YALE UNIVERSITY LIBHARY

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673

Biirlingame, Anson
Oration. . .
Salem, 1854.

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1942

ORATIOI,

BY

JiHON. ANSON BURUNGAME.

Delivered at Salem, July 4, 1854.

PUBLISIIBD BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL.

SALEM :
PRINTED AT THE GAZETTE OFJFICE..
1854.

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ORATION,

HON. ANSON BURLINGAME

Delivered at Salem, July 4, 1854.

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL.

SALEM :
PRINTED AT THE GAZETTE OFFICE.
1854.

Salem, July 19, 1854.
To Hon. Anson BuiiLiNGAMii.
Dear Sir .-—At a meeting of the City Council, of the City of Salem,
July 10th, a resolution was unanimously passed, thanking you for the
eloquent Oration, delivered before them, on the 4th of July, and to
request of you a copy for publication.
In compliance with that request, and in behalf of the City Govern
ment, and Committee of Arrangements, I now respectfully request of
you a copy of the Oration for publication. Please answer at your
earliest convenience. Yours, Respectfully,
JONATHAN PEELEY, Jr.,
Secretary o/ the Com. of Arrang'ts.

Cambridge, July 20, 1854.
Jonathan Pbrlet, Jr., Esq.
Dear Sir .-—In reply to your kind request for a copy of the Oration
delivered before your citizens on the 4th of July, I send you a report
of it. Do with it as you shall deem best, and present my thanks to
the members of the City Government, for their approval of the same.
Yours truly,
A. BURLINGAME.

ORATION.

Fellow Citizens : —
This day, the hunter by Lake Superior, the boat
man on the Mississippi, the farmer of Genesee, the
planter of Alabama, the fearless Western man, the
fiery Southron, the stern New Englander, — one and
all forgetting their employments, celebrate that free
dom of which this is the anniversary. All along the
Atlantic slope, and through that great valley over
which now burns the star of empire — beyond the
father of floods — beyond the black hills — beyond
the stony mountains — farther than Roman eagles
ever flew, so distant that when the sun mounts so
high as to blaze along the summits of the AUeghanies,
he cannot cast his beams so far, by every lake and
every river, by the mountain and the sea, throughout the
wide circuit of the republic, and beyond its expanding
borders, wherever its ensign is waving, wherever the
weary wing of its commerce is fluttering, wherever
the tireless arm of its energy smites the ocean into
foam — this day, the American citizens, roused as if
by a glorious roll of drums, give themselves freely
to tumultuous joy. And why? Because seventy-
eight years ago the noble sentiments which you have
just heard so eloquently read, passed into the unbend-

ing text of organic law ; because those sentiments,
though scorned by tyrants, and denied by demagogues,
still live in the hearts of the American people.
Standing here, in the region of their birth, by the
first altars of liberty, Surrounded by the free sons
and daughters of old Essex, I will defend those sen
timents, as well as the government established to
secure them, and will denounce those doctrines which
menace them with destruction. As I shall do so, I
need not ask your charitable construction on my
words — you who are in favor of free speech every day
in the weeh You would have me speak freely, or not
at all — as an American citizen, conscious of his rights,
yet mindful of his duties, ought to speak.
It is the doctrine of freedom that the people are
the source of power ; it is the doctrine ef tyranny
that they are not, that they have no rights save those
they derive from their rulers, by grants, as special
favors. The first is the American doctrine. It is
new ; it was first practically adopted on board the
Mayflower ; it was first written in our great Declara
tion of Rights. The other is as old as tyranny, and
has stained a thousand years with its crimes.
Starting with the great doctrine that the people
are the source of power, the question arises, how shall
that power flow forth from the people into practical
government, filling every department of it with the
great life and spirit of the people ? In the first
place, inasmuch as the people cannot act all together,
because of their numbers, in making their laws, it
becomes necessary for them to delegate their power.

