(see page 244) 
 
f ELOQUENCE OF THE FAR WEST 
 
 No. I. 
 
 S^a&ttxpittts of €, 2D> Bafeer 
 
 EDITED 
 
 (WITH GLAKCES AT THE ORATOR AKD HIS TIMES) 
 
 By OSCAR T. SHUCK 
 AxjTHOK OF " Bench and Bab in California " 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 PUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR 
 
 1899 
 

 
 y ot 
 
 41 415 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1899, by 
 
 OscAs T. Shuck, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, 
 
 at Washington. 
 
 •eeoNooopv. 
 
 
 The Murdock Press 
 San Francisco 
 
Mr. John W. Hendrie, 
 
 lii So2ith Beach^ Connecticut. 
 
 Kind Sir: — 
 
 Baker was speaking on the Atlantic 
 seaboard when he pointed across a hemisphere, back 
 to the far Pacific, — where his notes were yet rever- 
 berating, — and modestly said that his voice was 
 feebler than the feeblest murmur upon our shore^^ 
 
 Near where he stood then, you have long rested 
 — 071 the Atlantic border, after an active business 
 career on this far strand. If the clear call of our 
 ORATOR did not swell above the sound of the sea, 
 it yet touched the bounds of the continent, and is 
 resonant still; and you are of that mass, now wide 
 dispersed, early gathered by the Golden Gate, who 
 hear — even now— its '■^echoes roll from soul to soul.^^ 
 Our great city, whose busy streets you walked a 
 busy man so long ago — and some of ivhose cherished 
 institutions have lately quickened at your touch — 
 acknowledges your affectionate remembrance, and 
 gives you greeting from afar. 
 
 Remote, now, from our occidental life, you keep 
 
 alive an exceptional concern for all that contributes 
 
 to 02ir well-being, and you have a special, i7npre- 
 
 scriptible interest in the riches of our intellectual 
 
 *See paRc 238. 
 
heritage. You will love this took. I count myselj 
 
 happy in being able to lay it under your eye; and 1 
 
 do so, recognizing you as one to whom our friend^s 
 
 fame is dear, and in the hope that your honored 
 
 name may be associated with his through coming 
 
 time. 
 
 I am, Sincerely, 
 
 Your Obliged JFViend, and 
 
 Obedient Servant, 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 San Francisco y August 1, 1899. 
 
 \ 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 Whether at the bar, or beside the bier, — 
 in the lecture hall, or on the stump, — at 
 public festival, or in solemn debate — Baker 
 spoke for Man. Freedom and Glory were 
 the constant theme of this free and glorious 
 spirit; we shall have a glimpse of him, how- 
 ever, invested with even a deeper concern — 
 at the dedication of Lone Mountain Ceme- 
 tery. His many arguments and speeches 
 during a long career as a lawyer, or advo- 
 cate, with some exceptions, lost their interest 
 as the occasion passed. The most notable of 
 these exceptions — the defense of Cora — 
 has its place in this volume. As a lecturer, 
 his best productions are lost; that is, he did 
 not write them, and they were not report- 
 ed: as The Sea, The Plurality of Worlds, 
 Socrates, Books. His efforts of chief excel- 
 lence, however, and perhaps on broader and 
 higher platforms, were fortunately commit- 
 ted to type; and while these comprise but a 
 small part of his life-work, they are yet a 
 3 
 
Preface. 
 
 great deal in tliemselves, and are precious. 
 Like all the emanations of this gratifying 
 and satisfying mind, they cast no lurid light 
 — they are entirely untainted by anything 
 morbid, or moody, or cynical. Healthful, 
 hopeful, virile, prophetic, their tuition is 
 true, and ever their burden is the advance- 
 ment of his countrymen and his kind. Their 
 perpetual influence must be salutary. It 
 is well that his ideals, gathered- now and 
 gathered forever, should unite their beauty 
 before the century closes that will mark his 
 place in history. 
 
 The speeches in this Volume are given in 
 full, except that about one fourth of the 
 Reply to Benjamin is omitted, on account of 
 its great length ; and from the Defense of 
 Cora much of the analysis of the evidence 
 of witnesses has been eliminated. 
 
 Since Baker performed his noble part, 
 the fast-hastening years have brought their 
 many contrasted characters on the scene, to 
 diversify Time's drama on our western 
 shore, — but he is Sovereign. That tragic 
 hour is far off now — when he went to his 
 worthy rest among the great men who are 
 4 
 
Preface. 
 
 sleeping in the crypt of Fame — but his 
 spirit will kindle the hearts of men as long 
 as Lone Mountain shall guard his grave, or 
 Shasta and Whitney look down upon the 
 landscapes that he loved. 
 
- CONTENTS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Introductory Notice of Baker . . 9-12 
 
 Thk Atlantic Cable Address . . 13-36 
 
 The Ferguson Eulogy ..... 39-59 
 
 The Broderick Oration .... 63-85 
 
 The American Theater Speech . . 89 - 127 
 
 The Reply to Benjamin .... 131 - 223 
 
 At the New York Mass-Meeting . 227 - 239 
 
 The Reply to Breckinridge . . 243 - 270 
 
 Death of Baker— His Family . . 273 - 282 
 
 Poem by Baker 283-284 
 
 The Defense of Cora 287-318 
 
 Dedication of Lone Mountain Ceme- 
 tery — Immortality 321-330 
 
Edward Dickinson Baker was born in 
 London, England, February 24, 1811. 
 His father was a man of education and 
 literary tastes, and brought his family to 
 America, settling in Philadelphia, when 
 Edward was about five years old. The 
 father taught school and apprenticed the 
 boy at a suitable age to a weaver. In 
 1825 the family moved to Indiana, and, 
 a year or so later, to Illinois. The son 
 had no taste for systematic study, but 
 possessed a passion for books. Going 
 to St. Louis in early manhood, he drove 
 a dray for one season ; then returning to 
 Illinois, he began the study of law, and, 
 after a year had passed, he obtained a 
 license and began practice. In 1831, he 
 seriously thought of entering the ministry 
 of the Reformed (or Christian) Church. 
 9 
 
Introductory Notice. 
 
 In the spring of '32 lie enlisted in the 
 Black Hawk (Indian) War and served to 
 its close, obtaining a major's commission. 
 He first won celebrity as a speaker by 
 his oration at the laying of the corner- 
 stone of the old State House in Spring- 
 field, 111., July 4, 1837. In that year he 
 was elected to the loiver branch of the 
 State Legislature, as a "Whig, and was 
 re-elected. In 1840, he " took the stump " 
 for Harrison for President; was a State 
 Senator, 1841-44. In the fall of '44, 
 he was elected to the National House of 
 Representatives from the Springfield dis- 
 trict. When the Mexican War broke out 
 he, without resigning his seat in the 
 House, hastened home, obtained a col- 
 onel's commission and raised a regiment, 
 which he led into the field. He was one 
 of the comparatively few Northern Whigs 
 who favored the war with Mexico. At 
 
 10 
 
Introductory Notice. 
 
 its close his State presented liim with 
 a sword. In '49 he was returned to Con- 
 gress. In 1852 he removed to Califor- 
 nia, locating in San Francisco. Here he 
 won great fame as a lawyer, lecturer, and 
 political speaker, but not many of his 
 speeches are preserved. In 1859 he ran 
 for Congress on the Eepublican ticket 
 but was defeated. Within a year there- 
 after he had removed to Oregon and 
 was a Senator of the United States. The 
 War of the Rebellion breaking out, he 
 again took the field and went as a 
 colonel into this, his third, warfare with 
 characteristic enthusiasm. In July, 1861, 
 he was appointed and confirmed a briga- 
 dier-general of volunteers. At his first 
 encounter in that great conflict he fell, 
 in his fifty-first year, October 21, 1861. 
 After his death a commission as major- 
 general of volunteers was issued in his 
 11 
 
Introductory Notice. 
 
 name. His remains were brought to 
 San Francisco and laid in Lone Moun- 
 tain Cemetery, among the people who 
 had enjoyed the flower of his renown. 
 His career is the subject of the first 
 chapter of Bench and Bae in Califok- 
 NIA. Edward Stanly's oration at his 
 burial may be found in Kepkesentative 
 Men of the Pacific, together with the 
 address of Thos. Starr King. 
 
 Baker's picturesque career, as inter- 
 woven with great events, is further 
 touched upon in appropriate order in 
 the pages to follow. 
 
 12 
 
THE ATLANTIC CABLE 
 ADDEESS 
 
The most poetic utterance of Baker's life was his 
 address delivered iu San Francisco on September 27, 1858, 
 at the public commemoration of the laying of the Atlantic 
 Telegraph. This immortal production is also, in the judg- 
 ment of many, both more thoughtful and more ornate 
 than even his celebrated Broderick oration. It contains 
 the memorable apostrophe to science, and the happy 
 allusion to the comet of that time. It is perennial. The 
 words near the close, •' We stand ... at the entrance 
 to a more imperial dominion," seem to express, after the 
 lapse of forty years, a new and larger prophecy. 
 
THE ATLANTIC CABLE ADDKESS. 
 
 Amid the general joy that thrills 
 thronghout the civilized world, we are 
 here to bear our part. The great enter- 
 prise of the age has been accomplished. 
 Thought has bridged the Atlantic, and 
 cleaves its unfettered path across the sea, 
 winged by the lightning and guarded 
 by the billow. Though remote from the 
 shores that first witnessed the deed, we 
 feel the impulse and swell the psean ; for, 
 as in the frame of man, the nervous sensi- 
 bility is greatest at the extremity of the 
 body, so we, distant dwellers on the 
 Pacific coast, feel yet more keenly than 
 the communities at the centers of civili- 
 zation, the greatness of the present suc- 
 cess, and the splendor of the advancing 
 future. 
 
 The transmission of intelligence by 
 electric forces is perhaps the most striking 
 
 15 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 of all the manifestations of human power 
 in compelling the elements to the service 
 of man. The history of the discovery 
 is a monument to the sagacity, the prac- 
 tical observation, the inductive power of 
 the men whose names are now immortal. 
 The application to the uses of mankind 
 is scarcely less wonderful, and the late 
 extension across a vast ocean ranks its 
 projectors and accomplishers with the 
 benefactors of their race. We repeat 
 here to-day the names of Franklin, and 
 Morse, and Field. We echo the senti- 
 ments of generous pride, most felt in 
 the commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 
 the associated glory of her sons. But we 
 know that this renown will spread where- 
 ever their deeds shall bless their kind ; 
 that, like their works, it will extend be- 
 yond ocean and deserts, and remain to 
 latest generations. 
 
 The history of the Atlantic Telegraph 
 is fortunately familiar to most of this 
 auditory. For more than a hundred 
 
 16 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 years it has heen known that the velocity 
 of electricity was nearly instantaneous. 
 It was found that the electricity of the 
 clouds was identical with that produced 
 by electric excitation ; next followed the 
 means for its creation, and the mech- 
 anism of transmission. Its concentration 
 was found in the corrosion of metals 
 in acids, and the use of the voltaic pile ; 
 its transmission was completed by Morse 
 in 1843, and it was reserved to Field to 
 guide it across the Atlantic. Here, as 
 in all other scientific results, you find 
 the wonder-working power of observa- 
 tion and induction ; and nowhere in the 
 history of man is the power of Art — 
 actioyi directed by Science — knowledge 
 systematized — so signally and beauti- 
 fully obvious. I leave to the gifted 
 friend who will follow me, in his pecu- 
 liar department, the appropriate descrip- 
 tion of the wonders of the deep seaway; 
 of the silent shores beneath; of sunless 
 caverns and submarine plains. It is for 
 
 17 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 otliers to describe the solitudes of the 
 nether deep. Yet who is there whose 
 imagination does not kindle at the idea 
 that every thought which springs along 
 the wires vibrates in those palaces of 
 the ocean where the light fails to pene- 
 trate and the billows never roll ? 
 
 From those dark, unfathomed caves the 
 pearl that heaves upon the breast of 
 beauty is dragged to the glare of day. 
 There the unburied dead lie waiting for 
 the resurrection morning, while above 
 them the winds wail their perpetual re- 
 quiem ; there the lost treasures of India 
 and Peru are forever hid ; there the 
 wrecks of the Armada and Trafalgar 
 are forever whelmed. 
 
 What flags and what trophies are floating 
 
 free 
 In the shadowy depths of the silent sea ? * 
 
 But amid these scattered relics of the 
 buried past, over shell-formed shores 
 
 *A quotation from his own poem to be found in this 
 TOlume. 
 
 18 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 and wave-worn crags, the gleaming 
 thought darts its way. Amid the mon- 
 sters of the deep, amid the sporting- 
 myriads and countless armies of the sea, 
 the single link that unites two worlds 
 conveys the mandate of a king or the 
 message of a lover. Of old, the Greek 
 loved to believe that Neptune ruled the 
 ocean and stretched his trident over the 
 remotest surge. The fiction has become 
 reality; but man is the monarch of the 
 wave, and his trident is a single wire ! 
 
 The scene in which we each bear a 
 part to-day is one peculiar, it is true, 
 to the event which we celebrate ; but 
 it is also very remarkable in many and 
 varied aspects. 
 
 Never before has there been on the 
 Pacific coast such an expression of popu- 
 lar delight. We celebrate the birthday of 
 our nation with signal rejoicing; but vast 
 numbers who are here to-day can find 
 no place in its processions, and perhaps 
 wonder at its enthusiasm ; we celebrate 
 19 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 great victories v>^liicli give new names to 
 our history and new stars to our ban- 
 ner, — these are but national triumphs; 
 but to-day the joy is universal; the pro- 
 cession represents the world — all creeds, 
 all races, all languages are here ; every 
 vocation of civilized life mingles in the 
 shout and welcomes the deed. The min- 
 ister of religion sees the Bow of Promise 
 reflected under the sea, which speaks of 
 universal peace ; the statesman perceives 
 another lengthening avenue for the march 
 of free principles; the magistrate here 
 can see new guards to the rights of so- 
 ciety and property, and a wide field for 
 the sway of international law ; the poet 
 kindles at the dream of a great rej)ublic 
 of letters tending toward a universal 
 language ; and the seer of science finds 
 a pledge that individual enterprise may 
 yet embody his discoveries in beneficent 
 and world-wide action. 
 
 The mechanic walks with a freer step 
 and a more conscious port, for it is his 
 
 20 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 skill which has overcome the raging sea 
 and the stormy shore ; and labor — toil- 
 stained and sun-browned labor — claims 
 the triumph as his own in a twofold right. 
 First, because without patient, enduring 
 toil, there could be neither discovery, 
 invention, apj)lication, or extension; and 
 again, because whatever spreads the bless- 
 ings of peace and knowledge, comes home 
 to his hearth and heart. 
 
 Surrounded then, as I am, by the rep- 
 resentatives of all civilized nations, let 
 me express some of the thoughts that are 
 struggling for utterance upon your lips 
 as you contemplate the great event of 
 the century. Our first conviction is that 
 the resources of the human mind and 
 the energies of the human will are illim- 
 itable ; from the time when the new phil- 
 osophy of which Francis Bacon was the 
 great exponent became firmly written in a 
 few minds, the course of human progress 
 has been unfettered — each established 
 fact, each new discovery, each complete 
 
 21 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 induction is a new weapon from tlie armory 
 of trutli ; the march cannot retrogade ; the 
 human mind will never go back; the 
 question as to the return of barbarism 
 is forever at rest. If England were to 
 sink beneath the ocean, she hath planted 
 the germ of her thought in many a fair 
 land beside, and the tree will shadow the 
 whole earth. If the whole population 
 of America were to die in a day, a new 
 migration would repeople it; not with liv- 
 ing forms alone, but with living thought, 
 bright streams from the fountains of all 
 nations. 
 
 O Science, thou thought-clad leader 
 of the company of pure and great souls, 
 that toil for their race and love their 
 kinds! measurer of the depths of earth 
 and the recesses of heaven! apostle of 
 civilization, handmaid of religion, teacher 
 of human equality and human right, per- 
 petual witness for the Divine wisdom — 
 be ever, as now, the great minister of 
 peace 1 Let thy starry brow and benign 
 
 22 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 front still gleam in the van of progress, 
 brighter than the sword of the conqueror, 
 and welcome as the light of heaven ! 
 
 The commercial benefits to accrue to 
 all nations from instantaneous communi- 
 cation are too apparent to permit much 
 remark ; the convenience of the merchant, 
 the correspondence of demand and sup- 
 ply, the quick return of values, the more 
 immediate apprehension of the condition 
 of the world, are among the direct results 
 most obvious to all men ; but these are at 
 last mere agencies for a superior good, 
 and are but heralds of the great ameliora- 
 tions to follow in the stately march. 
 
 The great enemy of commerce, and 
 indeed of the human race, is war. Some- 
 times ennobling to individuals and na- 
 tions, it is more frequently the offspring 
 of a narrow nationality, and inveterate 
 prejudice. If it enlists in its service 
 some of the noblest qualities of the hu- 
 man heart, it too often perverts them to 
 the service of a despot. 
 
 23 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 From the earliest ages a cliain of moun- 
 tains, or a line of a river, made men 
 strangers, if not enemies. Whatever, 
 therefore, opens communication and cre- 
 ates interchange of ideas, counteracts the 
 sanguinary tendencies of mankind, and 
 does its part to " beat the sword into the 
 plowshare." 
 
 We hail, as we trust, in the event we 
 commemorate, a happier era in the his- 
 tory of the world, and read in the omens 
 attendant on its completion an augury of 
 perpetual peace. 
 
 The spectacle which marked the mo- 
 ment when the cable was first dropped 
 in the deep sea, was one of absorbing 
 interest. Two stately ships of different 
 and once hostile nations, bore the pre- 
 cious freight. Meeting in mid-ocean they 
 exchanged the courtesies of their gallant 
 profession — each bore the flag of St. 
 George, each carried the flowing Stripes 
 and blazing Stars — on each deck that 
 martial band bowed reverently in prayer 
 
 24 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 to the Great Ruler of the tempest: exact 
 iu order, perfect in discipline, they waited 
 the auspicious moment to seek the distant 
 shore. Well were those noble vessels 
 named, — the one, Niagara, with a force 
 resistless as our own cataract ; the other, 
 Agamemnon, ''the king of men," as con- 
 stant in purpose, as resolute in trial, as 
 the great leader of the Trojan war. Right 
 well, O gallant crews, have you fulfilled 
 your trust ! Favoring were the gales and 
 smooth the seas that bore you to the 
 land ; and oh ! if the wish and prayer of 
 the good and wise of all the earth may 
 avail, your high and peaceful mission 
 shall remain forever perfect, and those 
 triumphant standards so long shadowing 
 the earth with their glory, shall wave in 
 united folds as long as the Homeric story 
 shall be remembered among men, — or 
 the thunders of Niagara reverberate above 
 its arch of spray. 
 
 It is impossible, fellow-citizens, within 
 such limits as the nature of this assem- 
 
 25 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 blage indicates, to portray the various 
 modes in wliicli the whole human race 
 are to be impelled on the march of pro- 
 gress by the telegraphic union of the two 
 nations ; but I cannot forget where I 
 stand, nor the audience I address. The 
 Atlantic telegraph is but one link in a 
 line of thought which is to bind the 
 world : the next link is to unite the 
 Atlantic and Pacific. Who doubts that 
 this union is near at hand ? ^ Have we 
 no other Fields ? Shall the skill which 
 sounded the Atlantic not scale the Sierra 
 Nevada ? Is the rolling plain more dan- 
 gerous than the rolling deep? Shall 
 science repose upon its laurels, or achieve- 
 ment faint by the Atlantic shore ? Let 
 us do our part; let our energy awake! 
 Let us be the men we v/ere when we 
 planted an empire. We are in the high- 
 way of commerce ; let us widen the track 
 — one effort more, and science will span 
 
 *Wheii this union was effected, three years later, the 
 second message sent over the wire was the announcement 
 of Baker's fall in battle. 
 
 26 
 
. The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 the workl. While I speak, there comes 
 to us, borne on every blast from the East 
 and from the West, high tidings of civili- 
 zation, toleration, and freedom. In En- 
 gland the Jews are restored to all the 
 privileges of citizens, and the last step 
 in the path of religions toleration is 
 taken. The Emperor of Knssia has de- 
 creed the emancipation of his serfs, and 
 the first movement for civil liberty is 
 begun. China opens her ports, and 
 commerce and Christianity will penetrate 
 the East. Japan sends her embassador 
 to America, and America will return the 
 blessings of civilization to Japan. O 
 human heart and human hope! never 
 before in all your history did ye so rise 
 to the inspiration of a prophet in the 
 majesty of your prediction ! 
 
 Fellow-citizens, we have a just and 
 generous pride in the great achievement 
 we here commemorate. We rejoice in 
 the manly energy, the indomitable will, 
 that pushed it forward to success; w^e 
 
 27 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. ^ 
 
 admire the skillful adaptation and appli- 
 cation of the forces of nature to the uses 
 of mankind; we reverence the great 
 thinkers whose observation swept through 
 the universe of facts and events, and whose 
 patient wisdom traced and evolved the 
 general law. Yet, more than this, we 
 turn with wonder and delight, to behold 
 on every hand the results of scientific 
 method everywhere visible and every- 
 where increasing; but amid that wonder 
 and delight we turn to a still greater 
 wonder — the human mind itself! Who 
 shall now stay its progress ? What shall 
 impede its career ? No longer trammeled 
 by theories nor oppressed by the despo- 
 tism of authority — grasping, at the very 
 vestibule, the key to knowledge, its ad- 
 vance, though gradual, is but the more 
 sure. It is engaged in a perpetual war- 
 fare, but its empire is perpetually enlar- 
 ging. No fact is forgotten, no truth is lost, 
 no induction falls to the ground ; it is as 
 industrious as the sun; it is as restless 
 
 28 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 as the sea ; it is as universal as the race 
 itself; it is boundless in its ambition, 
 and irrepressible in its hope. And yet, 
 in the very midst of the great works that 
 mark its progress, while we behold on 
 every hand the barriers of darkness and 
 ignorance overthrown, and perceive the 
 circle of knowledge continually widening, 
 we must forever remember that man, in 
 all his pride of scientific research, and 
 all his power of elemental conquest, can 
 but follow at an infinite distance the 
 methods of the Great Designer of the 
 Universe. His research is but the attempt 
 to learn what nature has done or may do ; 
 his plans are but an imperfect copy of a 
 half-seen original. He strives, and some- 
 times with success, to penetrate into the 
 workshop of nature ; but whether he use 
 the sunbeam, or steam, or electricity — 
 whether he discover a continent or a 
 star — whether he decompose light or 
 water — whether he fathom the depths 
 of the ocean or the depths of the human 
 
 29 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 heart — in each and all he is but an imita- 
 tion of the Great Architect and Creator of 
 all things. Y/e have accomplished a great 
 work ; we have diminished space to a 
 point ; we have traversed one twelfth of 
 the circumference of our globe vfith a 
 chain of thought pulsating with intelli- 
 gence, and almost spiritualizing matter. 
 
 But, even while we assemble to mark 
 the deed and rejoice at its completion, 
 the Almighty, as if to impress us with a 
 becoming sense of our weakness as com- 
 pared with his power, has set a new 
 signal of his reign in heaven ! If to-night, 
 fellow-citizens, you will look out from 
 the glare of your illuminated city into 
 the northwestern heavens, you will per- 
 ceive, low down on the edge of the 
 horizon, a bright stranger, pursuing its 
 path across the sky. Amid the starry 
 hosts that keep their watch, it shines 
 attended by a brighter pomp and followed 
 by a broader train. No living man has 
 gazed upon its splendors before ; no 
 
 30 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 watchful votary of science has traced its 
 course for nearly ten generations. It is 
 more than three hundred years since its 
 approach was visible from our planet. 
 When last it came, it startled an emperor 
 on his throne, and while the supersti- 
 tion of the age taught him to perceive in 
 its presence a herald and a doom, his 
 pride saw in its flaming course and fierj^ 
 train the announcement that his own light 
 was about to be extinguished. In com- 
 mon with the lowest of his subjects, he 
 read omens of destruction in the baleful 
 heavens, and prepared himself for a fate 
 which alike awaits the mightiest and the 
 meanest. Thanks to the present condi- 
 tion of scientific knowledge, we read the 
 heavens with a far clearer perception. We 
 see in the predicted return of the rush- 
 ing, blazing comet through the sky, the 
 march of a heavenly messenger along his 
 appointed way and around his predes- 
 tined orbit. For three hundred years 
 he has traveled amid the regions of 
 
 31 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 infinite space. "Lone wandering, but 
 not lost," he has left behind him shining 
 suns, blazing stars, and gleaming constel- 
 lations, now nearer to the Eternal Throne, 
 and again on the confines of the universe. 
 He returns, with visage radiant and be- 
 nign ; he returns, with unimpeded march 
 and unobstructed way; he returns, the 
 majestic, swift electric telegraph of the 
 Almighty, bearing upon his flaming front 
 the tidings that throughout the universe 
 there is still peace and order — that, 
 amid the immeasurable dominions of the 
 Great King, his rule is still perfect — 
 that suns and stars and systems tread their 
 endless circle and obey the Eternal Law. 
 When Pericles, the greatest of Athenian 
 statesmen, stood in the suburb of the 
 Kerameikos to deliver the funeral ora- 
 tion of the soldiers who had fallen in the 
 expedition to Samos, he seized the occa- 
 sion to describe, with great but pardon- 
 able pride, the grandeur of Athens. It 
 was the first year of the Peloponnesian 
 
 32 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 war, and lie spoke amid the tropliies of 
 the Persian conquest and the creations 
 of the Greek genius. In that immortal 
 oration he depicted in glowing colors the 
 true sources of national greatness, and 
 enumerated the titles by which Athens 
 claimed to be first city of the world. He 
 spoke of constitutional guarantees, of 
 democratic principles, of the supremacy 
 of law, of the freedom of the social 
 march. He spoke of the elegance of pri- 
 vate life — of the bounteousness of com- 
 forts and luxuries — of a system of 
 education — of their encouragement to 
 strangers — of their cultivated taste — of 
 their love of the beautiful — of their 
 rapid interchange of ideas ; but above 
 all, he dwelt upon the courage of her 
 citizens, animated by reflections that her 
 greatness v/as achieved "by men of dar- 
 ing, full of a sense of honorable shame 
 in all their actions." 
 
 Fellow - citizens, in most of these 
 respects we may adopt the description; 
 
 33 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 but if in taste, in manners, if in temples 
 and statues, if in love and appreciation 
 of art, we fall below the genius of Athens, 
 in how many respects is it our fortune 
 to be superior! We have a revealed 
 religion; we have a perfect system of 
 morality; we have a literature, based, it 
 is true, on their models, but extending 
 into realms of which they never dreamed ; 
 we have a vast and fertile territory within 
 our own dominion, and science brings the 
 whole world within our reach ; we have 
 founded an empire in a wilderness, and 
 poured fabulous treasures into the lap of 
 commerce. 
 
 But, amid all these wonders, it is 
 obvious that we stand upon the threshold 
 of new discoveries, and at the entrance 
 to a more imperial dominion. The his- 
 tory of the last three hundred years has 
 been a history of successive advances, 
 each more wonderful than the last. 
 
 There is no reason to believe that the 
 procession will be stayed, or the music 
 34 
 
The Atlantic Cable Address. 
 
 of its march be hushed ; on the contrary, 
 the Yv'orld is radiant with hope, and all 
 the signs in earth and heaven are full of 
 promise to the race. Happy are we to 
 whom it is given to share and spread 
 these blessings; happier yet if we shall 
 transmit the great trust committed to our 
 care undimmed and unbroken to succeed- 
 ing generations. 
 
 I have spoken of three hundred years 
 past — dare I imagine three hundred 
 years to come ? It is a period very far 
 beyond the life of the individual man; 
 it is but a span in the history of a nation, 
 throughout the changing generations of 
 mental life. The men grow old and die, 
 the community remains, the nation sur- 
 vives. As we transmit our institutions, 
 so we shall transmit our blood and our 
 names to future ages and populations. 
 What multitudes shall throng these 
 shores, what cities shall gem the bor- 
 ders of the sea! Here all people and 
 all tongues shall meet. Here shall be a 
 
 35 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 more perfect civilization, a more thorough 
 intellectual development, a firmer faith, a 
 more reverent worship. 
 
 Perhaps, as we look back to the 
 struggle of an earlier age, and mark 
 the steps of onr ancestors in the career 
 we have traced, so some thoughtful man 
 of letters in ages yet to come, may bring 
 to light the history of this shore or of 
 this day. I am sure, fellow-citizens, that 
 whoever shall hereafter read it, will per- 
 ceive that our pride and joy are dimmed 
 by no stain of selfishness. Our pride is 
 for humanity; our joy is for the world; 
 and amid all the wonders of past 
 achievement and all the splendors of 
 present success, we turn with swelling 
 hearts to gaze into the boundless future, 
 with the earnest conviction that it will 
 develop a universal brotherhood of man. 
 
 36 
 
THE FEEGUSON EULOGY 
 
William I. Ferguson, a carpenter's son, born in Penn- 
 sylvania, grew up in Illinois, receiving a common-school 
 education, clerking in a store, then becoming a lawyer. 
 He was several times city attorney of Springfield, and in 
 1848, when he was only twenty-three, his name was on 
 the Democratic electoral ticket. He came to be the first 
 criminal lawyer at the Sangamon bar. He removed to 
 California in the summer of 1853, locating in Sacramento, 
 and in '55 was elected as a Know-nothing to the State 
 Senate, and was made chairman of the Judiciary Commit- 
 tee. In '57 he was re-elected Senator, this time as a Demo- 
 crat. The Democratic party was then dividing on the 
 slavery question, and Ferguson became conspicuous as 
 the most fervid orator of the Northern, or Douglas, wing. 
 The Legislature then met annually. In August, 1858, 
 between two sessions, Ferguson, on a visit to San Francisco, 
 had a personal dispute, influenced by partisan feeling, 
 with Geo. Pen Johnston, attorney-at-law. United States 
 Commissioner, Clerk of the U. S. Circuit Court, and who 
 later became part owner of the Examiner newspaper. 
 Ferguson accepted a challenge to a duel, and the parties 
 met on Angel Island, on August 21st. At the fourth fire 
 Ferguson was shot in the leg just below the thigh. He 
 held out against amputation, but three weeks afterward 
 this was resorted to. His life ended under the ordeal. A 
 pathetic story of the closing scene is presented in the old 
 chronicles. It shows the nobility of the man whose 
 doom moved Baker to words so apt and fond. 
 
 Before the commencement of the final preparation, 
 Ferguson prepared himself for death. He then, for the 
 first time, stated that he believed the wound had extended 
 to his hip joint, as that had of late been the source of 
 great pain. He had little or no doubt that amputation 
 would be necessary, and he did not expect to survive 
 it. Indeed, he went so far as to say that life was not 
 desirable under such circumstances. His language was 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 sensible and cheerful, yet his tone was feeble and melan- 
 choly. He conversed freely of the difficulty that brought 
 about the meeting between him and his antagonist, which 
 he insisted was misunderstood. He did not doubt that 
 Johnston was honest in that misunderstanding, and 
 believed that he (Ferguson) had really made the remark 
 attributed to him. Yet Ferguson contended that he (Fer- 
 guson) was the proper judge, and that his adversary was 
 mistaken. On this assertion, he exhibited much earnest- 
 ness, and repeated the remark again and again. He 
 spoke of the meeting between them on the field, after he 
 had been wounded, and regretted that an improper inter- 
 pretation had been given to Johnston's remarks. He 
 said they had been spoken kindly and feelingly, and 
 were well intended, and he hoped no friend of his would 
 say to the contrary. He also stated that the whole affair 
 was conducted honorably and fairly; and above all, he 
 desired that no prosecution of Johnston should be toler- 
 ated by his friends. He said in this connection, " I freely 
 forgive him, and hope he may continue to be a useful 
 and honorable member of society ; then, why should others, 
 whom he never injured, refuse to do so ? " He spoke of his 
 mother; but no language can convey the eloquence of his 
 trembling lips, his silvery accents, as he called the name 
 of her who gave the life now just entering eternity. He 
 expressed the wish to be buried in Sacramento, as he felt 
 that place to be his home — yet he would leave that mat- 
 ter to his friends. At this period he desired to be alone. 
 A few moments thereafter his faithful servant "John" 
 came from his room bathed in tears. " He has said his 
 last prayer on earth." When his friends again entered, 
 he said, " I am ready." The chloroform was applied, and 
 he never spoke more. 
 
 Ferguson had said, a day or two before, to those watch- 
 ing at his bedside: "My friend Baker has known me 
 best; ask him, if he will, to speak of me when I am dead." 
 The orator's eulogy was delivered in the Senate chamber 
 at Sacramento, where the body was lying in state, Septem- 
 ber 16, 1858. 
 
 40 
 
THE FEEGUSON EULOGY. 
 
 The intense interest which is apparent 
 in this crowded auditory too well evinces 
 the mournful character of the ceremony 
 we are about to perform. Wherever 
 death may invade the precincts of life, 
 whether in the loftiest or lowliest home, 
 there is a tear for all who fall ; there is a 
 mourner for even the meanest and the 
 most humble ; but when beyond the deep 
 impression which the change from life to 
 death produces in all good minds — when 
 beyond this we know that an eminent 
 citizen is stricken down in the full vigor 
 of his manhood and in the pride of his 
 intellectual power, the impression is 
 deeply mournful. And when to this we 
 add that those who loved him in life, 
 whose servant and representative he was, 
 have gathered around his bier to-day to 
 accompany him to his last resting-place 
 
 41 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 on earth, the impression is not merely 
 mournful, but painful. And when we 
 add to this that the man we mourn died 
 by the hand of violence — suddenly — in 
 a peaceful land, away from his own 
 friends, the painful impression becomes 
 an overwhelming sorrow. 
 
 At the personal request of our departed 
 friend, it has been assigned to me to say 
 a few words upon this occasion. 
 
 I have perhaps known him longer than 
 anybody here. I have known him, more 
 particularly in his early youth, perhaps 
 better than any one here assembled. I 
 have watched the bud, the blow, the fruit, 
 and lastly the untimely decay; and while 
 I desire to speak of him as he himself 
 would wish to be spoken of ; while I do 
 not mean that personal friendship shall 
 warp my judgment or lead me to say as 
 his friend anything unduly in his praise, 
 so also, on the other hand, shall I say 
 nothing against him or others that is 
 unjust or unkind. 
 
 42 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 The gentleman whose remains you are 
 about to consign to his last resting-place 
 until the trump of the Archangel shall 
 sound, was a native of the State of Penn- 
 sylvania. I knew his father well; a 
 respectable, worthy, honest man; a me- 
 chanic by pursuit, intelligent, self-reliant, 
 and in every respect honorable. 
 
 The young man was ambitious from 
 his boyhood. He sought the profession 
 of the law, not merely for itself, but as 
 an opening that would lead to what he 
 considered were higher and more noble 
 positions. 
 
 He was fitted for the study of law by 
 nature. He was then what you knew him 
 but lately — bold, self-reliant, earnest, 
 brilliant, eloquent, a good judge of 
 human nature, kind, generous, making 
 friends everywhere, placable in his resent- 
 ments, easily appeased, and a true friend. 
 He read law not only with me, but also 
 with far more able men, and he formed 
 his judgment of public affairs while 
 
 43 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 honored with the friendship of Douglas, 
 his opponent, Lincoln, John J. Hardin, 
 who won a deathless name at Bnena Vista, 
 Judge Logan, and many others who are 
 the pride and boast of the Mississippi Val- 
 ley. He was early distinguished in his 
 own State. He was very young, and he 
 had those contests among his own friends 
 which are peculiar to politics ; and there 
 had the reverses and crosses without 
 which no man is worth much. The 
 success which he achieved here had its 
 foundation laid in defeat, and I think I 
 may say that most of what he knew as a 
 politician he had learned in the school 
 of adversity — 
 
 *'That stern teacher of the human breast.'* 
 
 It is not good for a man to be always 
 successful, either in private or public 
 life. No man's character can be formed 
 without trial and suffering, and our de- 
 parted friend showed by his course of 
 conduct that he could endure temporary 
 
 44 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 defeat, confident of the ultimate success 
 of the right — perhaps not the less confi- 
 dent of his power to achieve success. He 
 was a successful candidate upon the Dem- 
 ocratic ticket for presidential elector in 
 1848. He was as renowned in his own 
 State, as a debater, as he was here ; he 
 had (and that is saying a great deal) as 
 many friends there as he had here ; he 
 deserved them there, as he deserved them 
 here, by his fidelity to his friends, high 
 personal qualities, courage, intellect, bril- 
 liancy — by those qualities which rendered 
 him so dear to many of you now before 
 me. 
 
