itself; an island of resources, an island of natural capabilities, pro- vided they are allowed to develop themselves in the course of circumstances, without violent and unprincipled meth- ods of action. But Cyprus was not thought to be worth- less by those who accepted it as a bribe. On the contrary, you were told that it was to secure the road to India; you were told that it was to be the site of an arsenal very cheaply made, and more valuable than Malta; you were told that it was to revive trade. And a multitude of com- 422 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE panics were formed, and sent agents and capital to Cyprus, and some of them, I fear, grievously burned their fingers there. I am not going to dwell upon that now. What I have in view is not the particular merits of Cyprus, but the illustration that I have given you in the case of the agreement of Lord Salisbury with Count Schouvaloff, and in the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, of the man- ner in which we have asserted for ourselves a principle that we had denied to others — namely, the principle of overriding the European authority of the Treaty of Paris, and taking the matters which that treaty gave to Europe into our own separate jurisdiction. Now, gentlemen, I am sorry to find that that which I call the Pharisaical assertion of our own superiority has found its way alike into the practice and seemingly into the theories of the government. I am not going to assert anything which is not known, but the prime minister has said that there is one day in the year — namely, the 9th of November, Lord Mayor's Day — on which the language of sense and truth is to be heard amid the surrounding din of idle rumours generated and fledged in the brains of irresponsible scribes. I do not agree, gentlemen, in that panegyric upon the 9th of November. I am much more apt to compare the 9th of November — certainly a well- known day in the year — but as to some of the speeches that have lately been made upon it, I am very much dis- posed to compare it with another day in the year, well known to British tradition, and that other day in the year is the 1st of April. But, gentlemen, on that day the prime minister, speaking out — I do not question for a moment his own sincere opinion — made what I think one of the most unhappy and ominous allusions ever made by a min- ister of this country. He quoted certain words, easily rendered as " Empire and Liberty " — ^words (he said) of a Roman statesman, words descriptive of the state of Rome — and he quoted them as words which were capable of legitimate application to the position and circumstances of England. I join issue with the prime minister upon DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 423 that subject, and I affirm that nothing can be more fun- damentally unsound, more practically ruinous, than the establishment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy. What, gentlemen, was Rome? Rome was indeed an imperial state, you may tell me — I know not, I can not read the counsels of Providence — a state having a mission to subdue the world, but a state whose very basis it was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the inde- pendent existence of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been partially and not ill de- scribed in three lines of a translation from Virgil by our great poet Dryden, which runs as follows: " O Rome ! 'tis thine alone with awful sway To rule mankind, and make the world obey, Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way." We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word " empire " was qualified with the word " lib- erty." But what did the two words " liberty " and " em- pire " mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply this: " Liberty for ourselves, empire over the rest of mankind." I do not think, gentlemen, that this ministry, or any other ministry, is going to place us in the position of Rome. What I object to is the revival of the idea. I care not how feebly, I care not even how, from a philosophic or historical point of view, how ridiculous the attempt at this revival may be. I say it indicates an intention — I say it indicates a frame of mind, and the frame of mind, unfor- tunately, I find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you some illustrations — the policy of denying to others the rights that we claim ourselves. No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work to do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of nations, equal, independent, each of them built up under that legitimate defence which public law afifords to every nation, living within its own borders, and seeking to perform its own affairs; but if one thing more than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been 424 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE the appearance upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in the times of the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part of Louis XIV, King of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen, freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its centre, seemed to aim at a universal monarchy. It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the charge launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon, that under his dominion France was not content even with her extended limits, but Germany, and Italy, and Spain, apparently without any limit to this pestilent and pernicious process, were to be brought under the dominion or influence of France, and national equality was to be trampled under foot, and national rights denied. For that reason England in the struggle almost exhausted herself, greatly impoverished her people, brought upon herself, and Scotland too, the consequences of a debt that nearly crushed their energies, and poured forth their best blood without limit, in order to resist and put down these intolerable pretensions. Gentlemen, it is but in a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison lies — ^that the poison and the mischief lie — ^in the principle and not the scale. It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been com- promised by the action of the ministry, and which I call upon you, and upon any who choose to hear my views, to vindicate when the day of our election comes ; I mean the sound and the sacred principle that Christendom is formed of a band of nations who are united to one another in the bonds of right; that they are without distinction of great and small; there is an absolute equality between them — the same sacredness defends the narrow limits of Belgium as attaches to the extended frontiers of Russia, or Ger- many, or France. I hold that he who by act or word brings DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 425 that principle into peril or disparagement, however honest his intentions may be, places himself in the position of one inflicting — I will not say intending to inflict — I ascribe nothing of the sort — ^but inflicting injury upon his own country, and endangering the peace and all the most fun- damental interests of Christian society. Note ' This speech was the third of the series delivered by Mr. Gladstone in the course of his Mid- Lothian canvass, extending from November 24th to December gth. These assaults on the policy of Lord Beaconsfield had not a little to do with the triumph of the Liberals and the return of Glad- stone to power in the following spring. JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE- JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD (Memorial address delivered in the Hall of Representatives, Washington, D. C, February 27, 1882, before the Departments of the Govern- ment of the United States) M" ^ R, PRESIDENT: For the second time in this gen- eration the great departments of the Government of the United States are assembled in the Hall of Representatives to do honour to the memory of a mur- dered President. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which the passions of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical termination of his great life added but another to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked so many lintels with the blood of the first-born. Garfield was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had been banished from the land. " Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate. Let him draw rather a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms of crime as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character." From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against Charles I about twenty thousand emi- grants came from Old England to New England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical independence rather than for worldly honour and profit, 426 ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 427 the emigration naturally ceased when the contest for re- ligious liberty began in earnest at home. The man who struck his most effective blow for freedom of conscience by sailing for the colonies in 1620 would have been ac- counted a deserter to leave after 1640. The opportunity had then come on the soil of England for that great con- test which established the authority of Parliament, gave religious freedom to the people, sent Charles to the block, and committed to the hands of Oliver Cromwell the su- preme executive authority of England. The English emi- gration was never renewed, and from these twenty thou- sand men, and from a small emigration from Scotland, from Ireland, and from France, are descended the vast numbers who have New England blood in their veins. In 1685 the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XIV scattered to other countries four hundred thousand Protestants, who were among the most intelligent and en- terprising of French subjects — ^merchants of capital, skilled manufacturers, and handicraftsmen, superior at the time to all others in Europe. A considerable number of these Huguenot French came to America; a few landed in New England and became honourably prominent in its history. Their names have in large part become anglicized, or have disappeared, but their blood is traceable in many of the most reputable families, and their fame is perpetuated in honourable memorials and useful institutions. From these two sources, the English Puritan. and the French Huguenot, came the late President — his father, Abram Garfield, being descended from the one, and his mother, Eliza Ballou, from the other. It was good stock on both sides — none better, none braver, none truer. There was in it an inheritance of cour- age, of manliness, of imperishable love of liberty, of un- dying adherence to principle. Garfield was proud of his blood; and, with as much satisfaction as if he were a Brit- ish nobleman reading his stately ancestral record in Burke's " Peerage," he spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stu- 428 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE arts, and seventh in descent from the brave French Protes- tants who refused to submit to tyranny even from the Grand Monarque. General Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits, and, during his only visit to England, he busied himself in searching out every trace of his forefathers in parish reg- istries and on ancient army rolls. Sitting with a friend in the gallery of the House of Commons one night, after a long day's labour in this field of research, he said, with evident elation, that in every war in which for three cen- turies patriots of English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, his fam- ily had been represented. They were at Marston Moor, at Naseby, and at Preston; they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Monmouth; and in his own person had battled for the same great cause in the war which preserved the union of the States. His father dying before he was two years old, Gar- field's early life was one of privation, but its poverty has been made indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thou- sands of readers have imagined him as the ragged, starv- ing child, whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid sections of our large cities. General Garfield's in- fancy and youth had none of this destitution, none of these pitiful features appealing to the tender heart and to the open hand of charity. He was a poor boy in the same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy; in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy; in which Daniel Webster was a poor boy; in the sense in which a large majority of the eminent men of America in all generations have been poor boys. Before a great multitude, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony: " It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that when the smoke rose first from its rude chim- ney and curled over the frozen hills there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE. Steel engraving by Henry B. Hall, Jr. ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 429 settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hardships endured by the genera- tions which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affec- tions, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode." With the requisite change of scene the same words would aptly portray the early days of Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where all are engaged in a common struggle and where a common sympathy and hearty co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty, different in kind, different in influence and effect, from that conscious and humiliating indigence which is every day forced to contrast itself with neighbouring wealth on which it feels a sense of grinding dependence. The poverty of the frontier is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, and has the boundless possibili- ties of the future always opening before it. No man ever grew up in the agricultural regions of the West, where a house-raising, or even a corn-husking, is matter of com- mon interest and helpfulness, with any other feeling than that of broad-minded, generous independence. This hon- ourable independence marked the youth of Garfield, as it marks the youth of millions of the best blood and brain now training for the future citizenship and future govern- ment of the republic. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title of freeholder, which has been the patent and pass- port of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon race ever since Hengest and Horsa landed on the shores of England. His adventure on the canal — an alternative between that and the deck of a Lake Erie schooner — was a farmer boy's device for earning money, just as the New England lad begins a possibly great career by sailing before the mast on a coasting vessel, or on a merchantman bound to the farther India or to the China seas. No manly man feels anything of shame in looking back to early struggles with adverse circumstances, and 430 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE no man feels a worthier pride than when he has conquered the obstacles to his progress. But no one of noble mould desires to be looked upon as having occupied a menial position, as having been repressed by a feeling of inferior- ity, or as having sufifered the evils of poverty until relief was found at the hand of charity. General Garfield's youth presented no hardships which family love and family en- ergy did not overcome, subjected him to no privations which he did not cheerfully accept, and left no memories save those which were recalled with delight, and trans- mitted with profit and with pride. Garfield's early opportunities for securing an educa- tion were extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to de- velop in him an intense desire to learn. He could read at three years of age, and each winter he had the advan- tage of the district school. He read all the books to be found within the circle of his acquaintance; some of them he got by heart. While yet in childhood he was a con- stant student of the Bible, and became familiar with its literature. The dignity and earnestness of his speech in his maturer life gave evidence of this early training. At eighteen years of age he was able to teach school, and thenceforward his ambition was to obtain a college educa- tion. To this end he bent all his efforts, working in the harvest field, at the carpenter's bench, and, in the winter season, teaching the common schools of the neighbour- hood. While thus laboriously occupied he found time to prosecute his studies, and was so successful that at twenty- two years of age he was able to enter the junior class at Williams College, then under the presidency of the ven- erable and honoured Mark Hopkins, who, in the fulness of his powers, survives the eminent pupil to whom he was of inestimable service. The history of Garfield's life to this period presents no novel features. He had undoubtedly shown persever- ance, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and ambition — qualities which, be it said for the honour of our country, are every- where to be found among the young men of America. ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 431 But from his graduation at Williams onward, to the hour of his tragic death, Garfield's career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly working through his educational period, receiving his diploma when twenty-four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring into conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he was successively president of a college. State senator of Ohio, major general of the army of the United States, and representative elect to the National Congress. A combination of honours so varied, so elevated, within a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history of the country. Garfield's army life was begun with no other military knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from books in the few months preceding his march to the field. Step- ping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order he received when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume command of a brigade, and to operate as an independent force in eastern Kentucky. His immediate duty was to check the advance of Humphrey Marshall, who was march- ing down the Big Sandy with the intention of occupying, in connection with other Confederate forces, the entire territory of Kentucky, and of precipitating the State into secession. This was at the close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever, has a young college professor been thrown into a more embarrassing and discouraging position. He knew just enough of military science, as he expressed it him- self, to measure the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a strange country, among a hostile population, to confront a largely superior force under the command of a distinguished graduate of West Point, who had seen active and important service in two preceding wars. The result of the campaign is matter of history. The skill, the endurance, the extraordinary energy shown by Garfield, the courage he imparted to his men, raw and untried as himself, the measures he adopted to increase his force and to create in the enemy's mind exaggerated esti- 432 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE mates of his numbers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of Marshall, the capture of his camp, the dispersion of his force, and the emancipation of an important territory from the control of the rebellion. Coming at the close of a long series of disasters to the Union arms, Garfield's victory- had an unusual and extraneous importance, and in the popular judgment elevated the young commander to the rank of a military hero. With less than two thousand men in his entire command, with a mobilized force of only eleven hundred, without cannon, he had met an army of five thousand and defeated them — driving Marshall's forces successively from two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with abundant artillery. Major-General Buell, commanding the Department of the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of the regular army, published an order of thanks and congratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy campaign, which would have turned the head of a less cool and sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his services had called into action the high- est qualities of a soldier, and President Lincoln supple- mented these words of praise by the more substantial re- ward of a brigadier general's commission, to bear date from the day of his decisive victory over Marshall. The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sus- tained its brilliant beginning. With his new commission he was assigned to the command of a brigade in the Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and decisive day's fight on the bloody field of Shiloh. The remainder of the year 1862 was not especially eventful to Garfield, as it was not to the armies with which he was serving. His prac- tical sense was called into exercise in completing the