5

In the absence of all government, or when it has
been overturned by revolution, they proceed, accord
ing to the measure of their civilization and their
common sense, to elect their delegates. These they
clothe with power to give their collected will expres
sion in the fundamental law. When this shall have
been done, and when their work shall have been
accepted by the people, you have the state. The
people place their principles in their constitution, and
point out those departments through which these are
to be realized in practical government.
These with us are chiefly three : — legislative, exe
cutive, judicial. The legislative department is occu
pied by the representatives of the people.
The representative difiers from the delegate in
that everything he does must be done in obedience
to and in accordance with the constitution which the
delegate has made. The executive administers the
law, the judges interpret it ; and, lest the people
should be wronged through the treachery of their
representatives or through the tyranny of their judges,
they have reserved to themselves, acting in the
jury box, that last fortress of fi;eedom, — the right to
apply the laws to the offences of the citizen, so that
as long as the trial by jury shall be maintained in
its integrity, no citizen can be touched in his proper
ty or in his liberty, save through the warm heart of
his fellow citizens.
This is the American system of government. It is
severely simple. It is the best that has as yet come
from the mind of man — inasmuch as it permits the

people to have precisely those forms of civilization to
which they are best adapted. Wo owe much that
our institutions are as good as they are, to our fathers.
They had felt the hand of tyranny ; therefore, when
they achieved their liberty, they determined to
secure it for themselves and their posterity. For
this purpose they defined their rights, and placed
them in that Declaration you have heard read, so
that nobody could deny them, and so that nobody
could forget them ; and there they repose in beauty,
waiting the arrival of a better time, when better men
shall realize them in living laws.
Now, fellow citizens, we cannot look each other in
the face, and honestly say that we have in our practice
lived up to the high theory of our government. But
let us not grow weary on that account ; let us re
member that the men of theory and the men of prac
tice have ever been in conflict ; let us feel sure that
the good theory recognized by the good men of to-day
will be certain to be worked out in the practice of
the good practical men of to-morrow. If we do not
like our rulers we may change them ; if we do not
like our laws we may repeal them. It is not
wise, nor is it patriotic, to charge our own sins of
omission, upon our institutions. We might as well
denounce our Bibles because bad men pervert them,
as to denounce our institutions because the pure soul
of the people does not always shine through them.
Away ! Away ! then, with that gloomy feeling which
would confound our good system of government
with the bad men who administer it ! Away with

that repining which would not even celebrate this
day ! Why, if there is a day in all the bright calen
dar of days that ought to be celebrated, it is this —
THE people's day ! I would have that noble
Declaration read once a year, at least, through
out every part of this Republic. I would have it
read not only on the banks of the Merrimac, but on
the banks of the Santee — for when the master hears
those noble words, " All men are created equal!" he
must feel rebuked by them : and when the poor
slave shall hear them he will look up for one instant
from his degradation, and behold through the dark
cloud which envelopes him one spot of blue sky, and
see afar off, it may be, the star of Liberty casting its
dim light down even upon him.
Fellow citizens, if our theory of government were
free to be worked out in practice the country would
be divided into two great parties : one progressive
and the other conservative, and men would belong to
these according to age and temperament. A man in
his youth would be likely to belong to the progressive
party, and in age to the conservative party. Then
we should have what is necessary to make a happy
people : a strong government and strong opposition.
But unfortunately there come in certain elements to
interfere with the fair play of our institutions. . As
if to verify the words of the gloomy, though brilliant,
Fisher Ames, " Liberty seems destined ever to be
attended by an assassin." Our liberty seems destined
to be attended not by one but by two assassins ; in
other words, our liberty is in danger from two forms
of despotism, which I may term slavery and priestcraft.