 He came here, and what he was here 
 you know better than I. You knew him 
 well, for he served you. You knew him 
 well, for he ever strove for your appro- 
 bation, and loved you living, and loved 
 you dying. He had a great many quali- 
 ties that make a successful politician, not 
 merely in the personal sense of the word, 
 but in a higher sense, the achievement of 
 
 45 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 great deeds, and the advancement of great 
 principles. 
 
 These halls have been the witnesses 
 of many of his triumphs. As was well 
 remarked by a contemporary newspaper, 
 he hardly ever undertook that which, 
 Vvdien he set himself earnestly to work, 
 he did not accomplish. He had the de- 
 termination to succeed — that knowledge 
 of mankind — that control over other 
 men's minds — that kindly manner, those 
 generous impulses for all — that love for 
 humanity — those qualities of mind which, 
 if they called forth grave defects, also 
 called forth great virtues. And these 
 are in most of the departments of life 
 the great elements of success. Mere 
 intellect, except in the closet, does but 
 little; the qualities of mind, of mere 
 abstract wisdom, which distinguished a 
 Newton or a La Place, would do but little 
 at Washington. It is the same both in 
 private and public life. A knowledge 
 of the human heart; a readiness of re- 
 
 46 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 sources; kindness of heart; fidelity in 
 friendship — will effect more than mere 
 abstract wisdom, and must be combined 
 with it in order to render that wisdom of 
 avail. These, and all these, our friend 
 had. 
 
 You know how well he served you; 
 and those who knew him best, knew how 
 ardently he desired your approbation, 
 how earnestly he strove to win it. 
 
 There is more than one thing in his 
 legislative career which deserves notice, 
 and not the least is the manner of his 
 death. He died poor — not poor in the 
 common sense of the term, but poor as 
 was Aristides when he was buried at 
 the expense of the citizens of Athens. 
 Amongst all his papers, there is not 
 found the trace of a speculation. He 
 had no property — no resources ; his pov- 
 erty, if remarkable, was honorable. In 
 a land where corruption is said to be rife, 
 the more especially in legislative bodies, 
 and which, whether the charge is true or 
 
 47 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 false, is proverbially liable to corrupting 
 influences, it seems impossible that lie 
 used the vast power he possessed for 
 aught except the public interest and wel- 
 fare. And this alone would be a proud 
 epitaph to record upon his tombstone. 
 He was a man of undoubted courage, 
 as his death proved. I am not here to 
 speak of its manner. I am not here to 
 discuss the subject of dueling. If I 
 were, it would be to utter mj unquali- 
 fied condemnation of the code which 
 offers to personal vindictiveness a life 
 due only to a country, a family, and to 
 God. If I were, under any circum- 
 stances, an advocate for a duel, it should 
 be at least a fair, equal, and honorable 
 duel. If, as was said by an eloquent 
 advocate in its favor, *^it was the light 
 of past ages which shed its radiance upon 
 the hill-tops of civilization, although its 
 light might be lost in the dark shade of 
 the valleys below"; if even I held this 
 view, I should still maintain that a duel 
 
 48 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 should be fair and equal ; that skill 
 should not be matched against igno- 
 rance, practical training against its ab- 
 sence. And while I am in no sense to 
 be understood as expressing an opinion 
 as to the late duel, knowing nothing of 
 the matter myself, yet I do say that no 
 duel should stand the test of public 
 opinion, independent of the law, except 
 the great element of equality is there. 
 In the pursuits of common life, no one 
 not trained to a profession is supposed 
 to be a match for a professional man in 
 the duties of his profession. I am no 
 match for a physician in any matters con- 
 nected with his pursuits, nor would the 
 physician be a match for me in a legal 
 argument. The soldier is no fair match 
 for the civilian, when the latter has not 
 been trained to the use of arms; nor, 
 although his courage is equal, and he 
 may have a profound conviction that he 
 is right, will, therefore, the contest be 
 rendered equal and just. I repeat that 
 
 49 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 I do not make these remarks intending 
 thereby to reflect upon the character of 
 the late duel. Personally, I know noth- 
 ing more than what I and you all have 
 heard. Whether it was fair or unfair, it 
 is not my province to inquire. I am de- 
 nouncing the system itself, for it loses 
 annually hundreds of valuable lives, and 
 in the present state of civilization, it 
 does no good, profits nothing, arrests no 
 evil, but impels a thousand evils; but 
 above all, do I protest against any con- 
 tests of this nature where, in skill, 
 knowledge of weapons, or from any 
 cause, the parties are not equals in all 
 the conditions of that stern debate. The 
 friend whose loss we deplore was un- 
 doubtedly a man of courage. Whatever 
 may be said with respect to the code of 
 dueling — whatever may be said as to 
 his motives — his conduct on the field 
 was in all respects what his friends 
 expected. He stood four fires, at a dis- 
 tance of scarcely twenty feet, with a 
 
 50 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 conviction that there was a strong de- 
 termination to take his life — that the 
 matter should be carried to an extremity 
 — and that, too, when, until the day be- 
 fore, he had never fired a pistol off in 
 his life. But courage is shown not 
 merely in action, but in endurance. A 
 woman may show the higher quality of 
 courage in many instances where many 
 men would fail. A brave man — a really 
 brave man — shows his courage no less 
 in endurance than in action. It is a 
 higher, a greater quality to suffer than 
 to do ; and in this respect our friend was 
 no way defective. He bore a long and 
 painful confinement — he bore a severe 
 operation — he saw his hold upon life 
 unclasping day by day, hour by hour; 
 and amidst it all, neither his resolution 
 nor his cheerfulness faltered for an in- 
 stant. When he lay helpless, looking 
 back upon the errors (and who has not 
 errors?) of his life, he seemed to recall 
 them for lessons of instruction and warn- 
 
 51 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 ing for the future ; and when he knew he 
 must die, he arrayed himself for the last 
 contest, to die as became a man, amid all 
 sweet and pious and holy recollections. 
 He died with no vindictive passion in his 
 heart. He died with words of affection 
 upon his lips. He died with the thoughts 
 of his mother present to his soul. He 
 left this world with the thoughts of 
 home and mother. He left with words 
 of forgiveness and kindness. His last 
 act of consciousness was an act of prayer. 
 O Affection, Forgiveness, Faith ! ye are 
 mighty spirits. Ye are powerful angels. 
 And the soul that in its dying moments 
 trusts to these, cannot be far from the 
 gates of heaven, whatever the past life 
 may have been. However passion or 
 excitement may have led a soul astray, if 
 at the last and final hour it returns to the 
 lessons of a mother's love, of a father's 
 care — if it learns the great lesson of 
 forgiveness to its enemies — if at the last 
 moment it can utter these words : "Father 
 
 52 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 of life and light and love!" — these shall 
 be winged angels — troops of blessed 
 spirits — that will bear the fainting, 
 wounded soul to the blessed abodes, 
 and forever guard it against despair. Oh, 
 my friends ! those mighty gates built by 
 the Almighty to guard the entrance to 
 the unseen world, will not open at the 
 battle-ax of the conqueror; they v/ill 
 not roll back if all the artillery of earth 
 were to thunder forth a demand, which, 
 indeed, would be lost in the infinite 
 regions of eternal space ! but they will 
 open with thoughts of affection, with 
 forgiveness of injuries, and with prayer. 
 But I am not here to speak of the 
 virtues of the departed alone. He had 
 his defects; they were great; they were 
 marked; but they were incident to his 
 career and his character. He was, by 
 nature and habit, a politician ; and of all 
 callings, that of a politician is the most 
 illusive and unsatisfactory : it kindles the 
 mind in a state of constant excitement: 
 
 53 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 it is a constant struggle, which is fre- 
 quently injurious in its effects ; and our 
 friend, with all his fine qualities, was no 
 exception to the rule. Let him that is 
 without sin cast the first stone. Of how 
 many can we say that no greater defect 
 can be recorded? Of him who is dead, 
 what worse can be said? He was hon- 
 orable, honest, loving, generous, placa- 
 ble ; and if amid his virtues, there were 
 some defects, they are but to be men- 
 tioned to be forgiven and forgotten. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, the words I utter I 
 should not deem complete if I did not, 
 before I close, utter a word of warning. 
 The most powerful intellect, the most 
 amiable qualities, may be shaded by a 
 love for excitement and the evils which 
 the life of a politician is but too apt to 
 engender. What Ferguson was, we know. 
 What he might have been, if he had 
 conquered himself, who can tell? The 
 inspired Book says that " he that ruleth 
 his own spirit is greater than him that 
 
 54 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 taketh a city," and if onr departed friend 
 could Lave conquered himself, who could 
 have stayed the resistless course of his 
 bright intellect? It should be a warn- 
 ing to us all, gray heads as well as to 
 young men. All should remember that 
 the pursuit of politics is delusive and 
 full of temptation. No man should forget 
 the duty he owes to his country, but all 
 should remember that they owe a duty 
 to themselves. When men — I refer now 
 more particularly to young men — see a 
 great statesman stand forth in the midst 
 of a listening senate, and mark the stamp 
 which he makes upon the public mind, 
 and upon the policy of the country, by 
 the force of his intellectual vigor, they 
 are apt to forget the labors by which 
 that proud position has been achieved — 
 to forget how many have sought to attain 
 such a lofty position and. have failed ; and 
 to forget that he who is now filling their 
 minds with admiration, may be on the 
 eve of a sudden fall. Politics should not 
 
 55 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 be the pursuit — I mean the only pursuit 
 — of any man. Eepresentative honors, 
 official station, should only be the occa- 
 sional reward, or the occasional sacrifice ; 
 and if, forgetting this rule, young men 
 attempt to make politics their only hope, 
 with the probability that in many cases 
 they will fail, and that if successful, they 
 will surely be exposed to a thousand 
 temptations: if they love excitement for 
 its own sake — the noisy meetings, the 
 conventions, the elections — this love for 
 excitement will grow upon them, and 
 they will soon be on the high road to 
 ruin. 
 
 If any one is determined to achieve 
 distinction in politics, let him first ob- 
 tain a competency in some trade, profes- 
 sion, or pursuit, and then, even if unsuc- 
 cessful in politics, the misstep will not 
 be irretrievable. But, young men, do 
 not be beguiled by the example of our 
 Ferguson, even if you possess his splen- 
 did talents — even if you could achieve 
 
 56 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 the success he did: look at the end! 
 There he lies in a bloody grave. Let 
 your habits be fixed. " Let all the ends 
 thou aimest at be thy country's and thy 
 God's." 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have said what I 
 supposed this occasion most required. 
 If I had been told sixteen years ago that 
 it would be my fortune to stand by the 
 bloody grave of my young friend, in the 
 city of Sacramento on the Pacific coast, 
 I could scarcely have believed it had an 
 angel from heaven told me so ; for at 
 that time there was no civilized Pacific 
 coast. Then Ms course was unmarked, 
 and my future was so marked out, that 
 it would seem but little less than a 
 miracle that I should stand here, by 
 his dying request, to offer a few poor 
 remarks over his bier, before he is laid 
 to rest in the place he loved so well — 
 in the city named after the sweeping 
 Sacramento. But who can tell what a day 
 may bring forth? Here we see the sud- 
 
 67 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 den, untimely end of one who was amia- 
 ble, gifted, and who was looking forward 
 to a long career of honor and fame. And 
 perhaps it may be my lot to be shortly 
 laid in the grave ; and perhaps in this 
 assembly some one may be called upon 
 to address some remarks over my poor 
 lifeless body — even as I have been 
 called upon on the present occasion; and 
 if this should be so, I pray that that 
 friend may accord to me as much of 
 praise and as little of blame as will be 
 consistent with the truth. 
 
 In conclusion, I would remark that I 
 have no words sufficient to express my 
 own personal regret. I have lost a warm 
 personal friend. I may find others, but 
 I shall not be able to find friends that I 
 have loved in other years. I shall not 
 often find those to whom I can, as I 
 could to him, talk of the old familiar 
 times and the lessons I taught him in 
 early life — of the virtues and example 
 of his parents — of his mother's, his 
 
 58 
 
The Ferguson Eulogy. 
 
 poor afflicted mother's affection and love 
 — of his old contests — his old hopes, 
 so often broken. I shall not often find 
 friends like these, nor can the breach 
 which death has made be so easily 
 repaired. 
 
 Let me hope, for myself and us all, 
 that when we have filled our allotted 
 space in this world; when we are 
 attended by weeping friends, for the 
 purpose of removing us to our last rest- 
 ing-place, that it shall not be said of us 
 that we have lived without purpose, but 
 that we have gathered friends in the days 
 of our manhood ; that we have left fruits 
 to bloom when we have departed. 
 
 59 
 
THE BRODERICK ORATION 
 
David C. Broderick, stone-cutter's son and United 
 States Senator, was born in Washington, D. C, on the 4th 
 of Februarj', 1820. In his sixth year the family settled 
 permanently in New York City. When he was fourteen 
 his father died, and, at seventeen, he was apprenticed to 
 his father's trade, and followed it for some years. He 
 received little education in boyhood, but began a wide 
 course, of reading before coming of age. He became 
 prominent in local politics on the Democratic side, and 
 in the fire organization, being foreman of Howard En- 
 gine Company, No. 34. The death of his mother in '42, and 
 the loss of his brother by an accident soon after, left him 
 without a known relative. In '46 he was nominated for 
 Congress by one wing of his party, the Young Democracy, 
 but was defeated. He arrived in California in 1849. While 
 an operative in Samuel W. Haight's assay office, San Fran- 
 cisco, he was, in January, 1850, elected to a vacancy in the 
 State Senate, and was re-elected for a full term. He had 
 organized the first fire company in the city — Empire 
 No. 1 — and became its foreman. When Broderick died, 
 the company took his name. 
 
 In January, 1852, he was defeated by John B. Weller 
 for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator 
 — losing the prize by one vote. Five years later, he was 
 elected to that office for a full term of six years from the 
 4th of March, 1857. The Democratic party being divided 
 by the slavery question into Northern and Southern wings, 
 Broaerick led the former, while Southern men, generally, 
 followed his senatorial colleague, Wm. M. Gwin. President 
 Buchanan favored the Southern wing, and Senator Gwin 
 directed the distribution of Federal patronage in Cali- 
 fornia. Returning home, after an open breach with the 
 President, Broderick entered, with great determination, 
 into the most exci+ing and remarkable political canvass 
 the State has known — that of 1859. It was the campaign 
 
 63 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 which the genius of Baker so Illumined. The Democratic 
 party broke squarely in two, and the Republicans made 
 their first great fight, but not a winning one. The Ad- 
 ministration Democrats elected their full ticket for State 
 oflacers (Latham for Governor), and, although Douglas 
 Democrats and Republicans united upon Baker and Sib- 
 ley for Congress, the latter were defeated overwhelm- 
 ingly. 
 
 In June, 1859, the campaign pending. Judge David S, 
 Terry, of the Supreme Court, Administration Democrat, 
 in a public speech, alluded to the other wing of his party 
 as " the personal chattels of a single individual whom 
 they are ashamed of. They belong, body and breeches, 
 to David C. Broderick." On reading this speech, Brod- 
 erick remarked that he had once referred to Judge Terry 
 as the only honest man on the Supreme Bench, but that 
 now he took it back. D. W. Perley, a friend of Judge Terry, 
 heard this expression, and challenged Broderiek to a 
 duel. The Senator replied, in effect, that he would be 
 otherwise engaged until the canvass was ended. Right 
 after the election, when Broderick and Baker were in the 
 valley of defeat, Judge Terry resigned from the Supreme 
 Bench, and, alter correspondence, Broderick explaining, 
 but not retracting, the Judge challenged the Senator, who 
 accepted. On the 12th of September, 1859, near Lake 
 Merced, was fought the most memorable duel in our 
 annals, graphically described in Bench and Bar in Cali- 
 fornia, by an eye-witness. Broderick fell at the first ex- 
 change of snots, struck full in the right breast. Re 
 expired four days later. The body was placed in state in 
 the Union Hotel, fronting Portsmouth Square, in which 
 Ferguson had died a year before. The funeral occurred 
 on Sunday, September 18th, the same master tongue that 
 spoke at Ferguson's bier delivering the eulogium. 
 
 Broderick left a large estate — the result of invest- 
 ments in San Francisco realty — which was the subject of 
 protracted litigation. A chapter in Representative Men 
 OF THE Pacific is devoted to his career. 
 
 The oration, wiiich next follows, was thuo referred to 
 
 64 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 bj' George Wilkes, of New York city, in a newspaper 
 eulogy of Baker, soon after the latter's death:— 
 
 " At the foot of the coffin stood the priest; at its head, 
 and so he could gaze fully on the face of his dead friend, 
 stood the fine figure of the orator. Both of them, the 
 living and the dead, were self-made men; and the son 
 of the stone-cutter, lying in mute grandeur, with a record 
 floating round the coffin which bowed the heads of the 
 surrounding thousands down in silent respect, might 
 have been proud of the tribute which the weaver's 
 apprentice was about to lay upon his breast. For min- 
 utes after the vast audience had settled itself to hear his 
 words, the orator did not speak. He did not look in the 
 coffin — nay, neither to the right nor left; but the gaze of 
 his fixed eye was turned within his mind, and the tear 
 was upon his cheek. Then, when the silence was the 
 most intense, his tremulous voice rose like a wail, and, 
 with an uninterrupted stream of lofty, burning, and 
 pathetic words, he so penetrated and possessed the hearts 
 of the sorrowing mulitude, that there was not one cheek 
 less moistened than his own. For an hour he held them 
 as with a spell; and when he finished, by bending over 
 the calm face and stretching his arms forward by an 
 impressive gesture, exclaimed, in quavering accents, 
 •Good friend! brave heart! gallant leader! hail and fare- 
 well ! ' the audience broke into a general response of sobs. 
 Never, perhaps, was eloquence more thrilling; never, 
 certainly, was it better adapted to the temper of the 
 listeners. The political field in California not being open 
 to immediate occupation, Baker transferred himself to Ore- 
 gon, and there the glow of his Jast effort soon carried 
 him to the highest honors of that State." 
 
 Of this production, Edward Stanly said, in his own 
 fine eulogy of Baker : " I have read no effort of that charac- 
 ter, called out by such an event, so admirable, so touch- 
 ing, so worthy the sweet eloquence of Baker. It should 
 crown him with immortality." 
 
 65 
 
THE BEODEEICK OEATION. 
 
 Citizens of California: A Senator 
 lies dead in our midst! He is wrapped 
 in a bloody sliroud, and we, to whom liis 
 toils and cares were given, are about to 
 bear him to the place appointed for all 
 the living. It is not fit that such a man 
 should pass to the tomb unheralded; it 
 is not fit that such a life should steal 
 unnoticed to its close ; it is not fit that 
 such a death should call forth no rebuke, 
 or be followed by no public lamentation. 
 It is this conviction which impels the 
 gathering of this assemblage. We are 
 here of every station and pursuit, of every 
 creed and character, each in his capacity 
 of citizen, to swell the mournful tribute 
 which the majesty of the people offers 
 to the unre plying dead. He lies to-day 
 surrounded by little of funeral pomp. 
 No banners droop above the bier, no 
 
 67 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 melanclioly music floats upon the reluc- 
 tant air. The hopes of high-hearted 
 friends droop like fading flowers upon 
 his breast, and the struggling sigh com- 
 pels the tear in eyes that seldom weep. 
 Around him are those who have known 
 him best and loved him longest; who 
 have shared the triumph, and endured 
 the defeat. Near him are the gravest 
 and noblest of the State, possessed by 
 a grief at once earnest and sincere ; while 
 beyond, the masses of the people whom 
 he loved and for whom his life was given, 
 gather like a thunder-cloud of swelling 
 and indignant grief. 
 
 In such a presence, fellow-citizens, let us 
 linger for a moment at the portals of the 
 tomb, whose shadowy arches vibrate to the 
 public heart, to speak a few brief words 
 of the man, of his life, and of his death. 
 
 Mr. Broderick was born in the District 
 of Columbia, in 1820. He was of Irish 
 descent, and of obscure and respectable 
 parentage ; he had little of early advan- 
 
 68 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 tages, and never summoned to his aid 
 a complete and finished education. His 
 boyhood and his early manhood were 
 passed in the city of New York, and the 
 loss of his father early stimulated him 
 to the efforts which maintained his sur- 
 viving mother and brother, and served 
 also to fix and form his character even 
 in his boyhood. His love for his mother 
 was his first and most distinctive trait of 
 character, and when his brother died — 
 an early and sudden death — the shock 
 gave a serious and reflective cast to his 
 habits and his thoughts, which marked 
 them to the last hour of his life. 
 
 He was always filled with pride, and 
 energy, and ambition. His pride was in 
 the manliness and force of his character, 
 and no man had more reason than he 
 for such pride. His energy was mani- 
 fest in the most resolute struggles with 
 poverty and obscurity, and his ambition 
 impelled him to seek a foremost place 
 in the great race for honorable power. 
 
 GO 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Up to the time of his arrival in Cali« 
 fornia, his life had been passed amid 
 events incident to such a character. 
 Fearless, self-reliant, open in his enmi- 
 ties, warm in his friendships, wedded 
 to his opinions, and marching directly 
 to his purpose through and over all 
 opposition, his career was checkered 
 with success and defeat; but even in 
 defeat, his energies were strengthened 
 and his character developed. When he 
 reached these shores, his keen observa- 
 tion taught him at once that he trod a 
 broad field, and that a higher career was 
 before him. He had no false pride ; 
 sprung from a people and of a race 
 whose vocation was labor, he toiled with 
 his own hands, and sprang at a bound 
 from the workshop to the legislative 
 hall. From that time there congregated 
 around him and against him the elements 
 of success and defeat — strong friend- 
 ships, bitter enmities, high praise, malig- 
 nant calumnies ; but he trod with a free 
 
 70 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 and a proud step that onward path which 
 has led him to glory and the grave. 
 
 It would be idle for me, at this hour 
 and in this place, to speak of all that 
 history with unmitigated praise ; it will 
 be idle for his enemies hereafter to deny 
 his claim to noble virtues and high pur- 
 poses. When, in the Legislature, he 
 boldly denounced the special legislation 
 which is the curse of a new country, he 
 proved his courage and his rectitude. 
 When he opposed the various and some- 
 times successful schemes to strike out 
 the salutary provisions of the Constitu- 
 tion which guarded free labor, he was 
 true to all the better instincts of his life. 
 When, prompted by ambition and the 
 admiration of his friends, he first sought 
 a seat in the Senate of the United States, 
 he aimed by legitimate effort to attain 
 the highest of all earthly positions, and 
 failed with honor. 
 
 It is my duty to say that, in my judg- 
 ment, when at a later period he sought 
 71 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 to anticipate the senatorial election, lie 
 committed an error wliicli I think he 
 lived to regret. It would have been 
 a violation of the true principles of rep- 
 resentative government, which no reason, 
 public or private, could justify, and 
 could never have met the permanent 
 approval of good and wise men. Yet, 
 while I say this over his bier, let me 
 remind you of the temptation to such 
 an error, of the plans and reasons which 
 prompted it, of the many good pur-* 
 poses it was intended to effect. And if 
 ambition, "the last infirmity of noble 
 minds," led him for a moment from the 
 better path, let me remind you how nobly 
 he regained it. 
 
 It is impossible to speak within the 
 limits of this address of the events of 
 that session of the Legislature at which 
 he was elected to the Senate of the United 
 States; but some things should not be 
 passed in silence here. The contest 
 between him and the present Senator 
 
The Broderlck Oration. 
 
 had been bitter and personal. He had 
 triumphed. He had been wonderfully 
 sustained by his friends, and stood con- 
 fessedly " the first in honor and the first 
 in place." He yielded to an appeal made 
 to his magnanimity by his foe. If he 
 judged unwisely, he has paid the forfeit 
 well. Never in the history of political 
 warfare has any public man been so pur- 
 sued ; never has malignity so exhausted 
 itself. 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! the man whose body 
 lies before you was your Senator. From 
 the moment of his election his character 
 has been maligned, his motives attacked, 
 his courage impeached, his patriotism 
 assailed. It has been a system tending 
 to one end — and the end is here. What 
 was his crime? Keview his history — 
 consider his public acts — weigh his 
 private character, — and before the grave 
 incloses him forever, judge between him 
 and his enemies. 
 
 As a man — to be judged in his pri- 
 
 73 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 vate relations — who was his superior? 
 It was his boast, and amid the general 
 license of a new country, it was a proud 
 one, that his most scrutinizing enemy 
 could fix no single act of immorality 
 upon him! Temperate, decorous, self- 
 restrained, he had passed through all 
 the excitements of California unstained. 
 No man could charge him with broken 
 faith or violated trust; of habits simple 
 and inexpensive, he had no lust of gain. 
 He overreached no man's weakness in 
 a bargain, and withheld from no man his 
 just dues. Never, in the history of the 
 State, has there been a citizen who has 
 borne public relations more stainless 
 in all respects than he. 
 
 But it is not by this standard he is to 
 be judged. He was a public man, and 
 his memory demands a public judgment. 
 What was his public crime ? The answer 
 is in his own words : " / die because I tvas 
 opposed to a corrupt administration, and 
 the extension of slavery'' Fellow-citizens, 
 u 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 they are remarkable words, uttered at 
 a very remarkable moment ; they involve 
 the history of his senatorial career, and 
 of its sad and bloody termination. 
 
 When Mr. Broderick entered the Sen- 
 ate, he had been elected at the beginning 
 of a Presidential term as the friend of 
 the President-elect, having undoubtedly 
 been one of his most influential sup- 
 porters. There were unquestionably some 
 things in the exercise of the appointing 
 power which he could have wished other- 
 wise; but he had every reason to remain 
 with the Administration which could 
 be supposed to weigh with a man in his 
 position. He had heartily maintained 
 the doctrine of popular sovereignty, as 
 set forth in the Cincinnati platform, and 
 he never wavered in his support till the 
 day of his death. But when in his judg- 
 ment the President betrayed his obliga- 
 tions to his party and country — when, 
 in the whole series of acts in relation to 
 Kansas, he proved recreant to his pledges 
 
 75 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 and instructions — when the whole power 
 of the Administration was brought to 
 bear upon the legislative branch of the 
 Government, in order to force slavery 
 upon an unwilling people — then, in the 
 high performance of his duty as a Senator, 
 he rebuked the Administration by his 
 voice and vote, and stood by his j)rin- 
 ciples. It is true, he adopted no half- 
 way measures. He threw the whole 
 weight of his character into the ranks of 
 the opposition. He endeavored to arouse 
 the people to an indignant sense of the 
 iniquitous tyranny of Federal power, and 
 kindling with the contest, became its 
 fiercest and firmest opponent. Fellow- 
 citizens, whatever may have been your 
 political predilections, it is impossible to 
 repress your admiration, as you review 
 the conduct of the man who lies hushed 
 in death before you. You read in his 
 history a glorious imitation of the great 
 popular leaders who have opposed the 
 despotic influences of power in other 
 
 76 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 lands and in our own. When John 
 Hampden died on Chalgrove field, he 
 sealed his devotion to popular liberty 
 with his blood. The eloquence of Fox 
 found the sources of its inspiration in 
 his love for the people. When Senators 
 conspired against Tiberius Gracchus, and 
 the Tribune of the people fell beneath 
 their daggers, it was power that prompted 
 the crime and demanded the sacrifice. 
 Who can doubt, if your Senator had 
 surrendered his free thought, and bent in 
 submission to the rule of the Adminis- 
 tration — who can doubt that, instead of 
 resting on a bloody bier, he would have 
 this day been reposing in the inglorious 
 felicitude of Presidential sunshine? 
 
 Fellow-citizens, let no man suppose 
 that the death of the eminent citizen of 
 whom I speak was caused by any other 
 reason than that to which his own words 
 assign it. It has been long foreshadowed 
 — it was predicted by his friends — 
 it was threatened by his enemies: it 
 77 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 was the consequence of intense political 
 hatred. His death was a political neces- 
 sity, poorly veiled beneath the guise of 
 a private quarrel. Here, in his own 
 State, among those who witnessed the 
 late canvass, who know the contending 
 leaders, among those who know the antag- 
 onists on the bloody ground — here, the 
 public conviction is so thoroughly settled, 
 that nothing need be said. Tested by 
 the correspondence itself, there was no 
 cause, in morals, in honor, in taste, by 
 any code, by the custom of any civilized 
 land, there was no cause for blood. Let 
 me repeat the story — it is as brief as it 
 is fatal: A judge of the Supreme Court 
 descends into a political convention — it 
 is just, however, to say that the occasion 
 was to return thanks to his friends for an 
 unsuccessful support. In a speech bitter 
 and personal, he stigmatized Senator 
 Broderick and all his friends in words of 
 contemptuous insult. When Mr. Brod- 
 erick saw that speech, he retorted, saying 
 78 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 in substance, that he had heretofore 
 spoken of Judge Terry as an honest man, 
 but that he now took it back. When 
 inquired of, he admitted that he had so 
 said, and connected his words with Judge 
 Terry's speech as prompting them. So 
 far as Judge Terry personally was con- 
 cerned, this was the cause of mortal 
 combat; there was no other. 
 
 In the contest which has just termi- 
 nated in the State, Mr. Broderick had 
 taken a leading part; he had been engaged 
 in controversies very personal in their 
 nature, because the subjects of public 
 discussion had involved the character 
 and conduct of many public and distin- 
 guished men. But Judge Terry was not 
 one of these. He was no contestant; his 
 conduct was not in issue; he had been 
 mentioned but once incidentally — in 
 reply to his own attack — and, except as 
 it might be found in his peculiar traits 
 or peculiar fitness, there was no reason 
 to suppose that he would seek any man's 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 blood. When William of Nassau, the 
 deliverer of Holland, died in the presence 
 of his wife and children, the hand that 
 struck the blow was not nerved by pri- 
 vate vengeance. When the fourth Henry 
 passed unharmed amid the dangers of 
 the field of Ivry, to perish in the streets 
 of his capital by the hand of a fanatic, 
 he did not seek to avenge a private grief. 
 An exaggerated sense of personal honor 
 — a weak mind with choleric passions, 
 intense sectional prejudice united with 
 great confidence in the use of arms — 
 these sometimes serve to stimulate the 
 instruments which accomplish the deep- 
 est and deadliest purpose. 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! One year ago to-day 
 I performed a duty, such as I perform 
 to-day, over the remains of Senator Fer- 
 guson, who died as Broderick died, 
 tangled in the meshes of the code of 
 honor. To-day there is another and more 
 eminent sacrifice. To-day I renew my 
 protest ; to-day I utter yours. The code 
 
 80 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 of honor is a delusion and a snare ; it 
 palters with the hope of a true courage 
 and binds it at the feet of crafty and 
 cruel skill. It surrounds its victim with 
 the pomp and grace of the procession, 
 but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It 
 substitutes cold and deliberate prepara- 
 tion for courageous and manly impulse, 
 and arms the one to disarm the other ; it 
 may prevent fraud between practiced 
 duelists who should be forever without 
 its pale, but it makes the mere " trick of 
 the weapon" superior to the noblest 
 cause and the truest courage. Its pre- 
 tense of equality is a lie — it is equal in 
 all the form, it is unjust in all the sub- 
 stance — the habitude of arms, the early 
 training, the frontier life, the border war, 
 the sectional custom, the life of leisure, 
 all these are advantages which no nego- 
 tiation can neutralize, and which no 
 courage can overcome. 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, the protest is not 
 only spoken in your words and in mine — 
 81 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 it is written in indelible characters ; it is 
 written in the blood of Gilbert, in the 
 blood of Ferguson, in the blood of Brod- 
 erick ; and the inscription will not alto- 
 gether fade. 
 
 With the administration of the code 
 in this particular case, I am not here to 
 deal. Amid passionate grief, let us strive 
 to be just. I give no currency to rumors 
 of which personally I know nothing; 
 there are other tribunals to which they 
 may well be referred, and this is not one 
 of them. But I am here to say, that 
 whatever in the code of honor or out of 
 it demands or allows a deadly combat 
 where there is not in all things entire 
 and certain equality, is a prostitution of 
 the name, is an evasion of the substance, 
 and is a shield blazoned with the name 
 of Chivalry, to cover the malignity of 
 murder. 
 
 And now, as the shadows turn toward 
 the east, and we prepare to bear these 
 poor remains to their silent resting-place, 
 
 82 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 let us not seek to repress the generous 
 j)ride which prompts a recital of noble 
 deeds and manly virtues. He rose un- 
 aided and alone; he began his career 
 without family or fortune, in the face of 
 difficulties; he inherited poverty and 
 obscurity ; he died a Senator in Congress, 
 having written his name in the history 
 of the great struggle for the rights of 
 the people against the despotism of 
 organization and the corruption of power. 
 He leaves in the hearts of his friends 
 the tenderest and the proudest recollec- 
 tions. \ He was honest, faithful, earnest, 
 sincere, generous, and brave : he felt in 
 all the great crises of his life that he 
 was a leader in the ranks ; that it was his 
 high duty to uphold the interests of the 
 masses ; that he could not falter. When 
 he returned from that fatal field, while 
 the dark wing of the Archangel of Death 
 was casting its shadows upon his brow, 
 his greatest anxiety was as to the per- 
 formance of his duty. He felt that all 
 
 83 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 his strength and all liis life belonged 
 to the cause to which he had devoted 
 them. "Baker," said he — and to me 
 the J were his last words — " Baker, when 
 I was struck I tried to stand firm, but the 
 blow blinded me, and I could not." I 
 trust it is no shame to my manhood that 
 tears blinded me as he said it. Of his 
 last hour I have no heart to speak. He 
 was the last of his race ; there was no 
 kindred hand to smooth his couch or wipe 
 the death damp from his brow ; but around 
 that dying bed strong men, the friends of 
 early manhood, the devoted adherents of 
 later life, bowed in irrepressible grief, 
 "and lifted up their voices and wept." 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, the voice of lamen- 
 tation is not uttered by private friend- 
 ship alone — the blow that struck his 
 manly breast has touched the heart of a 
 people, and as the sad tidings spread, a 
 general gloom prevails. Who now shall 
 speak for California ? — who be the inter- 
 preter of the wants of the Pacific Coast ? 
 
 84 
 
The Broderick Oration. 
 
 Who can appeal to the commuuities of 
 the Atlantic who love free labor ? Who 
 can speak for masses of men with a pas- 
 sionate love for the classes from whence 
 he sprung ? Who can defy the blandish- 
 ments of power, the insolence of office, 
 the corruption of administrations ? What 
 hopes are buried with him in the grave ! 
 
 "Ah ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 
 Leap from Eurotas' bank, and call us from 
 the tomb?" 
 
 But the last word must be spoken, and 
 the imperious mandate of Death must be 
 fulfilled. Thus, O brave heart ! we bear 
 thee to thy rest. Thus, surrounded by 
 tens of thousands, we leave thee to the 
 equal grave. As in life, no other voice 
 among us so rung its trumpet blast upon 
 the ear of freemen, so in death its echoes 
 will reverberate amid our mountains and 
 valleys, until truth and valor cease to 
 appeal to the human heart. 
 
 Good friend! true hero! hail and 
 farewell. 
 
THE AMEEICAN THEATEE 
 SPEECH 
 
We come to tne most triumphant effort of Baker's 
 life — the most triumphant, in that he never stood forth 
 the conqueror as on that occasion, and never so proudly- 
 waved his unchallenged banner. It has already appeared 
 how, so unexpectedly and swiftly, the valley of defeat had 
 been left and the summit of victory reached. The orator 
 alludes to the sharp turns of fortune more than once in this 
 great effort, known universally as " The American Tneater 
 Speech," in which, among many fine passages, occurs the 
 impassioned tribute to Freedom, and with which speech 
 alone his name is associated in the minds of thousands. 
 The roomy old theater, long since demolished, stood 
 where now is Halleck Block, on the northeasterly corner 
 of Sansome and Halleck streets. The orator was passing 
 through San Francisco to Washington City, in his pocket 
 his credentials from Oregon as her Senator, At a recep- 
 tion by his friends he declined to make a speech, but he 
 had a surprise for F. F. Low (who was to be Governor of 
 the State a few years later). When Baker was electrifying 
 the masses of the State on the stump, not a year before, 
 Low, then a banker at Marysville, had enthusiastically 
 promised him a fine suit of clothes, " when you take your 
 seat in Congress." When defeat came, Low thought no 
 more of the matter. Baker, now a Senator from another 
 commonwealth, met the Marysville banker at the San 
 Francisco reception, and said, "Low, I '11 take that suit of 
 clothes." Of course, h e was accommodated. The American 
 Theater speech was delivered on the evening of the same 
 day, October 26, 1860. Baker was never so animated. It 
 was the liveliest meeting he ever addressed, the ladies 
 more than filling the dress circle. 
 
 89 
 
THE AMEEIGAN THEATER 
 SPEECH. 
 