task, assigned him by General Buell, of reconstructing bridges and re-establishing lines of railway communication for the army. His occupation in this useful but not brilliant field was varied by service on courts-martial of importance, in which department of duty he won a valuable reputation, attracting the notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent judge advocate general of the army. This ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 433 of itself was warrant to honourable fame; for among the great men who in those trying days gave themselves with entire devotion to the service of their country, one who brought to that service the ripest learning, the most fervid eloquence, the most varied attainments, who laboured with modesty and shunned applause, who in the day of triumph sat reserved and silent and grateful — as Francis Deak in the hour of Hungary's deliverance — ^was Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, who in his honourable retirement enjoys the respect and veneration of all who love the union of the States. Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly im- portant and responsible post of chief of stafif to General Rosecrans, then at the head of the Army of the Cumber- land. Perhaps in a great military campaign no subordi- nate officer requires sounder judgment and quicker knowl- edge of men than the chief of staff to the commanding general. An indiscreet man in such a position can sow more discord, breed more jealousy, and disseminate more strife than any other officer in the entire organization. When General Garfield assumed his new duties he found various troubles already well developed and seriously af- fecting the value and efficiency of the Army of the Cum- berland. The energy, the impartiality, and the tact with which he sought to allay these dissensions, and to dis- charge the duties of his new and trying position, will al- ways remain one of the most striking proofs of his great versatility. His military duties closed on the memorable field of Chickamauga, a field which, however disastrous to the Union arms, gave to him the occasion of winning imperishable laurels. The very rare distinction was ac- corded him of a great promotion for bravery on a field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him a major general in the army of the United States for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chickamauga. The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized under the command of General Thomas, who promptly offered Garfield one of its divisions. He was extremely desirous 28 434 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE to accept the position, but was embarrassed by the fact that he had, a year before, been elected to Congress, and the time when he must take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to remain in the mihtary service, and had within his own breast the largest confidence of success in the wider field which his new rank opened to him. Bal- ancing the arguments on the one side and the other, anx- ious to determine what was for the best, desirous above all things to do his patriotic duty, he was decisively influ- enced by the advice of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, both of whom assured him that he could at that time be of especial value in the House of Representatives. He resigned his commission of major general on the fifth day of December, 1863, and took his seat in the House of Representatives on the 7th. He had served two years and four months in the army, and had just completed his thirty-second year. The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled in history to the designation of the War Congress. It was elected while the war was flagrant, and every member was chosen upon the issues involved in the continuance of the struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had, in- deed, legislated to a large extent on war measures, but it was chosen before any one believed that secession of the States would be actually attempted. The magnitude of the work which fell upon its successor was unprecedented, both in respect to the vast sums of money raised for the support of the army and navy, and of the new and extraor- dinary powers of legislation which it was forced to exer- cise. Only twenty-four States were represented, and one hundred and eighty-two members were upon its roll. Among these were many distinguished party leaders on both sides, veterans in the public service, with established reputations for ability, and with that skill which comes only from parliamentary experience. Into this assem- blage of men Garfield entered without special preparation, and, it might almost be said, unexpectedly. The question of taking command of a division of troops under General ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 435 Thomas or taking his seat in Congress was kept open till the last moment, so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military commission and his appearance in the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a major general of the United States army on Saturday, and on Monday, in civilian's dress, he answered to the roll-call as a representative in Congress from the State of Ohio. He was especially fortunate in the constituency which elected him. Descended almost entirely from New Eng- land stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were intensely radical on all questions relating to human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to withdraw it, they were at once the most help- ful and most exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in whom they have once confided is illustrated by the unparalleled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield represented the district for fifty-four years. There is no test of a man's ability in any department of public life more severe than service in the House of Representatives; there is no place where so little defer- ence is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to emi- nence won outside; no place where so little considera- tion is shown for the feelings or the failures of beginners. What a man gains in the House he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if he loses and falls back he must expect no mercy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognised rule, and where no pretence can deceive and no glamour can mislead. The real man is discovered, his weight is impartially weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed. With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the youngest member in the House when he entered, and was but seven years from his college graduation. But he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recog- 436 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE nised and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one who belonged there. The House was crowded with strong men of both parties; nine- teen of them have since been transferred to the Senate, and many of them have served with distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of