8
Now, fellow citizens, do not tremble because I have
mentioned these topics, for fear I may enter upon any
party consideration of them. I do not intend to do
so. No ! no ! let the bugles of party this day sound
a truce ! Of these in their order.
Every man will admit that slavery has no attribute
which is not at war with the fundamental principles of
this government. When our fathers framed the con
stitution, slavery spread quite over the land, but it had
not developed its full antagonism to our institutions.
Our fathers hated it, and gave it only such scornful
recognition as would not permit their children, when
it should have disappeared, to gather from anything
they might find in the constitution any evidence that
such an evil ever existed. By the accident of cotton
it has become a pecuniary power ; and through that
clause of the constitution which gives it a voting
power, it has become also a political power ; — and this
great power, pecuniary and political, has fallen into
the hands of few men, three hundred thousand all
told. These men, not having to toil, have leisure to
study the science of government, to pursue practical
politics as a profession. Besides, their habit of com
manding, from youth to manhood, gives them a bear
ing which, when it comes in contact with the cowering
of those not trained in such a school, ensures them
easily the victory. These men make the South a
unit on the subject of slavery, and by giving their
strength to one or the other of the great parties of
the North, easily control the whole country. But
though these men have dominated in every depart
ment of this government for a long time, and hold

every department still, and have wielded all the
machinery of freedom to foster slavery — still, so per
nicious is the system in itself, that, while it has not
enriched the slaveholder, it has made the non-slave
holder poor indeed.
The aggregate wealth of the South, computing
men as property, seems to be large ; but the general
poverty is astoni.shing. The master will not work ;
the slave will not, unless watched ; the poor white
men have no capital ; and so the result of labor,
which is the only wealth of any people, is by conse
quence small. The planter anticipates his single
crop every year ; the South has nothing salted down
in cities, railroads, free schools, or churches. Even
the land is dying. That always dies wherever the
black foot of slavery is set down upon it. The wolf
and the raven return to their old haunts. The voice of
generous learning is not heard. Poetry is dumb.
Indeed, desolation, like a deepening shadow, seems
gathering about Mount Vernon and Monticello.
Ignorance increases so fast, that even in Georgia,
Avhich has been called the Massachusetts of the South,
the number of those who cannot read or write is
increasing faster than the population. What a future
have they before them ! When we consider what the
government is, through the energy of the freedom
that has been left to it — when we consider what the
South might have been, how it might have been
covered over with cities, and have exhibited all the
signs of a splendid civilization — how deeply must
2

10
every honest man. North and South, regret the exist
ence of this evil !
To-day, I shall not point out how it outrages
morals, how it reduces a man born in the image of
his God beneath the condition of the beast of the
field, or the dull, silent clod of the valley. No ! I
should be repeating twice-told tales. I deal with it
as a disturbing element in our politics, hostile I
believe to our institutions. It cannot endure free
speech or freedom of the press ; it cannot keep com
pacts — for if it should do right, it would die !
Fellow citizens, you will say with me, the days of
sentiment are over ; the time for hard Avork is here.
You put the pertinent question to me, " What shall
we do ? Can we remove the evil ? " I answer in
the language of the defiant Colonel Miller at Lundy's
Lane, " We can try." We can, as was eloquently said
in the prayer to which you just listened, bear our
testimony against it. You can prove, to any man
who will hear you for five minutes, that, in the first
place, it is Avrong ; in the second place it is unprofit
able j and in the third place, if it shall continue to
increase, it will destroy the liberty we love.
Now, we cannot assail it politically, in the states
where it exists. And why? Because we should
destroy that doctrine of state rights which permits
Massachusetts to be the freest state in the Avorld,
while it permits South Carolina to linger amono- the
exploded systems of past ages. But inasmuch as
freedom is national and slavery sectional, as it is a
local institution, and has been so declared at one time