 I OWE more thanks than my life can 
 repay ; and I wish all Oregon were here 
 to-night. We are a quiet, earnest, pas- 
 toral people, bnt by the banks of the 
 Willamette there are many whose hearts 
 would beat high as yours if they were 
 here. I owe you much, but I owe more 
 to Oregon. [Laughter.] My heart is 
 very full and very glad. Oregon regards 
 herself as one with California — the inter- 
 ests of the Pacific as the same, whether 
 at the mouth of the Columbia or the 
 Golden Gate. More than that, she be- 
 lieves that the interests of the Union are 
 one, and she intends to stand by it. 
 
 Just when I ought to make the best 
 speech of my life, I know I'll make the 
 very worst. Four years ago this night, 
 in front of this very house, I had the 
 
 91 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 honor to attempt to lay a little deeper 
 and broader the principles of Republi- 
 canism by trying to show why we should 
 elect as President an eminent citizen, 
 who, I believe, is here to-night [turning 
 to the box where sat John C. Fremont, 
 with his family]. We were a young and 
 untried party then. I recollect saying 
 then, that, as " Eevolutions never go 
 backwards," whoever became a Republi- 
 can then would remain one. We have 
 lost nobody since, and are gaining every- 
 body. [Laughter.] I know we are going 
 to win. All signs in heaven and earth 
 approve it. Still, on the eve of battle, 
 though in every skirmish they have 
 shown superiority, the leader may well 
 pass before the line ; and if I might 
 assume that position for a single mo- 
 ment, as the shouts of victory echo from 
 wing to wing, from front to rear, I would 
 pass along to assure the fearful and 
 confirm the bold. [Applause.] 
 
 They used to say that we were a sec- 
 
 92 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 tional party. We sectional ! Who, then, 
 is national? Breckinridge will get no 
 State at the North, and the Bell and 
 Everett men say he will get none at the 
 South. [Laughter.] Sectional, are we ? 
 We used to reply : First, freedom can't 
 be sectional ; it must be national. [Here 
 there was some struggle near the door. 
 ''Heavens! let us get out — we're swel- 
 tering!" cried a voice. "You can't stir 
 a peg — you must stand it," answered 
 another. Soon all was quiet again.] 
 
 But they used to affirm that, as a party, 
 we mean to deal unfairly with a portion 
 of the States. When have we said or 
 intimated anything of the sort? If we 
 are not yet represented in every State, 
 whose fault is it? They won't let us go 
 South to make Kepublicans. [Laugh- 
 ter.] Mr. Douglas intimates that Mr. 
 Lincoln can't go South to see his mother. 
 But in this view of the matter we are 
 getting over our sectionalism very fast. 
 Have you heard from St. Louis? Have 
 
 93 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 you ever heard of Frank Blair ? Have 
 you heard anything from Western Vir- 
 ginia?^ Anything from the poor white 
 folks of the South? If it is sectional 
 not to get many votes in one section, 
 how many will Breckinridge get in New 
 York? All he will get there will be by 
 pretending not to run. [Laughter.] How 
 many votes will he get in Hlinois? Will 
 he get half as many votes in Illinois as 
 Lincoln will in Missouri? 
 
 But I prefer to test it in another way. 
 I deny that in the beginning, or in the 
 end, we desire to interfere with slavery 
 in any way where it exists by law. I 
 deny that we desire to interfere with 
 slavery in the Territories where it has 
 been put there by the people. And as 
 a party and as individuals we have more 
 interest in preserving the Union than you 
 have. We never proposed — you never 
 heard one of us propose — to dissolve 
 the Union. Many of us were old Whigs, 
 
 * West Virginia was not yet a State. 
 94 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 and we have been beaten out of our 
 boots — not once only, but all the time. 
 We deplored the election of James Bu- 
 chanan as a national calamity. They got 
 their President, the House, the Senate, 
 the Supreme Court. They got the execu- 
 tive, the legislative powers, the judiciary. 
 Did you ever hear us threaten, imagine, 
 or predict the dissolution of the Union? 
 [Applause.] 
 
 But how stand you Breckinridge men 
 on this subject? I will not say that 
 every Breckinridge man is a disunionist ; 
 but I will say that every disunionist is a 
 Breckinridge man. [Great laughter and 
 applause.] The difference is like the 
 Irishman's pronunciation in talking with 
 an Englishman by the name of Footney. 
 *'Mr. Futney," said the Irishman, *'you 
 and I agree." "Very well," says Mr. 
 Footney; "but my name is Footney." 
 "Exactly so, Mr. Futney; Futney it is, 
 then." "But, sir," says the Englishman, 
 "my name is not Futney, but Footney — 
 95 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 F, double o, t — Footney." "By the man 
 that made Moses, what is the difference 
 between Futney and Futney?" [Great 
 laughter.] Every disunionist, from Yan- 
 cey, up and down, is a Breckinridge man. 
 Here, I understand, their stump-speakers 
 boldly proclaim the doctrine. The Sena- 
 tor from Oregon^ said : " If the South 
 don't stand up for her rights" — that is, 
 secede — "they don't deserve to have 
 them." We, on the other hand, mean 
 to submit to everything, but we will have 
 the Union. Oregon is the farthest from 
 the center, but I believe she would be 
 the last State to leave it. [Applause.] 
 Yours, one of the youngest States, would 
 be one of the last to leave it. We don't 
 mean, we won't mean, we never shall 
 mean, to dissolve. It is easy to talk 
 of Union when you have the offices; 
 but when you have n't them, how do 
 you talk? I repeat — we don't propose 
 to dissolve the Union, and we don't 
 
 *GeneralJo Lane. 
 
 96 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 propose to let anybody else dissolve it. 
 [Cheers.] 
 
 But they say, " Our sufferings are 
 intolerable ; and if you elect Lincoln 
 we '11 dissolve the Union ! " AVe propose 
 to give them a chance to try it. What 
 could Lincoln do without the Senate, 
 and the House, and the Supreme Court, 
 to make a dissolution necessary? He 
 can't touch a dollar — he can't appoint 
 an officer — he can't command a soldier 
 to a single point — he cannot free a slave. 
 But suppose Lincoln gets the House, — 
 and I think he will, — suppose he gets a 
 majority of the Senate, too. If he gets 
 a majority of the Senate and the House 
 and the people, I should think it would 
 be pretty hard to dissolve. Some 
 of the judges of the Supreme Court 
 are getting very old; but, as Jefferson 
 said of judges, they never die, and few 
 resign [laughter], and it will be a 
 long time before the Republicans can 
 get the power to do anything that the 
 97 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 public voice and conscience will not 
 approve. 
 
 There is something in party platforms. 
 Many will persist that we don't mean to 
 admit any more slave States. We have 
 no such platform. We have given no 
 such votes. We have said that we will 
 not interfere with slavery in the States, 
 nor with freedom in the Territories. 
 They say we will pass laws opposed to 
 the extension of slavery into the Terri- 
 tories. Well, our fathers were in that 
 way — Washington and Jefferson. Every- 
 body was that way once ; and you are 
 that way, too. The men who met to 
 make the California Constitution hastened 
 to dedicate free territory to free men 
 forever. We have yielded somewhat of 
 the sternness of our first principles in 
 this matter. By the compromise of 1820 
 we allowed slave States to be made out 
 of territory acquired by purchase, and 
 only insisted that north of a certain line 
 they should not go with their slaves. 
 98 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 If territory was free when acquired, it 
 was to be left free forever. In 1850, 
 when, as Mr. Seward said, the Whig and 
 Democratic parties were in a state of 
 dissolution, they wanted another set of 
 provisions — they wanted a fugitive slave 
 law. "Haven't you got one?" we asked. 
 "Yes," they answered; "we've had one 
 for forty years; but your judges and 
 juries ain't to be trusted." "What!" 
 we exclaimed, "would you set aside all 
 our system of jurisprudence?" "Ah!" 
 said they, "you have a machinery called 
 the habeas corpus — you must give that 
 up." We argued its inherent human jus- 
 tice. They said that it was all very well 
 for a white man, but it should not apply 
 to black ones. Suppose I have a black 
 horse, and it runs away from Kentucky 
 into Illinois. You say he must have a 
 jury to try the question to whom he 
 belongs. But if my black man runs 
 away, he may not have a jurj^ trial. We 
 complained that the demand was unjust; 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 but then, if you are going to dissolve the 
 Union, take your nigger, and let us have 
 peace. [Great laughter.] 
 
 Well, in 1854, there was the Territory 
 of Kansas. The South already had two 
 thirds of the original territory dedi- 
 cated to slavery; but still they grudged 
 us Kansas, and passed the Nebraska Bill. 
 Freedom, elastic, vigorous, growing, was 
 too fast for them; it made Kansas a free 
 Territory, and it would have made it a 
 free State if it had not been for J. B. I 
 am a Popular Sovereignty Eepublican. 
 [Faint applause.] I was last year, and I 
 am now. I believe in popular sover- 
 eignty, not as a principle, but as a 
 policy — as a measure. And I don't 
 believe in it because I don't care about 
 slavery. I do care about slavery, — I 
 do, so help me God! I do care about 
 freedom. But since the experiment in 
 Kansas, I believe more in the capacity of 
 the people to govern themselves. The 
 people will not tolerate slavery on free 
 100 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 soil. I seize from the Douglas Demo- 
 crats this weapon, which in their hands 
 is a reed, but in ours a spear of fir, 
 *'fit for the mast of some tall AdmiraL" 
 We will make it a great weapon for free- 
 dom. Before it the slaveholders writhe 
 in deep distress. They go out "and 
 stand." [Laughter.] Thej break up their 
 dearest idol — the traditionary organiza- 
 tion of the Democratic party. I mock 
 at their calamity— I laugh when their 
 fear cometh. [Laughter.] Popular sov- 
 ereignty means government by the peo- 
 ple; it is no odds whether they govern 
 Kansas by their votes in Kansas, or the 
 Union by their votes in the Union. 
 
 Southern people claim the right to go 
 wherever they choose with their prop- 
 erty. I say in reply that the negro is 
 not property in the general sense; he is 
 property only in a sort of qualified sense. 
 A negro can be property only in the face 
 of the common law, humanity, religion, 
 literature, and philosophy — for all these 
 
 101 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 claim that black or white, rich or poor, 
 high or low, "a man's a man for a' thai" 
 [Great cheering.] It is true that there 
 are certain compromises of the Consti- 
 tution affecting this question, w^hich we 
 all agree to abide by; but we deny that 
 the negro is by common law a slave. He 
 is such slave only by local law; and we 
 say, catch him where you can, keep him 
 where you can, hold him where you can; 
 but when he gets away from your local 
 law, he is free, by every instinct of hu- 
 manity, and every principle of the com- 
 mon law. [Applause.] We deny, then, 
 that he is "property" which you have a 
 right to take into the Territories, and 
 you shall not carry him there against the 
 common sentiment of the men among 
 whom you go. Is not that fair? Can you 
 overcome the argument? [Applause.] 
 
 In my country, where our hospitality 
 [great laughter and applause, which in- 
 terrupted the speaker] — in my country 
 [renewed laughter and cheers, causing a 
 
 102 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 long pause] — well, in Oregon, then! 
 [Prolonged applause.] As a friend at my 
 elbow suggests, if it is n't my country, 
 whose country is it ? It is n't Joe Lane's, 
 sure! [Tremendous applause.] In my 
 country, where their hospitality is broader 
 than their means of dispensing it conve- 
 niently, the good people are sometimes 
 put to shifts to accommodate those who 
 need shelter, and it becomes necessary 
 to sleep three in a bed. [Laughter.] 
 Well, in traveling through the country, 
 I stop at a house for the night, and I am 
 told that I must sleep after that fashion 
 — three in a bed. We prepare to retire, 
 when, looking at one of my companions 
 for the night, I smell brimstone. [Here 
 the Colonel sniffed the air suspiciously, 
 the suggestive operation exciting a 
 tumult of laughter on the part of his 
 audience.] I say to him, "My good friend, 
 are you from Scotland?" [Renewed 
 merriment.] He replies, "No." I look 
 around — feel nervous and uncomfort- 
 103 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 able — and finally exclaim, "My God! 
 friend, you 've got the itch!" He says, 
 "Well!" and I say "Well!" And then 
 I and the third man say, "We two can't 
 sleep with you, and we are in the major- 
 ity; you can't come to bed at all." 
 [Laughter.] The fellow rejoins, "Good 
 God! has it come to this — that a man 
 can't go where he chooses with his own 
 property?" [Renewed laughter and long 
 continued applause.] Well, gentlemen, I 
 have illustrated — you apply! Slavery is 
 the itch to free labor, and we say it ought 
 not to be carried into the Territories 
 against the will of the free men who go 
 there. [Great cheering.] 
 
 The normal condition of the Terri- 
 tories is freedom. Stand on the edge of 
 the Sierra Nevadas, or upon the brow 
 of any eminence looking down into the 
 Territories beyond, and what do you 
 behold? You find there the savage, the 
 wild beast, and the wilderness, but yon 
 do not find slavery; and if it gets there, 
 104 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 it goes there by your local law. The 
 Western man goes into the Territories 
 with his family, his horses, his oxen, 
 his ax and other implements of labor. 
 The Southern man goes with his slave. 
 The Western man says, " I can't work by 
 the side of the slave — he degrades my free 
 labor." And the Irishman or German 
 (who don't go South to find employment) 
 says, " I can't work by the side of the 
 slave either — it degrades my labor." 
 And these free laborers say, " Let us all 
 go to work together and get Congress to 
 make a law to do what Madison did — 
 turn the negro out ; and if they don't do 
 it, we will do it for ourselves!" But 
 the Southern man says, *'No, you don't! 
 I 've got the Dred Scott decision in my 
 pocket, which holds that neither Con- 
 gress nor the Territorial Legislature, nor 
 any human power can remove human 
 slavery from the Territories ; that it goes 
 there protected by the Constitution of 
 the United States, and there it must 
 
 105 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 remain; and now, therefore, I tell you 
 Irishman, and German, and Western man, 
 that your ideas of popular sovereignty 
 and free labor are all humbug!" So 
 says the slave -owner. Now, you Douglas 
 Democrats, what are you going to do 
 about this? Some of you say you don't 
 care. I say you do care, for you can't 
 help caring ; first, because you are a man, 
 and you feel that whatever affects human- 
 ity affects you. It is absurd to say that 
 you don't care. There are four million 
 slaves, and they are increasing. The fell 
 influence of slavery is paralyzing the 
 interests of freedom and free labor, and 
 checking the advance of the whole 
 country. It denies us legislation; it 
 defeats our Pacific Railroad, and with- 
 holds the daily overland mail. If free- 
 dom is right, and popular sovereignty is 
 right, sustain them like men; and sustain 
 those alone through whom you can give 
 it practical effect; if they are not right, 
 abandon them. I would not make war, 
 
 106 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 revolutionize the Government, dissolve 
 the Union, or nullify the decisions of the 
 Supreme Court. If that Court says a 
 negro is not a citizen, I submit; but I 
 say to Douglas men, " Let 's attack the 
 Supreme Court and reform it!" [Ap- 
 plause.] This is not nullification. We 
 will obey the decision of the Supreme 
 Court in this particular case; but as soon 
 as God in his wisdom takes Taney and 
 the rest of them to himself, we will, with 
 the help of honest Lincoln put better 
 men in their places, and thus reverse the 
 Court by the verdict of the people. 
 [Great cheers.] What will you Douglas 
 men do? Will you hear the music of 
 the march of freedom, and stand idly by, 
 or turn a deaf ear ? We have the right 
 and duty thus lawfully and peacefully to 
 reverse a decision which puts a construc- 
 tion upon the Constitution that is higher 
 than the Constitution itself, especially 
 when that decision relates to personal 
 liberty. I say that a decision which 
 107 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 claims that by the Constitution slavery 
 goes everywhere the flag goes, there to 
 be and remain forever, is treason against 
 human hope. [Tremendous applause.] 
 You Douglas men, you will vote for pop- 
 ular sovereignty, will you? Now, how 
 will you do it? What State will you 
 carry? Perhaps California [cries of 
 "No, No!"] and Missouri. What good 
 will that do you? You can accomplish 
 nothing. Come to us, then, and we will 
 do you good. We will stand with you, 
 and use popular sovereignty effectually, 
 as a great engine of freedom. 
 
 There are people who talk as though 
 we Eepublicans were doing the South 
 some grievous wrong. How? When? 
 Where? They forget that freedom and 
 free labor are the great interests of the 
 country. There are only about two hun- 
 dred and seventy thousand white men 
 who have a direct interest in human 
 slavery. Will legislating, then, for thirty 
 million of free white men, instead of for 
 
 108 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 the exchisive interest of two hundred 
 and seventy thousand, be a cause for dis- 
 union? There are poor white men in 
 the South as well as in the North, who 
 have an interest in this question of free 
 labor, and we stand for the interests of 
 free labor everywhere the world over, 
 wherever a bright eye sparkles, or a 
 bright idea gives forth its light! [Ap- 
 plause.] Every country has a bright 
 idea peculiar to itself. In England it 
 is the commercial idea; in France, the 
 military idea; here, freedom, free labor. 
 [Applause.] Why not assert it, then? 
 Guard it, protect it, dignify it, ennoble 
 it! Do you want slave labor? Do you 
 believe in these Dred Scott notions, and 
 do you want the Constitution to carry 
 slavery with you and fasten it upon you 
 when you go to Arizona or other Terri- 
 tory? I ask you, citizens of foreign 
 birth, — you, young German, — let me sup- 
 pose that you have been in America for 
 five years, and you go back to the old 
 
 109 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 home across the seas and give an account 
 of your jonrneyings. Yon tell yonr 
 old father that you have been in Cali- 
 fornia, Oregon, Iowa. He says to you, 
 "Well, John, I suppose you have been 
 down into that fertile State, Virginia?" 
 You answer, "No," and he asks, "Why 
 not? " "Because they have slaves there." 
 "That's right, John," he says; "don't 
 go where there are slaves. You started 
 for a free country, John, and you were 
 right to keep away from where they hold 
 human beings in bondage. But what are 
 your politics, John?" "I am a Demo- 
 crat." "A Democrat! Well, I suppose 
 that means in America just what it does 
 in Europe — the opposite of aristocracy. 
 The Democrat demands equal rights for 
 all men. And what other party is there, 
 John?" "The Kepublican party," you 
 reply. "That 's a good name, too, John; 
 but what is the difference between the 
 Democrats and the Eepublicans?" And 
 you go on to explain that Democracy in 
 
 110 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 the United States means equal rights to 
 all sections J and Republicanism means 
 equal rights to all men, but that you have 
 clung to the Democratic party all your 
 time in America, because of party name 
 and organization, and old associations. 
 "What!" says the old man, who looks 
 straight at the propositions you have pre- 
 sented. "John," he observes, "didn't 
 you use to love freedom? And in the 
 Revolution of 1848 were you not ready 
 to die for it? And could you, after all 
 that, go over to the United States to 
 sneak after the supporters of human 
 slavery and help them carry it wherever 
 they choose, to curse free territory vv^ith 
 its blight, and then call it Democracy?" 
 
 Suppose we keep all the Territories 
 for freedom, who is hurt? We do only 
 what our fathers did. We strike for 
 freedom. We struggle for free labor. 
 We act in the eyes of the world as 
 becomes a free people. The South has 
 already more slave territory than she 
 111 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 can scratcli over in three hundred years. 
 They are engaged in a struggle in which 
 they have no sympathy from gods, angels, 
 or man. They say to the North, "You 
 may take the offices, or at least a good 
 many of them — for we can wind you 
 around our fingers as we like; but we 
 must take our slaves where we choose." 
 And in this struggle who are they going 
 to take with them? First, they will take 
 a part of the South; second, all of the 
 office-holders of the North; and third, — 
 nobody else! [Laughter.] The Democ- 
 racy of the North, other than the office- 
 holders, all go for Douglas, and, as to 
 the office-holders we shall soon turn them 
 out. Who else sympathizes with the 
 slaveholders in this emergency? Does 
 Germany? Eussia? England? Spain? 
 Mexico? When, after the Mexican War, 
 the Commissioners met near Mexico City, 
 to make a treaty of peace, they said to 
 Mr. Trist, "We are a conquered people; 
 you can do with us what you please ; but 
 
 112 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 we implore you, do not force slavery on 
 us." 
 
 When we are reproached for being 
 Black Republicans, in what company do 
 they put us? With whom? In Calif ornia 
 who are with us? The intelligence, the 
 wealth, the beauty, the growing power, 
 the convictions of right and of duty are 
 with us. Who are you, wandering, drift- 
 ing, shifting, fusing, dividing, half Breck- 
 inridge, half Douglas, now here, now 
 there [swaying his figure from side to 
 side], — who are you? Abolition chokes 
 in your throat! For us it always thun- 
 ders on the right; and you — on which 
 side do you hear the thunder? Take 
 this city — and in it the churches, the 
 schoolhouses, the pretty women, the 
 good, are on our side. [Laughter.] 
 With you, if you want your cotton 
 cleaned, you come to us for cotton-gins. 
 I do not mean to cast any reproach upon 
 the people of the South. They are a 
 hospitable, a generous people. There 
 
 113 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 are disunionists among them, it is true, 
 but the masses are sound, and I know 
 thej do love the country — God bless 
 them! — the whole country. But in much 
 that makes up national greatness and 
 excellence, they are lamentably deficient. 
 In deep philosophy, in inspired poetry, 
 they are lacking. The books we write, 
 they read,"^ the lectures we deliver, they 
 hear; Bancroft and Prescott write their 
 history for them; Bryant and Longfellow 
 write their poetry. [Applause.] Even 
 where despotism is rife, ideas of personal 
 liberty are thriving. Even under the 
 shadow of the throne of Russia; on the 
 banks of the Seine, where the ashes of 
 
 *"We can imagine what a passionate tumult must 
 have been excited by the propositions [of Madame de 
 Stael] that literature has relations most intimate and 
 most essential to public virtue, liberty, glory, and felicity; 
 that a law of progression is imposed on human destiny, 
 raising the level of manners and of literature from epoch 
 to epoch ; that this progression is indefinite, and advances 
 with the growth of institutions— that is to say, with the 
 tendency to republican government and republican man- 
 ners, and will have for its distinctive character the 
 triumph of the serious spirit of the North over the frivo- 
 lous spirit of the South." — Vinet's Studies upon the French 
 Literature of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 114 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 the first Napoleon repose; where the 
 British Queen in majestic dignity pre- 
 sides over a nation of freemen — every- 
 where abroad, the great ideas of personal 
 liberty spread, increase, fructify. Here — 
 ours is the exception! In this home of 
 the exile, in this land of constitutional 
 liberty, it is left for us to teach the 
 world that slavery marches in solemn 
 procession! that under the American 
 stars slavery is protected, and the name 
 of freedom must be faintly breathed, the 
 songs of freedom be faintly sung! Gari- 
 baldi, Victor Emanuel, hosts of good men 
 are praying, fighting, dying on scaffolds, 
 in dungeons, oftener yet on battle-fields, 
 for freedom; and yet while this great 
 procession moves under the arches of 
 liberty, we alone shrink back trembling 
 and afraid when freedom is but men- 
 tioned! [Terrific cheers.] 
 
 [While the people were cheering, a 
 Mr. Hart, who sat on the platform, ap- 
 parently carried away with enthusiasm, 
 
 115 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 rushed to the footlights, and with ex- 
 tended arms and loud voice, exclaimed, 
 "It is true! it is true! We are slaves, 
 compared to the rest of the world." 
 Then, pale as a ghost, he staggered back 
 to his seat, the people continuing to cheer 
 vociferously. The orator, meanwhile, was 
 consulting a friend as to the time. He 
 had been speaking an hour and a half.] 
 
 The interest of the South is identical — 
 the slave interest belongs to the whole 
 of it in common, and alone. Our inter- 
 ests are diversified; they lie in cattle, 
 stocks, lands, manufactures; but all are 
 connected with free labor. Whatever 
 great measure comes before the nation 
 develops the hostility of the South, be- 
 cause it conflicts with their one interest. 
 The Pacific Railroad is a striking ex- 
 ample. We have been children of the 
 dispersion; longing and lingering, with 
 eyes turned to the East, which many 
 of us shall never see again. We have 
 prayed and sighed for a railroad; we 
 
 116 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 have studied the whole matter through; 
 we have showed how States would spring 
 up along its route ; we have demonstrated 
 how it might be built and where; we 
 have pointed out the reasons why we 
 ought to enjoy the benefits of a ready 
 communication with the East. Pierce 
 professed to recommend the road; Bu- 
 chanan professed to recommend it. We 
 have asked for bread, and they have 
 given us a stone; for fish, and they have 
 given us a serpent. Even while I am 
 speaking, a Breckinridge convention in 
 Virginia is resolving against any railroad, 
 in any way. If, four years ago, we had 
 elected Fremont, in four months after, he 
 would have recommended a railroad, and 
 would have sent two regiments of dra- 
 goons in the meanwhile to tramp the 
 track. [Cheers.] He would not have 
 recommended a mere military road, but 
 a railroad at once. He would have had 
 no constitutional scruples himself, and 
 would not have tolerated them in any 
 117 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 one else. He would not, as this man 
 has done, have hesitated because some- 
 body said that Mason, or Toombs, or 
 somebody else, did not like it. There 
 is not a more incorruptible man in the 
 world, I believe, than Fremont; but if 
 anybody had been corrupted, I assure 
 you it would have been in favor of and 
 not against the railroad. [Laughter and 
 applause.] 
 
 We are running a man now by the 
 name of Lincoln [cheers] who will do 
 the same thing. He is an honest, good, 
 simple-minded, true man, who is a hero 
 without knowing it. If he recommends 
 a railroad, — and he will, — he won't 
 twaddle about it. But his hands must 
 be upheld and strengthened by you. 
 You must send men to Congress who 
 will not feel that the "peculiar institu- 
 tion" is the only institution there is. 
 
 But what is true of the sentiments of 
 the South toward a railroad, is true also 
 of a homestead. What does she care for 
 
 118 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 a homestead? She never expects to use 
 it. What does she care about a cordon 
 of homes stretched from the Missouri to 
 the Rocky Mountains, and from the Rocky 
 Mountains to the Sierra Nevada? She 
 is in another line of business. See Vir- 
 ginia, once the mother of Presidents and 
 statesmen, now engaged in slave-breed- 
 ing! — rearing little niggers to send 
 farther South! She cares nothing about 
 a homestead. But the German immigrant 
 does — the men from Norway and Sweden 
 do. Our interests are not hers, — at least, 
 they are not the interests of her slave- 
 holders, — and they, so long as they can 
 control them, will give the votes of fifteen 
 slave States against a homestead. But 
 there is coming a change. One day this 
 month Oregon elected a Republican Sen- 
 ator; and the next day her Democratic 
 Legislature instructed him to vote for a 
 homestead law."^ [Cheers.] 
 
 *This statement seems a little artful, and may be ex- 
 plained. If it could be said that the Oregon Legislature 
 was Democratic, it was yet the same body which elected 
 
 119 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Now, when we get the power, — as we 
 will, — we propose to interfere with no 
 Constitutional compacts; we shall organ- 
 ize no John Brown raids; if some John 
 Brown should go down and whip Vir- 
 ginia, and get hung for it, it shall not be 
 our fault, but his misfortune; and while 
 we stand by and let them hang the John 
 Browns, we shall take the hint, follow 
 the wholesome example, and hang every 
 traitor who sets to work in earnest to 
 dissolve the Union. [Applause.] But the 
 majority must rule, and that is the end 
 of the whole matter. [Laughter.] 
 
 But here somebody recovers his wits 
 and seems to address me — "Colonel 
 
 Baker Senator. The latter, defeated in California in 
 November, 1859, removed to Oregon in February, 1860. 
 The Legislature of that State convened in the following 
 September, being divided into three nearly equal ele- 
 ments,— Douglas Democrats, Administration Democrats, 
 and Republicans, the first named leading slightly. There 
 were two Senators to be chosen — one for a term of which 
 a year and a half had expired, and one for a full term of 
 six years from the 4th of March next coming. By a 
 combination between the Douglas Democrats and the 
 Republicans, Nesmith and Baker were elected. Baker 
 taking the place already vacant, and proceeding at once 
 to Washington via san Francisco. 
 120 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 Baker, what say you at Seward's 'irre- 
 pressible conflict'?" Why, this: If Mr. 
 Seward had that opinion, I think he did 
 right to express it. And, I apprehend, 
 it 's your opinion, too. [Laughter.] You 
 don't think slavery is going to last for- 
 ever. God is too good for that. A thou- 
 sand years are as one day in his sight, 
 and it may take some time for slavery 
 utterly to decay! I hope disease won't 
 last always; I don't know that death will. 
 I very much doubt if slavery will. You 
 Breckinridge men, if there is a little vein 
 of piety in you, inherited from your 
 mother [laughter], even you must hope 
 that slavery will be abolished some day. 
 Henry Clay — and he was no Abolitionist 
 — used to felicitate himself that, by the 
 freed slaves of our land, civilization would 
 yet be carried to the banks of the Niger. 
 Kead Pope's "Messiah" — I don't know 
 that Pope was an Abolitionist — though 
 inspired poets are apt to be. [Applause.] 
 Homer was, Shakespeare was, the Bible 
 
 121 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 was, — and Pope would be in very good 
 company if he was. So long as there 
 is a slave and a master in the world, the 
 slave's heart will throb for freedom. Edu- 
 cate him, and he will fight for it; nerve 
 him, and he will die for it; and you, to 
 save your soul, can't help saying "Hurrah 
 for the weaker side ! " [Cheers.] I would 
 shoulder my rifle to suppress insurrec- 
 tion; and yet in my own impulses, in the 
 depth of my own reflection, I feel that if 
 Mr. Seward, looking forward with the eye 
 of statesmanship and philosophy, said the 
 conflict was irrepressible, God go with 
 him! I indorse the sentiment. [Tremen- 
 dous cheers.] 
 
 But my inquiring friend forgets how 
 Mr. Seward qualified the remark — that 
 it was by and under the Constitution, 
 and not otherwise, that the conflict was 
 to go on. And at last it is but the opinion 
 of a great philosopher and statesman 
 referring the matter to an all-wise Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 122 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 Up in my country we often see men 
 afraid of being suspected of sympathiz- 
 ing too much with the negro. One was 
 saying there the other day "I ain't one of 
 your d — d Abolitionists; why, my uncle 
 had a nigger." [Laughter.] Now, I am 
 very willing to, and I will confess — I 
 have a sympathy with the negro race, with 
 all slaves, with all who are in sorrow 
 and misfortune — and would to God I 
 could deliver them all! [Applause.] I 
 have sympathy with a man who has a 
 scolding wife, or a smoky chimney, or the 
 fever and ague; though I might not 
 advise my friend to whip his wife, or 
 pull down his chimney, or take arsenic for 
 his fever and ague — nor do I feel myself 
 bound to run a tilt to free all negroes. 
 When I go to church, and the preacher 
 says, "Have mercy upon all men!" I 
 don't respond, "Good Lord! upon all 
 icliite men!" They make the mistake of 
 supposing that if we have human feelings, 
 we are plotting against them. We live 
 
 123 
 
Masterpieces of E. D.. Baker. 
 
 in a land of constitutional law. What- 
 ever is nominated in tlie bond, we abide. 
 If I own ten thousand cattle, worth one 
 hundred thousand dollars, I have but 
 one vote, and that is my own. If another 
 owns one hundred negroes, worth one 
 hundred thousand dollars, he has sixty 
 votes; the ownership of five negroes con- 
 veys the right of three votes — equals the 
 representative power of three white men. 
 
 That is hard, but it is in the bond, and 
 we abide it. It is hard to compel me 
 to give up to slavery a man on your 
 simple affidavit that he is a slave. But 
 it is in the compact, and we stand it. 
 
 There need be no fear of intestine 
 feuds; there need be no threats of dis- 
 union. In the presence of God, — I say 
 it reverently, — freedom is the rule, and 
 slavery the exception. It is a marked, 
 guarded, perfected exception. There it 
 stands! If public opinion must not touch 
 its dusky cheek too roughly, be it so; 
 but we will go no further than the terms 
 
 124 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 of the compact. We are a city set on a 
 hill. Our light cannot be hid. As for 
 me, I dare not, I will not be false to free- 
 dom! [Applause.] Where in youth my 
 feet were planted, there my manhood 
 and my age shall march. I will walk 
 beneath her banner. I will glory in her 
 strength. I have seen her, in history, 
 struck down on a hundred chosen fields 
 of battle. I have seen her friends fly 
 from her; I have seen her foes gather 
 around her; I have seen them bind her 
 to the stake; I have seen them give her 
 ashes to the winds, regathering them that 
 they might scatter them yet more widely. 
 But when they turned to exult, I have 
 seen her again meet them face to face, 
 clad in complete steel, and brandishing 
 in her strong right hand a flaming sword 
 red with insufferable light! [Vehement 
 cheering.] And I take courage. The 
 Genius of America will at last lead her 
 sons to freedom! [Great applause.] 
 People of California! you meet soon, 
 
 125 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 as is your custom every four years, to 
 conduct a peaceful revolution. There is 
 no danger here. Disunion is far away. 
 The popular heart is right. It is a plain, 
 honest, simple duty you have to perform. 
 All the omens are good, and the best of 
 omens is a good cause. On the Pacific 
 coast we have labored long; we have been 
 scoffed, beleaguered, and beset. One 
 year ago, I, your champion, in your fair 
 State, my own State then, was beaten in 
 a fair contest! With my heart somewhat 
 bruised, my ambition crushed, one week 
 later I stood by the body of my friend 
 Broderick, slaughtered in your cause, 
 and I said "How long?" [Sensation.] 
 The tide is turned. The warrior, indeed, 
 rests. He knows no waking; nor word, 
 nor wish, nor prayer, can call him from 
 his lone abode. I speak to those who 
 loved him; and in another and higher 
 arena I shall try to speak for him [a rum- 
 ble of applause, increasing at last to a 
 great demonstration], and I shall say 
 
 126 
 
The American Theater Speech. 
 
 that the people who loved him so well, 
 and among whom his ashes rest, are not 
 forgetful of the manner of his life, or the 
 method of his death. 
 
 People of San Francisco! yon make 
 me very happy and very proud. Your 
 kind words cheer, as they have often 
 cheered before. Another State, generous 
 and confiding beyond any man's deserts, 
 has placed me where I may serve both 
 her and you. And now, thanking you 
 again and again, I bid you a cordial, 
 affectionate, heartfelt farewell. [The 
 whole audience arose and cheered and 
 cheered again. It was half after ten, 
 and the orator had spoken two hours 
 and a quarter.] 
 
 127 
 
THE EEPLY TO BENJAMIN 
 
Only ten days were to intervene between the delivery 
 of the American Theater speech and the Presidential 
 election, but the speech was at once put in type and scat- 
 tered over the State as a campaign document. Abraham 
 Lincoln's election as President followed, Baker's fu;o States 
 voting for him. The new Senator proceeded to Washing- 
 ton City, and was sworn in on Wednesday, the 5th of 
 December, 1860, for an unexpired term to end on the 3d 
 of March, 1865. It was under the caption of "New Sena- 
 tor " that the oflBcial " Congressional Globe " recorded the 
 fact of his qualification, Senator Latham, of California, 
 presenting his credentials. Just four weeks later, on 
 Wednesday, the 2d of January, 1861, in the new arena of 
 his fame, he made the first of his two remarkable and 
 celebrated "Replies" — the "Reply to Benjamin." No 
 intelligent visitor, uninformed on the point, could have 
 mistaken him for a "new Senator" then. He was never 
 more fluent and self-possessed, and commanded the undi- 
 vided attention, the unqualified admiration, of the Senate 
 from beginning to end. Indeed, this reply, and that to 
 Breckinridge, that was soon to follow, are among the 
 most powerful performances in debate in the history of 
 the American Congress. 
 
 It was in the closing days of the last Congress before 
 the War of the Rebellion. The Southern Senators and 
 Representatives were beginning to leave their seats. In 
 sixty days President Lincoln was to be inaugurated, and, 
 in sixty more, the South was to be in open revolt, and the 
 country in actual war. Messrs. Slidell and Benjamin of 
 Louisiana were to withdraw from the Senate on February 
 5th. On December 13th, Senator Johnson, of Tennessee, 
 (who became President in 1865,) had offered a joint reso- 
 lution, proposing certain amendments to the Constitution. 
 These provided that the President and Vice-President 
 
 131 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 should be chosen by the people, by Congressional districts, 
 each district to have one vote. The resulting debate, 
 which covered a period of weeks, was directed, generally, 
 to the critical condition of the country. Senator Benja- 
 min concluded a great speech on the subject, on the clos- 
 ing day of the year. Senator Baker took the floor to reply 
 on January 2d. 
 