their respective States, and on for- eign missions of great consequence; but among them all none grew so rapidly, none so firmly, as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan of his parliamentary hero, Garfield suc- ceeded " because all the world in concert could not have kept him in the background, and because when once in the front he played his part with a prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that were but the outward symptoms of the immense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to draw." Indeed, the apparently reserved force which Garfield possessed was one of his great character- istics. He never did so well but that it seemed he could easily have done better. He never expended so much strength but that he appeared to be holding additional power at call. This is one of the happiest and rarest dis- tinctions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much in persuading an assembly as the eloquent and elab- orate argument. The great measure of Garfield's fame was filled by his service in the House of Representatives. His military life, illustrated by honourable performance, and rich in prom- ise, was, as he himself felt, prematurely terminated, and necessarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he might have done in a field where the great prizes are so few can not be profitable. It is sufficient to say that as a soldier he did his duty bravely; he did it intelligently; he won an enviable fame, and he retired from the service without blot or breath against him. As a lawyer, though ad- mirably equipped for the profession, he can scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he made at the bar were distinguished by the same high order of talent which he exhibited on every field where he was put to the test; and, if a man may be accepted as a com- ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 437 petent judge of his own capacities and adaptations, the law was the profession to which Garfield should have de- voted himself. But fate ordained otherwise, and his repu- tation in history will rest largely upon his service in the House of Representatives. That service was exceptionally long. He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honour enjoyed probably by not twenty other representatives of the more than five thousand who have been elected from the organization of the Government to this hour. As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined, where the position had been chosen and the ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he was associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic study to public questions, and he came to every discus- sion in which he took part with elaborate and complete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. Those who imagine that talent or genius can supply the place or achieve the results of labour will find no encour- agement in Garfield's life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid, and skilful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting from a book all that was of value in it by a reading apparently so quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere glance at the table of contents. He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advantage, stooped to no unworthy meth- ods, avoided personal allusions, rarely appealed to preju- dice, did not seek to inflame passion. He had a quicker eye for the strong point pf his adversary than for his weak point, and on his own side he so marshalled his weighty ar- guments as to make his hearers forget any possible lack in the complete strength of his position. He had a habit of stating his opponent's side with such amplitude of fair- ness and such liberality of concession that his followers often complained that he was giving his case away. But never in his prolonged participation in the proceedings 438 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE of the House did he give his case away, or fail in the judg- ment of competent and impartial Usteners to gain the mastery. These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a great debater, did not, however, make him a great parliamentary leader. A parliamentary leader, as that term is under- stood wherever free representative government exists, is necessarily and very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent American defined the instinctive warmth of patri- otism when he offered the toast, " Our country, always right; but right or wrong, our country." The parlia- mentary leader who has a body of followers that will do and dare and die for the cause is one who believes his party always right, but, right or wrong, is for his party. No more important or exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection of the field and the time for contest. He must know not merely how to strike, but where to strike and when to strike. He often skilfully avoids the strength of his opponent's position and scatfers confusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed point when really the righteousness of the cause and the strength of logical intrenchment are against him. He conquers often both against the right and the heavy battalions; as when young Charles Fox, in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Commons against justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own convictions, if, indeed, at that period Fox had convictions, and, in the interest of a corrupt admin- istration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign, drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Middlesex had chosen him, and installed Luttrell, in defiance not merely of law but of public decency. For an achievement of that kind Garfield was disqualified — disqualified by the texture of his mind, by the honesty of his heart, by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspiration of his nature. The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed in this country are Mr. Clay, Mr. Doug- ' las, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 439 consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense per- sonality, dilifering widely each from the others, and yet with a signal trait in common — ^the power to command. In the give-and-take of daily discussion, in the art of con- trolling and consolidating reluctant and refractory follow- ers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our congressional history. But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in the parliamentary annals of the world a parallel to Mr. Clay in 1841, when, at sixty-four years of age, he took the con- trol of the Whig party from the President who had re- ceived their sufifrages, against the power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the Sen- ate, against the herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude of power, he hurled against John Tyler with deepest scorn the mass of that conquering col- umn which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to seek shelter behind the lines of its political foes. Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful when, in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts and even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant Con- gress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens in his contests from 1865 to 1868 ac- tually advanced his parliamentary leadership until Con- gress tied the hands of the President and governed the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged by the Executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the Cabinet and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not command the support of one third in either House against the parliamentary uprising pf which 440 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the un- questioned leader. From these three great men Garfield differed radically, differed in the quality of his mind, in temperament, in the form and phase of ambition. He could not do what they did, but he could do what they could not, and in the breadth of his congressional work he left that which will longer exert a potential influence among men, and which, measured by the severe test of posthumous criticism, will secure a more enduring and more enviable fame. Those unfamiliar with Garfield's industry, and ignorant of the details of his work, may, in some degree, measure them by the annals of Congress. No one of the genera- tion of public men to which he belonged has contributed so much that will prove valuable for future reference. His speeches are numerous, many of them brilliant, all of them well studied, carefully phrased, and exhaustive of the sub- ject under consideration. Collected from the scattered pages of ninety royal octavo volumes of congressional record, they would present an invaluable compendium of the political events of the most important era through which the National Government has ever passed. When the history of this period shall be impartially written, when war legislation, measures of reconstruction, protection of human rights, amendments to the Constitution, mainte- nance of public credit, steps toward specie resumption, true theories of revenue, may be reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and disconnected from partisanism, the speeches of Garfield will be estimated at their true value, and will be found to comprise a vast magazine of fact and argument, of clear analysis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no other authority were accessible, his speeches in the House of Representatives from December, 1863, to June, 1880, would give a well-connected history and complete defence of the important legislation of the seventeen event- ful years that constitute his parliamentary life. Far beyond that, his speeches would be found to forecast many great measures yet to be completed — measures which he knew ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 441 were beyond the public opinion of the hour, but which he confidently believed would secure popular approval within the period of his own lifetime and by the aid of his own eflforts. Differing, as Garfield does, from the brilliant parlia- mentary leaders, it is not easy to find his counterpart any- where in the record of American public life. He, perhaps, more nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his supreme faith in the all-conquering power of a principle. He had the love of learning, and the patient industry of investigation, to which John Quincy Adams owes his prominence and his presidency. He had some of those ponderous elements of mind which distinguished Mr. Webster, and which, indeed, in all our public life have left the great Massachusetts sena- tor without an intellectual peer. In English parliamentary history, as in our own, the leaders in the House of Commons present points of essen- tial difference from Garfield. But some of his methods recall the best features in the strong, independent course of Sir Robert Peel, to whom he had striking resemblances in the type of his mind and in the habit of his speech. He had all of Burke's love for the sublime and the beautiful, with possibly something of his superabundance. In his faith and his magnanimity, in his power of statement, in his subtle analysis, in his faultless logic, in his love of lit- erature, in his wealth and world of illustration, one is re- minded of that great English statesman of to-day, who, confronted with obstacles that would daunt any but the dauntless, reviled by those whom he would relieve as bit- terly as by those whose supposed rights he is forced to invade, still labours with serene courage for the ameliora- tion of Ireland and for the honour of the English name. Garfield's nomination to the presidency, while not pre- dicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. His prominence in Congress, his solid qualities, his wide reputation, strengthened by his then recent election as senator from Ohio, kept him in the public eye as a man occupying the very highest rank among those entitled 39 442 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE to be called statesmen. It was not mere chance that brought him this high honour. " We must," says Mr. Emerson, " reckon success a constitutional trait. If Eric is in robust health, and has slept well and is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland, he will steer west and his ships will reach New- foundland. But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man, and the ships will sail six hundred, one thou- sand, fifteen hundred miles farther, and reach Labrador and New England. There is no chance in results." As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular fa- vour. He was met with a storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it continued with increasing volume and momentum until the close of his victorious campaign: " No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape ; backwounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?" Under it all he was calm, and strong, and confident; never lost his self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered word. Indeed, nothing in his whole life is more remarkable or more creditable than his bear- ing through those five full months of vituperation — a pro- longed agony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draft upon the powers of moral endurance. The great mass of these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and with the general debris of the campaign fell into ob- livion. But in a few instances the iron entered his soul, and he died with the injury unforgotten, if not unfor- given. One aspect of Garfield's candidacy was unprecedented. Never before in the history of partisan contests in this country had a successful presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and current issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even des- perate. The older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, in which Mr. Clay was supposed to have ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 443 signed his political death-warrant. They