n
or another by all the great statesmen of the country,
North and South, — it is our right, as it is our duty,
to see to it that it shall not spread its blight over one
inch of territory now free. It is our duty, as it is
our right, to see to it that no state shall find admis
sion into this grand confederacy as long as it seeks it
with this blight in its bosom.
Let us say to the South, " Let our freedom alone,
and we will let your slavery alone. AVith this noh-
intervention the country will have sweet repose.
But, we say to you, do what you will with your
slavery, — we mean, though the stars rain down from
heaven, to maintain our liberty ! "
I stand with the Fathers of the Republic in con
sidering it an evil ; with their sons in the remedy I
would apply ; with the great statesmen of the North,
with Webster and Rantoul, who now .sleep in the
green graves we have just watered with our tears.
I pass from the consideration of this disturbing ele
ment in our politics, to the consideration of priestcraft.
When Romanism issued forth from the Eternal
City, from beneath the broken altars and the falling
gods of pantheism, it commended itself to the people.
Its system was simple, consisting of a bishop and a
few assistants. But soon the bishop of Rome domi
nated over the other bishops of the Roman Empire ;
and, ere long, claimed that the see of Rome was estab
lished by St. Peter himself, and that he was his
successor. In this fatal error the foundations of
the papacy were laid. Fifteen hundred years ago,
the bishop of Rome claimed to be the head of the

12
church, and assumed the name of "Pope." A thousand
years ago, temporal was added to his spiritual power.
Then followed, in quick succession, the adoption of
the doctrines, which one would suppose to be abhorrent
to reason, of purgatory and transubstantiation. And
so this hierarchy went on, giving the dark hue of its
own spirit to long ages, till it became the most stu
pendous oppression knoAvn to man. Protestantism
fell upon it like a thunderbolt, but it did not subdue
it; and the great war, so nobly commenced by
Wicliff and Huss, and Luther and Calvin, still rages.
It is true that Ziska does not now pierce the pa
pacy with his sword. The great Cromwell does not
trample it down under his feet, and our fathers do
not rush through the great gap in the AUeghanies,
with Washington at their head, to liberate the A^alley
of the Mississippi ;— but tlie great war of ideas is
still in progress.
The church assumes a milder aspect. It speaks
no longer of the fagot and the flame, of the rack and
the torture. It would fain forget the Inquisition, the
war upon the Waldenses, St. Bartholomew, and the
fires of Smithfield. It discourses sweetly of Massillon
and Fenelon, and Chrj^sostom, " the golden mouthed.'''
It charms the ear Avith the divinest music. It delights
the eye Avith the finest creations of genius. It excites
the imagination by the splendor of its ceremonies,
takes captive the senses, and almost overcomes the
reason. Is it strange, then, Avhen we consider its age,
its poAver, its pretension, that the ignorant should be
hold in its mighty and mysterious movements, the

l;5
hand of divinity itself ? No ! it is not subdued.
It SAvays the soul of tAVO-thirds of Christendom at
this day. It counts its devotees by hundreds of mil
lions. Its convent bells are ringing in all lands. The
spires of its cathedrals pierce every sky. Its hardy
missionj^ries penetrate every continent, and seek all
the isles of the sea. It has let loose again that ter
rible order of Jesuits, who, acting upon the infamous
maxim, that the end justifies the means, lure gOA^ern-
ments and men to ruin. It trains its priesthood to
still stricter celibacy, that they may not lose the lust
of poAver in the love of home. It may not call the
German king from his forests, and force him to stand
three days at the Vatican, Avith bare head and feet,
exposed to the Avinds of winter. No ! it invokes the
aid of emperors, and obtains it ; it makes statesmen
its puppets, and miserable republican politicians its
scavengers. Not he of old who soAved the pesti
lence so wronged humanity.
See the bright lands it has blighted ! Yet Avhen
these are placed in contrast Avith those Protestantism
has blessed, the disciples of the church say, " We
admit the material prosperity, but it is better for men
that they remain ignorant, so they seek Heaven
through the gates of the church." It works openly,
works secretly, with the pen, with the sword. Yes,
with the sword ! The great war in Europe, now rag
ing, had its origin in the machinations of the church.
Did it not place Louis Napoleon on the throne of
France ? Did it not demand the right to settle the
. Eastern question, and the guardianship of the holy