 At the morning hour appointed for Baker to begin his 
 speech Senator Gwin, of California, reminded the Senate 
 that the bill passed by the lower house for a Pacific rail- 
 road, would come up at two o'clock that afternoon, as the 
 special order of the day; and he said that perhaps the 
 Oregon Senator would not be able to conclude before that 
 hour. 
 
 Senator Douglas, of Illinois, who had given notice of 
 a speech by him for the following day, also suggested that 
 he and the Oregon Senator might clash. There was con- 
 siderable discussion as to what should be the order of 
 precedence, which Baker interrupted to say:— 
 
 "I did not quite hear what the honorable Senator 
 from California said upon the subject of the Pacific rail- 
 road bill, which I understand to be the special order for 
 to-day at two o'clock ; but, coming from the Pacific coast, 
 I feel it my duty to say, promptly and decidedly, that I 
 cannot feel for an instant that any word of mine for the 
 Union and the perpetuity of free government on this con- 
 tinent can compare in importance or value with the 
 Pacific railroad bill, which, in my judgment, is an act 
 tending to make perpetual the union of these States. 
 Therefore, I yield any pretension that I may have to the 
 floor now, at two o'clock, at any time, or, if need be, 
 forever, that that bill may pass." 
 
 It was then Thursday. It was moved that the special 
 order be postponed to Saturday, and that the floor be 
 reserved for Senator Douglas on Monday. During the dis- 
 cussion Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, who knew what 
 was in the old Illinois Whig, showed much concern lest 
 something should occur to postpone for some days, or 
 perhaps indefinitely, the delivery of the expected effort. 
 
 132 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 He said in plain terms, that certain Senators were wasting 
 time. Baker again arose, and with that delightful urban- 
 ity that was one of his principal forces, said :— 
 
 "Quite unused to the courtesies of the Senate, and 
 quite willing to submit to its habit, I feel myself entirely 
 unable to discuss these questions of precedence or regu- 
 larity, and profess myself totally indifferent at what time 
 I speak, or when I speak, or really whether I speak at all. 
 I will give way to the Senator from Illinois, or the Senator 
 from California, or to the Pacific railroad bill. I submit 
 myself entirely to the courtesy and justice of the Senate." 
 
 The plan to clear the way for Baker w^as at length 
 agreed to unanimously. He took the floor, and entertained 
 the Senate with the best speech it had heard (in the judg- 
 ment of many discriminating minds) since the days of 
 Webster. Not until then did his warmest admirers on the 
 Pacific know of the rapidity of his mental processes. He 
 promptly grasped the scepter in debate. He spoke then, 
 as on lesser occasions, in that atmosphere of enthusiasm 
 in which he lived. He stood an intellectual master in 
 that great presence, and every mind deferred to his per- 
 suasive authority. 
 
 133 
 
THE KEPLY TO BENJAMIN. 
 
 Mk. President, the adventurous trav- 
 eler who wanders on the slopes of the 
 Pacific, and on the very verge of civili- 
 zation, stands awestruck in that great 
 chasm formed by the torrent of the Co- 
 lumbia, as, rushing between Mount Hood 
 and Mount St. Helen's, it breaks through 
 the ridges of the Cascade Mountains to 
 find the sea. Nor is his wonder lessened 
 when he hears his slightest tone repeated 
 and re-echoed with a larger utterance in 
 reverberations that lose themselves at 
 last amid the surrounding and distant 
 hills. So I, standing on this spot, and 
 speaking for the first time in this cham- 
 ber, reflect with astonishment that my 
 feeblest word is re-echoed, even while I 
 speak, to the confines of the Republic. 
 I trust, sir, that in so speaking, in the 
 midst of such an auditory, and in the 
 135 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 presence of great events, I may remember 
 all the responsibility these impose upon 
 me to perform my duty to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, which I have 
 sworn to support, and to be in no wise 
 forgetful of my obligation to the whole 
 country, of which I am a devoted and 
 affectionate son. 
 
 It is my purpose to reply, as I may, 
 to the speech of the honorable and dis- 
 tinguished Senator from the State of 
 Louisiana. I do so because it is, in my 
 judgment at least, the ablest speech which 
 I have heard, perhaps the ablest I shall 
 hear, upon that side of the question; 
 because it is respectful in tone and ele- 
 vated in manner; and because, while it 
 will be my fortune to differ from him 
 upon many — nay, most — of the points to 
 which he has addressed himself, it is not, 
 I trust, inappropriate for me to say that 
 much of what he has said, and the manner 
 in which he has said it, has tended to 
 increase the personal respect — nay, I 
 
 136 
 
i he Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 ma J say, the admiration — which I have 
 learned to feel for him. And yet, sir, 
 while I say this, I am reminded of the 
 saying of a great man — Dr. Johnson, I 
 believe — who, when he was asked for 
 his critical opinon upon a book just then 
 published, and which was making a great 
 sensation in London, said: "Sir, the 
 fellow who has written that has done 
 very well what nobody ought ever to do 
 at all." 
 
 The entire object of the speech is, as I 
 understand it, to offer a philosophical 
 and Constitutional disquisition to prove 
 that the Government of these United 
 States is, in point of fact, no government 
 at all ; that it has no principle of vitality ; 
 that it is to be overturned by a touch, 
 dwindled into insignificance by a doubt, 
 dissolved by a breath ; not by maladmin- 
 istration merely, but in consequence of 
 organic defects, interwoven with its very 
 existence. 
 
 But, sir, this purpose — strange and 
 137 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 mournful in anybody, still more so in 
 him — this purpose has a terrible signifi- 
 cance now and here. In the judgment of 
 the honorable Senator, the Union is this 
 day dissolved ; it is broken and disinte- 
 grated; civil war is a consequence at 
 once necessary and inevitable. Standing 
 in the Senate chamber, he speaks like a 
 prophet of woe. The burden of the pre- 
 diction is the echo of what the distin- 
 guished gentleman now presiding in that 
 chair has said before — [Mr. Iverson in 
 the chair] — " Too late ! too late ! " The 
 gleaming and lurid lights of war flash 
 around his brow, even while he speaks. 
 And, sir, if it were not for the exquisite 
 amenity of his tone and his manner, we 
 could easily persuade ourselves that we 
 saw the flashing of the armor of the 
 soldier beneath the robe of the Senator. 
 
 My purpose is far different; sir, I 
 think it is far higher. I desire to con- 
 tribute my poor argument to maintain 
 the dignity, the honor of the Government 
 
 133 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 under which I live, and beneath whose 
 august shadow I hope to die. I propose, 
 in opposition to all that has been said, 
 to show that the Government of the 
 United States is in very deed a real, sub- 
 stantial power, ordained by the people, 
 not dependent upon States ; sovereign in 
 its sphere ; a union, and not a compact 
 between sovereign States ; that, according 
 to its true theory, it has the inherent 
 capacity of self-protection ; that its Con- 
 stitution is a perpetuity, beneficent, 
 unfailing, grand; and that its powers 
 are equally capable of exercise against 
 domestic treason and against foreign foes. 
 Such, sir, is the main purpose of my 
 speech ; and what I may say additional 
 to this, will be drawn from me in reply 
 to the speech to which I propose now to 
 address myself. 
 
 Sir, the argument of the honorable 
 Senator from Louisiana is addressed 
 first — I will not say mainly — to establish 
 the proposition that the State of South 
 
 139 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Carolina, having, as he says, seceded, has 
 seceded from this Union rightfully ; and, 
 sir, just here he says one thing, at least, 
 which meets my hearty approval and 
 acquiescence. He says he does not deem 
 it — such is the substance of the remark 
 —unwise or improper to argue the right 
 of the case even now and here. In this 
 I agree with him most heartily. 
 
 Right and duty are alv/ays majestic 
 ideas. They march an invisible guard 
 in the van of all true progress; they 
 animate the loftiest spirit in the pub- 
 lic assemblies; they nerve the arm of 
 the warrior ; they kindle the soul of the 
 statesman and the imagination of the 
 poet; they sweeten every reward; they 
 console every defeat. Sir, they are of 
 themselves an indissoluble chain, which 
 binds feeble, erring humanity to the 
 eternal throne of God. I meet the dis- 
 cussion in that spirit. I defer to that 
 authority. 
 
 I observe, sir, first, that the argument of 
 
 140 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 tlie gentleman, from beginning to end, is 
 based upon the assumption that the Con- 
 stitution of the United States is a compact 
 between sovereign States. I think I in 
 no sense misapprehend it; I am sure such 
 cannot be my desire. I understand him, 
 throughout the whole tone of his speech, 
 to maintain that proposition — that the 
 Constitution of the United States is a com- 
 pact between sovereign States. Arguing 
 from thence, he arrives at the conclusion 
 that being so, a compact, when broken 
 by either of the other States, or by the 
 General Government, the creature of the 
 Constitution, South Carolina or Louisiana 
 may treat the compact as broken, the 
 contract as rescinded; may withdraw 
 peacefully from the Union, and resume 
 her original condition. 
 
 I remark next, that this proposition is 
 in no wise new ; and perhaps for that, as 
 it is a Constitutional proposition, it is 
 all the better; and again, the argument 
 by which the honorable Senator seeks 
 
 141 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 to maintain it is in no wise new in any 
 of its parts. I have examined with some 
 care the arguments hitherto made by 
 great men, the echoes of whose eloquence 
 yet linger under this dome; and I find 
 that the proposition, the argument, the 
 authority, the illustration, are but a 
 repetition of the famous discussion led 
 off by Mr. Calhoun, and growing out 
 of the attempt of South Carolina to 
 do before what she says she has done 
 now. 
 
 If the proposition is not new, and if the 
 arguments are not strange, it will not be 
 wonderful if the replies partake of the 
 like character. I deny, as Mr. Webster 
 denied; I deny, as Mr. Madison denied; 
 I deny, as General Jackson denied, that 
 this Union is a compact between sovereign 
 States at all; and so denying, I meet just 
 here the authorities which the honorable 
 Senator has chosen to quote. They are, 
 substantially, as follows: first, not the 
 Constitution itself (and that is remark- 
 
 142 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 able); second, not the arguments made 
 by the great expounders of the Constitu- 
 tion directly upon this question, and on 
 this floor; but mainly fugitive expres- 
 sions, sometimes hasty, not always con- 
 sidered, upon propositions not germane 
 to the controversy now engaging us to-day; 
 and when made, if misapprehended, cor- 
 rected again and again in after years. To 
 illustrate : the gentleman from Louisiana 
 has quoted at considerable length from 
 the debates in the convention which 
 formed the Federal Constitution; he has 
 quoted the opinions of Mr. Madison, and 
 to those who have not looked into the 
 question it might appear as if those 
 opinions were really in support of his 
 proposition that this is a compact between 
 sovereign States. Now, sir, to show that 
 that is in no sense so, I will read, as a 
 reply to the entire quotations of the opin- 
 ions of Mr. Madison, what Mr. Madison 
 himself said upon that subject upon the 
 fullest consideration in the world. I 
 
 143 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 proceed to read what I suppose to be at 
 once argument and authority upon that 
 question — I read the letter of Mr. Madi- 
 son to Mr. Webster, dated March 15, 1833. 
 
 [Letter read.] 
 
 Mr. President, I submit to the candor 
 of the Senator from Louisiana that this 
 is distinct, positive, unequivocal author- 
 ity to show that, so far as the opinions 
 of Mr. Madison were concerned, he did 
 not believe that the Constitution of the 
 United States was a compact between 
 sovereign States; but that he did believe 
 it was a form of government ordained by 
 the people of the United States. 
 
 Again: Mr. Webster is quoted. I 
 expected, when I heard Mr. Webster 
 named, to find that the honorable Sena- 
 tor would allude to the great discussion 
 which his genius had rendered immortal. 
 He does not do that; but refers specifi- 
 cally to a passage of Mr. Webster's in 
 an argument in the Supreme Court, I 
 believe, upon a question arising as to 
 144 
 
1 he Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 boundary between Massachusetts and 
 Rhode Island. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. If the Senator will 
 permit, he is mistaken. The question 
 that arose there was in relation to the 
 power of the people of Rhode Island to 
 constitute a new government, not a ques- 
 tion of boundary. I allude to his argu- 
 ment in the celebrated Dorr controversy. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I feel obliged to the Sen- 
 ator for his correction; and I beg leave 
 to say that the mistake perhaps is not 
 a very unnatural one in me, living so 
 many thousand miles away; for, really, 
 Rhode Island, though very patriotic, is 
 so very small that I do not quite keep 
 up with her history as I ought. It is no 
 sort of difference whether Mr. Webster 
 made the speech on a boundary ques- 
 tion or on a rebellion question; the 
 speech was made. My criticism upon 
 the quotation is this : It has no relation 
 whatever to the controvesy now here, or, 
 if it has, it is so remote and indistinct 
 
 145 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 that it becomes liim and me alike, to 
 refer to what Mr. Webster really did 
 say directly upon the controversy itself. 
 Now, I take the liberty of reading Mr. 
 Webster's views, as expressed and consid- 
 ered by himself. I read from Mr. Web- 
 ster's works, volume three, page 464: — 
 
 " And nov/, sir, against all these theories and opinions, 
 I maintain — 
 
 " i. That the Constitution of the United States is not 
 aleague, confederacy, or compact between the people of 
 the several States in their sovereign capacities; but a 
 government proper, founded on the adoption of the peo- 
 ple, and creating direct relations between itself and indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 "2. That no State authority has power to dissolve 
 these relations ; that nothing can dissolve them but revo- 
 lution; and that consequently there can be no such thing 
 as secession without revolution. 
 
 "3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, and acts of Congress passed 
 in pursuance of it, and treaties; and that in cases not 
 capable of assuming the character of the suit in law or 
 equity, Congress must judge of, and finally interpret, this 
 supreme law so often as it has occasion to pass acts of 
 legislation ; and in cases capable of assuming, and actually 
 assuming, the character of a suit, the Supreme Court of 
 the United States is the final interpreter." 
 
 Now, I submit again to the candor of 
 the honorable and distinguished gentle- 
 man, that there is the positive, unmistak- 
 
 146 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 able evidence of Mr. Webster, so far as 
 Ills own opinion goes; that this is not, 
 according to his proposition, a compact 
 between sovereign States; but it is a 
 government made and ordained by the 
 people of the whole United States; a 
 government capable of acting directly 
 upon individuals, and made by individ- 
 uals. And, sir, it is remarkable that 
 these propositions of Mr. Webster grew 
 out of his desire to contradict the affirma- 
 tive propositions of Mr. Calhoun, upon 
 which the debate grew up. I read 
 them: — 
 
 " The first two resolutions of the honorable member, 
 [says Mr. Webster,] afifirm these propositions, namely"— 
 
 And they are propositions sought to be 
 enforced by the distinguished Senator 
 from Louisiana — 
 
 " 1. That the political system under which we live, and 
 under which Congress is now assembled, is a compact, to 
 which the people of the several States, as separate and 
 sovereign communities, are the parlies. 
 
 " 2. That these sovereign parties have a right to j udge, 
 each for itself, of any alleged violation of the Constitu- 
 tion by Congress, and in case of such violation, to choose, 
 each for itself, its own mode and measure of redress." 
 
 147 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 There, sir, is the right of secession 
 upon the one hand, or at least of nullifi- 
 cation; and I may say here, once for all, 
 the difference between nullification and 
 secession is just this: secession bears 
 the same relation to nullification that 
 biography bears to history, somebody 
 having wittily said that history was 
 biography with its brains knocked out. 
 I understand that nullification is just 
 secession with its brains knocked out; 
 and every argument applying to the 
 one applies to the other. So much for 
 the second authority upon which the 
 distinguished Senator from Louisiana 
 relies. 
 
 I now come to the third; and I trust 
 he will allow me to correct for him what 
 I know was an oversight, or, at least, an 
 entire misapprehension. The honorable 
 gentleman from Louisiana, during the 
 course of his speech, remarked, as I 
 remember it, that a valued friend had 
 placed in his hands a paper, from which 
 
 148 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 he read, purporting to be the opinion of 
 John Quincy Adams upon this question 
 of the right of a State to secede. I did 
 not understand him as reading from a 
 manuscript of his own copy, but from a 
 paper placed in his hands, and perhaps 
 about the moment, by somebody else. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. So far as that is con- 
 cerned, the paper that I read from was 
 sent to me as I read it, from a valued 
 friend from New York. As to the speech 
 of Mr. Adams, of course I cannot tell 
 anything about it; I have never seen it. 
 
 Mr. Bakee. The reason why I say 
 this it is proper to state here. It is a 
 remarkable fact that of all the passages 
 ever written by John Quincy Adams, of 
 all the passages ever written by anybody 
 from the beginning of the world, that 
 passage, taken altogether, part of which 
 was read by the honorable Senator from 
 Louisiana, is the passage, of all others, 
 which maintains the doctrine of the 
 oneness of this Government, its unity^ 
 
 149 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 its creation by the people, its ordination 
 by them as one government, and an entire 
 annihilation of the whole doctrine of 
 secession. The difficulty was this: that 
 the gentleman who furnished it, and who 
 caused the unwitting reading of it, I 
 have no doubt, in its mutilated condition, 
 by the Senator from Louisiana, omitted 
 the most remarkable part of the whole 
 passage; and it is more remarkable in 
 this — it is for that reason I hasten to 
 acquit my distinguished friend of any 
 knowledge of the misapprehension — that 
 it is in the very same paragraph; and 
 there had to be in that paragraph this 
 very same process of separation and dis- 
 union which is getting to be fashionable 
 nowadays, to make it bear upon the 
 Senator's view of the question at all. 
 I will read it. It begins in this wise: — 
 
 " In the calm hours of self-possession, the right of a 
 State to nullify an act of Congress is too absurd for argu- 
 ment, and too odious for discussion. The right of a State 
 to secede from the Union is equally disowned by the prin- 
 ciples of the Declaration of Independence." 
 
 150 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Now, sir, there follows after that the 
 passage read by the distinguished gen- 
 tleman. It is a passage, as I understand 
 it, incorporated in his speech, which pre- 
 sents the opinion of Mr. Adams that 
 there may be extreme cases in which a 
 State or a community has a right to 
 revolutionize. So much for the third 
 authority quoted by the distinguished 
 Senator. 
 
 Now, speaking of authorities, let me 
 add once more, that this speech of Mr. 
 Adams, entitled the Jubilee of the Con- 
 stitution, delivered by him with all his 
 exhaustive power as to any subject to 
 which he turned his attention, is, in point 
 of fact, an irresistible argument in favor 
 of our proposition that the Constitution 
 of the United States is an ordained gov- 
 ernment by the people for the govern- 
 ment of the people, and that it is in no 
 sense, and can never be, taken or consid- 
 ered as a compact between sovereign 
 States. Nay, sir, throughout the whole 
 
 151 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 course of that speech he goes much fur- 
 ther. He argues with great power, and 
 with great historical research, to show 
 that not only is the Constitution of the 
 United States a government formed by 
 the people and not a compact between 
 States, but that the old Confederation, 
 prior to the Constitution, was intended 
 to be that form of government also; that 
 really the people of the thirteen revolt- 
 ing or revolutionary colonies intended, 
 even at the time of the Declaration of 
 Independence, preceding both the Con- 
 stitution and the Confederation, to form 
 then a united government of one com- 
 mon people. 
 
 And yet once more, sir, I quote from 
 General Jackson. It is an authority which 
 I trust the distinguished gentleman will 
 revere. As I have said. South Carolina 
 attempted to do once before what it is 
 said she has accomplished now. There 
 was then a President of the United 
 States determined to do his whole duty. 
 
 152 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Whether there be now, I leave others to 
 determine: — 
 
 "The States severally have not retained their entire 
 sovereignty. It has been shown that in becoming parts 
 of a nation, not members of a league, they surrendered 
 many of their essential parts of sovereignty. The right 
 to make treaties, declare vs^ar, levy taxes, exercise exclu- 
 sive judicial and legislative powers, were all functions of 
 sovereign power. The States, then, for all these important 
 purposes, were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of 
 their citizens was transferred in the first instance to the 
 Government of the United States; they became Ameri- 
 can citizens, and owed obedience to the Constitution of 
 the United States." 
 
 Another mistake which (speaking with 
 great deference) I think is obvious 
 throughout the w^hole speech of the Sen- 
 ator from Louisiana, is the assumption, 
 not only that the Constitution is a com- 
 pact, but that the States parties to it are 
 sovereigns. Sir, they are not sovereigns; 
 and this Federal Government is not sov- 
 ereign. Paraphrasing the Mahometan 
 expression, "There is but one God," I 
 may say, and I do say, not without rev- 
 erence, there is but one sovereign, and 
 that sovereign is the people. The State 
 government is its creation; the Federal 
 
 153 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Government is its creation; each supreme 
 in its sphere ; each sovereign for its pur- 
 pose; but each limited in its authority, 
 and each dependent upon delegated 
 power. Why, sir, can that State — either 
 Oregon or South Carolina — be sovereign 
 which relinquishes the insignia of sov- 
 ereignty, the exercise of its highest 
 powers, the expression of its noblest 
 dignities ? Not so. We can neither coin 
 money, nor levy impost duties, nor make 
 war nor peace, nor raise standing armies, 
 nor build fleets, nor issue bills of credit. 
 In short, sir, we cannot do — because the 
 people, as sovereigns, have placed that 
 power in other hands — many, nay, most, 
 of those things which exhibit and pro- 
 claim the sovereignty of a State to the 
 whole world. Mr. Webster has well 
 observed that there can be in this coun- 
 try no sovereignty in the European sense 
 of sovereignty. It is, I believe, a feudal 
 idea. It has no place here. I repeat, 
 we are not sovereign here. They are 
 
 154 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 not sovereign in South Carolina; they 
 are not, and cannot be in the nature of 
 the case; and therefore all assumptions 
 and all presumptions arising out of the 
 proposition of sovereignty — supremacy 
 upon the part of a State — is a fallacy 
 from beginning to end. 
 
 Again, sir : Mr. Calhoun, in the course 
 of that celebrated argument, in well- 
 chosen words, insisted that the States in 
 their sovereign capacity, acceded to a 
 compact. Mr. Webster replied with his 
 usual force. The word " accede " was 
 chosen as the converse of "secede"; the 
 argument being intended to be that if 
 the State accedes to a compact she may 
 secede from that compact. But, said Mr. 
 Webster, — and no man has answered the 
 argument, and no man ever will, — it is 
 not an accession to a compact at all; it is 
 not the formation of a league at all ; it is 
 the action of the people of the United 
 States carrying into effect their purpose 
 from the Declaration of Independence 
 
 155 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 itself, manifested in the ordination and 
 establishment of a government, and ex- 
 pressed in their own emphatic words in 
 the preamble of the Constitution of the 
 United States itself. 
 
 In arguing upon the meaning and 
 import of the Constitution, I had hoped 
 that a lawyer so distinguished as the 
 gentleman from Louisiana, would have 
 referred to the terms of that document to 
 have endeavored at least to find its real 
 meaning from its force and mode of 
 expression. In the absence of such a 
 quotation, I beg leave to remind him 
 that the Constitution itself declares by 
 whom it was made, and for what it was 
 made. Mr. Adams, reading it, declares 
 that the Constitution of the United States 
 was the work of one people — the people 
 of the United States — and that those 
 United States still constitute one people; 
 and to establish that, among other things, 
 he refers to the fact — the great, the patent, 
 the glorious fact — that the Constitution 
 
 156 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 declares itself to have been made by the 
 people, and not by sovereign States, but 
 by the people of the United States; not 
 a compact, not a league, but it declares 
 that the people of the United States 
 do ordain and establish a government. 
 Now, I ask the distinguished Senator,^ 
 what becomes of this iteration and reit- 
 eration, that the Constitution is a com- 
 pact between sovereign States ? 
 
 Pursuing what I think is a defective 
 mode of reasoning from beginning to 
 end, the distinguished Senator from 
 Louisiana quotes Vattel, and for what? 
 To prove what, as I understand, nobody 
 denies — that a sovereign State, being 
 sovereign, may make a compact, and after- 
 wards withdraw from it. Our answer 
 to that is, that South Carolina is not a 
 sovereign State; that South Carolina has 
 not made a compact, and that, therefore, 
 it is not true that she can withdraw from 
 it; and I submit that all these disqui- 
 sitions upon the nature of European 
 157 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 sovereignty, or any of those forms of 
 government to which the distinguished 
 author which he has quoted had his obser- 
 vation attracted, is no argument whatever 
 in a controversy as to the force and mean- 
 ing of our Constitution bearing upon 
 States, sovereign in some sense, not sov- 
 ereign in others, but bearing most upon 
 individuals in their individual relations. 
 
 But the object of the speech was two- 
 fold. It was to prove, first, that this 
 Union was a compact between States, and 
 that, therefore, there was a rightful 
 remedy for injury, intolerable or other- 
 wise, by secession. Now, sir, I confess 
 in one thing I do not understand this 
 speech, although it be clearly written and 
 forcibly expressed. Does the Senator 
 mean to argue that there is such a thing 
 as a Constitutional right of secession? 
 Is it a right under the Constitution, or is 
 it a right above it and beyond it ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I do not know whether 
 the Senator desires an answer now. 
 
 158 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Mr. Bakek. Yes, sir; now. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Well, sir, I will take 
 example from gentlemen on the other 
 side, and I will answer his question by 
 asking another. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Do, sir. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I will ask him if the 
 State of South Carolina were refused 
 more than one Senator on this floor, 
 whether she vvould have a right to with- 
 draw from the Union, and if so, whether 
 it would arise out of the Constitution or 
 not. 
 
 Mr. Bakek. Now, Mr. President, I 
 will do what the distinguished Senator 
 from Louisiana has not done: I will 
 answer the question. [Laughter.] He 
 asks me whether if the State of South 
 Carolina, sending two Senators here loy- 
 ally, with affectionate reverence for the 
 Constitution, were denied the admission 
 of one, or, if you like, of both, it would be 
 cause for withdrawal. I understand that 
 to be the question. Sir, I reply: that 
 
 159 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 would depend upon several things yet to 
 be stated and determined: First, I think 
 South Carolina ought to inquire what is 
 the cause of that refusal. I believe this 
 body is the judge of the qualification of 
 its own members. If the Senator was 
 disqualified, or if in any fair judgment 
 or reasonable judgment we believed he 
 ought not to occupy a seat upon this floor, 
 surely it would not be cause of with- 
 drawal, or secession, or revolution, or 
 war, if we were to send him back. 
 
 But, sir, I will meet the question in 
 the full spirit in which I suppose it is 
 intended to put it. It is this : the right of 
 representation is a sacred right. If that 
 right is fraudulently and pertinaciously 
 denied, has the State to which it is denied 
 a right to secede in consequence thereof ? 
 I answer, the right of representation is 
 a right, in my judgment, inalienable. It 
 belongs to all communities, and to all 
 men. It is of the very nature and essence 
 of free government; and if, by force, by 
 
 160 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 despotism of the many over the few, it 
 is denied, solemnly, despotically, of pur- 
 pose, the intolerable oppression resulting 
 from that may be repelled by all the 
 means which God and nature have put 
 in our hands. Is the honorable Senator 
 answered ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Not yet. 
 
 Mr. Baker. What, sir? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I was saying to the 
 Senator, not yet. I asked him whether 
 he denied the fact that, in the supposed 
 case, which he has very fairly met, the 
 right to withdraw resulted from the 
 breach of the agreement in the Constitu- 
 tion, and would be a right growing out 
 of the violation of the Constitution, 
 independent of the question of oppres- 
 sion at all ? 
 
 Mr. Baker. Well, sir, I beg leave to 
 say, in answer to that, that is not the 
 question the honorable Senator put to 
 me, but I will answer that. The right 
 of South Carolina to withdraw, because 
 
 161 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 the fundamental right of representation 
 is denied her, is the right of revolution, 
 of rebellion. It does not depend upon 
 Constitutional guarantees at all. It is 
 beyond them, above them, and not of 
 them. Now, is the Senator answered ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I am fully answered. 
 I am only surprised at the answer. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Now, will the distin- 
 guished Senator answer me ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. With pleasure. Will 
 the Senator state his question once more ? 
 
 Mr. Bakee. Is there such a thing as 
 a Constitutional right of South Carolina 
 to secede ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I thought, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, that my proposition on that subject 
 could not be mistaken. I hold that there 
 is, from the very nature of the Constitu- 
 tion itself, from the theory upon which it 
 is formed, a right in any State to withdraw 
 from the compact, if its provisions are 
 violated to her detriment. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Well now, sir, I under- 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 stand what I did not quite understand 
 before, — no doubt it was owing to my 
 obtuseness, — that the gentleman contends 
 that there is in the State of South Caro- 
 lina a right to secede, to use his own 
 words, in the very nature of the Consti- 
 tution itself. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Eesulting from the 
 very nature of the compact, which I con- 
 sider the Constitution to be. 
 
 Mr. Baker. But that, Mr. President, 
 is not what the Senator did say. I 
 press him on this point again. Does the 
 right to secede spring out of and belong 
 to the Constitution. And if so, where ? 
 I am a strict constructionist. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I am, too; and if the 
 Senator will admit with me, what I 
 suppose he will scarcely deny, that the 
 States have reserved to themselves under 
 the Constitution, by express language, 
 every right not expressly denied to them 
 by the Constitution, I say that he will 
 find in the ninth and tenth amendments 
 163 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 to the Constitution the recognition of the 
 very right which I claim. 
 
 Mr. Bakee. Well, sir, the answer to 
 that is just this: that we have been 
 endeavoring to show — and I think irre- 
 sistibly — that, so far from its being true 
 that the States do reserve to themselves 
 in the Constitution all rights not dele- 
 gated by it, they do not reserve any- 
 thing, for they are not parties to it; and 
 there is no such thing as a reservation 
 by the States at all. The instrument is 
 made by the people; and the reserva- 
 tions, if any, are made by the people, 
 not the States. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. If I am not intruding 
 upon the Senator's line of argument or 
 time — and if I am I will not say another 
 word 
 
 Mr. Bakee. Not at all. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I ask the Senator 
 whether, after the Constitution had been 
 framed, amendments were not proposed 
 by nearly all the States and adopted, for 
 
 164 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 tlie very purpose of meeting that con- 
 struction for which he is now contending 
 — for the very purpose of maintaining 
 the proposition against which he now 
 argues? His idea is that the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States formed a gov- 
 ernment over the whole people as a mass. 
 The amendments state distinctly that that 
 was not the meaning of the Constitution; 
 but that, on the contrary, it was a delega- 
 tion of power by the States, and that the 
 States and the people of the States 
 reserved to themselves all powers not 
 expressly delegated. 
 
 Mr. Baker. "The powers not dele- 
 gated to the United States by the Con- 
 stitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
 States, are reserved to the States respect- 
 ively, or to the people," — that is the 
 amendment. Now, in answer, I say that, 
 in full light of that amendment, every 
 authority which I have read, every argu- 
 ment at which I have glanced, from Jack- 
 son, from Madison, from Webster, from 
 
 165 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Adams, all unite in tlie proposition that 
 still this is a government made by the 
 people of the United States in their char- 
 acter of people of the States, being one 
 government by them ordained. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Will the Senator be 
 good enough to allow me to call his at- 
 tention to the seventh and last article of 
 the Constitution, " The ratification of the 
 conventions of nine States shall be suffi- 
 cient for the establishment of this Con- 
 stitution between the States so ratifying 
 the same," — not read the preamble, but 
 the bargain. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Where shall I find it, sir? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. In the very last article 
 of the Constitution. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I am not sure that I un- 
 derstand the force of the distinction which 
 the honorable gentleman makes between 
 the preamble and the Constitution itself. 
 Following the example of Mr. Webster, 
 I love to read the whole instrument to- 
 gether ; but I will answer the Senator : — 
 
 166 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 "The ratification of the conventions of nine States 
 shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitu- 
 tion between the States so ratifying the same." 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. "Between the States." 
 
 Mr. Baker. Mr. President, what are 
 the conventions of nine States but the 
 people of nine States? There is the 
 answer at once. It is not ratification by 
 the State Legislature. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. What is the meaning 
 of the phrase " between the States"? Is 
 not that the language of compact ? 
 
 Mr. Baker. Well, it is obvious enough. 
 Ratification is to be done by the people. 
 It is made by the people in the first place. 
 It so proposes. It is to be ratified by 
 them in the second place; and being so 
 made by them, and being so ratified by 
 them, is binding upon the States, which 
 are the governments of the people that 
 ratified it. That is all. But, sir, the 
 Senator does not escape in that way. I 
 ask him yet once again, is the right to 
 secede a right growing out of the Consti- 
 tution itself? If so, where? What is 
 
 167 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 that provision? I repeat, I am a strict 
 constructionist. He says he is. I am not 
 now going to hunt for a vagrant and doubt- 
 ful power; but when States propose to 
 secede, to dissolve the Union, to declare 
 war, to drench confederated States in 
 fraternal blood, I ask if they claim it as a 
 Constitutional right to take the step that 
 will inevitably lead to that? I ask for the 
 word, the page, the place, and I meet no 
 reply. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I again refer the Senator 
 to the words and place. If the right of 
 secession exists at all, under any circum- 
 stances, revolutionary or not, it is a State 
 right. Now, the question whether it 
 exists under the Constitution or not, can 
 only be determined in one way: first, 
 by examining what powers are pro- 
 hibited to the States; and next, whether 
 the powers not prohibited are reserved. 
 This power is nowhere prohibited; and 
 the tenth amendment declares that the 
 powers not prohibited by the Consti- 
 
 168 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 tution to the States are reserved to the 
 States. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Mr. President, I do not 
 perceive the importance, naj, the profit, 
 of pursuing that line of inquiry any fur- 
 ther. I have asked for the answer of the 
 honorable Senator to that question; and 
 if with that answer he is content, and if 
 by that answer he intends to abide, so be 
 it. I think that we have well disposed 
 of the right of secession under the Con- 
 stitution itself. I advance to another 
 proposition. 
 
 I admit that there is a revolutionary 
 right. Whence does it spring? How is 
 it limited? To these questions for a mo- 
 ment I address myself. Whence does it 
 spring? Why, sir, as a right in commu- 
 nities, it is of the same nature as the right 
 of self-preservation in the individual, A 
 community protects itself by revolution 
 against intolerable oppression under any 
 form of government, as an individual 
 protects himself against intolerable 
 
 169 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 oppression by brute force. No compact, 
 no treaty, no constitution, no form of gov- 
 ernment, no oath or obligation can deprive 
 a man or a community of that sacred, ulti- 
 mate right. Now, sir, I think I state that 
 proposition as fully as I could be desired 
 to state it by the gentleman upon the 
 other side. The question that arises be- 
 tween us at once is : this right of revolu- 
 tion springing out of the self-preservation 
 belonging to communities, as to individ- 
 uals, must be exercised — how? In a case, 
 and in a case only, where all other reme- 
 dies fail; where the oppression is grind- 
 ing, intolerable, and permanent; where 
 revolution is in its nature a fit redress; 
 and where they who adopt it as a remedy 
 can do it in the full light of all the exam- 
 ples of the past, of all the responsibilities 
 of the present, of all the unimpassioned 
 judgment of the future, and the ultimate 
 determination of the Supreme Arbiter and 
 Judge of all. Sir, a right so exercised is 
 a sacred right. I maintain it; and I would 
 
 170 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 exercise it. The question recurs: has 
 South Carolina that right? 
 
 I think the honorable Senator will not 
 deny that one of the gravest responsibil- 
 ities which can devolve upon a community 
 or a State is to break up an established, 
 peaceful form of government. If that be 
 true as an abstract proposition, how much 
 more does the truth strike us when we 
 apply it to the condition in which we 
 found ourselves two months ago ! South 
 Carolina proposes now, according to the 
 later doctrine, to secede as a revoliitionary 
 right; as a resistance against intolerable 
 oppression; as an appeal to arms for the 
 maintenance of rights, for the redress of 
 wrongs, where the one cannot be main- 
 tained and the other be redressed other- 
 wise. Now, sir, I demand of her and of 
 those who defend her, that she should 
 stand out in the broad light of history 
 and declare, if not by the Senators that 
 she ought to have on this floor, by those 
 who league with her, in what that oppres- 
 
 171 
 
 /' 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 sion consists; where tliat injury is in- 
 flicted ; by whom the blow is struck ; what 
 weapon is used in the attack. So much, 
 at least, we have a right to inquire. After 
 we make that inquiry, permit me to add 
 another thing : a State claiming to be sov- 
 ereign and a people part of a great gov- 
 ernment ought to act with deliberation 
 and dignity; she ought to be able to 
 appeal to all history for kindred cases of 
 intolerable oppression, and kindred occa- 
 sions of magnanimous revolution. 
 