remembered also the hot-tempered effusion by which General Scott lost a large share of his popularity before his nomination, and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly consumed the re- mainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley, in a series of vigorous and original addresses, preparing the pathway for his own defeat. Unmindful of these warn- ings, unheeding the advice of friends, Garfield spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York in August, to a great multitude in that city, to delegations and deputations of every kind that called at Mentor dur- ing the summer and autumn. With innumerable critics, watchful and eager to catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a sentence that might be dis- torted to his own or his party's injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any one of his seventy speeches. This seems all the more remarkable when it is remembered that he did not write what he said, and yet spoke with such logical consecutiveness of thought and such admirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of misreport and the malignity of misrepresentation. In the beginning of his presidential life Garfield's ex- perience did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. The duties that engross so large a portion of the President's time were distasteful to him, and were unfavourably con- trasted with his legislative work. " I have been dealing all these years with ideas," he impatiently exclaimed one day, " and here I am dealing only with persons. I have been heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of government, and here I am considering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this or that office." He was earnestly seeking some practical way of correcting the evils arising from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldy patronage — evils always appreciated and often discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply im- pressed upon his mind since his accession to the presi- dency. Had he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of appointment and in the tenure of office would 444 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE have been proposed by him, and, with the aid of Congress, no doubt perfected. But, while many of the executive duties were not grate- ful to him, he was assiduous and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset he exhibited adminis- trative talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of office with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he constantly surprised many who were most intimately associated with him in the Government, and especially those who had feared that he might be lacking in the ex- ecutive faculty. His disposition of business was orderly and rapid. His power of analysis and his skill in classifica- tion enabled him to despatch a vast mass of detail with singular promptness and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-considered suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show a thoroughness of mental training as rare as his natural ability and his facile adapta- tion to a new and enlarged field of labour. With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a generous enthusiasm, Garfield con- ceived that much might be done by his administration to- ward restoring harmony between the different sections of the Union. He was anxious to go South and speak to the people. As early as April he had ineffectually endeavoured to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially invited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that he could not go to South Caro- lina to attend the centennial celebration of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the autumn he definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies in the South — the celebration at Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turn- ing over in his mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, he said to a friend, gave him ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 445 the exact scope and verge which he needed. At Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a hundred years that bound the South and the North in the sacred memory of a common danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present the material interests and the industrial development which appealed to the thrift and independence of every household, and which should unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest and self- defence. At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the war only to show that, after all its disaster and all its suffering, the country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made brighter and better for all. Garfield's ambition for the success of his administration was high. With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no danger of attempting rash experi- ments or of resorting to the empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of people. He be- lieved that our continental relations, extensive and un- developed as they are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into profitable friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence that an essential forerunner to a new era of national progress must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union, and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of government would be com- mon to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and ambition may do under republican institutions, he loved his country with a passion of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confidence of John Adams. The political events which disturbed the President's 446 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE serenity for many weeks before that fateful day in July form an important chapter in his career, and, in his own judgment, involved questions of principle and of right which are vitally essential to the constitutional administra- tion of the Federal Government. It would be out of place here and now to speak the language of controversy; but the events referred to, however they may continue to be source of contention with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga or his illustrious service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of those opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their course harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to be said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced, and he can be no more heard except through the fidelity and love of surviving friends: From the beginning to the end of the contro- versy he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbour re- venge, rarely did he even show resentment, and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds. There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the fatal shot entered his body, when the Presi- dent would not gladly, for the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to himself. The pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of humiliation that might result from surrendering his position, had not a feather's weight with him. No man was ever less sub- ject to such influences from within or from without. But after most anxious deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Executive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be unfaithful ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 447 to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all their vigour, the constitutional rights and dignities of his great office. He believed this in all the convictions of con- science when in sound and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and prostration in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind bestowed on the transi- tory struggles of life. More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said. Justice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon the living, demands the declaration that in all the bearings of the subject, actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in his con- science, immovable in his conclusions. The religious element in Garfield's character was deep and earnest. In his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that great Baptist communion which in different ecclesiastical establishments is so numer- ous and so influential throughout all parts of the United States. But the broadening tendency of his mind and his active spirit of inquiry were early apparent, and carried him beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraints of asso- ciation. In selecting a college in which to continue his education he rejected Bethany, though presided over by Alexander Campbell, the greatest preacher of his church. His reasons were characteristic: First, that Bethany leaned too heavily toward slavery; and, second, that being him- self a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little acquaintance with people of other beliefs, and he thought it would make him more liberal, quoting his own words, both in his religious and general views, to go into a new circle and be under new influences. The liberal tendency which he anticipated as the re- sult of wider culture was fully realized. He was eman- cipated from mere sectarian belief, and with eager inter- est pushed his investigations in the direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with quickening step in the paths of exploration and speculation so fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other 448 JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE living scientists of the radical and advanced type. His own church, binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old and New Testaments as the word of God, with unbiased liberality of private interpretation, favoured, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of investiga- tion. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only to be of one mind and one faith with those who immedi- ately followed the Master, and who were first called Chris- tians at Antioch, But however high Garfield reasoned of " fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," he was never separated from the Church of the Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him it held the Ark of the Covenant. To him it was the gate of Heaven. The world of religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A philo- sophic observer declares that men by the thousand will die in defence of a creed whose doctrines they do not com- prehend and whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally true that men by the thousand will cling to church organizations with instinctive and undying fidelity when their belief in maturer years is radically different from that which inspired them as neophytes. But after this range of speculation and this latitude of doubt Garfield came back always with freshness and de- light to the simpler instincts of religious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest survive. Not many weeks be- fore his assassination, walking on the banks of the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on those topics of personal religion, concerning which noble natures have an uncon- querable reserve, he said that he found the Lord's Prayer and the simple petitions learned in infancy infinitely rest- ful to him, not merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of Scripture had a very strong hold on his memory and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh some years ago, an eminent Scotch preacher who prefaced his sermon with reading the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 449 subject of careful study with Garfield during all his re- ligious life. He was greatly impressed by the elocution of the preacher, and declared that it had imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterance of St. Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable service, and dwelled with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the assured hope with which the great apostle of the Gentiles was " persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The crowning characteristic of General Garfield's re- ligious opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all things he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he possessed himself — sincerity of conviction and frank- ness of expression. With him the inquiry was not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it? The lines of his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, and men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever-lengthening list of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest and of an honest-minded and generous-hearted free-thinker. On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President was a contented and happy man — not in an ordinary de- gree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favour, and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times almost 4SO JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of his young man- hood, and to exchange greetings with those whose deep- ening interest had followed every step of his upward prog- ress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen. Surely if happiness can ever come from the honours or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interests, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death — and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his an- guished eyes, whose lips may tell — what brilliant, broken plans, what bafifled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant na- tion, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honours of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and ON JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 451 in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with in- stant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree. As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed- ior healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. THE END M,