u
places of Palestine ? If the Latin church could
make demands, Avhy not the schismatic Greek church,
of which the Czar is the head ? I cannot pursue this
great question ; but yoi;i Avill find in this distant
cause, the origin of the terrible Avar that is now tak
ing place in Europe. And Ave find protestant Eng
land — after eating Avhat insane root I cannot imagine
— in the first place, in alliance with the most warlike
catholic country, and about entering into alliance A\'ith
the second mcst Avarlike catholic country, Avith the im
plied understanding, that the pope shall still contin
ue in his seat, and that the young emperor of Austria,
his lips purple Avith perjury, shall still hold his feet on
_the neck of poor Hungary. Well may the people of
England inquire, "For what do Ave fight?" I honor
the people of England for forcing that gOA^ernment into
the war. It AA^as the conscience of England, which ani
mated them, for they supposed they were to fight for
the Aveak against the strong, and for the integrity of
nations. They did not comprehend the depth of Eu
ropean diplomacy. I cannot enter further into this
question. I Avill only utter this prophecy, — that the
legions which are now moving towards the sun, along
the paths of the old crusaders, will return ; and, as sure
as Waterloo is remembered, they Avill pour themselves
like a torrent upon protestant England. She, I knoAV,
when roused, can hurl them back, — for protestantism,
Avhen roused, is invincible.
It is with the machinations of the church in our
dear native land that I have to do, for it is here that
the great battle between true democracy and despot-

15
ism is to be fought. We stand all alone in our insti
tutions. Kingcraft and priestcraft are in alliance by
the instinct of self-preseiTation, for if the dear ban
ner Ave love shall continue to dance in the sky, every
mitre and croAvn will sooner or later roll in the dust^
Feeling that they cannot OA^ercome us by arms, tbey
seek to do it by duplicity. Hence they send hither
their well-trained priesthood, their Jesuits, ' (Kossuth
found eight, fresh from Austria, a\Tay in Avhat they
call the " Province of Missouri,") their Bedini — that
bloody butcher of Bologna, to organize despotism
here. They cannot trust the native born priesthood^
with the delicate interests of the church. Their de-
A^otees are coming as the Avaves come, enough to make
four states every year. They give their lip service
to our institutions, but their hearts are aAvay on the
Tiber. Through the complicity of demagogues, and
by a violation of the naturalization laAVS, they enter
at once, as a disturbing element into our politics.
Their religious poAver has been Avielded as a balance
so skilfully, that long since, men of all parties Avere
found in submission to it. And noAv it is no longer a
merit in a man that he Avas born on these broAvn hills,
or that his fathers bathed the battle-fields of the land
AA'ith their blood. No, it is a demerit, rather ; and it
is better for him, if he can shoAv that, at some time
or other, he exhibited greater servility to this poAver
than his opponent. ¦^
It Avas not urged as a merit in General Scott, that
AA'hen in Mexico, he acted the part of a kind Christian
chieftain, as he is. No ! But it was a merit that he

16
lowered the ensign of the republic to the catholic
ceremonies, and that he said that the Irishmen Avere
the bravest, or among the bravest, in the army. And
Avas it not, on the other hand, used against him with
great success, that he hung up a company of these •
men, the only traitors to the American flag in Mexi
co? You remember hoAV he fell suddenly in love Avith
the " rich Irish brogue." Ah ! there was his mistake.
Priestcraft Avould not have you fall in love Avith the
Avarm-hearted Irishmen. It Avould have you trample
them down, and keep them in ignorance, so that it
may Avield them as instruments of power. As CA'i-
dence of this, see how priestcraft persecutes the
young and eloquent Irishman Meagher, who tries to
lift the people from the degradation into A\'hich priest
craft has thrown them. It AA^as a mistake in General
Scott to be so Avarm-hearted. His opponent — I am
not blaming one more than the other, they Avere
playing for the stake alike — AA'as Aviser ; for if re
port be true, he went to the source of poAver ; at any
rate he got the A'ote, — and noAV you have a Jesuit for
your Postmaster General.
I say the two parties are alike at the footstool of
this power. Men launch their sarcasms, even from
the United States Senate, at the priesthood of other
denominations, at those noble men, the clergymen of
New England, Avho signed the petition against the
Nebraska Bill — but did you ever hear of any body's
launching a sarcasm against the catholic clergymen.
Is it not boasted, in the papers -of yesterday, only
that no catholic priest signed the protest against the