 Sir, we are not unacquainted in this 
 chamber with the history of revolutions. 
 We very well know that our forefathers 
 rebelled against the domination of the 
 house of Stuart. And why? The causes 
 are as well known to the world as the 
 great struggle by which they maintained 
 the right, and the great renown which has 
 forever followed the deed. When Oliver 
 Cromwell brought a traitorous, false king, 
 and gave him, "a dim discrowned mon- 
 arch," to the block, he did it by a solemn 
 
 172 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 judgment in the face of man and in the 
 face of Heaven, avouching the deed on 
 the great doctrine of revolutionary right; 
 and although a fickle people betrayed his 
 memory — although the traditions of mon- 
 archy were as yet too strong for the better 
 thought of the English people — yet, still, 
 now, here, to-day, wherever the English 
 language is read, wherever that historic, 
 glowing story is repeated, the hearts of 
 brave and generous men throb when the 
 deed is avouched, and justify the act. 
 
 Again: there was a second revolution 
 — the revolution of 1688; — and why? 
 Because a cowardly, fanatic, bigoted mon- 
 arch sought, by the exercise of a power to 
 be used through the bayonets of standing 
 armies, to repress the spirit and destroy 
 the liberties of a free people; because he 
 attempted to enforce upon them a re- 
 ligion alien to their thought and to their 
 hope; because he attempted to trample 
 under foot all that was sacred in the con- 
 stitution of English government. 
 173 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 And, sir, in the history of revolutions 
 there are examples more illustrious still 
 — perhaps the greatest of them all, that 
 revolution which ended in the establish- 
 ment of the Dutch Eepublic. My honor- 
 able and distinguished friend, I know, has 
 read the glowing pages of Motley, perhaps 
 the most accurate, if not the most bril- 
 liant, of American historians. I am sure 
 that his heart has throbbed with generous 
 enthusiasm as he read the thrilling pages of 
 that story where a great people, led by the 
 heroic house of Orange, pursued, through 
 danger, through sacrifice, through blood, 
 through the destruction of property, of 
 homes, of families, and of all but the great 
 indestructible spirit of liberty, the tenor 
 of their way to liberty and greatness and 
 glory at last. Sir, I need not tell him the 
 oppression against which they rebelled; 
 that the intolerable tyranny under which 
 they groaned was of itself sufficient not 
 only to enlist upon their side and in their 
 behalf all the sympathies of civilized 
 174 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Europe then, but the sympathies of the 
 whole civilized world as they have read 
 the story since. 
 
 Yet once more, in the full light of these 
 revolutions, our forefathors rebelled 
 against a tyrant, declaring the causes of 
 the Revolution, proclaiming them to the 
 world in an immortal document that is 
 familiar to us all. We recognize the 
 right. Why? Because the oppression 
 was intolerable; because the tyranny 
 could not be borne; because the essen- 
 tial rights belonging to every human 
 being v/ere violated, and that continually; 
 and in words more eloquent than I could 
 use, or than I have now time to quote, 
 Mr. Jefferson proclaimed them to the 
 world, and gave the reasons which im- 
 pelled us to the separation. Sir, I ask 
 the honorable Senator to bring his record 
 of reasons for revolution, bloodshed, and 
 war here to-day, and compare them with 
 that document. 
 
 If, then, Mr. President, the controversy 
 
 175 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 is not upon the abstract right of seces- 
 sion, nor upon the revolutionary right of 
 secession in a case fit and proper; but if, 
 at last, it narrows itself down into a dis- 
 cussion of the reasons why South Carolina 
 is to revolt, I propose to enter with a little 
 minuteness of detail into the history of 
 those reasons. I shall find them in 
 several sources: first, chiefest, perhaps 
 best, in the speech now before me of the 
 Senator from Louisiana ; secondly, in the 
 very impulsive, very brilliant speech of 
 the honorable Senator from Texas [Mr. 
 Wigfall]; and, if I have time to pursue 
 the search, perhaps in the speech of the 
 excited and excitable Senator from Geor- 
 gia [Mr. Iverson]. The gentleman from 
 Louisiana says that not devoting very 
 much time to the catalogue, and not giving 
 it with any hope that it will avert the issue 
 of arms, he will yet suggest some of the 
 wrongs and outrages which that "dreary 
 catalogue" presents, as having happened 
 to the State of South Carolina. Before 
 176 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 he does so, however, he says that the 
 wrongs under which she groans, the inju- 
 ries which justify and demand revolution, 
 are to be found " chiefly in a difference 
 of our construction of the Constitution." 
 Sir, is not that a "lame and impotent 
 conclusion" ? I was astonished. I have 
 known — again to quote the words of Mr. 
 Webster — I have known, perhaps I may 
 know again shortly, that there are cases 
 when the war does not always come up 
 to the manifesto; but from the serious- 
 ness with which the distinguished Sena- 
 tor approached the subject, I did not 
 expect to find a qualification which would 
 destroy the import and force of his cata- 
 logue altogether. Why, sir, can it be 
 that any man in his sober senses will 
 pretend that there can be cause for revo- 
 lution, war, because two parties in this 
 Government differ as to their construc- 
 tion of one article in the Federal Con- 
 stitution? Can that be so? And yet, 
 in the face of earth and Heaven, I recall 
 177 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 the fact tliat the honorable Senator 
 declares that the principal causes of 
 grievance are to be found in a difference 
 in the construction of one article of the 
 Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. The Senator will par- 
 don me. I do not think he will find 
 that in anything I said. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Far be it from me to 
 misrepresent the gentleman. If I do 
 not find it, I will withdraw what I have 
 said. I quote his words, and they 
 were words well considered, beautifully 
 chosen: — 
 
 " Before, however, making any statement — that state- 
 ment to which we have been challenged, and which I shall 
 make in but very few words — of the wrongs under Avhich 
 the South is now suffering, and for which she seeks redress, 
 as the difficulty seems to arise chiefly from a difference in 
 our construction of the Constitution, I desire to read" — 
 
 Something else. Now, sir, I ask him 
 whether I am not justified in saying that 
 his main ground of complaint in his 
 catalogue of dreary outrages and intol- 
 erable wrongs, is that that catalogue is 
 founded, to use his own words, chiefly 
 
 178 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 upon a dijfference in a construction of 
 the Constitution of the United States ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. The Senator will par- 
 don me. He stated that I had said they 
 arose from a difference in the construc- 
 tion of one clause of the Constitution. 
 
 Mr. Bakek. Well, sir, let it be "two 
 rogues in buckram," or seven; the idea 
 is the same. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. That is it. We have 
 eight or ten grievances; because you all 
 construe the Constitution on the errone- 
 ous principles you have announced this 
 morning. 
 
 Mr. Baker. . . . Now, sir, suppose 
 we differed about a dozen articles of the 
 Constitution, what then ? I read the cata- 
 logue of v/rongs, and I find, as a lawyer, 
 that they must refer themselves princi- 
 pally to one. But suppose there are 
 more, what then ? There are some things 
 that do not appear to strike the honora- 
 ble Senator in this connection. For 
 instance, does he remember that although 
 179 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 he may have one construction o1 the Con- 
 stitution, and I may have another, there 
 is between us a supreme arbiter, and 
 that upon every conceivable clause about 
 which we may differ, or have differed, 
 that arbiter has decided always upon 
 one side? To begin: there have been 
 debates in this Chamber, and elsewhere, 
 as to the true construction of that clause 
 of the Constitution which requires the 
 rendition of fugitive slaves. I will use 
 that term. There are very distinguished 
 members now upon this floor who have 
 argued wdth great gravity and wisdom 
 and research and eloquence, that it was 
 intended that the power of rendition 
 should be exercised by States. That 
 question, with all questions kindred to 
 it, about which any of us may have dif- 
 fered, has gone before the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, and has been decided 
 against us, or some of us, and in favor of 
 the Constitutionality of the law as it now 
 stands; and we have yielded to it, not 
 
 180 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 a submission, but, a better word, obe- 
 dience. Is not that true ? 
 
 Again, we have differed in late days — 
 and I am here to show, directly, how late 
 that difference is, and I trust I shall show 
 how ill-considered — as to the construc- 
 tion of the Constitution upon the subject 
 of the government of the Territories. 
 That is not a political question merely. 
 That is capable of being made the sub- 
 ject of a suit in law or equity, under 
 the provisions of the Constitution. That 
 has gone before the Supreme Court of 
 the United States. There has been, as 
 we all agree, a judgment; there has been, 
 as most here contend, a decision ; there has 
 been, as . everybody admits, an opinion. 
 All three have been adverse to us. Is 
 there in that any cause of complaint ? 
 
 There are the two points; and as the 
 honorable Senator asks me questions, I 
 will ask him another. Is there any other 
 cause of complaint, except under these 
 two clauses of the Constitution, belong- 
 
 181 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 ing to the Constitutional controversy? 
 The fugitive slave law is one, the right 
 to take your slaves into the Territories 
 the other. Are there any others ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Undoubtedly, Mr. 
 President. I thought I enumerated six 
 on Monday. If the Senator will do me 
 the honor to read the complaints which 
 I made in behalf of the South, he will 
 find them. Then, if those are not suffi- 
 cient, I can furnish half a dozen more. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Mr. President, I may 
 remark that those other causes of griev- 
 ance which, upon an occasion so solemn 
 as that presented by the Senator the 
 other day, were not mentioned in that 
 category, were best left unsummed. If 
 they were not of sufficient importance to 
 be enumerated then, they ought not to be 
 brought up by way of makeweight now. 
 I hold him to his record. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Bead. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I have now, as I under- 
 stand it, presented two main causes of 
 
 182 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 grievance arising, as lie says, out of 
 defective Constitutional construction ; 
 and, although I see many specifications, 
 I understand they are all parts of two 
 charges arising out of defective construc- 
 tion upon these two points. For instance, 
 one of the six charges is, that we slander 
 you. Surely we do not do that under 
 the Constitution. We slander you, we 
 vilify you, Yve abuse you, you say. Well, 
 that is not a Constitutional difficulty, 
 [laughter] ; and if my distinguished 
 friend will look at his "dreary cata- 
 logue," he will find that, save the two 
 which I have mentioned, the remainder 
 are but amplification, extension of griev- 
 ances, arising outside of the Consti- 
 tution, from difference of sentiment, 
 opinions, morals, or habits, and not the 
 cause of Constitutional complaint. There- 
 fore, I am not answered when he says, 
 "Look at my catalogue." I repeat once 
 more, to make it still plainer, that there 
 are but two Constitutional causes of com- 
 
 183 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 plaint : one in regard to the rendition of 
 fugitive slaves, the other the government 
 of the Territories. The difficulties arise 
 out of those two provisions. All the 
 rest are matters of sentiment, of opinion, 
 of habit, and of morals, which neither 
 constitutions nor laws can cause or cure. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Mr. President, if the 
 Senator wants me to answer whether the 
 difficulties of which the South complains, 
 and in consequence of which she refuses 
 any longer to remain confederated with 
 her sister States at the North, arise 
 exclusively from violations of the rights 
 of the South in relation to her slave 
 property, I answer, yes. He may take 
 one, two, three, five, or six, clauses of the 
 Constitution ; they all come back to that 
 single point — your constant, persistent 
 warfare upon our j)roperty, instead of 
 using the powers of the Federal Govern- 
 ment to protect, preserve, and cherish it. 
 
 Mr. Baker. And thus, Mr. President, 
 after questioning and cross-questioning, 
 
 184 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 and exercising that power of cross-exami- 
 nation which in courts, and I believe 
 elsewhere, we sometimes call the test of 
 truth, I bring the Senator, as I under- 
 stand him, at last to agree that when he 
 says in his labored speech the difficulty 
 arises chiefly out of a defective construc- 
 tion of the Constitution by us Black 
 Kepublicans, or us people of the North, 
 it is to be found upon two subjects : one 
 in relation to the fugitive slave question, 
 and the other to the government of the 
 Territories. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Not simply as to fugi- 
 tive slaves, but all slaves. 
 
 Mr. Bakek. But that is included in 
 this question of territorial government, 
 of the Wilmot Proviso, of the right of 
 the South to take her slaves there, and 
 go where she pleases and as she pleases. 
 These are the questions — 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Why, Mr. President, 
 if the Senator will look once again at 
 what I said, he wdll find that it does not 
 
 185 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 comprise only a reference to sucli slaves 
 as escape, but lie will j&ncl tliat we refer 
 constantly and openly in debate to organ- 
 ized and persistent efforts on the part of 
 entire bodies of people at tlie North, 
 with the connivance, with the secret aid 
 of their fellow-citizens, to rob us of 
 our property — not simply not returning 
 such slaves as may escape, but organ- 
 izing means to take away our property 
 and hide it beyond our reach, and 
 making the fugitive slave law utterly 
 valueless, even if it was executed, by 
 preventing our discovering even where 
 a slave is. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Mr. President, I reply to 
 that, that is nothing more than brilliant 
 amplification. The point that I press 
 the Senator upon is this — he has no 
 reply to it : have you any other difficulty 
 with us about Constitutional construction 
 except upon two subjects ? I do not ask 
 you now whether you complain that we 
 rob you of your slaves. That is not the 
 
 186 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 point. Do we do it under Constitutional 
 construction? I repeat: take the whole 
 tenor of the speech, the complaint, the 
 catalogue, the " drearj catalogue "; it all 
 ends in this: that there are differences 
 of opinion among us of sentiment. You 
 complain of our bad morals and our 
 bad manners; you say we rob you; you 
 say we intend to establish a cordon of free 
 States around you ; you say that we are 
 persistent in what we do on this point; 
 but at last, in your better and your more 
 candid moments, you say that the 
 difficulty seems to arise chiefly from 
 a difference in our construction of the 
 Constitution. I add to that (and you 
 will not contradict the addition), that it 
 is a difference in our construction of the 
 Constitution upon two subjects — first, 
 the rendition of fugitive slaves ; second, 
 the government of the Territories so as 
 to exclude slavery from those Territories 
 by the power either of the General Gov- 
 ernment or the Territorial Legislature. 
 187 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 I think we arrive clearly at the points 
 to be debated between ns. 
 
 Now, sir, first, of the fugitive slave 
 law. What is the construction that we 
 give to the fugitive slave law, of which 
 the Senator complains ? I have already 
 answered that question. We did in 
 argument give a construction. We were 
 defeated. The question went before the 
 Supreme Court. We were overruled. 
 We have obeyed that decision loyally ever 
 since. We have never seriously endeav- 
 ored to repeal it; nor have we as a party, 
 nor as a North, endeavored to defeat its 
 execution. Nay, if we had, that is not 
 within the Senator's counts, because he 
 does not say that the difficulty arises out 
 of malexecution of the fugitive slave 
 law, but out of the difi'erences of opinion 
 between us as to the construction of the 
 Constitution. Here I answer again, and 
 I will quote Mr. Lincoln, about to be 
 inaugurated as President of these United 
 States — a man who seeks to make his 
 
 188 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 opinions known in all proper ways and 
 upon all proper occasions; a man who, 
 for simplicity of purpose, directness of 
 expression, is not surpassed in this coun- 
 try; a man whose honesty has already 
 worthily passed into a proverb. You 
 will find in the history of the debates, 
 unsurpassed in ability in this country, 
 between the distinguished Senator from 
 Illinois [Mr. Douglas] and the President 
 elect, that he was asked, and for obvious 
 purposes, what his opinion was upon 
 this fugitive slave law question, and he 
 replied : — 
 
 " Question. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
 stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional 
 repeal of the fugitive slave law? 
 
 " Answer. I do not now, nor erer did, stand in favor 
 of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law." — 
 Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, p. 88. 
 
 Is that clear and distinct ? And, sir, I 
 echo him, not because he is President, 
 but because he is honest and wise and true. 
 I, who want nothing of him; I, who am 
 not, and in no sense can ever be, depend- 
 ent on him; I reply with him; I, as a 
 
 189 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Senator on this floor, repeating the opin- 
 ion of my constituents, without distinction 
 of party — I, too, say that I am not, have 
 not been, never will be, in favor of the un- 
 conditional repeal of the fugitive slave law. 
 Again, sir: since the passage of that 
 law, the Eepublican party has sprung 
 into existence. We have had two politi- 
 cal campaigns. In one, untried, unor- 
 ganized, without reasonable grounds for 
 hope, we astonished ourselves, we aston- 
 ished the country, by our strength. In 
 the other, gathering together all the 
 irresistible elements of freedom in the 
 North and West, we have gained a great 
 political triumph, which we intend to 
 use wisely, but which we intend to guard 
 well. Have we, in any platform, in any 
 resolutions, by any bill, in any way evinced 
 a disposition to repeal that fugitive slave 
 law ? Do we not, upon all fit occasions, 
 say that, though many of us believe it is a 
 hard bargain, yet that it is so " nominated 
 in the bond," and we will endure it? 
 
 190 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Now, sir, when we make these state- 
 ments — we have made them in the can- 
 vass; I make them more deliberately 
 now — what is the reply ? I know it of 
 old. Why, it is said, " While yonr plat- 
 form does not propose to repeal the 
 fugitive slave law, there are States which 
 pass personal liberty bills." Will gen- 
 tlemen listen to our calm, frank, candid 
 reply? First, the sense of the whole 
 North is opposed to nullification, in any 
 way or upon any subject. We will yield 
 obedience — and I have said that it is 
 a better word than submission — to any 
 provision of the Constitution of the 
 United States, as it is construed by the 
 ultimate tribunal. They have, as we 
 understand it, declared that law to be 
 Constitutional, and to that decision we 
 yield. If there be States which have 
 passed laws in violation of it, preventive 
 of it, to hinder, to defeat, to delay it, 
 in my judgment — and, sir, what is of 
 infinitely more consequence, in the 
 
 191 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 judgment of the North and West — those 
 laws ought to be repealed ; not because 
 South Carolina threatens; not because 
 Louisiana will secede: but because we 
 desire to yield obedience to those highest 
 obligations, right and duty, of which I 
 made mention in the commencement of 
 this argument. 
 
 But, sir, the honorable and distin- 
 guished gentleman upon the other side 
 knows very well that there is very seri- 
 ous and grave debate whether those laws 
 are in any sense unconstitutional. We 
 are told that some of them were made 
 before the fugitive slave law, bearing 
 upon other questions and directed to 
 other objects. We are told that the pro- 
 visions of many of them are provisions 
 intended to guard and secure personal 
 liberty, independent of any question as 
 to the fugitive slave law. But whether 
 that be so to any extent, or to what 
 extent, we say that if it shall be proved 
 before any competent tribunal, and most 
 
 192 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 of all, before the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, that those laws, or any of 
 them, in any of their provisions, do hin- 
 der, delay, defeat the execution of that 
 law, " reform it altogether." Sir, speak- 
 ing in my place, with some knowledge 
 of the Kepublican party, speaking by 
 no authority in the world for the Presi- 
 dent elect, but speaking of him because 
 I have known him from my boyhood, or 
 nearly so, I say that, when the time 
 arrives that he shall be inaugurated in 
 this capital, and exercise in the chair of 
 the Chief Magistrate all the high respon- 
 sible duties of that office, he will enforce 
 the execution of all the laws of this 
 Government, whether revenue, or fugitive 
 slave, or territorial, or otherwise, with 
 the whole integrity of his character and 
 the whole power of the Government. 
 Now, I ask my distinguished friend if that 
 is not a fair, frank reply to all the objec- 
 tions he may make as to differences of 
 construction about the fugitive slave law ? 
 
 193 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. If the Senator wants 
 the answer now — 
 
 Mr. Baker. Certainly, sir; let the 
 blow fall now. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. It is not at all satis- 
 factory; not in the remotest degree. 
 
 Mr. Baker. My honorable friend will 
 not say that that is a reply. If I were 
 in court, or elsewhere, and not in so 
 grave a body as the Senate of the United 
 States, I would quote two very celebrated 
 lines in reply to that, to the effect that those 
 who suffer from the law do not always 
 have a good opinion of it; but I refrain. 
 I repeat that, in the judgment of reason- 
 able men, that is an answer, and a full 
 and complete answer to the objection 
 made against us, that you are going to 
 secede because of any difference of 
 opinion between us as to the construc- 
 tion of the provisions of the Constitution 
 and our duty about the fugitive slave law. 
 
 There are some other observations 
 with which I beg leave to detain the 
 
 194 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 Senate, however, upon that subject. 
 That can scarcely be considered one of 
 the objections; first, because the State 
 of South Carolina herself, through her 
 only authorized expositor, the Charleston 
 Mercury, declares, and has declared, that 
 she believes the fugitive slave law to be 
 unconstitutional anyhow. One of the 
 most distinguished of her sons, Mr. 
 Rhett, repeats and emphasizes the same 
 remark. A distinguished gentleman, the 
 Senator from Georgia, lately occupying 
 the chair, not now in it, [Mr. Iverson,] 
 has said lately upon this floor that the 
 South does not complain of any construc- 
 tion which the North gives to that law ; 
 nay, more, that the law is well made, 
 carefully guarded, just to the South, 
 and, so far as the Federal Government is 
 concerned, properly executed. 
 
 Now, sir, can that be the ground of 
 complaint about which South Carolina 
 is going out? Will she separate the 
 bonds that have bound us together for 
 
 195 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 more than seventy years, because slie 
 does not think that we quite perfectly 
 obey a law which she herself, in the 
 person of her most distinguished ser- 
 vants, declares to be unconstitutional? 
 Not so, sir. Or will Georgia follow the 
 illustrious example of South Carolina, 
 and desert the Kepublic, when her rep- 
 resentative on this floor declares that 
 upon that subject the North performs 
 all its obligations ? These are questions 
 which I leave to their honor and their 
 dignity to decide. 
 
 The Senator from Louisiana tells me 
 that the Southern people have agreed 
 that slavery may be prohibited. How? 
 Sir, in passing the Missouri Compromise 
 bill, they did not merely agree to do it — 
 the act of Congress is not a mere evi- 
 dence to be used in a court of honor that 
 the people of Louisiana will not inter- 
 fere with the bargain. That is not it; 
 but the act of Congress is a positive law, 
 
 196 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 made under the sanction of an oath, in 
 the light of the consciences of the men 
 who agreed to it; and I ask him in all 
 fairness and honor, if he or I to-day vote 
 in this Senate chamber to prohibit slav- 
 ery in a certain Territory, whether, if we 
 believe that we have no right under the 
 Constitution to do that, we do not violate 
 both the Constitution and our oaths when 
 we render that vote ? I think that from 
 this position there is no escape. When 
 Mr. Clay gave that vote, he had no Con- 
 stitutional doubt. When the South urged 
 it, and the North agreed to it, they who 
 voted had no Constitutional doubt ; or if 
 they had, it vanished before the clear light 
 of reason and argument. The North, as 
 it is said, accepted it reluctantly ; at least 
 they abided by it. When gentlemen de- 
 stroyed it they ran after strange gods; 
 and now when many of them propose to 
 come back to it, they are offering a truer 
 and more acceptable worship. But, sir, 
 the point of the argument is not to be 
 197 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 evaded by any pretense that it is a mere 
 agreement in a court of honor to do that 
 which they have no legal and Constitu- 
 tional right to do. Suppose a gentleman 
 from Alabama comes up and says, " Sir, 
 you, the Senator from Louisiana, have 
 voted to prohibit me from taking my 
 slaves into the territory north of 36° 30^; 
 what do you mean by it ? have you any 
 right to do it? "Oh, no," the Senator 
 says, "no right in the world ; it is just a 
 sort of legislative flourish, a compact 
 between us and somebody else, that hav- 
 ing done it, we will never take it back; 
 it is the exercise of a right which theo- 
 retically we do not claim; we have just 
 done it — we do not exactly know why in 
 point of law, but we have done it because 
 we hope, having done it, nobody will undo 
 it." What will the strict constructionists 
 on the other side say to that? What 
 words will they put in my mouth ? 
 
 I do not think the argument can be 
 defended other than upon the ground 
 
 198 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 assumed by a justice of the peace, well 
 known to my distinguished friend from 
 Illinois [Mr. Douglas], old Boiling Green, 
 in answer to a little law advice that I 
 gave him on one occasion when the Sen- 
 ator and I" were both very young men, 
 and (if he will excuse me for saying so) 
 very poor lawyers. [Laughter.] Old 
 Boiling Green, then a magistrate, came 
 to me and said, "Baker, I want to know 
 if I have jurisdiction in a case of slan- 
 der." I put on a very important air; 
 looked at him steadily — looked as wise 
 as I could, and I said to him, "Squire, 
 you have no such authority; that is re- 
 served to a court of general jurisdiction." 
 "Well," said he, "think again; you have 
 not read law very well, or very long; try 
 it again; now, have I not jurisdiction? 
 can I not do it?" "No," I said; "you 
 cannot." Said he, "Try once more; 
 now, cannot I take jurisdiction?" "No, 
 sir," said I; "you cannot; I know it; I 
 have read the law from Blackstone to 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. . 
 
 ; vfell, I have read Blackstone, and 
 
 I know you cannot do it." " Now, sir," 
 said he, "I know I can; for, by Heaven, 
 I have done it." [Laughter.] I under- 
 stand, now, that the sum total of the 
 answer which is made to my objection as 
 to the Constitutionality of the Missouri 
 Compromise touching the consciences of 
 the gentlemen who proposed to pass it 
 without power, is just the reply of my 
 old friend Boiling Green. They say, 
 "Theoretically we have not the power; 
 constitutionally we have not the power; 
 but, by Heaven, we have done it." 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Well, sir, I do not assume to deal with 
 them in a court of conscience. That is 
 their matter. I do not pretend to discuss 
 the propriety of making a solemn act of 
 the Congress of the United States merely 
 evidence in a court of honor, subject, as 
 I think, to a demurrer to evidence at 
 least. That is none of my business. 
 What I am dealing with is this : if that 
 
 200 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 be the opinion of Virginia, of Louisiana, 
 of the entire South; if they have done it 
 by their leaders, by their speeches; if 
 they have lived by it; if, being a compact, 
 it is an executed compact; if under it 
 State after State has come into this 
 Union, is it not too late for them to deny 
 now that we are justified if we wish to 
 adhere to that principle ? Have they 
 a right to come and say, "You are 
 declaring slavery to be a creature of the 
 local law, and we will justly dissolve 
 the Union by revolution in consequence 
 thereof ? " I think, from the conclusion, 
 that this is neither fair, nor just, nor 
 right, nor Constitutional. There is no 
 escape. 
 
 The Senator says, in substance, that we 
 attack slavery generally. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. If the Senator will per- 
 mit me, the charge is not that Congress 
 does it, but that the States do it. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Very well. I thank the 
 gentleman; and with the directness which 
 
 201 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 belongs to his character, and the cour- 
 tesy which he can never forget, I shall 
 be happy if, only to carry down the 
 argument, whenever he sees a proper 
 place, he will just direct my attention to 
 the pith and marrow of the matter as he 
 does now. Now, be it understood, on 
 this given day of January, in the year 
 of our Lord 1861, the great champion 
 of the South upon this question gets up 
 in his place in the Senate and admits 
 that there is no ground of complaint 
 that the Federal Government ever has 
 attempted to interfere with the existence 
 of slavery in the Southern States. We 
 will get that down upon the record, and 
 I apprehend it will be quoted before this 
 controversy is over, again and again. 
 
 But it is said that the Northern States, 
 the Western States — in other words, the 
 free States — do so interfere. Again we 
 deny it. The fact is not so. The proof 
 cannot be made. Why, sir, I might ask, 
 in the first place, how can the States so 
 
 202 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 interfere? Suppose Illinois, of which 
 I desire to speak always with affectionate 
 solicitude, and of which I can speak with 
 considerable knowledge, were to violate 
 all the opinions which she has mani- 
 fested in her history, and desired to 
 interfere with the existence of slavery 
 in Virginia, how would she go about it ? 
 I have the profoundest respect for my 
 friend as a lawyer; but I would like to 
 know what bill he could frame by which 
 Illinois could interfere with the existence 
 of slavery in Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. Mr. President, I will 
 tell the Senator, not how they can do 
 it by bill, but how they do it in acts. 
 A body of men penetrated into the State 
 of Virginia by force of arms, into a 
 peaceful village at the dead hour of night, 
 armed with means for the purpose of 
 causing the slaves to rise against their 
 masters, seized upon the public property 
 of the United States, and murdered the 
 inhabitants. A man was found in Massa- 
 
 203 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 chusetts who, in public speeches, declared 
 that he approved of that, and that the 
 invasion was right; and the people of 
 Massachusetts, by an enormous majority 
 — the fact of that man's action placed 
 before the people as a ground why he 
 should be elected their Governor — 
 elected him their Governor, indorsed 
 invasion of a sister State, indorsed the 
 murder of peaceful inhabitants of the 
 State of Virginia. The people of Massa- 
 chusetts, by the election of Andrews as 
 their Governor, have indorsed the act of 
 John Brown, have indorsed the invasion 
 of a sister State, and the murder of its 
 peaceful citizens at dead of night. 
 
 The people of Massachusetts, in their 
 collective capacity, have done more. 
 They have sent Senators upon this floor 
 whose only business has been, for year 
 after year, to insult the people of the 
 South; here, in this common assembly 
 of confederate embassadors, to cast slan- 
 der and opprobrium upon them; to call 
 
 204 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 them thieves, murderers, violators ; charge 
 them as being criminals of the blackest 
 dye; and because the men who here rep- 
 resent Massachusetts did that, Massa- 
 chusetts has sent them back to repeat 
 the wrong. They have done that, ?nd 
 nothing else, since ever I have been in 
 the Senate. 
 
 Mr. Wilson. Mr. President — 
 Mr. Baker. Oh, never mind. Mr. 
 President, I asked the gentleman from 
 Louisiana to point out to me and to the 
 Senate how, if the State of Illinois were 
 desirous to interfere with the existence 
 of slavery in Virginia, it could be done. 
 I leave to his cooler temper and his 
 better taste to examine how he has 
 answered me. Why, sir, he runs off into 
 a disquisition upon John Brown, which 
 would not dignify a stump. Now, I sub- 
 mit that that is not the point between us. 
 I hold that his answer is an acknowledg- 
 ment that a free State cannot, as a State, 
 interfere in any conceivable way with 
 
 205 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 slavery in a slave State ; and that being 
 so, we advance another step. We agree 
 now that Congress never have interfered, 
 and that States never can. 
 
 But the gentleman says (and I do not 
 reply to it now on account of what he 
 has said at this moment, but because it 
 is another of the counts in the indict- 
 ment), that individuals in the Northern 
 States have interfered with slavery in 
 the Southern States. I believe that to 
 be true; but being true, I ask, what 
 then ? Is that the chief ground of disso- 
 lution? Are you going to revolt for 
 that ? Will you plunge us into civil war 
 for that ? Is that all ? Sir, let us exam- 
 ine it a little more closely. I pass, as 
 unworthy of the dignity of the debate, 
 the incidental attack which the Senator 
 from Louisiana has chosen to make upon 
 the people of Massachusetts, upon the 
 Governor of that great State, and upon 
 the distinguished Senators from that 
 State, who, in my judgment, are an honor 
 
 206 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 on this floor to this body. It is not my 
 purpose — they would not intrust me 
 with their defense ; nor is it needful that 
 I should make it here or anywhere. 
 That is not within the scope and pur- 
 pose of this debate; but it is within 
 the scope and purpose of this debate to 
 examine how much of truth there is in 
 the general sweeping charge which the 
 Senator has chosen to make, and how 
 much justification in the fact, if the fact 
 be true. 
 
 Sir, the people of the Northern and 
 Western States are a free people. We 
 have there various rights guaranteed to 
 us by our State constitutions, among the 
 chiefest of which are liberty of thought 
 and freedom of speech. We are an 
 inquiring people; we are an investigat- 
 ing people; and we are, no doubt, very 
 subject to the charge often made against 
 us that we are a people of isms. Where 
 there is perfect freedom of opinion, 
 that must be the case, in the nature of 
 
 207 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 things. It is in the nature of the human 
 mind itself. Laws will not restrain it. 
 We cannot bind the human mind with 
 fetters, nor can we limit it to modes of 
 expression. It will think and it will act, 
 spite of all government, and beyond all 
 law. It follows, as a consequence, that 
 the people will not think alike; and, of 
 course, as there cannot be two ways per- 
 fectly right upon any one subject, the 
 people will not always think truly and 
 wisely. 
 
 What then? There are people in Mas- 
 sachusetts, and in Illinois, and in Oregon, 
 who will not only violate the rights of 
 the slave States but the rights of the 
 free. There are people in the North 
 who will not only steal niggers, but steal 
 horses. There are people in the North 
 who will not only try to burn down houses 
 in the slave States, but who will be in- 
 cendiary in the free States. It is the 
 duty of the distinguished Senator from 
 Louisiana, and myself sometimes, as 
 
 208 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 counsel, to defend sncli men. Nor do I 
 know that such men or such defenses are 
 confined to the North or the West alone. 
 I apprehend if a grateful procession of 
 the knaves and rascals who are indebted 
 to the distinguished Senator from Lou- 
 isiana for an escape from the penitentiary 
 and the halter were to surround him 
 to-day, it would be difficult for even 
 admiring friends to get near him to con- 
 gratulate him upon the success of his 
 efforts upon this floor. [Laughter.] 
 When, therefore, he says that individuals 
 — not States, not Congress — but indi- 
 viduals in the free States, do attack in 
 their individual capacity the honor and 
 dignity of the slave States, and do run 
 off their niggers, and do steal their 
 property, and do kidnap, and do various 
 other things contrary to their duty as 
 good citizens, I am inclined, while I 
 regret it, to believe the whole of it. 
 
 Springing from that, and evidenced, as 
 I think, by the excited enumeration 
 
 209 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 which the distinguished Senator has 
 chosen to make of the wrongs and crimes 
 of the State of Massachusetts and her 
 Senators, — springing from that exagger- 
 ated mode of thought and expression, 
 as to the free States, arises the spirit of 
 the count in the indictment against the 
 whole of us. Now, I beg leave to say to 
 the honorable Senator, that the desire to 
 interfere with the rights of slavery in 
 the slave States is not the desire of the 
 Northern people. It is not the desire of 
 the people of Oregon, I know; it is not 
 the desire of the people of California, I 
 am sure; it is not the desire of the people 
 of Illinois, I would swear ; and I may 
 say more, that in all my association with 
 the Eepublican party, I have yet to find 
 among them, from their chiefs down to 
 their humblest private, one man who 
 proposes to interfere with the existence 
 of slavery in the slave States by force, 
 by legislation, or by Congressional action. 
 I have known no such man in all my 
 
 210 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 short experience, nor do I believe that 
 the Senator from Louisiana can point 
 out any such man. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. If the Senator merely 
 desires me to answer him, I will tell 
 him exactly what I said the other day: 
 that the belief of the South is, and I 
 admit I share it, that, without intending 
 to violate the letter of the Constitution 
 by going into States for the purpose of 
 forcibly emancipating slaves, it is the 
 desire of the whole Republican party 
 to close up the Southern States with a 
 cordon of free States, for the avowed 
 purpose of forcing the South to emanci- 
 pate them. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Very well, sir. See how 
 gloriously we advance, step by step. 
 We abandon now the charge that Con- 
 gress does it; we abandon now the charge 
 that States do it; we abandon now the 
 charge that the individual members of 
 the Northern and Western communities, 
 as a body, desire to interfere with slavery 
 
 211 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 contrary to law, to violate any existing 
 right in the slave States; but we insist 
 tenaciously and pertinaciously on our 
 fourth count in the indictment; and it is 
 this — 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. The Senator, I trust, 
 does not desire to misrepresent what I 
 said. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I do not, sir. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I am confident that he 
 does not. I understood the Senator to 
 ask me, in relation to the Republican 
 party, what proof I had of their desire 
 to destroy slavery in the States. I gave 
 it to him. I did not say that, independ- 
 ently of that, there were not other attacks 
 upon Southern slavery. I just this mo- 
 ment referred him to the direct attack of 
 the State of Massachusetts — the State as 
 a State. Independently of that, by the 
 further exemplification of the State of 
 Massachusetts, I will refer him to the 
 fact that her Legislature indorsed the 
 vituperations of her Senator on this floor, 
 
 212 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 by an enormous majority, and made tliat 
 a State act; and furthermore, that she 
 passed a law in violation of the rights 
 of Southern slaveholders, and all her 
 eminent legal men are now urging the 
 State to repeal the law as a gross out- 
 rage upon the Constitutional rights of 
 the South. 
 
 Mr. Bakee. Why, Mr. President, in a 
 State where all her eminent legal men 
 are desirous to rectify a wrong, I do not 
 think, if the Senator will wait a little 
 while, there can be any very great danger. 
 Our profession is a very powerful one; 
 and I have never known a State in which 
 we all agree upon a legal proposition 
 that we could not induce her to agree to 
 it too. That is a mere answer in pass- 
 ing. 
 