17
Nebraska bill ? and where is your press that dares
attack that priesthood for its devotion to slavery ?
Look at the catholic press, ably conducted, with an
exclusive circulation in a certain quarter, a powerful
advocate for absolutism, it poisons the minds of the
people where it extends. But where is your protes
tant press to reply to these able papers? I blame not
these catholic journals ; their editors are (Jevoted to
the church, true to its fundamental doctrines which
require blind obedience to authority, declare the in
fallibility of the church, and deny the right of private
judgment. Where these views are realized, where
this kind of despotism is established, freedom is in its
deepest grave. They try to realize these doctrines.
Do you love religious liberty ? They declare there
is no such thing. " Protestantism has no rights in
the presence of Catholicity," says the Catholic Re-
Adew. " Religious liberty is only endured till the
opposite can be established with safety to the
Catholic world," says Bishop O'Conner of Pittsburg.
" America will soon be catholic, and then religious
liberty will cease to exist," says the Bishop of St.
Louis, Protestantism is a crime in catholic countries,
and is punishable as a crime, says another ; as evi
dence of this, see the punishment of the Madaii fami
ly in Tuscany, " I will watch," says the Bishop of
Paris, " the religious press of France, and if necessa
ry, I will use my power to repress it," That press
has found an early grave. But that I may not wrong
these people, I will go to the fountain of authority,
and read a passage from a recent letter written by
.3

• 18
the Pope himself to the people of New Grenada,
who had the audacity to cast ofl" their yoke of op
pression, and to adopt a constitution almost identical
with our own. Here is what he says of it :
" Neither must we pass over in silence, that, by the new constitu
tion of that republic, enacted in these recent times, among other things,
the right of free education is defended, and liberty of all kinds is given
unto all, so that each person may even print and publish his thoughts
and all kinds of monstrous portents of opinions, and profess privately
and publicly whatever worship he pleases.
" You assuredly see, Venerable Brothers, how horrible and sacri
legious a war is proclaimed against the Catholic Church, by the rul^a
of the Republic of New Granada, and what and how great injuries
have been inflicted on the said Church and its sacred rights. Pastors
and Ministers, and our supreme authority and that of the Holy See.''
Furthermore, in the same letter, on the subject of
marriage, he writes : —
" Marriage cannot be given without there being at one and the same
time a sacrament, and consequently any other union whatever of man
and woman among Christians, made in virtue of what civil law soever,
is nothing else but a shameful and miserable concubinage, so often
condemned by the Church."
Husbands and Avives of New England, what say
you to that ? Do you wish other evidence ? You
can find it. You know our fathers destroyed all con
nection with Feudalism. They abolished the right of
primogeniture, discouraged entails and long trusts.
Now, it is the doctrine of the church that the proper
ty of the church shall remain in the hands of the
priesthood. That doctrine is enforced on the catholic
conscience in this republic, and finding some, especi
ally the German Catholics, not ready to yield to it,
they have secured, I believe, by their influence in
Louisiana and Pennsylvania, against the policy of our