 I insist, however — I know it is not 
 quite pleasant to my friend, and I regret 
 that it is not so — that I have brought 
 him down to a clear statement by way of 
 abandonment of three or four of the 
 213 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 specifications. It is now true tliat tlie 
 great ground of complaint has narrowed 
 itself down to this: that, as a people, we 
 desire to circle the slave States with a 
 cordon of free States, and thereby destroy 
 the institution of slavery; to treat it like 
 the scorpion girt by fire. I take that to 
 be an abandonment of the main counts in 
 the indictment, unless that be considered 
 one of them. Now, I approach that ques- 
 tion: first, if we, a free people, really, in 
 our hearts and consciences, believing 
 that freedom is better for everybody than 
 slavery, do desire the advance of free 
 sentiments, and do endeavor to assist 
 that advance in a Constitutional, legal 
 way, is that, I ask him, ground of sepa- 
 ration ? 
 
 Mr. Benjamin. I say, yes; decidedly. 
 
 Mr. Baker. That is well. And I say 
 just as decidedly, and perhaps more 
 emphatically, no ! And I will proceed 
 to tell him why. The argument is a 
 little more discursive to-day than yester- 
 
 214 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 day, but perhaps not less instructive. 
 Suppose that circling slavery with a cor- 
 don of free States were a cause of sepa- 
 ration, and therefore war, with us: is it 
 not just as much so with anybody else ? 
 It is no greater crime for a Massachu- 
 setts man or an Oregon man to circle, to 
 girdle, and thereby kill, slavery, than for 
 a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or a 
 Mexican. It is as much a cause of war 
 against France, or England, or Mexico, 
 as against us. 
 
 Again, sir: how are you going to help 
 it ? How can we help it ? Circle slavery 
 with a cordon of free States ! Why, if I 
 read history and observe geography 
 rightly, it is so girdled now. Which 
 way can slavery extend itself that it does 
 not encroach upon the soil of freedom ? 
 Has the Senator thought of that? It 
 cannot go North, though it is trying very 
 hard. It cannot go into Kansas, though 
 it made a convulsive effort, mistaking a 
 spasm for strength. It cannot go South, 
 
 215 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 because, amid the degradation and civil 
 war and peonage of Mexico, if there be 
 one thing under heaven they hate worse 
 than another, it is African slavery. It 
 cannot reach the islands of the sea, for 
 they are under the shadow of France, 
 that guards their shores against such 
 infectious approach. It is circled — I 
 will not say girdled. I recollect the 
 figure, familiar to us all, by which he 
 intimates that that which is girdled will 
 die. Therefore, I do not say girdled; 
 I say circled, inclosed, surrounded; I 
 may say hedged in; nay, more, I may 
 say — where is the Senator from New 
 York [Mr. Seward]? he is a prophet, 
 and I will not predict; but, if I were not 
 warned by his example and his predic- 
 tion as to the " irrepressible conflict," I 
 might say that, being so hedged, circled, 
 guarded, encompassed, it will some day — 
 it may be infinitely far distant, so far as 
 mortal eye can see — but it will be some 
 day lost and absorbed in the superior 
 
 216 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 blaze of freedom. And, sir, that would 
 be the case, just as much as it is now, if 
 there were no Northern free States. 
 What harm do I, in Illinois or Oregon, 
 to the Senator from Louisiana? Where 
 can his slavery go, that it is not now, 
 unless it be in this disputed Territory of 
 New Mexico? Where else? If it go 
 anywhere else, it will go incursive, aggres- 
 sive upon freedom. It will go by invad- 
 ing the rights of a nation that is inferior 
 and that desires to be friendly. It will 
 go in defiance of the wish and will and 
 hope and tear and prayer of the whole 
 civilized world. It will go in defiance 
 of the hopes of civilized humanity all 
 over the world. The Senator will not 
 deny that. Therefore it is that it appears 
 to me idle — and I had almost said wicked 
 — to attempt to plunge this country into 
 civil war, upon the pretense that we are 
 endeavoring to circle your institution, 
 when, if we had no such wish or desire 
 in the world, it is circled by destiny, 
 
 217 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 by Providence, and by human opinion 
 everywhere. 
 
 The Senator asks, " How will you col- 
 lect your revenue ? " There is nothing 
 practical in the attempted idea that we 
 cannot punish an individual, or that we 
 cannot compel him to obey the law, because 
 a sovereign State will undertake to succor 
 him. There is no more sense in that than 
 there was in the excuse made by a cele- 
 brated commander-in-chief for profane 
 swearing. The Duke of York, as you may 
 remember, sir, was, during the reign of 
 George III., his father, not only comman- 
 der-in-chief of the British forces, but he 
 was titular Bishop of Osnaburgh ; that is, 
 he had a little principality in Germany 
 which was originally related to the Church, 
 and he was nominal bishop of that princi- 
 pality. At a tavern one day, while the com- 
 mander-in-chief was swearing profanely, a 
 gentleman of the Church of England felt 
 it his duty to reprove him, and said to 
 him, " Sir, I am astonished that a bishop 
 
 218 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 should swear in the maimer that you do.'* 
 " Sir," said he, " I want you to distinctly 
 understand that I do not swear as the 
 Bishop of Osnaburgh — I swear as the 
 Duke of York, the commander-in-chief." 
 "Ah, sir," said the old man, "when the 
 Lord shall send the duke to hell, what 
 will become of the bishop ? " [Laughter.] 
 Now, if, in consequence of an attempt to 
 violate the revenue laws, some persons 
 should be hurt, I do not know that it 
 will better their condition at all that 
 South Carolina will stand as a stake to 
 their back. I think that is the plain 
 common-sense answer to all that has been, 
 said on that subject. 
 
 Sir, as I leave that branch of it, indeed 
 as I leave the subject altogether, I will 
 simply say that I hope it will never 
 come. Whatever moderation, whatever 
 that great healer. Time, whatever the 
 mediation of those allied to these people 
 in blood, in sympathy, in interest, may 
 effect, let that be done; but at last let 
 
 219 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 the laws be maintained and the Union be 
 preserved. At whatever cost, by what- 
 ever Constitutional process, through what- 
 ever of darkness or danger there may be, 
 let us proceed in the broad luminous path 
 of duty " till danger's troubled night be 
 passed and the star of peace returns." 
 
 As I take my leave of a subject upon 
 which I have detained you too long, I 
 think in my own mind whether I shall 
 add anything in my feeble way to the 
 hopes, the prayers, the aspirations that 
 are going forth daily for the perpetuity 
 of the Union of these States. I ask 
 myself, shall I add anything to that 
 volume of invocation which is everywhere 
 rising up to high Heaven, " Spare us from 
 the madness of disunion and civil war !" 
 Sir, standing in this chamber and speak- 
 ing upon this subject, I cannot forget that 
 I am standing in a place once occupied 
 by one far, far mightier than I, the lachet 
 of whose shoes I am not worthy to 
 unloose. It was upon this subject of 
 
 220 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 secession, of disunion, of discord, of civil 
 war, that Webster uttered those immortal 
 sentiments, clothed in immortal words, 
 married to the noblest expressions that 
 ever fell from human lips, which alone 
 would have made him memorable and 
 remembered forever. Sir, I cannot im- 
 prove upon those expressions. They 
 were uttered nearly thirty years ago, in 
 the face of what was imagined to be a 
 great danger, then happily dissipated. 
 They were uttered in the fullness of his 
 genius, from the fullness of his heart. 
 They have found echo since then in mil- 
 lions of homes and in foreign lands. 
 They have been a text-book in schools. 
 They have been an inspiration to public 
 hope and to public liberty. As I close, 
 I repeat them; I adopt them. If in their 
 presence I were to attempt to give utter- 
 ance to any words of my own, I should 
 feel that I ought to say, 
 
 " And shall the lyre so long divine 
 Degenerate into hands like mine ?" 
 
 221 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Sir, I adopt the closing passages of 
 that immortal speech; they are my senti- 
 ments; they are the sentiments of every 
 man upon this side of the chamber; I 
 would fain believe they are the sentiments 
 of every man upon this floor; I would 
 fain believe that they are an inspiration, 
 and will become a power throughout the 
 length and breadth of this broad con- 
 federacy; that again the aspirations and 
 hopes and prayers for the Union may 
 rise like a perpetual hymn of hope and 
 praise. But, sir, however this may be, 
 these thoughts are mine; these prayers 
 are mine; and as, reverently and fondly, 
 I utter them, I leave the discussion : — 
 
 "When my eyes shall be turned to 
 behold for the last time the sun in 
 heaven, may I not see him shining on the 
 broken and dishonored fragments of a 
 once glorious Union; on States dissev- 
 ered, discordant, belligerent; on a land 
 rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may 
 be, in fraternal blood! Let their last 
 
 222 
 
The Reply to Benjamin. 
 
 feeble and lingering glance rather behold 
 the gorgeous ensign of the Kepublic, now 
 known and honored throughout the earth, 
 still full high advanced, its arms and 
 trophies streaming in their original luster, 
 not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a 
 single star obscured, bearing for its motto 
 no such miserable interrogatory as ' What 
 is all this worth?' nor those other words 
 of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first, and 
 Union afterwards ;' but everywhere, spread 
 all over in characters of living light, blaz- 
 ing on all its ample folds, as they float 
 over the sea and over the land, and in 
 every wind under the whole heavens, 
 that other sentiment, dear to every true 
 American heart, 'Liberty and Union, now 
 and forever, one and inseparable ! ' " 
 
AT THE GEEAT MASS-MEET- 
 ING, NEW YORK CITY. 
 
Thk last speech was, indeed, spoken "in the presence 
 of great events," South Carolina and other Southern 
 States had already seceded. Two months after this speech 
 the Administration of Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. 
 Benjamin had left the Senate with the secession of Louisi- 
 ana. That body, held in session to act on Presidential 
 appointments, adjourned on March 28th. Within a fort- 
 night, Fort Sumter was bombarded and taken by the Con- 
 federates. Virginia seceded a few days later. Upon the 
 fall of Sumter the President called for seventy-five thou- 
 sand men to defend the Capital. His proclamation recited 
 that the laws were opposed and their execution obstructed 
 by " combinations " in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
 Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and called for 
 recruits " to suppress said combination, and to cause the 
 law^s to be duly executed"; and at the same time sum- 
 moned Congress to meet in extra session of the 4th of 
 July. A second call for troops was made on May 4th. The 
 war spirit being thoroughly aroused, Union mass-meet- 
 ings were held throughout the Northern and Western 
 States, the most notable, in point of numbers and enthu- 
 siasm, being in Union Square, New York City, on Saturday, 
 April 19, 1861. From different stands twenty of the most 
 prominent men of the country addressed the multitude, 
 among them being Daniel S. Dickinson, James T. Brady, 
 John A. Dix, Henry J. Raymond, and the Oregon Senator. 
 This was the largest mass-meeting ever held in this coun- 
 try. It was generally estimated that one hundred thou- 
 sand people were in the throng. Dickinson, who had 
 been United States Senator from New York, and was a fine 
 speaker, addressing another meeting on a later occasion 
 in Brooklyn, after the death of Baker, thus alluded to 
 our orator : " He was swifter than an eagle ; he was stronger 
 than a lion, and the very soul of manly daring. He spoke 
 
 227 
 
Masterpieces of E, D. Baker. 
 
 by my side at the great Union Square meeting in April, 
 and his words of fiery and patriotic eloquence yet ring 
 upon my ear. And has that noble heart ceased to throb — 
 that pulse to play? Has that beaming eye closed in death? 
 Has that tongue so eloquent been silenced forever?" 
 
 Baker's speech follows. His happy reference to his 
 leadership of New York troops on the battle-field in 
 Mexico made sure of the affectionate sympathy of the 
 vast host before him. 
 
 Governor Stanly, on the occasion spoken of on page 65, 
 repeated the stirring words with which this speech con- 
 cluded, and declared Baker's effort to be "one of great 
 eloquence and power." 
 
 It was there — in the great metropolis, before the 
 unreckoned multitude, in the face of an unexampled 
 crisis, and in the fullness of his fame — our friend made 
 his last popular appeal. 
 
 228 
 
AT THE GREAT MASS-MEETING, 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The majesty of the people is here 
 to-day to sustain the majesty of the Con- 
 stitution [cheers], and I come a wanderer 
 from the far Pacific to record my oath 
 along with yours of the great Empire 
 State. [Applause, and three cheers for 
 Baker.] The hour for conciliation is 
 passed; the gathering for battle is at 
 hand, and the country requires that every 
 man shall do his duty. [Loud cheers.] 
 Fellow-citizens, what is that country? 
 Is it the soil on which we tread? Is 
 it the gathering of familiar faces ? Is 
 it our luxury, and pomp, and pride? 
 Nay, more than these, is it power, and 
 might, and majesty alone? No; our 
 country is more, far more, than all these. 
 The country which demands our love, 
 our courage, our devotion, our heart's 
 
 229 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 blood, is more than all these. [Loud 
 applause.] Our country is the history 
 of our fathers, the tradition of our 
 mothers. Our country is past renown; 
 present pride and power; future hope 
 and dignity; greatness, glory, truth. Con- 
 stitutional guarantees — above all, free- 
 dom forever. [Enthusiastic cheers.] 
 These are the watchwords under which 
 we fight, and we will shout them out till 
 the stars appear in the sky in the stormi- 
 est hour of battle. [Cheers.] I have 
 said that the hour of conciliation is past. 
 It may return, but not to-morrow or next 
 week. It will return when that tattered 
 flag [pointing to the flag of Fort Sumter] 
 is avenged. [Prolonged and enthusiastic 
 cheers.] It will return when rebellious 
 Confederates are taught that the North, 
 though peaceable, is not cowardly; 
 though forbearing, not fearful. [Cheers.] 
 That hour of conciliation will come back 
 when again the ensign of the Republic 
 will stream over every rebellious fort 
 
 230 
 
The New York Mass- Meeting. 
 
 of every Confederate State [renewed 
 cheers], to be, as of old, the emblem of 
 the pride, and power, and dignity, and 
 majesty, and peace of the nation. 
 [Applause.] Young men of New York ! 
 you are told that this is not to be a war 
 of aggression. In one sense, that is true ; 
 in another, not. We have committed 
 aggression upon no man. In all the 
 broad land, in their rebel nest, in their 
 traitor's camp, no truthful man can rise 
 and say that he has ever been disturbed, 
 though it be but for a single moment, in 
 life, liberty, estate, character, or honor. 
 [Cheers, and cries of " That 's so ! "] The 
 day they began this unnatural, false, 
 wicked, rebellious warfare, their lives 
 were more secure, their property more 
 secure by us (not by themselves, but by 
 us), more strongly guarded than the lives 
 and property of any other people from 
 the beginning of the world. [Applause.] 
 We have committed no oppression, 
 broken no compact, exercised no unholy 
 
 231 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 power, but have been loyal, moderate, 
 Constitutional, and just. We are a major- 
 ity, and will govern our own Union, 
 within our own Constitution, in our own 
 way. [Cries of " Bravo ! " and applause.] 
 We are all Democrats. We are all 
 Republicans. We acknowledge the sov- 
 ereignty within the rule of the Constitu- 
 tion; and under that Constitution, and 
 beneath that flag, let traitors beware! 
 [Loud cheers.] 
 
 In this sense, then, young men of New 
 York, we are not for a war of aggression ; 
 but in another sense, speaking for myself 
 as a man who has been a soldier, and as 
 a man who is a Senator, I say I am for 
 a war of aggression. I propose that we 
 do now as we did in Mexico — conquer 
 peace. [Loud and enthusiastic applause.] 
 I propose that we go to Washington, and 
 beyond. [Loud cheers.] I do not de- 
 sign to remain silent, supine, inactive — 
 nay, fearful — until they gather their 
 battalions and advance upon our borders 
 
 232 
 
The New York Mass- Meeting. 
 
 or into our midst. I would meet them 
 upon the threshold, and there, in the 
 very hold of their power, in the very- 
 atmosphere of their treason, I would dic- 
 tate the terms of peace. [Loud cheers.] 
 It may take thirty millions of dollars, 
 it may take three hundred millions — 
 what then? We have it. [Cries of 
 " Good !" and applause.] Loyally, nobly, 
 grandly do the merchants of New York 
 respond to the appeals of the Govern- 
 ment. It may cost us seven thousand 
 men ; it may cost us seventy-five thou- 
 sand; it may cost us seven hundred and 
 fifty thousand — what then? We have 
 them. [Eenewed cheering.] The blood 
 of every loyal man is dear to me. My 
 sons, my kinsmen, the men who have 
 grown up beneath my eye and beneath 
 my care, they are all dear to me ; but if 
 the country's destiny, glory, tradition, 
 greatness, freedom. Constitutional gov- 
 ernment demand it, let them all go. 
 [Enthusiastic cheers.] 
 
 233 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 I am not now to speak timorous words 
 of peace, but to kindle the spirit of 
 determined war; I speak in the Empire 
 State, amid scenes of past suffering and 
 past glory. The defenses of the Hudson 
 above me, the battle-field of Long Island 
 before me, and the statue of Washington 
 in my very face [loud, enthusiastic cheers], 
 the battered and unconquered flag of 
 Sumter is waving at my side, which I 
 can imagine to be trembling again with 
 the excitement of battle. [Great enthusi- 
 asm.] And as I speak, I say my mission 
 here to-day is to kindle the heart of New 
 York for war — short, sudden, bold, deter- 
 mined, forward war. [Great applause.] 
 
 The Seventh Eegiment has gone. 
 [Three cheers for the Seventh Eegiment.] 
 Let seventy and seven more follow. 
 [Applause.] Of old, said a great his- 
 torian, beneath the banner of the Cross, 
 Europe precipitated itself upon Asia. 
 Beneath the banner of the Constitution 
 let the men of the Union precipitate 
 
 234 
 
The New York Mass- Meeting. 
 
 themselves upon tlie Confederate States. 
 [Tremendous applause.] A few more 
 words, and I have done. [Cries of " Go 
 on; we '11 hear you all night."] 
 
 Let no man underrate the dangers of 
 this conflict. Civil war, for the best of 
 reasons upon the one side, and the worst 
 upon the other, is always dangerous to 
 liberty, always fearful, always bloody. 
 But, fellow-citizens, there are yet worse 
 things than fear, than doubt and dread, 
 and peril and bloodshed. Dishonor is 
 worse. [Prolonged cheers.] Anarchy 
 is worse. States forever commingling 
 and forever severing is worse. [Renewed 
 cheers.] Secessionists are worse. To 
 have star after star blotted out [cries 
 of "Never! never!"] — to have stripe after 
 stripe obscured [cries of "No! no!"] — 
 to have glory after glory dimmed, to 
 have our women weep and our men blush 
 for shame through generations to come ; 
 that and these are infinitely worse than 
 blood. [Tremendous cheers.] 
 
 235 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 People of New York! on the eve of 
 battle, allow me to speak as a soldier. 
 Few of you know, as my career has been 
 distant and obscure, but I may mention 
 it here to-day with a generous pride, 
 that it was once my fortune to lead your 
 gallant New York regiment in the very 
 shock of battle. [Applause.] It was 
 upon the bloody heights of Cerro Gordo. 
 I know well what New York can do 
 when her blood is up. [Loud applause. 
 *'Three cheers for Baker ! "] Again, once 
 more, when we march, let us not march 
 for revenge — as yet we have nothing to 
 revenge. It is not much, that where that 
 tattered flag recently floated, guarded by 
 seventy men against ten thousand, it is 
 not much that starvation effected what 
 an enemy could not compel. [Prolonged 
 applause.] 
 
 We have yet some punishment to in- 
 flict. The President himself, a hero 
 without knowing it, — and I speak from 
 knowledge, having known him from boy- 
 
 236 
 
The New York Mass- Meeting. 
 
 hood, — the President says: "There are 
 wrongs to be redressed, already long 
 enough endured ;" and we march to battle 
 and to victory because we do not choose 
 to endure this wrong any longer. [Cheers.] 
 They are wrongs not merely against us, 
 not against the President, not against me, 
 but against our sons and against our 
 grandsons that surround us. They are 
 wrongs against our ensign [cries of 
 "That's so!" and applause]; they are 
 wrongs against our Union ; they are 
 wrongs against our Constitution; they 
 are wrongs against human hope and 
 human freedom. 
 
 While I speak, following in the wake 
 of men so eloquent, the object of your 
 meeting is accomplished. Upon the wings 
 of the lightning it goes out to the world 
 that the very heart of a great city — that 
 New York, by one hundred thousand of 
 her people, declares that she will sustain 
 the Government to the last dollar in her 
 treasury — to the last drop of her blood. 
 
 237 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 The national banners leaning from ten 
 thousand windows to-day proclaim your 
 reverence and affection for the Union. 
 You will gather in battalions, and, as you 
 gather, every omen of ultimate peace will 
 surround you. The ministers of religion, 
 the priests of literature, the historians 
 of the past, the illustrators of the present, 
 capital, science, art, invention, discoveries, 
 the works of genius, all these will attend 
 us, and we will conquer. 
 
 And if, from the far Pacific, a voice 
 feebler than the feeblest murmur upon 
 its shore may be heard to give you 
 courage and hope in the contest, that 
 voice is yours to-day. And if a man 
 whose hair is gray, who is well-nigh 
 worn out in the battle and toil of life, 
 may pledge himself on such an occasion, 
 and in such an audience, let me say as 
 my last word that when, amid sheeted 
 fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts 
 of New York as they charged in contest 
 on a foreign soil for the honor of the 
 
 238 
 
The New York Mass-Meetino- 
 
 t>' 
 
 flag; so again, if Providence shall will 
 it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword, 
 never yet dishonored, not to fight for 
 honor on a foreign field, but for country, 
 for home, for law, for government, for 
 Constitution, for right, for freedom, for 
 humanity — and in the hope that the 
 banner of my country may advance, and 
 wheresoever that banner waves, there 
 glory may pursue and freedom be estab- 
 lished. [Loud and prolonged applause.] 
 
THE REPLY TO BRECKIN 
 RIDGE 
 
When he spoke the warlike words last in place. Baker 
 had about made up his mind again to "draw a sword 
 never yet dishonored," and on June 28th, one week 
 before Congress was to meet in special session, he was 
 mustered into service as colonel of the First California 
 Infantry (designation changed in November, 1861, to Sev* 
 enty-first Pennsylvania Infantry Volunteers,) to serve 
 three years. He was commissioned brigadier-general of 
 volunteers, August 6, 1861, to rank from May 17th. This 
 commission, although he was confirmed by the Senate, he 
 declined on August 31st. On September 21st, j ust a month 
 before his fall, he was appointed major-general of volun- 
 teers. This he also declined, because acceptance would 
 necessitate his resignation as Senator. It is not on his- 
 tory's page, but nevertheless true, that when General 
 Winfield Scott had to give up the general command of the 
 army, in consequence of old age, President Lincoln ten- 
 dered the succession to Colonel Baker. Lincoln and Baker 
 were old comrades in the campaigns of the Whig party. 
 They were together in the Black Hawk War, and Baker's 
 action in the war with Mexico was fresh in the mind and 
 heart of the President. 
 
 While Congress was in special session, the Federal 
 disaster at Bull Run occurred, on Sunday, July 21, 1861. 
 Baker was stationed at Fortress Monroe, but was ordered 
 with his command to Washington. 
 
 On August 2, 1861, the Senate having under considera- 
 tion a bill to suppress insurrection and sedition, intro- 
 duced on July 16th by the Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of 
 Illinois, Senator Breckinridge, of Kentucky, late Vice- 
 President of the United States, made a speech against the 
 proposed measure. Baker, in the double role of statesman 
 and soldier, heard this speech, sitting in his seat as Sena- 
 
 243 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 tor and clothed in the uniform of a colonel of the army, 
 and at its conclusion he arose to reply. Seldom, if ever 
 before, in the history of Congress did a speaker so chal- 
 lenge attention. Only once had there been a like scene, 
 and then, too, it was the same actor. In the war with 
 Mexico, when General Shields was badly wounded at 
 Cerro Gordo, Baker succeeded to the command of the 
 brigade, and led it through all the subsequent battles of 
 the war. At one time he availed himself of a furlough, 
 visited Washington, resumed his seat in the House as a 
 member from Illinois, made a brilliant speech in favor of 
 the prosecution of the war, then hastened back to his 
 regiment at Vera Cruz. 
 
 He was now to make his last pronunciation. He was 
 going into actual battle again to redeem his pledges. One 
 of these he had made at the recent New York mass-meet- 
 ing, and another pledge he had given to Glory in his 
 youth — that he would love her forever ! In his life, indeed, 
 were some sharp contrasts, as before observed — this son 
 of Mars, this hero of three wars, was reared by Quaker 
 parents ! Baker had long borne the name of " The Old 
 Gray Eagle." It was a happy appellative. Behold his 
 white locks, his magnificent eyes, his lofty flights ! As he 
 took the floor now, in his uniform, to reply to Breckin- 
 ridge, perhaps a nobler or more picturesque figure never 
 stood in the presence of men. His altitude was five feet 
 ten and a half inches, his weight one hundred and ninety 
 pounds. Harmonious in person, and free in gesture, he 
 spoke, as usual, with animation, yet with undisturbed 
 dignity. The picture in this volume represents him as 
 he then appeared. It is from a photo by W. L. Germon, of 
 Philadelphia, taken between the dates of this last speech 
 and Baker's death. It gives the eagle look and the flash 
 of the eye. 
 
 Reader, you say. He was a fine-looking man. Yes, he 
 was a good man to look at, as well as listen to, and he was 
 universally beloved, being as good-hearted as he was good- 
 looking. You see his nature in his face. 
 
 The apparition of the Tarpeian Rock, brought into 
 
 244 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 this speech at the suggestion of Senator Fessenden, of 
 Maine, was regarded as felicitous even by the orator's 
 political opponents. But Breckinridge at first believed 
 that it was Sumner, of Massachusetts, who whispered the 
 word to Baker, and that the act was more malicious than 
 clever. 
 
 
 245 
 
THE EEPLY TO BEECKINEIDGE.* 
 
 Me. President, it has not been my 
 fortune to participate in, at any length, 
 indeed, nor to hear very much of the 
 discussion which has been going on — 
 more, I think, in the hands of the Sen- 
 ator from Kentucky than anybody else — 
 upon all the propositions connected with 
 this war; and, as I really feel as sincerely 
 as he can an earnest desire to preserve 
 the Constitution of the United States for 
 everybody. South as well as North, I 
 have listened for some little time past to 
 what he has said, with an earnest desire 
 to apprehend the point of his objection 
 to this particular bill. And now — waiv- 
 
 * In this debate Senator Breckinridge referred to 
 Baker as " the Senator from California." Baker, correct- 
 ing, said "Oregon." Breckinridge responded: "The 
 Senator seems to have charge of the whole Pacific Coast, 
 though I do not mean to intimate that the Senators from 
 California are not entirely able and willing to take care 
 of their own State. They are. The Senator from Oregon, 
 then." 
 
 247 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 ing what, I think, is the elegant but loose 
 declamation in which he chooses to in- 
 dulge — I would propose, with my habit- 
 ual respect for him, (for nobody is more 
 courteous and more gentlemanly,) to ask 
 him if he will be kind enough to tell me 
 what single particular provision there is 
 in this bill which is in violation of the 
 Constitution of the United States, which 
 I have sworn to support — one distinct, 
 single proposition in the bill. 
 
 Mr. Beeckineidge. I will state, in 
 general terms, that every one of them is, 
 in my opinion, flagrantly so, unless it 
 may be the last. I will send the Senator 
 the bill, and he may comment on the 
 sections. 
 
 Mr. Bakee. Pick out that one which, 
 in your judgment, is most clearly so. 
 
 Mr. Beeckineidge. They are all, in 
 my opinion, so equally atrocious, that I 
 dislike to discriminate. I will send the 
 Senator the bill, and I teM him that 
 every section, except the last, in my 
 
 248 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 opinion, violates the Constitution of the 
 United States; and of that last section I 
 express no opinion. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I had hoped that that 
 respectful suggestion to the Senator 
 would enable him to point me to one 
 section, in his judgment, most clearly so, 
 for they are not all alike — they are not 
 equally atrocious. 
 
 Mr. Breckinridge. Very nearly so. 
 There are ten of them. The Senator can 
 select which he pleases. 
 
 Mr. Baker. Let me try, then, if I 
 must generalize as the Senator does, to 
 see if I can get the scope and meaning 
 of this bill. It is a bill providing that 
 the President of the United States may 
 declare, by proclamation, in a certain 
 given state of facts, certain territory, 
 within the United States, to be in a con- 
 dition of insurrection and war, which 
 proclamation shall be extensively pub- 
 lished within the district to which it 
 relates. That is the first proposition. 
 
 249 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 I ask kim if tkat is unconstitutional. 
 That is a plain question. Is it uncon- 
 stitutional to give power to tke President 
 to declare a portion of tke territory of 
 tke United States to be in a state of in- 
 surrection or rebellion? He will not 
 dare to say it is. r 
 
 Mr. Beeckinridge. Mr. President, tke 
 Senator from Oregon is a very adroit 
 debater; and ke discovers, of course, tke 
 great advantage ke would kave if I were 
 to allow kim, occupying tke floor, to ask 
 me a series of questions, and tken make 
 kis own criticisms on my responses. 
 Wken ke kas closed kis speeck, if I deem 
 it necessary, I may make some reply. 
 At present, kowever, I will answer tkat 
 question. Tke State of Illinois, I believe, 
 is a military district. Tke State of Ken- 
 tucky is a military district. In my judg- 
 ment, tke President kas no autkority, 
 and Congress kas no rigkt to confer it 
 upon kim, to declare a State to be in a 
 condition of insurrection or rebellion. 
 
 250 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 Mr. Baker. In the first place, the 
 bill does not saj a word about States. 
 That is the first answer. 
 
 Mr. Breckinridge. Does not the Sen- 
 ator know, in fact, that those States com- 
 pose military districts ? It might as 
 well have said " States " as to describe 
 what is a State. 
 
 Mr. Baker. I do; and that is the 
 reason why I suggest to the honorable 
 Senator that this criticism about States 
 does not mean anything at all. That is 
 the very point. The objection certainly 
 ought not to be that he can declare a 
 part of a State in insurrection, and not 
 the whole of it. In point of fact, the 
 Constitution of the United States, and 
 the Congress of the United States acting 
 upon it, are not treating of States but of 
 the territory comprising the United 
 States; and I submit once more to his 
 better judgment that it cannot be uncon- 
 stitutional to allow the President to de- 
 clare a county or a part of a county, or 
 
 251 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 a town or a part of a town, or part of a 
 State, or the whole of a State, or two 
 States, or five States, in a condition of 
 insurrection, if, in his judgment, that be 
 the fact. That is not wrong. 
 
 In the next place, it provides that that 
 being so, the military commander in that 
 district may make and publish such police 
 rules and regulations as he may deem 
 necessary to suppress the rebellion and 
 restore order and preserve the lives and 
 property of citizens. I submit to him 
 that if the President has power — we 
 ought to have power to suppress insur- 
 rection and rebellion — is there any better 
 way to do it, or is there any other way? 
 The gentleman says, Do it by the civil 
 power. Look at the fact. The civil power 
 is utterly overwhelmed; the courts are 
 closed ; the judges banished. Is the Pres- 
 ident not to execute the law ? Is he to do 
 it in person, or by his military command- 
 ers ? Are they to do it with regulation, 
 or without it ? That is the only question. 
 
 252 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 The honorable Senator says there is a 
 state of war. The Senator from Ver- 
 mont agrees with him; or rather, he 
 agrees with the Senator from Vermont 
 in that. What then? There is a state 
 of public war; none the less war because 
 it is urged from the other side; not the 
 less war because it is unjust; not the less 
 war because it is a war of insurrection 
 and rebellion. It is still war; and I am 
 willing to say it is public war — public, 
 as contradistinguished from private war. 
 What then ? Shall we carry that war on ? 
 Is it his duty as a Senator to carry it 
 on ? If so, how ? If it is a public war, 
 how? By armies, under command; by 
 military organization and authority, ad- 
 vancing to suppress insurrection and 
 rebellion. Is that wrong ? Is that un- 
 constitutional ? Are we not bound to 
 do with whoever levies war against us 
 as with a foreigner ? There is no dis- 
 tinction as to the mode of carrying on 
 war. We carry on war against an advan- 
 
 253 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 cing army just the same, whether it be 
 from Eussia or from South Carolina. 
 Will the honorable Senator tell me if it 
 is our duty to stay here, within fifteen 
 miles of the enemy preparing to march 
 upon us, and talk about nice questions 
 of Constitutional construction, as to 
 whether it is war or merely insurrec- 
 tion ? No, sir. It is our duty to advance, 
 too, if we can; to suppress insurrection; 
 to put down rebellion ; to dissipate the 
 rising; to scatter the enemy; and when 
 we have done so, to preserve, in the terms 
 of the bill, the liberty, lives, and prop- 
 erty of the people of the country, by just 
 and fair police regulations. Did not we 
 do this when we took Monterey, in Mex- 
 ico ? Did we not do it when we took the 
 Mexican capital? Is it not a part — a 
 necessary, an indispensable part — of war 
 itself, that there shall be military regula- 
 tions over the country that is conquered 
 and held ? Is that unconstitutional ? 
 I think it was a mere play of words 
 
 254 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 that the Senator indulged in, when he 
 attempted to answer the Senator from 
 New York. I did not understand the 
 Senator from New York to mean any- 
 thing substantially but this: that the 
 Constitution deals generally with a state 
 of peace, and that, when war is declared, 
 it leaves the condition of public affairs to 
 be determined by the law of war in the 
 country where the war exists. It is true 
 that the Constitution does not adopt the 
 laws of war as a part of the instrument 
 itself during the continuance of war. The 
 Constitution does not provide that spies 
 shall be hung. Is it unconstitutional to 
 hang a spy ? There is no provision for 
 it in terms in the Constitution; but 
 nobody denies the right, the power, 
 the justice. Why? Because it is a part 
 of the law of war. The Constitution does 
 not provide for the exchange of prison- 
 ers; yet it may be done under the law 
 of war. Indeed, the Constitution does 
 not provide that a prisoner may be taken 
 
 255 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 at all, yet his captivity is perfectly just 
 and Constitutional. It seems to me that 
 the Senator does not, will not, take that 
 view of the subject. 
 
 Again, sir, when a military commander 
 advances (as I trust, if there are no more 
 unexpected great reverses, he will ad- 
 vance) through Virginia, and occupies the 
 country, there, perhaps, as here, the civil 
 law may be silent; there, perhaps, the 
 civil officers may flee, as ours have been 
 compelled to flee. What then ? If the 
 civil law is silent, who shall control and 
 regulate the conquered district — who but 
 the military commander? As the Sen- 
 ator from Illinois has well said, shall it 
 be done by regulation or without regula- 
 tion ? Shall the general, or the colonel, 
 or the captain, be supreme, or shall he 
 be regulated and ordered by the Presi- 
 dent of the United States ? That is the 
 sole question. The Senator has put it 
 well. 
 
 I agree that we ought to do all we can 
 
 256 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 to limit, to fetter, to restrain, the use of 
 military power. Bayonets are, at best, 
 illogical arguments. I am not willing, 
 except as a case of sheerest necessity, 
 ever to permit a military commander to 
 exercise authority over life, liberty, and 
 property. But, sir, it is part of the law 
 of war; you cannot carry in the rear of 
 your army your courts; you cannot or- 
 ganize juries; you cannot have trials 
 according to the forms and ceremonial 
 of the common law amid the clangor of 
 arms ; and somebody must enforce police 
 regulations in a conquered or occupied 
 district. I ask the Senator from Ken- 
 tucky again, respectfully, is that Constitu- 
 tional ? Or if in the nature of war it must 
 exist, even if there be no law passed by 
 us to allow it, is it unconstitutional to 
 regulate it? That is the question to 
 which I do not think he will make a 
 clear and distinct reply. 
 
 Now, sir, I have shown him two sections 
 of the bill (which I do not think he 
 257 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 will repeat earnestly) are unconstitutional. 
 I do not think that he will seriously deny 
 that it is perfectly Constitutional to limit, 
 to regulate, to control — to confer and 
 restrain at the same time — authority in 
 the hands of military commanders. I 
 think it is wise and judicious to regulate 
 it by virtue of powers to be placed in 
 the hands of the President by law. 
 
 Now, a few words, and a few only, as 
 to the Senator's predictions. The Sen- 
 ator stands up here in a manly way in 
 opposition to what he sees is the over- 
 whelming sentiment of the Senate, and 
 utters reproof, malediction, and predic- 
 tion combined. Well, sir, it is not every 
 prediction that is prophecy. It is the 
 easiest thing in the world to do, except 
 to be mistaken, when we have predicted. 
 I confess, Mr. President, that I would 
 not have predicted three weeks ago the 
 disasters which have overtaken our arms; 
 and I do not think, if I were to predict 
 now, that six months hence the Senator 
 
 258 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 will indulge in the same tone of predic- 
 tion which is his favorite key now. I 
 would ask him: What would you have 
 us do now — a Confederate army within 
 twenty miles of us, advancing, or threat- 
 ening to advance, to overwhelm your 
 Government, to shake the pillars of the 
 Union; to bring it around your head, if 
 you stay here, in ruins? Are we to stop, 
 and talk about an uprising sentiment in 
 the North against the war? Are we to 
 predict evil, and retire from what we 
 predict? Is it not the manly part to go 
 on as we hav^ begun, to raise money, and 
 levy armies, to organize them, to prepare 
 to advance; where we do advance, to 
 regulate that advance by all the laws and 
 rules that civilization and humanity will 
 allow? 
 
 Can we do anything more ? It is idle 
 to talk to us about stopping; we will 
 never stop. Will the Senator yield to 
 rebellion? Will he shrink from armed 
 insurrection? Will his State justify it? 
 
 259 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Will its better public opinion allow it? 
 Shall we send a flag of truce? What 
 would he have? Or would he conduct 
 this war so feebly that the world would 
 smile in derision? These speeches of 
 his, sown broadcast over the land, what 
 clear, distinct meaning have they? Are 
 the J not intended for disorganization in 
 our very midst? Are they not designed 
 to dull our weapons, to destroy our zeal, 
 to animate our foes? Sir, are they not 
 words of brilliant, polished treason, even 
 in the very capitol of the Eepublic? 
 [Applause in the galleries, promptly 
 checked by the presiding officer.] 
 
 What would have been thought, if, in 
 another capitol, in another republic, in 
 a yet more martial age, a Senator as 
 grave, not more eloquent or dignified, 
 than the Senator from Kentucky, yet 
 with the Roman purple flowing over his 
 shoulders, had risen in his place, sur- 
 rounded by all the illustrations of Boman 
 glory, and declared that advancing Han- 
 
 260 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 nibal was just, and that Carthage ought 
 to be dealt with in terms of peace ? What 
 would have been thought, if, after the 
 battle of Cannse, a Senator there had 
 risen in his place and denounced every 
 levy of the Roman people, every expen- 
 diture of its treasure, and every appeal 
 to the old recollections and the old 
 glories? 
 
 [Senator William Pitt Fessenden, of 
 Maine, here whispered to the speaker: 
 "He would have been hurled from the 
 Tarpeian Eock." 
 
 Sir, a Senator, himself learned far 
 more than myself in such lore, tells me, 
 in a voice that I am glad is audible, that 
 he would have been hurled from the 
 Tarpeian Rock. It is a grand commen- 
 tary upon the American Constitution that 
 we permit the words of the Senator from 
 Kentucky to be uttered here. I ask the 
 Senator to recollect, too, what, save to 
 send aid and comfort to the enemy, do 
 these predictions of his amount to? 
 
 261 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Every word thus uttered falls as a note 
 of inspiration upon every Confederate 
 ear. Every sound thus uttered is a word 
 (and, falling from his lips, a mighty 
 word,) of kindling and triumph to a foe 
 that determines to advance upon us. 
 For me, I have no such word to utter as 
 a Senator. For me, amid temporary 
 defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that 
 my duty calls me to utter another word, 
 and that word is bold, sudden, forward, 
 determined war, according to the laws of 
 war, by armies, by military commanders, 
 clothed with full power, advancing with 
 all the past glories of the Republic 
 urging them on to conquest. 
 
 I do not stop to consider whether it 
 is subjugation or not. It is compulsory 
 obedience, not to my will, not to yours, 
 sir; not to the will of any one man, 
 not to the will of any one State; but 
 compulsory obedience to the Constitu- 
 tion of the whole country. The Senator 
 chose the other day again and again to 
 
 262 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 animadvert on a single expression in a 
 little speech which I delivered before 
 the Senate, in which I took occasion to 
 say that if the people of the rebellions 
 States would not govern themselves as 
 States, they ought to be governed as 
 Territories. The Senator knew full well 
 then — for I explained twice,— he knows 
 full well now — that on this side of the 
 chamber, nay, in this whole North and 
 West, in all the loyal States, in all their 
 breadth, there is not a man among us all 
 who dreams of causing any man in the 
 South to submit to any rule, either as to 
 life, liberty, or property, that we our- 
 selves do not willingly agree to yield to. 
 Did he ever think of that ? Subjugation 
 for what? When we subjugate South 
 Carolina, what shall we do ? We shall 
 compel her obedience to the Constitution 
 of the United States ; that is all. Why 
 play upon words ? We do not mean, we 
 have never said, any more. If it be slavery 
 that men should obey the Constitution 
 263 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 that their fathers fought for, let it be so. 
 If it be freedom, it is freedom equally 
 for them and for us. We propose to 
 subjugate rebellion into loyalty ; we pro- 
 pose to subjugate insurrection into peace ; 
 we propose to subjugate Confederate 
 anarchy into Constitutional Union liberty. 
 The Senator well knows that we propose 
 no more. I ask him, I appeal to his 
 better judgment now, what does he 
 imagine we intend to do, if, fortunately, 
 we conquer Tennessee or South Carolina, 
 — call it " conquer," if you will. They 
 will have their courts still; they will 
 have their ballot-boxes still; they will 
 have their elections still ; they Avill have 
 taxation and representation still; they 
 will have the writ of habeas corpus still ; 
 they will have every privilege they ever 
 had. When the Confederate armies are 
 scattered; when their leaders are ban- 
 ished from power; when the people 
 return to a late repentant sense of the 
 wrong they have done to a Government 
 264 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 tliey never felt but in benignancy and 
 blessing, then the Constitution made for 
 all will be felt by all, like the descend- 
 ing rains of heaven which bless all alike. 
 Is that subjugation? To restore what 
 was, as it was, for the benefit of the 
 whole country and of the whole human 
 race, is all we desire, and all we can 
 have. 
 
 Gentlemen talk about the Northeast. 
 I appeal to Senators from the Northeast. 
 Is there a man in all your States who 
 advances upon the South with any other 
 idea than to restore the Constitution of 
 the United States in its spirit and its 
 unity? I never heard that one. I be- 
 lieve no man indulges in any dream of 
 inflicting there any wrong to public lib- 
 erty; and I respectfully tell the Senator 
 from Kentucky that he persistently, ear- 
 nestly — I will not say willfully — misrep- 
 resents the sentiment of the North and 
 West when he attempts to teach these doc- 
 trines to the Confederates of the South. 
 
 265 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 While I am predicting, I will tell you 
 another thing. This threat about money 
 and men amounts to nothing. Some of the 
 States which have been named in that 
 connection I know well. I am sure that 
 no temporary defeat, no momentary dis- 
 aster, will swerve Illinois from her alle- 
 giance to the Union. It is not with us a 
 question of money or of blood ; it is a 
 question involving considerations higher 
 than these. When the Senator from Ken- 
 tucky speaks of the Pacific, I see another 
 distinguished friend from Illinois [Sen- 
 ator James A. McDougall], now worthily 
 representing the State of California, who 
 will bear me witness that I know that 
 State, too, well. I take the liberty — I 
 know that I but utter his sentiments — to 
 say that that State will be true to the 
 Union to the last of her blood and 
 treasure. There may be some disaffected 
 men there, some few who would "rather 
 rule in hell than serve in heaven." There 
 are such men everywhere. There are a 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 few men there, who have left the South 
 for the good of the South ; who are per- 
 verse, violent, destructive, revolutionary, 
 and opposed to social order. A few, but 
 a very few, thus formed, and thus nur- 
 tured, in California and in Oregon, both 
 persistently endeavor to create and main- 
 tain mischief; but the great portion of 
 our population are loyal to the core, and 
 in every chord of their hearts. They are 
 offering to add to the legions of the 
 country, every day, by the hundred and 
 the thousand. They are willing to come 
 thousands of miles, with their arms on 
 their shoulders, at their own expense, to 
 share, with the best offering of their 
 hearts' blood, in the great struggle of 
 Constitutional liberty. I tell the Senator 
 that his predictions, sometimes for the 
 South, sometimes for the Middle States, 
 sometimes for the Northeast, and theo 
 wandering away in airy visions out to the 
 far Pacific, are false in sentiment, false in 
 fact, and false in loyalty. The Senator 
 
 267 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. 
 Five hundred million dollars ! What 
 then? Great Britain gave more than 
 two thousand millions in the great battle 
 for Constitutional liberty which she led 
 at one time almost single-handed against 
 the world. 
 
 Five hundred thousand men? What 
 then? They are the children of the 
 country, and we will give them all up 
 before we will abate one word of our just 
 demand, or retreat one inch from the 
 dividing line between right and wrong. 
 
 When we give them, we know their 
 value. Knowing their value, we give 
 them with the more pride and the more 
 joy. Sir, how can we retreat? Sir, how 
 can we make peace? Who shall treat? 
 What commissioners? Who would go? 
 Upon what terms? Where is to be your 
 boundary line? Where the end of the 
 principles we shall have to give up? 
 What will become of Constitutional Gov- 
 ernment? What will become of public 
 
 268 
 
The Reply to Breckinridge. 
 
 liberty? What of past glories? What 
 of future hopes ? Shall we sink into the 
 insignificance of the grave, a degraded, 
 defeated, emasculated people, frightened 
 by the results of one battle, and scared 
 at the visions raised by the imagination 
 of the Senator from Kentucky on this 
 floor? No, sir; a thousand times no, 
 sir! We will rally, — if, indeed, our 
 words be necessary, — we will rally the 
 people, the loyal people, of the whole 
 country. They will pour forth their 
 treasure, their men, without stint, with- 
 out measure. The most peaceable man 
 in this body may stamp his foot upon 
 this Senate chamber floor as of old a 
 warrior and Senator did, and from that 
 single tramp there will spring forth 
 armed legions. Shall one battle de- 
 termine the fate of empire ? Or a 
 dozen? The loss of a thousand men? Or 
 twenty thousand? Or one hundred mil- 
 lion dollars? Or five hundred million 
 dollars ? In a year's peace, in ten years, 
 
 269 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 at most, of peaceful progress, we can 
 restore them all. There will be some 
 graves reeking with blood, watered by 
 the tears of affection; there will be some 
 loss of luxury, some privation, somewhat 
 more need for labor to procure the neces- 
 saries of life. When that is said, all is 
 said. If we have the country, the whole 
 country, the Union, the Constitution, free 
 government — with these there will return 
 all the blessings of well-ordered civiliza- 
 tion; the path of the country will be a 
 career of greatness and glory, such as, in 
 the olden time, our fathers saw in the 
 dim visions of years yet to come, and 
 such as would have been ours now, to- 
 day, but for the treason for which the 
 Senator too often seeks to apologize. 
 
 270 
 
THE DEATH OF BAKEK 
 
THE DEATH OF BAKEE. 
 
 The reply to Breckinridge was Baker's 
 last speech. He went back at once to 
 the field of war, and in the uniform of a 
 colonel, but commanding a brigade, he 
 fell at the battle of Edward's Ferry, or 
 Ball's Bluff, on the Virginia side of the 
 Potomac, on the 21st of October, 1861.* 
 
 Any person, having known Baker well, 
 upon being told simply that he had been 
 killed in battle, could catch in fancy the 
 echoes of the conflict — the beat of drums, 
 the blare of bugles, the clash of sabers, 
 all the roar of onset and the shock of 
 recoil. It was his proud claim that he 
 " could lead men anywhere " ; and with 
 his ardent nature, and the fields of glory 
 behind him, it seems he should have 
 
 *That love of country which has inspired the strongest 
 minds sways us most powerfully when it combines with 
 the tastes of the mind, the affections of the heart, and 
 the habitudes of the imagination.— Ifadame de Stael. 
 
 273 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker, 
 
 died, if perish lie must, in actual charge, 
 or hand-to-hand struggle, yielding his 
 breath on severe terms; that it should 
 not have been a sudden extinguishment, 
 but that he should have continued to fight, 
 even after receiving mortal hurt; un- 
 horsed, but defiant still, beating down 
 his assailants, until nature could do no 
 more. The catastrophe recalls into view 
 — over a wide stretch of time — another 
 strong and martial figure (although 
 fictitious) : — 
 
 The war that for a space did fail, 
 
 Now, trebly thundering, swelled the gale, 
 
 And "Stanley! " was the cry ; — 
 A light on Marmion's visage spread, 
 
 And fired his glazing eye. 
 With dying hand above his head. 
 He shook the fragment of his blade. 
 
 And shouted, " Victory ! — 
 Charge, Chester, charge ! on, Stanley, on ! " 
 Were the last words of Marmion. 
 
 A like stirring scene might have marked 
 Baker's end at a much earlier period of 
 
 274 
 
 4 
 
The Death of Baker. 
 
 human warfare, when, with weapons now 
 antiquated, individual nobility was more 
 in view, and, by consequence, more in 
 peril. Or, struck down too soon, our 
 warrior might easily be pictured as in 
 the thick of the very mel^e his own fall 
 at once brought about. 
 
 A superior force had accumulated in 
 his front; the Potomac, which he had 
 just crossed, ran close in the rear. There 
 is a long and thrilling narrative by Geo. 
 Wilkes, in which he dwells on Baker's 
 fine bearing when he found that he was 
 taken in the toils. He caught sight of a 
 white-haired officer riding near the 
 enemy's front, and called for a pistol, 
 exclaiming "There is Gen. Johnston; 
 fire, boys, fire !" As he reached forward 
 to receive the weapon, a very tall, red- 
 haired man emerged suddenly from the 
 smoke, and, walking quickly up to within 
 five feet of Baker, presented a self-cock- 
 ing revolver, and, rapidly as he could 
 crook his finger, delivered all the bullets 
 
 276 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 it contained into the hero's body. At 
 the very same moment a musket-ball 
 sped through his skull, and a terrific 
 whirling slug from a Mississippi yager 
 tore away the muscle of the right arm 
 and opened a large hole into his side. 
 "All these death-dealing shots seemed 
 to strike at once, and the noble leader 
 and orator, matchless of the earth, fell 
 mute, to speak no more. The tragedy 
 had paralyzed all beholders for the 
 moment; but Captain Beirel, recovering 
 his self-possession first, rushed at the 
 slayer as he bent to seize the General's 
 sword, took him by the throat, and, 
 placing his pistol at his temple, blew out 
 his brains in a red fume. Beirel had 
 been followed in his onslaught by several 
 members of his company, and numbers 
 of the enemy had pressed forward to 
 protect their red-haired comrade as they 
 saw the avenger rush toward him. A 
 savage hand-to-hand fight ensued over 
 the General's corse. Sword-thrust, bay- 
 
 276 
 
The Death of Baker. 
 
 onet-stab, and pistol-shot intermingled 
 quickly in that ferocious episode, and 
 the body of the dead chieftain, though 
 trampled in the melee, lay smiling in its 
 new-found quiet, as if approving of the 
 scene." 
 
 Smiling in death ! To the eye of fancy 
 the bright form of Glory was hovering 
 over the tumult. She had always lis- 
 tened to his pledges and applauded his 
 passion, and now she accepted his sacri- 
 fice. She had kindled his visage full 
 often — at Cerro Gordo, at that trans- 
 cendent scene in the American Theater, 
 all along his shining path. She now 
 poured her illumination into his fine 
 face, before it could take on the inflex- 
 ible majesty of the last sleep. 
 
 The body was recovered and conveyed 
 to the river. "Then," says Wilkes, "a 
 sense of the great loss brought the tears 
 coursing down many a smoke-smeared 
 cheek." 
 
 Baker belonged to a healthy, long- 
 
 277 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 lived race; and he was, indeed, cut off 
 in his prime. His parents were members 
 of the Society of Friends, and their settle- 
 ment at Philadelphia, on removing from 
 England, was influenced by the fact that 
 a strong community of that sect existed 
 in that city. The father, Edward Baker, 
 introduced there the Lancasterian System 
 of Schools.* The mother's maiden name 
 was Lucy Dickinson; she was a sister of 
 Thomas Dickinson, a high officer in the 
 British navy. She was an intellectual 
 woman, and a writer of verse. She saw 
 the whole career of her son, surviving 
 him and attaining a great age. Baker 
 wrote her the first letter bearing his 
 frank as United States Senator. She 
 was then past eighty, with mental powers 
 
 ♦Joseph Lancaster, educator, born in London, Eng- 
 land, 1788, came to America in 1818; and died in New 
 York City, October 24, 1838. He, too, was of the Society of 
 Friends. His "system" was the plan of employing the 
 more advanced pupils to instruct the class next below 
 them, a plan originally introduced into England from. 
 India by Dr. Andrew Bell, with whom Lancaster had an 
 acrimonious controversy as to which of the two was 
 entitled to priority. 
 
The Death of Baker. 
 
 undimmed. She had often taken down 
 her great son's speeches in shorthand, 
 which she wrote with ease and elegance. 
 Baker had three brothers. Alfred C. 
 Baker was a physician, who lived in Barry, 
 Illinois, and practiced medicine there all 
 his life, excepting a period of service in 
 the army as surgeon. He was himself a 
 clever public speaker. He died a few 
 years ago, at the age of eighty-three. 
 Thomas Baker, who lived in Carrollton, 
 Illinois, while yet a young man, was 
 thrown from his horse and dragged to 
 death, in 1846. Samuel Baker was also 
 a young man when he died of cholera in 
 Pekin, Illinois, in 1851. There was one 
 sister, who was born in Philadelphia, 
 and died a few years since at Sausalito, 
 California, at the age of seventy-three. 
 She was the wife of Theodore Jerome, a 
 California pioneer of '49, and the mother 
 of Edward Baker Jerome, now and so 
 long Chief Deputy Collector of Customs 
 at San Francisco. E. B. Jerome was 
 
 279 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 captain and aid-de-camp on his uncle's 
 staff in Virginia. 
 
 Baker's children were E. D., Jr., 
 Alfred W., Caroline C, who became the 
 wife of Eobert J. Stevens, and Lucy, the 
 wife of Charles Hopkins. E. D., Jr., was 
 a colonel in the army, and died at Van- 
 couver, Washington, while he was Chief 
 Quartermaster in the Department of the 
 Columbia, January 25, 1883, aged forty- 
 four. Alfred W. was a lieutenant, and 
 was aide to his father at the fatal day 
 already spoken of. He was a clerk in 
 the San Francisco Post Office for a very 
 long period, and died here in April, 
 1898. Mrs. Stevens, whose husband 
 was Superintendent of the San Francisco 
 Mint during the first half of President 
 Lincoln's first term, is a widow; so is 
 Mrs. Hopkins; and both are living in 
 Seattle, Washington. E. D., Jr., was 
 married, but had no issue. Alfred W. 
 never married. 
 
 Dr. A. C. Baker had three sons and 
 
 280 
 
The Death of Baker. 
 
 two daughters. None of the sons have 
 had children. Ljdell, the youngest, 
 married recently. 
 
 Colonel Baker's wife was born in Balti- 
 more, Maryland, and when sixteen years 
 of age was married to a Colonel Lee, 
 a very prominent man of education and 
 refinement. They removed to Carrollton, 
 Illinois, where they resided in their own 
 elegant dwelling, built for them. She 
 became a widow at the age of twenty, 
 having then two children, Frank and 
 Maria Lee. She and Colonel Baker inter- 
 married when she was twenty-three and 
 he twenty-one. She was a fine musician 
 and sang very sweetly, and the Colonel 
 having a fine tenor voice, they sang to- 
 gether, and naturally fell in love. 
 
 It is related that when the Colonel 
 proposed he did it in this way, standing 
 by her as she sat at the piano: He said, 
 "Mary, lend me five dollars." Upon 
 receipt of the money, he wrote the fol- 
 lov*^ing promissory note : — 
 
 281 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 " Received noiv, Jive dollars 
 From Mary Ann Zee, 
 Which sum to repay 
 I now do agree — 
 Unless^ in the mean time, 
 I shall, fond, take her, 
 And change her dear name 
 From Lee unto Baker.'" 
 
 Their pure and fresh life -currents, 
 united thus early, flowed on together for 
 thirty years.* 
 
 Mrs. Baker survived the Colonel a few 
 years, dying in San Francisco at the age 
 of fifty-seven. She was laid by his side. 
 
 The Colonel's "poetry," just quoted, 
 cost him less effort, although proving 
 more gainful, than the lines which follow 
 on the next page. 
 
 * Innocent child and snow-white flower, 
 Well are ye paired in your opening hour! 
 Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, 
 Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet. 
 
 — Bryant, to a young couple just wedded. 
 
TO A WAVE. 
 
 Dost thou seek a star with thy swelling 
 
 crest, 
 O wave, that leavest thy mother's breast ? 
 Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths 
 
 below, 
 In scorn of their calm and constant flow ? 
 Or art thou seeking some distant land, 
 To die in murmurs upon the strand ? 
 
 Hast thou tales to tell of pearl-lit deep, 
 Where the wave-whelmed mariner rocks in 
 
 sleep ? 
 Canst thou speak of navies that sunk in 
 
 pride 
 Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died ? 
 What trophies, what banners, are floating 
 
 free 
 In the shadowy depths of that silent sea ? 
 
 It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, 
 Of banner, or mariner, ship or star ; 
 It were vain to seek in thy stormy face 
 Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. 
 283 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Thou art swelling higli, thou art flashing 
 
 free, 
 How vain are the questions we ask of thee ! 
 
 I too am a wave on a stormy sea ; 
 I too am a wanderer, driven like thee ; 
 I too am seeking a distant land 
 To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand. 
 For the land I seek is a waveless shore. 
 And they who once reach it shall wander no 
 more. 
 
 These lines were written by Baker in 
 the year 1849. Shortly after his death, 
 Colonel John W. Forney, proprietor of 
 the Philadelphia Press, corresponding 
 with his paper from Washington City, 
 obtained a copy from an intimate friend 
 of Baker, and they appeared in the Press 
 in November, 1861. 
 
 284 
 
THE DEFENSE OF COEA 
 
Although Baker's profession was that of the law, and 
 he followed it through life, the Editor has not thought it 
 proper to make that fact especially prominent in these 
 pages, nor either to present him as a lawyer in the first 
 instance, or let his last words be spoken in that role. 
 Thus far his speeches have been given in the order of 
 time. It now becomes convenient to interrupt this 
 sequence, to give deserved place to the very best of his 
 reported efforts at the bar. The occasion furnishes 
 further illustration of the dissimilitudes in his career. 
 This jury address led to the speaker's social ostracism for 
 a time, at the hands of the same community which, five 
 years later, followed his mortality to Lone Mountain 
 amid emblems of universal sorrow. The offense of the 
 prisoner then at the bar, moreover, was one of the chief 
 inducements to that great popular uprising, the Vigilance 
 Committee of 1856. 
 
 On the evening of the 17th of November, 1855, General 
 William H. Richardson, United States Marshal for Cali- 
 fornia, was shot and instantly killed by Charles Cora, a 
 gambler, on the sidewalk on Clay Street, southwest 
 corner of Leidesdorff, San Francii-co. There had been a 
 quarrel between the two men over the circumstances of 
 their attendance at the theater a few nights before. Cora 
 had brought a notorious woman of means, who bore his 
 name, into the dress circle where General Richardson 
 was seated with his wife, and the General had expressed 
 his indignation in the hearing of Cora and the woman. 
 The true nature of the dispute (although there was no 
 allusion to it during the trial) and the opposed stations 
 of the characters to it, were suflSeient to invest the homi- 
 cide with peculiar odiousness in the popular mind, and 
 press and people denounced it with much heat. This 
 
 287 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 feeling ran through all the State. Expressive thereof was 
 this editorial statement in the San Francisco Herald: — 
 
 " The truth is, that, from all accounts, we have come 
 to the conclusion that the killing of General Richardson 
 was a most atrocious murder. He was assassinated in 
 cold blood, without a single effort at resistance. Those 
 who have known him as we have, must be assured he 
 would have sold his life dearly if he had the slightest 
 chance. The deceased gentleman was of a most kind, gen- 
 erous, and noble nature. That such a man should fall by 
 such a hand, is to be everlastingly deplored." 
 
 And this, from the Stockton Argus: — 
 
 "A man is shot down in one of the principal streets 
 in the chief city on the Pacific Coast, by a man who lives 
 in a bawd-house, and who is instigated to the murderous 
 deed by a harlot, and immediately $40,000 is raised by 
 subscription to cheat the law of its course, and protect 
 the murderer from suffering the penalty of his crime. Is 
 there nothing wrong in public opinion here? Those per- 
 sons who have raised this large sum are recognized as 
 acquaintances, and often as associates, of men who would 
 not stoop to any dishonorable act; and the harlot who 
 instigated the murder of Richardson, with others of her 
 kind, are allowed to visit the theaters and seat themselves 
 side by side with the wives and daughters of citizens. Is 
 there nothing wrong in public opinion here? There is, 
 and it should and must be corrected." 
 
 As a ripple against the current, and as showing, in 
 charitable possibility, some slight mitigating circum- 
 stance, may be given this, from the evidence taken by 
 the Coroner: — 
 
 "Dr. Mills sworn: I reside on Stockton Street; was 
 not present at the occurrence last night [the killing] ; 
 was present at the occurrence of the previous night; was 
 in the Cosmopolitan Saloon; Gencal Richardson and 
 several others were there ; Mr. Cora was introduced to 
 General Richardson, and they all took a drink; went to 
 the door together; Cora returned, and asked, ' Have I any 
 friends in the room? This man is going to slap my face;' 
 
 288 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 General Richardson came in smiling, and said, 'I 
 promised to slap this man's face, and I had better do 
 it now;' some person then said, 'Oh, you must not do it,' 
 and the thing was stopped; some words afterwards 
 occurred; some person proposed to introduce General 
 Richardson to Cora again, but it was not done ; don't 
 know why; think the General was a little tight; Cora 
 appeared to be sober." There was other like testimony. 
 
 The Coroner's jury, after hearing the evidence of 
 sixteen witnesses, among them the Governor of the State 
 John Bigler, found a verdict that the killing was prt 
 meditated, and there was nothing to mitigate the offense 
 
 Cora was indicted for murder, and his trial was 
 opened on the 8th of January, 1856, in the old Fourth 
 District Court, Judge John S. Hager, presiding. Hon. 
 William A. Piper was foreman of the jury. This gentle- 
 man, now a large capitalist, was a pioneer of *49 ; he was 
 already a considerable holder of real estate, and had been 
 a member of the Board of Assistant Aldermen. In later 
 years he was a member of the National House of Repre- 
 sentatives (1876-76), and is still a citizen of San Francisco. 
 A. B. Forbes, now and for so many years the general 
 agent on this Coast for the Mutual Life Insurance Com- 
 pany, of New York, was another member of this jury. He 
 was then senior member of the firm of Forbes & Babcock, 
 agents of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The other 
 names were Charles H. Vail, John J. Haley, Edward P. 
 Flint, M. Joyce, Jacob Mayer, Thos. C. D. Olmstead, Wil- 
 liam H. Stowell, John M. Easterly, A. Holmes, and I. 
 Ward Eaton. This was a strong and worthy array. 
 
 The prosecution was conducted by Henry H. Byrne, 
 then and for so many terms District Attorney. His asso- 
 ciates were Alexander Campbell, who made the opening 
 statement, (he is still in harness, at a great age, in Los 
 Angeles), and S. W. Inge, who had represented Alabama 
 in the lower house of Congress, and who closed the argu- 
 ment. Baker made the closing address on behalf of the 
 prisoner. Hon. Thomas W. Freelon, the county judge 
 before whom Baker had made a great plea in a notable 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 case of embezzlement, went into Judge Hager's court to 
 listen to him now. Afterward he pronounced the speech 
 as " brilliant, eloquent, impassioned." 
 
 District Attorney Byrne had concluded his argument 
 with these words: "Gentlemen: We live in an age in 
 California resembling the days of the breaking-up of the 
 Roman Empire. Corruption sits in almost every quarter, 
 even in high places. A man's life is of less value than 
 that of a horse ; there is no security, for human life is 
 trifled with. Our character as a country has become 
 stained by the aspersion. And here is another victim. 
 Mercy murders in pardoning him that kills. Let this 
 man go, and you create a pandemonium in San Fran- 
 cisco." 
 
 Gen. McDougall, Baker's associate, who followed 
 Byrne, had said: "We are compelled to fight a foregone 
 conclusion on the part of the community. They have 
 judged the prisoner already, and public opinion is press- 
 ing on us from all sides. If this prisoner is convicted, I 
 say it solemnly, it will be judicial murder." 
 
 Baker spoke on January 14th. He felt his environment, 
 and his sensibility constrained him to take notice of the 
 prevailing state of public opinion; and, in so doing, he 
 paid that tribute to the legal profession which is the most 
 beautiful utterance in the speech. His other bold decla- 
 ration, in regard to the union between Belle Cora and the 
 prisoner, that " they were bound together by a tie which 
 angels might not blush to approve," was the subject of 
 emphatic and persistent censure. The noble advocate 
 was misunderstood. 
 
 The jury were unable to agree upon a verdict. After 
 being out forty-one hours, they were discharged on Jan- 
 uary 17th. It was learned that they stood six for man- 
 slaughter, four for murder in the first degree, and two 
 for acquittal. The prisoner was remanded to the County 
 Jail, Belle Cora regularly visited him there. On one of 
 these occasions, in due form of law, she was united in 
 marriage to the man whose final ignominy was yet unseen ; 
 and then, quite possibly, " they were bound together by a 
 
 290 
 
The Defense of Cora 
 
 tie which angels might not blush to approve." But it 
 was in the shadow of doom. Before the time set for 
 Cora's second trial, the Great Committee took him. His 
 fate was precipitated by the act of Casey in killing the 
 famous editor of the Bulletin. James P. Casey, a local 
 politician of some influence, and foreman of Crescent 
 Engine Company, No. 10, being editorially arraigned by 
 James King of William, in his paper, for offenses charged 
 to have been committed in New York City several years 
 prior, shot Mr. King fatally, on the street. May 14, 1856. 
 The editor expired on May 20th. On the 22d, while a 
 throng of friends bore his body to Lone Mountain, another 
 multitude, (his friends, too. The Committee,) marched 
 by ranks to the County Jail, planted a cannon in front of 
 it, took both Casey and Cora from their cells, and publicly 
 hung them from the windows of the committee-rooms, on 
 Sacramento Street, near Front. 
 
 Belle Cora was then twenty-nine years of age. She 
 was a native of Baltimore, Maryland. (Gen. Richardson 
 was also a Marylander; Cora, an Italian.) Belle con- 
 tinued her residence and her occupation in San Fran- 
 cisco, dying on the 18th of February, 1862. A short history 
 of her life was circulated. 
 
 )uring the reign of The Committee, lasting several 
 months, attended by other executions and many banish- 
 ments, the city being oflacially proclaimed by Governor 
 J. Neely Johnson as in "a state of insurrection," the 
 plumage of the "Old Gray Eagle" was badly ruifled by 
 the storm. He spread his wings and took flight (not met- 
 aphorically this time) to the mountains, resting for a 
 time in El Dorado County, and on the other side of the 
 Sierra, in Nevada.* 
 
 The Editor has seen the following eloquent allusion 
 to this experience of Baker, attributed to General John 
 A.Collins; but when he accosted him some years before 
 his death, that worthy man said he did not remember 
 
 * The spirit of the human race resembles that of the individual man; it 
 shines and is eclipsed by turns. — Fontanes, i8oo. 
 
 291 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 naving written it. If General Collins did not write it, 
 who did? 
 
 " Some years ago the people of San Francisco chased 
 away an eloquent old man [but he was only forty-five— 
 Editob], who took refuge in the mountains of Nevada. 
 He was afterwards brought back from the sacrificial 
 heights of Stone Kiver, a mangled and speechless prophet 
 of freedom, and fifty thousand people laid him tenderiy 
 on the altitudes of Lone Mountain, within hearing of the 
 eternal dirges of the ocean — while his glorious words 
 echoed and still echo in the valleys and mountains from 
 the fountains of the San Joaquin to the sources of the 
 Columbia: ' Years, long years ago, I took my stand by 
 Freedom, and where in youth my feet were planted, there 
 my manhood and my age shall march.' " 
 
 Our advocate will now address the jury. 
 
 292 
 
THE DEFENSE OF COKA. 
 
 If the Court Please, and Gentlemen 
 OF the Juky: I sincerely trust that a 
 night of serene repose, after the exhaust- 
 ing labor that you have undergone, has 
 enabled you to return here to-day with 
 dispositions equal to those which you have 
 shown during the whole course of this 
 investigation; and while I feel that upon 
 the defense, which I am about to end, 
 will, in some sense, depend the eternal 
 welfare of a human being, I feel myself 
 honored and happy in being allowed, in 
 such a case, and for such a purpose, to 
 address a jury who have proved, not to 
 the counsel alone, not to the audience 
 alone, but to the prisoner himself, a 
 determination to render strict and impar- 
 tial justice; and I am instructed to say 
 for him, what he could not have said 
 when the trial began, that whatever may 
 
 293 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 be tlie end of this day, he has a profound 
 and abiding conviction of your truth and 
 justice. He cannot but feel that to you 
 is delegated a little less than supreme 
 power — that none but the Almighty can 
 control the consequences of your judg- 
 ment; and with this painful thought 
 pressing upon his mind and heart, I am 
 here to say for him that he is willing to 
 trust in your hands the issues of life and 
 death. And, gentlemen, while I advance 
 to the discussion of this case, I cannot 
 forget the imposing aspect that is thrown 
 around the prisoner on this occasion. 
 The whole majesty of the law of a great 
 and civilized country — all that care in 
 the selection of a jury, and labor in the 
 arrangement of testimony, and zeal on 
 the part of the prosecution, and care on 
 the part of the defense could do, has 
 been done. And while it is true, while 
 it is very true, that the man who is before 
 you on trial for his life, is a man of base 
 character, and in some respects vicious — 
 
 294 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 whose position in life is low — whose 
 condition at this bar is that of loneliness, 
 and dependence upon one human being 
 alone for sympathy and kindness; — with 
 all that, he is here guarded by the care 
 of the judge; hedged around by the 
 justice of the jury; protected by all the 
 sanctions of the law; and poor and hum- 
 ble and degraded though he be, he is 
 fenced about and cared for " with all the 
 divinity that doth hedge a king." 
 
 It is a painful and impressive spec- 
 tacle. Nor are we to forget that it is 
 the province of the law to render justice 
 to the memory of one who is no longer 
 among us. It would be idle for us to 
 disguise that the appeal by Mr. Byrne 
 (though he disclaims it) — his allusion 
 to the bloody grave, and the verdant sod, 
 and the tearful widow, and the uncon- 
 scious orphan — must weigh, and will 
 weigh, upon your minds. We are but 
 men; we are not deprived, by being 
 selected for a seat in this place, of the 
 
 295 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 passions and sympathies of human na- 
 ture ; and I am far, and very far, from 
 complaining of anything that has been 
 said, or may be said, upon that subject. 
 I am not inclined at all to disguise it. 
 It is not they alone who feel an interest 
 in the case ; something more than a con- 
 cern for professional reputation presses 
 them to extremes. It may be that at the 
 very moment when I speak, some tearful 
 woman may be upon her knees in the 
 depths of her closet, imploring the 
 Almighty to open your hearts to do jus- 
 tice to the memory of the husband she 
 has lost. I don't complain of these 
 things; I don't shrink from their being 
 mentioned; I feel them; my heart quiv- 
 ers while I think of them. I do not 
 wish that in any portion of this trial 
 you should forget them. 
 
 But there is another aspect of this 
 case to be thought of. The man who 
 is here struggling for life — who is 
 arraigned for the death of one claimed 
 
 296 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 to be one of the purest of our citizens, 
 is said to have followed degraded and 
 vicious pursuits. It is said of him that 
 he is cared for by a woman of very bad 
 relations in life, whose name, indeed, is 
 a reproach. Against this man at the bar 
 the whole public press — that mighty 
 engine of passion and power — have 
 poured out all the concentrated vials of 
 their wrath and indignation. Every por- 
 tion of his career has been maligned; 
 every motive of his heart has been per- 
 verted; every act of his life has been 
 misrepresented; and imagination, if not 
 upon its highest and purest, upon its 
 boldest wing, has applied to him every 
 epithet of reproach, and related every 
 narrative of shame. Against this we have 
 but one defense — against this we have 
 but one resource, but one hope. It is to 
 be found in time, which tempers all 
 things — it is to be found in human sym- 
 pathy and the justice of this tribunal — 
 in the merciful consideration of human 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 infirmity — and at last in stern, naked, 
 and irresistible trnth. And if the lips 
 about to speak to you are feeble, and if 
 the thoughts about to be uttered are trem- 
 bling and uncertain, — if our efforts shall 
 be marred by the ingenuity, skill, and 
 eloquence of the gentleman who is to 
 follow, — it is but for us to rely solely 
 upon inflexible truth; and it may be 
 for him [pointing to the prisoner], with 
 heart and lips all unused to prayer, to 
 lift his thoughts to the Great Father of 
 life, who made him as well as his Honor 
 on the bench, and the jury in the box, 
 to guide, impress, stimulate, and en- 
 lighten his advocate to press his claims 
 to liberty, life, and hope. 
 
 The prosecution in this case charge 
 that the defendant, on the night of the 
 17th of November, 1855, maliciously and 
 without just cause took the life of Gen- 
 eral Wm. H. Richardson, Marshal of the 
 United States for the Northern District 
 of California; and that he is attempting 
 
 298 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 to sustain himself by a conspiracy against 
 truth, honesty, and honor; and the in- 
 ferences of his character are, by compari- 
 son, more fatal to his hopes, because they 
 say his victim was a man of elevated 
 character and mind. This is the begin- 
 ning of this case — this is the end of this 
 case — the comparison is pressed on us 
 at every step we take. It is idle for us 
 to deny that the shield of character which 
 we attempt to hold up before this de- 
 fendant is in many parts frail and broken. 
 He yielded in his youth to temptations 
 which, like thronging devils, have pur- 
 sued him all his life, and he feels to-day 
 more bitterly than words of mine can 
 express the want of a shield spotless 
 and pure in this moment of his great 
 trial. Whether he be a man of unmixed 
 evil, it is for you to determine; whether 
 there be not something of native good 
 in a man who, amid a life of such vice 
 and vicissitude, has congregated around 
 him the good wishes of many friends — 
 
 299 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 early friends — friends of a better day — 
 it is for you, yes, to judge. No such temp- 
 tations crowd upon you. The men with 
 whom you mingle are not flushed with 
 passion or steeped in crime. With you, 
 and with all of us, it is peace, and calm, 
 and quiet content. With him it is far, 
 very far different; and I say, being so, 
 and so most undoubtedly, amid this career 
 he has been able to preserve the balance 
 of his mind and the control of his tem- 
 per in regard to public law, and in regard 
 to private right. His quiet career is so 
 much at least to be remembered in his 
 favor. I plead it for him; I lay it before 
 you; I ask you to consider it. Let it 
 be the wand that will bring up from the 
 depths of your hearts a bright, gushing 
 stream from the fountains of mercy. 
 But while we say this much, as to this 
 man, we are not willing that the com- 
 parison should be made worse than it is. 
 We are not willing that this man, while 
 in some respects so vicious, and in other 
 
 300 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 respects so amiable, should be arrayed, 
 by way of comparison, against the life, 
 conduct, and character of another man, 
 dead though he be, with every virtue 
 exaggerated and every good quality in- 
 creased. We are compelled to say that 
 the argument made against our client, 
 by comparison with General Richardson, 
 is false in fact, and false in deduction. 
 We make the issue ; they force it upon 
 us. I would be recreant to our duty, in 
 pleading for this man's life, if I feared 
 to meet this issue, and I do not. We 
 attempted in the beginning of this con- 
 troversy to show — 
 
 1. That Cora, whatever his other habits 
 may have been, was a man of peaceful 
 life and conduct; 
 
 2. That whatever the character of 
 Richardson may have been in other 
 respects, he was a turbulent, dangerous 
 man. 
 
 This we announced. What have they 
 done ? They have forced upon us a 
 
 301 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 broader issue and a more extended 
 debate. They say, we will show, that 
 not only was Richardson kind, quiet, 
 orderly, peaceful, but that he was a man 
 of generous impulses, of magnanimous 
 conduct, of high tendencies of gallantry, 
 of bravery, of chivalry, — incapable of 
 assailing a man without preparation, — 
 incapable of deceit in action, — incapable 
 of falsehood in statement, or of aught 
 unworthy of the high-sounding names 
 attached to him. They got Mr. Nugent* 
 He says that General Eichardson was 
 not only peaceable and kind, but chival- 
 ric, gallant, fair, honorable, incapable of 
 taking an advantage. 
 
 Well, now, it was impossible for us, 
 after that notice, and after we heard that 
 line of proof, not to turn our attention 
 to the facts, and inquire whether this be 
 so or not; and when we made up our 
 minds to accept the challenge, and to 
 
 * John Nugent, editor of the Herald, which had pro- 
 nounced the homicide murder. But Mr. Nugent and his 
 paper were soon to oppose the Vigilance Commitee. 
 
 302 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 enter into that controversy, we did it, 
 well knowing all the uses that could be 
 made of it in declamation, if we made 
 the attempt. I would be insensible to 
 the many merits of Colonel Inge and 
 Mr. Byrne if I did not know how well 
 they will declaim about the raking up 
 of the ashes of the dead. They will 
 say that Richardson is lying now in his 
 bloody grave, and that not content with 
 that, we are arraying against his memory 
 all the forgotten stories that can be 
 recalled of his past career. 
 
 Is that true? Did we do it? Could 
 we avoid what we have done ? When I 
 stand up there and find my client over- 
 whelmed with a mountain of infamy, and 
 plunged into the depths of degradation 
 by comparison with the man who is now 
 lying in a bloody though quiet grave, 
 shall I suffer it to pass ? Never. They 
 may declaim till the heavens fall — they 
 may accuse us of want of feeling — of 
 mercy, of anything else. I care not. I 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 appeal to the facts. Whatever the pris- 
 oner is, he was peaceful, amiable, kind. 
 Good though the other man was as a 
 husband and a father, he was violent, 
 dangerous, and, in his anger, deadly. As 
 for being magnanimous and honorable, 
 he was not so ; but what he was from the 
 first day that we hear of him, he remained 
 to the last — full of faults, though not 
 without redeeming qualities. We must 
 prove it by his general reputation. 
 What was that reputation here ? Why 
 did Mr. Turner tell us that when he 
 came in contact with him, had it not 
 been for his coolness he would have lost 
 his life? What was his reputation the 
 night Cora killed him? What did Tur- 
 ner think of him? What is reputation? 
 Why are not we allowed to make an in- 
 vestigation as to specific facts? Why is 
 it that, with the reputation of a peaceable 
 man, he is always in trouble ? Have you 
 been in trouble? Are you assaulted? 
 Are youj seen belted behind a knife and 
 
 304 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 pistol day and night, in season and out 
 of season? Are you reputed to be sud- 
 den and quick in quarrel? Are your 
 past lives checkered with adventure after 
 adventure, which your best friends dare 
 not repeat? Is that peace? Are you 
 Been at the very depths of midnight in 
 more than doubtful company, and reck- 
 less, drunken, desperate, meditating as- 
 sassination, regardless whether your vic- 
 tim be friend or foe ? When they crowd 
 upon Cora, and upon Glennon, and upon 
 Thomas, and upon Whitnell, and upon 
 Smith, and upon Willis, and charge in- 
 famy and perjury, is not that, to use the 
 language of Mr. Byrne, "piling Pelion 
 upon Ossa, or Ossa upon Pelion " ? 
 Shall we make no report? What could 
 Cora expect from Eichardson? Could 
 he say, with the pistol to his breast, 
 " This man is too magnanimous to shoot 
 me, — he is too honorable to assail me, — 
 he has lived a life of purity and peace 
 too long to vary from his usual course.'* 
 
 305 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Gentlemen, there is no character to 
 throw into the scales against us. Eich- 
 ardson bore no flaming sword of repu- 
 tation to weigh against our cause and 
 make it touch the beam. [The advocate 
 here commented at great length upon the 
 various passages in the history of Gen- 
 eral Richardson, as detailed by the wit- 
 nesses — and then proceeded.] 
 
 The other side complain that we have 
 three counsel, and they say, "Cora is 
 well able to pay for their services. If 
 he had been poor, they would not have 
 been here." Mr. Byrne ought to think 
 better of his profession. Mr. Byrne 
 ought to be governed by better impulses, 
 or rather, he ought to refrain from doing 
 injustice to his opponents. 
 / The profession to which we belong is, 
 of all others, fearless of public opinion. 
 It has ever stood up against the tyranny 
 of monarchs on the one hand, and the 
 tyranny of public opinion on the other; 
 and if, as the humblest among them, it 
 
 306 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 becomes me to instance myself, I may 
 say with a bold heart, and I do say it 
 with a bold heart, that there is not in all 
 this world a wretch, so humble, so guilty, 
 so despairing, so torn with avenging 
 furies, so pursued by the arm of the law, 
 so hunted to cities of refuge, so fearful 
 of life, so afraid of death; — there is no 
 wretch so steeped in all the agonies of 
 vice and crime, that I would not have 
 a heart to listen to his cry, and a tongue 
 to speak in his defense, though around 
 his head all the wrath of public opinion 
 should gather, and rage, and roar, and 
 roll, as the ocean rolls around the rock. 
 And if I ever forget, if I ever deny, that 
 highest duty of my profession, may God 
 palsy this arm and hush my voice forever. 'j( 
 
 [Colonel Baker here went into a long 
 analysis of all the evidence.] 
 
 Mrs. Knight swears that Richardson 
 had one arm raised. Two others, for 
 the prosecution also, say he had not. 
 Eemember that the raising of his arm 
 
 307 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 is life or death to us. If Cora killed 
 him with his hands down, it is murder; 
 if there was a struggle, it was different. 
 I believe Richardson was brave. I don't 
 believe that the man lives who, twice in 
 one day, could back Richardson up 
 against a door, and put a pistol to his 
 bosom and hold it there, while he, Rich- 
 ardson, cowered like a slave. Is there no 
 moral law to be observed ? Is there no 
 correspondence in the nature of things ? 
 Did Richardson, as Mrs. Ejiight says, 
 raise his arms? Did he, as Cotting 
 says, have his arms pinioned ? Now, 
 before you go one step farther towards 
 a conclusion, you must be satisfied on 
 that point, and you must all agree upon 
 it. Again, a pistol, cocked, was found 
 near his hand. Now, I want to utter 
 a word upon which eternal things may 
 depend. I ask you, was that pistol 
 drawn before Richardson was shot? 
 Can you believe he stood up in that 
 doorway for four minutes with a pistol 
 

 The Defense of Cora. 
 
 cocked and say lie was unarmed? Mr. 
 Cook may have been mistaken, but 
 whether he was or not, the pistol was 
 there, the knife was there. They were 
 drawn ; he drew them ; they were drawn 
 in combat; and, being drawn, it justified 
 the utmost extremity of arms, before men 
 or angels. 
 
 In relation to the impeachment of the 
 witness Thomas, it is no argument that 
 he did not tell the truth because he sells 
 fruit, or because he failed in business, 
 or because his character in relation to 
 women is bad. I might enter into an 
 elaborate argument to show that because 
 he sells fruit he is all the more liable to 
 tell the truth, because he deals in the 
 fruits of nature. I would be very sorry 
 to say that he told a lie because he failed 
 in business, because, then, all the good 
 men who have failed here, and who will 
 fail, would be considered unworthy of 
 credence. And as to his character in 
 relation to women, I have only to say 
 
 309 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 that charity is one thing, and veracity 
 another. The theory of the prosecution 
 is that we bribed Thomas, and Glen- 
 non, and Marsh, and Corbiniere. II 
 would be strange if in all this bribery 
 we could not get one man who saw some 
 identical fact fatal to the prosecution 
 Why did not we get some one to pul 
 into the mouth of Kichardson such words 
 as "D — n you, I '11 shoot you, anyhow." 
 I cannot see that there could be any 
 more perfect clincher to the case. ] 
 ask you, if our side intended to corrupt 
 or bribe, why could we not get some 
 man to prove that ? According to theii 
 account, could not Glennon swear to any- 
 thing? The case rests on the proba- 
 bility of statements as to facts, and there 
 is something in the human heart native 
 to truth which will give credence to the 
 story of our witnesses, unless there be 
 some specific affirmation to the contrary. 
 I will now proceed to grapple with 
 the great bugbear of the case. The 
 
 310 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 complaint, on their side, is that Belle 
 Cora has tampered with the witnesses. 
 Mr. Byrne has chosen to declare that the 
 line of defense was concocted in a place 
 which he has been pleased to designate 
 as a haunt of sensuality. In plain Eng- 
 lish, Belle Cora is helping her friend as 
 much as she can. It may appear strange 
 to him, but I am inclined to admit the 
 plain, naked fact ; and in the Lord's name, 
 who else should help him? Who else 
 is there whose duty it is to help him ? 
 If it were not for her, he would not have 
 a friend on earth. This howling, raging 
 public opinion would banish every friend, 
 even every man who once lived near him. 
 The associates of his life have fled in the 
 day of trouble. Sunshine friends, who 
 basked in the noontide of its beaming, 
 have vanished in the hour of its decline. 
 It is a woman of base profession, of more 
 than easy virtue, of malign fame, of a 
 degraded caste, — it is one poor, weak, 
 feeble, and, if you like it, wicked woman, 
 
 311 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 — to her alone lie owes his ability to 
 employ counsel to present his defense. 
 
 What we want to know is, what have 
 they against that? What we want to 
 know is, why don't they admire it ? What 
 we want to know is, why don't they admit 
 the supremacy of the divine spark in the 
 merest human bosom, as if to teach that 
 there is good in things most evil ? The 
 history of this case is, I suppose, that 
 this man and this woman have formed a 
 mutual attachment, not sanctioned, if you 
 like, by the usages of society, — thrown 
 out of the pale of society, — if you like, 
 not sanctioned by the rights of the 
 Church. It is but a trust in each other, 
 a devotion to the last, amid all the dan- 
 gers of the dungeon and all the terrors 
 of the scaffold. They were bound to- 
 gether by a tie which angels might not 
 blush to approve. A bad woman may 
 lose her virtue; it would be infinitely 
 worse to lose her faith according to her 
 own standard. If you mean to say that 
 
 312 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 it is a reproach to this man that he has 
 one friend, and that a woman, to stand 
 by him, I say that that is, perhaps, her 
 greatest virtue. A man who can attach 
 to him a woman, however base in heart 
 and corrupt in life, is not all bad. A 
 woman who can maintain her trust, who 
 can waste her money like water to stand 
 by her friend, whether that friend be her 
 lover or paramour, amid the darkest 
 clouds that can gather, that woman can- 
 not be all evil ; and if, in vice, and degra- 
 dation, and pollution, and infamy, she 
 rises so far above it all as to vindicate 
 her original nature, I must confess that 
 I honor this trait of fidelity. That she 
 might go too far in the defense of her 
 friend, no man can doubt. If I were 
 charged with the crime of murder, and 
 my friends, insects born in a summer's 
 beam, were to flee from me, if my good 
 name stood me in no stead, if I were 
 bound at the altar, if the sacrificial priest 
 were to have his arm bared and knife 
 313 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 brandished to strike — my wife would 
 stand by me, and if she should bribe a 
 juror, would I condemn her? Would 
 you? The rigid moralist would con- 
 demn, and the stern judge would punish, 
 but her act would accord with the prin- 
 ciples of human nature — irrepressible, 
 uncontrollable, higher than all law. 
 A, That a woman should, in adversity and 
 bitterness, and sorrow and crime, stand 
 by her friend in the dungeon, on the 
 scaffold, with her money, and tears, and 
 defiance, and vengeance, all combined, is 
 human and natural. This woman is bad ; 
 she has forgotten her chastity — fallen 
 by early temptation from her high estate; 
 and among the matronage of the land 
 her name shall never be heard. She has 
 but one tie, she acknowledges but one 
 obligation, and that she performs in the 
 gloom of the cell and the dread of death ; 
 nor public opinion, nor the passions of the 
 multitude, nor the taunts of angry counsel, 
 nor the vengeance of the judge, can sway 
 
 314 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 her for a moment from her course. If 
 any of you have it in your heart to con- 
 demn, and say " Stand back ! I am holier 
 than thou," remember Magdalene, name 
 written in the Book of Life. 
 
 I feel prouder of human nature. I 
 have learned a new lesson. Hide him 
 in the felon's grave, with no inscription 
 consecrated to the spot; and when you 
 have forgotten it, and the memories of 
 the day are past, there will be one bosom 
 to heave a sigh in penitence and prayer, 
 there will be one eye to weep a refresh- 
 ing tear over the sod, one trembling 
 hand to plant flowers above his head. 
 Let them make the most of it. I scorn 
 the imputation that infamy should rest 
 on him for her folly and her faith. Let 
 them make the most of it, and when the 
 great Judge of all shall condemn, — when, 
 in that dread hour, you and I and she 
 shall stand at the common tribunal for 
 the deeds done or aimed to be done at 
 this day, — if this be remembered against 
 
 315 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 lier at all, it will be lost in the record of 
 a thousand crimes perpetrated by high 
 and noble souls. Let a man who feels 
 in his heart no responsive type of such 
 traits of goodness, of truest courage in 
 darkest destiny, let that man be the first 
 to put his hand to the bloody verdict 
 Beyond this there is nothing more to be 
 said. The imputation on our witnesses 
 is that they went to Belle Cora's. The 
 imputation on their witnesses is the same 
 thing. What then? It proves nothing. 
 There is public opinion now ; there 
 was no such thing as genuine public 
 opinion at the time of the homicide — it 
 was bastard. It is now calm, intelligent, 
 reflecting, determined, and just. If you 
 mean to be the oracles of this public 
 opinion, in God's name, speak ! If you 
 mean to be priests of the divinity which 
 honest men may worship, answer! If 
 jou are the votaries of the other, you 
 are but the inflamed Cassandra of a 
 diseased imagination and of a prurient 
 
 316 
 
The Defense of Cora. 
 
 public mind. If of the former, I bow at 
 your feet, in honor of the mysteries of 
 your worship. Against this man the 
 public press, so potent for good, so 
 mighty for evil, inflames and convulses 
 the public mind and judgment. There 
 is not one thing they have said that is in 
 accordance with truth and justice ; there 
 is not one version they have given that 
 is based on testimony and facts. 
 
 My task is performed. In the name 
 of our common humanity; in the name 
 of Him who died for that humanity ; by 
 the remembrance of your mothers and 
 fathers ; by your respect and admiration 
 for woman, the nearest and dearest ties 
 that we can feel ; by your consciousness 
 of your own imperfections, I adjure you 
 to consider in mercy. And, as you deal 
 with the prisoner, may the common 
 Father of us all deal with you. So 
 may the prayers of the mother whose 
 heart yet yearns toward him reach you. 
 So may his future life evince the sincerity 
 317 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 of his repentance in the solitude of the 
 jail. So may you be prosperous. And 
 so may you answer for your judgment on 
 that great day when you and the prisoner 
 at the bar shall alike stand up to answer 
 for all the deeds done in the body. 
 
 318 
 
DEDICATION OF LONE 
 MOUNTAIN CEMETEEY 
 
 IMMOETALITY 
 
DEDICATION OF LONE MOUNTAIN 
 CEMETEKY — IMMOETALITY. 
 
 The first shall be last. Colonel Baker 
 delivered the address at the dedication 
 of Lone Mountain Cemetery on the 30th 
 of May, 1854. His body was there 
 interred, with imposing ceremonies, on 
 the 11th of December, 1861. On the 
 last occasion, after all else had been 
 done, Thomas Starr King (whom Baker's 
 death had left greatest in the State), 
 standing by the unfilled grave, said: 
 " We have borne him now to the home 
 of the dead, to the cemetery which, after 
 fit services of prayer, he devoted in a ten- 
 der and thrilling speech, to its hallowed 
 purposes." 
 
 This speech has been lost, or it would 
 have the first place in this collection. 
 
 Bishop Kip, of the Episcopal Church, 
 and Eev. F. T. Gray, also made addresses 
 on that occasion. 
 
 321 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Frank Soule and F. B. Austin read 
 original poems. The Mayor, C. K. Gar- 
 rison, gave a history of the private 
 enterprise resulting in the setting apart 
 of the cemetery. There were prayers 
 by Bishop Kip and Kev. A. Williams; 
 a selected choir rendered three anthems 
 and the Doxology; and the "Benedic- 
 tion" was by Eev. W. A. Scott, Pres- 
 byterian. 
 
 The city cemetery up to that time was 
 in the area now covered by the City Hall, 
 between Market, McAllister, and Larkin 
 streets. The Lone Mountain undertaking 
 was by a private corporation, composed 
 of Nathaniel Gray, Frank B. Austin, and 
 William H. Eanlett, who purchased a 
 tract of one hundred and seventy-three 
 acres. The title Lone Mountain, changed 
 many years later to Laurel Hill, was 
 selected by a council of advisers, after 
 the name of the elevation touching the 
 tract on the south. 
 
 It was a long time before the old ceme- 
 
 322 
 
Lone Mountain — Immortality. 
 
 tery was discharged of its solemn trust 
 and its precious dust, to make place for 
 the present City Hall. The remains of 
 Hon. Edward Gilbert were not removed 
 therefrom to Lone Mountain until May 2, 
 1863. This was done by Eureka Typo- 
 graphical Union, to which Mr. Gilbert 
 belonged. Baker, in his reply to Benja- 
 min, referred to the many defeats of the 
 Whig party. If he had arrived in San 
 Francisco a little earlier, he would have 
 seen a Whig, in the person of Gilbert, 
 representing the city in the lower House 
 of Congress. Gilbert came here as early 
 as the spring of '47. He was raised to 
 the printer's trade. On January 4, 1849, 
 he and others founded the Alt a California 
 newspaper, and he wrote the editorials. 
 He was a member of the first Constitu- 
 tional Convention, 1849. On August 2, 
 1852, he fell in a duel with pistols with 
 General James W. Denver, in Sacramento 
 County. He was a native of New York, 
 and at his death was thirty years of age. 
 
 323 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 Baker, in his Broderick Oration, links 
 his name with those of Broderick and 
 Ferguson. General Denver was one of 
 three brothers very prominent in Demo- 
 cratic politics, all acquiring high official 
 station. The General was State Senator 
 from Trinity when he fought this duel. 
 Afterwards he was twice Secretary of 
 State, and resigned on being elected to 
 Congress. He was a brigadier-general 
 in the Federal Army during the War of 
 the Rebellion. Colorado's capital is 
 named after him."^ 
 
 The attendance at the Lone Mountain 
 Dedication was large, the weather beauti- 
 ful — and observe the date. May Thirti- 
 eth ! The ladies comprised at least one 
 half of those present. Of course there 
 
 * Broderick and Denver were in the State Senate at 
 the same time, 1852. Although belonging to the same 
 party, they were not cordial, and Broderick in conversa- 
 tion referred to Denver as " the huge-thighed Senator 
 from Trinity." Denver, who was a very large man, of 
 splendid presence, smarted under this, but it was hardly 
 provocation for a duel, even in those days. He was still 
 biding his time when Broderick was called out by Terry. 
 
 324 
 
Lone Mountain — Immortality. 
 
 were no street-cars at that day — indeed, 
 there were no streets within miles of the 
 place. The only available route was 
 along Pacific Street, and the old road to 
 the Presidio, and thence south over the 
 high ridge leading out to Point Lobos. 
 Omnibuses left the City Hall (since the 
 Old City Hall — noio the Hall of Justice) 
 every half hour from 8 : 30 to 10 : 30 A. M. 
 The exercises were begun at eleven, and 
 occupied the rest of the day, with inter- 
 missions. 
 
 It was a pleasant nook, then called 
 " The Dell," not especially attractive but 
 for the circumstance that nature had 
 reserved and protected it from a girdle 
 of sand-dunes. Before they carried 
 Baker back to his illustrious sepulture, 
 the prospect far around was redeemed 
 by the hand of man, and was all green 
 and gold with the refreshment of streams 
 and fountains. "An air of such utter 
 loneliness and solitude pervades the 
 place," said a writer of that time, refer- 
 
 325 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 ring to " The Dell," " that a stranger, upon 
 entering it, before he had seen a grave 
 or a tomb, would at once come to the 
 conclusion that it was a cemetery. Na- 
 ture seems to have designed it for the 
 very purpose for which it has been set 
 apart.'* 
 
 The Editor, who arrived in San Fran- 
 cisco some weeks prior to this event, 
 would like to show the kind reader to 
 the spot where the ceremonies took 
 place. 
 
 " The Dell " was in the western end of 
 the cemetery, near the Old Lodge, which 
 was moved there in 1894, to make place 
 for the present splendid Lodge, or office 
 building. The then somewhat romantic 
 little hollow was cleared of underbrush 
 many years before that time, and filled 
 in with sand. Many hundreds of burials 
 have been made there, and it is still being 
 used for this purpose. 
 
 There is nothing to mark the old spot 
 or recall the old day. The old Lodge, 
 
 326 
 
Lone Mountain — Immortality. 
 
 at least, instead of being placed hard by, 
 might well have been planted on the very 
 site where Baker stood. The image of 
 Baker in white marble, " Godlike, erect," 
 a shaft of light, would be fittest memo- 
 rial — would it not? The lips in speech, 
 a hand upraised, and the noble head un- 
 covered to the winds of heaven? But 
 read on. 
 
 The city and the State were very young. 
 Not many who made up that presence 
 recognized Baker as he stood before 
 them. He was even then quite gray, at 
 the age of forty-three. 
 
 An extract from Baker's speech has 
 been preserved. It is as follows: — 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to acknowledge as a principle 
 the great fact of immortality. No man desires annihila- 
 tion. No man. whatever be his faults or his crimes, is 
 willing to go into endless night ; and when we come here, 
 however loath we may be to stand in the Divine Presence, 
 still we recognize the fact that we are immortal, and the 
 truth peals like eternal thunder in our ears, " Thou shalt 
 live forever!" With these thoughts we dedicate this 
 spot. Here future generations, in long and solemn pro- 
 cession, shall bring warriors who have given their lives 
 for their country; statesmen, remembered by the liberty 
 they helped to create, and the institutions they aided to 
 perfect. Here shall be brought the poet, who, buoyant, 
 327 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 passed through sea and land, through earth and sky, and 
 vale and river, penetrating the affections and accomplish- 
 ing the refinement of men. The projector — worn with 
 toil and gray with thought — leaving monuments to his 
 fame and memorials of his greatness, here, too, shall come 
 to end his life ; and, too, the tender maiden, smitten in 
 early blossom;* and the little child, the pledge of love, 
 to whose grave the aching heart shall oft repair to weep 
 and pray. 
 
 Eev. Albert Williams, who was present, 
 refers thus to this dedication, in his book, 
 "A Pioneer Pastorate": — 
 
 Intensely interesting and ever-memorable was the 
 eloquent oration delivered by our singularly gifted Pacific 
 Coast orator. Colonel E. D. Baker. While every part of 
 that oration was most fitting and impressive, and passage 
 after passage thrilled the hearts of the large assemblage 
 gathered in "The Dell," especially sublime was that por- 
 tion of which the theme was the Resurrection, and which 
 the speaker closed with a recitation, in truest pathos, of 
 the stanza from Dr. Watts : — 
 
 God, my Redeemer, lives, 
 
 And often from the skies 
 Looks down and watches all my dust, 
 Till He shall bid it rise. 
 
 His aspiring spirit was advised of the 
 invisible things of a higher life.f He 
 
 * At last the rootlets of the trees 
 Shall find the prison where she lies. 
 And bear the buried dust they seize 
 In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
 So may the Soul that warmed it, rise ! 
 
 — Holmes. 
 t Believe all that thy heart prompts; for everything 
 that it seeks, exists.— PZato. 
 
 328 
 
Lone Mountain — Immortality. 
 
 could not be better pictured to aftertimes 
 than as he stood now — nor have a more 
 commanding place in the memory of 
 men. 
 
 We will leave the great man there! 
 His mortality is there, indeed, to remain, 
 as he said over Ferguson, "in its last 
 resting-place until the trump of the 
 Archangel shall sound " ; but we will 
 leave the man there, also, in his abound- 
 ing prime. We will take our last affec- 
 tionate look at him, while he is speaking, 
 as it were, to time and to eternity, and 
 pointing upward. 
 
 It was with such a sentiment that 
 Dickens parted with Agnes, that best 
 creation of his mind, said to be the 
 finest character in the whole range of 
 fiction. He had seen her in that attitude 
 more than once, when she was more per- 
 suasive than speech — an angel in the 
 house of sickness and the shadow of 
 death — and he gave her this final apos- 
 trophe : — 
 
 329 
 
Masterpieces of E. D. Baker. 
 
 " Oh, Agnes! Oh, my soul! so may thy face be by me 
 when I close my life indeed ; so may I, when realities are 
 melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, 
 still find thee near me, pointing upward!" 
 
 Very often, in professional and party 
 conflict, on the battle-field, and in the 
 high councils of State, Baker attracted 
 the universal eye. But he really never 
 stood on a more elevated tribune than 
 when, on the very verge of the continent, 
 under the inducement of the illimitable 
 sea and sky, and pointing upward, he 
 asserted the immortality of the soul of 
 man. 
 
 We will leave the great man there — 
 rather we will keep him ever present to 
 the mind and heart, as he stood on the 
 ocean's bound that far-olff day — in the 
 new home for mortal rest, — in "The 
 Dell " — pointing upward ! 
 
 330 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGS 
 
 Adams, John Quincy : Views on Secession 149, 151 
 
 ••Affection, Forgiveness, Faith" 52 
 
 American Theater Speech 89 
 
 Anecdotes: The Duke of York 218 
 
 Old Boiling Green 199 
 
 Dr. Johnson 137 
 
 Governor Low's Wager — 89 
 
 Baker's Courtship 281 
 
 Apostrophe to Science 22 
 
 Atlantic Cable Address 15 
 
 Austin, F. B. : Poet at Lone Mountain Dedication 322 
 
 Baker, E, D. ; Introductory Notice 9 
 
 Further History. . . .13, 40, 63, 131, 227, 243, 273, 289, 319 
 
 Death of 273 
 
 Family of 278 
 
 Poem by 283 
 
 Benjamin, Judah P. : Reply to 131 
 
 Bigler, Governor John: Witness in Cora Case 289 
 
 Brady, James T. : Allusion to 227 
 
 Breckinridge, John C: Reply to 243 
 
 Broderick, David C: Notice of 63, 324 
 
 Duel with Judge Terry 64 
 
 Baker's Oration 67 
 
 Byrne, Henry H.: District Attorney in Cora Case 289 
 
 Campbell, Alexander: Counsel in Cora Case 289 
 
 Casey, James P. : Hung by Vigilance Committee 291 
 
 Cerro Gordo, Battle of : Allusion to 236 
 
 Character 44 
 
 Collins, John A. : Tribute to Baker 291 
 
 Comet of 1858: Allusion to 30 
 
 Cora, Charles: Trial of 287 
 
 His Execution 291 
 
 Marries Belle Cora in Jail 291 
 
 Baker's Defense of.. 293 
 
 338 
 
I ndex. 
 
 Dedication of Lone Mountain Cemetery 319 
 
 Denver, GeneralJas.W.: Duel with Edward Gilbert. 323-324 
 
 Dickens and "Agnes" 329 
 
 Dickinson, Daniel S. : Tribute to Baker 227 
 
 Dix, General Jolin A. : Allusion to 227 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A. : Allusions to 93, 132, 189 
 
 Duels — Dueling 48, 64, 323 
 
 Baker's Protest.... 80-81 
 
 Duke of York as Bishop; Anecdote of 218 
 
 Eaton,!. Ward: One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Easterly, Jno. M. " " 289 
 
 Enthusiastic Scene in American Theater 115 
 
 Eureka Typographical Union : Burial of Gilbert 323 
 
 Ferguson, Wm. I.: Notice of 39 
 
 Duel with Geo. Pen Johnston 39 
 
 Baker's Eukgy 41 
 
 Fessenden, Wm. Pitt: "The Tarpeian Rock". 244, 261 
 
 Flint, Edward P. : One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Forbes, A. B.: " " 289 
 
 Forney, John W. : Baker's Poem 284 
 
 " Freedom " : Tribute to 125 
 
 Freedom and Slavery 104, 109, 115, 124, 215 
 
 Freelon, Judge Thos. W. : Baker's Plea in Cora Case .... 289 
 Fremont, John C. : At the American Theater — 92 
 
 Further Reference. 117, 118 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law, The 188, 190, 195 
 
 Garibaldi : Allusion to 115 
 
 Garrison, Mayor C. K.; Presides at Lone Mountain 
 
 Dedication 322 
 
 Gilbert, Edward: Duel with Denver 323 
 
 Gray, Rev. F. T. : At Lone Mountain Dedication 320 
 
 Gray, Nathaniel: Lone Mountain Cemetery Association 322 
 
 Gwin, William M. : References to 63, 132 
 
 Hager, Judge John S.: Presides at Trial of Cora 289 
 
 Haley, John J. : One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Halleck Block : On Site of American Theater 89 
 
 Holmes, A. : One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Immortality: Lone Mountain Cemetery 321 
 
 Inge, S. W. : Counsel in the Cora Case 289 
 
 334 
 
Index. 
 
 * Irrepressible Conflict, The" 121, 122 
 
 Jackson, Anc* rew : Views on Secession 152, 153 
 
 Jerome, E. B. : Captain on Baker's Staff 279 
 
 Johnson, Governor J. Neely: Proclaims San Francisco 
 
 in Insurrection 291 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel: Anecdote of 137 
 
 Johnston, Geo. Pen : Duel with Ferguson 39-40 
 
 Joyce, M. : One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 King of William, James: Killed by Casey 291 
 
 King, Thomas Starr : At Baker's Sepulture 321 
 
 Kip, Bishop W. I. : At Lone Mountain Dedication 321 
 
 Lane, General Joseph : Allusion to 103 
 
 Latham, Milton S. : Election as Governor. 64 
 
 Presents Baker's Credentials in Senate 131 
 
 Legal Profession, The: Baker's Tribute 306 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham: Carries California and Oregon 13L 
 
 Further Reference 118, 188, 189, 193, 243 
 
 Lone Mountain Cemetery : Dedication in 1854 321 
 
 Original Incorporators 321 
 
 Low, Governor F. F.: Loses a Wager with Baker 89 
 
 Mayer, Jacob : One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Missouri Compromise, The: Reference to 196, 198 
 
 Motley's " Dutch Republic " : «' '* 174 
 
 McDougall, James A. : Counsel in Cora Case 290 
 
 Other Reference 266 
 
 Nesmith, James W.: Baker's Colleague in the Senate.. 120 
 
 New York Monster Mass-Meeting of 1861 227 
 
 Nugent, John : Witness in Cora Case 302 
 
 Views of the Herald on Cora's Act 288 
 
 " Old Boiling Green " : Anecdote of 199 
 
 " Old Gray Eagle " : Baker So Titled 244 
 
 Olmstead, Thos. C. D.: One of the Cora Jury. 289 
 
 Perley, D. W. : Challenges Senator Broderick to a Duel 64 
 
 Pericles on the Grandeur of Athens 32-33 
 
 Politics: Pursuit of 53 
 
 Piper, William A. : Foreman of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Ranlett, Wm. H. : Lone Mountain Cemetery Association 322 
 
 Raymond, Henry J. : Allusion to 227 
 
 Eeply to Benjamin 135 
 
I ndex. 
 
 Reply to Breckinridge 243 
 
 Revolution of 1688 173 
 
 Richardson, Wm. H., U. S. Marshal : Killing of .287 
 
 •' Right and Duty are Majestic Ideas ". 140 
 
 San Francisco Proclaimed to be in Insurrection 291 
 
 ♦•Science": Apostrophe to 22 
 
 Scott, Rev. W. A. : At Lone Mountain Dedication 322 
 
 Seward, Wm. H, : Allusions to 99, 121, 122 
 
 Shields, GeneralJames: Disabled at Cerro Gordo 244 
 
 Slavery in Southern States ... 210, 217 
 
 Soule, Frank: Poet at Lone Mountain Dedication 322 
 
 Southern States, The: Peopleof 113-114 
 
 Stanly, Edward: Eulogy of Baker 65, 228 
 
 Stowell, Wm. H.: One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 " Tarpeian Rock, The " : Baker's Allusion 244,261 
 
 Terry, Davids.: Duel with Broderick 64 
 
 '•To a Wave": Poem by Baker 283 
 
 Tribute to "Freedom". 125 
 
 •' " the Legal Profession 306 
 
 Trumbull, Lyman : Allusions to 132, 243 
 
 Vail, Chas. H.: One of the Cora Jury 289 
 
 Victor Emanuel: Allusion to 115 
 
 Victoria, Queen: " " 115 
 
 Vigilance Committee of 1856 287, 291 
 
 War 23 
 
 Webster, Daniel: Views on Secession.. .146, 147, 155, 221, 223 
 
 Weller, John B. : Defeats Broderick for Senator 63 
 
 Whig Party, The : Allusions to 94, 95, 99, 243 
 
 Williams, Rev. A. ; Baker's Lone Mountain Address. 322, 328 
 Wilkes, Geo.: Notices of Baker and Broderick... 65, 275, 276 
 Yerba Buena Cemetery: Site of New City Hall 822 
 
 3l4.77-2fvo 336