19 •
government, decisions of the courts, placing the whole
property of the church in the hands of the priest
hood — so that they may wield its millions when and
how they will.
Our fathers established a system of free schools
that were non-sectarian. When Bishop Hughes re
turned from Rome in 1841, he commenced that war
upon our free schools which now rages all over the
land. It is the doctrine of the Church that the State
has no right to educate; that it is the exclusive duty
of the Church. But feeling that they had not the
power to get entire possession of our schools, they
sought to divide the school money ; failing, they
sought to put out the Bible ; and, failing in this, they
blotted its pages, expurgated it, along with other
books which said anything about the papacy ; and
after they thought they were strong enough to ad
vance to the polls with this object in view, they did
so ; but the people, without distinction of party, in
cluding the protestant foreigners, beat them as if
upon a threshing floor.
In this State at the last election — I have no opin
ion to offer here of the new constitution — there was
an element in our State ten thousand strong, it is
said, and because it did not like a particular article
in that constitution which declared there should be
no sectarian schools in Massachusetts, they moved in
a mass, secretly, and so secretly, that none except a
few leading politicians at the head of parties knew
about it, and that article went down with the who],e
constitution, I complain not that this defeated the

20
constitution ; but I point out as a dangerous element,
that which cares not a fig whether the constitution be
good or bad, and which, unless it suits its own pecu
liar aims, will strike everything good and bad down
together. And here let me mention, in passing, that
fearing that great storm, the rumblings of whose
thunders are beginning to be heard, a change in their
tactics within a few weeks is perceptible. In the last
number of Brownson's Quarterly, for this month, you
Avill find the ablest Native American article ever
written in the United States, I think. When you
read it, you will see as you go on, and come nearly to
the end, that the writer is careful, while he comes
down upon the foreigners most brutally, to save the
Catholic portion of them from his blows ; and that
his poisoned arroAvs are. aimed at the Protestant for
eigners, and especially at the liberty-loving Germans.
But there is a still deeper purpose in it. Fearing
that the church and all may come down together be
fore the hurricane of opinion, he would save the
church — -" Oh, spare the church and do what you will
with the foreigners ! " he says in spirit. This is
cowardly and Jesuitical. To show that this is done
by combination and understanding, look in the Bos
ton Pilot, the ablest catholic journal in the country,
and bertainly having the largest circulation. You
will there find that it inquires in substance, whether,
inasmuch as nearly all the Irish catholics have now
come, and as the Germans are coming about three fo
their one, and as these are not all catholics, it Avould
not be well to change our naturalization laws. Is

21
not that cool ? After having got into our house, they
propose to shut the door in the faces of our ether in
vited guests. Had we not better consider among
ourselves and settle this question of what we shall
do with our own ?
You ask what remedy I have to propose ? Simply,
in the first place, kindness, not persecution. This is
the asylum of the oppressed, and let it continue the
asylum of the oppressed. Say to these people- — We
will educate your children in our free schools. We
will toU together and struggle side by side for the
greatness and the glory of the Republic. Enjoy
whatsoever religion you will, preach in your cathe
drals when you will, or beneath the blue dome of
heaven, and you shall have every drop of American
blood to protect you in your religious liberty ; but
when you combine for despotism, we will combine
for liberty ! When you propose to exclude the Bi
bles our mothers gave us from the free schools our
dear fathers established, when you find an ally in ev
ery despot, when you league with all oppression —
we, without depriving you of a single right, simply
propose to vote you down !
We mean to encourage and cultivate among our-"
selves an intense nationality. We mean that the
Anglo-Saxon element, as it is the dominant element,
shall bear superior sway. We mean to stand by our
good old mother tongue against the world, because it
is the language of liberty all over the world. We
mean to bear arms, inasmuch as it is our right, our
constitutional right, and our duty, so that we can,

22
when our republic is assailed, defend it ; for it has so
turned out in human affairs that a country which
cannot defend its liberty, has not retained it long.
We mean to act in the spirit of that patriotism which
governed our fathers, when they placed in the consti
tution of the United States the provision that no man
save a natiA'e born citizen of this republic should be
President of these United States.
Fellow-Citizens, I ha\'e spoken of these disturbing
elements in our politics. Slavery and Priestcraft.
They have a common purpose : they seek Cuba and
Hayti and the Mexican States together, because they
will be Catholic and Slave. I say they are in alliance
by the necessity of their nature, — for one denies the
right of a man to his body, and the other the right
of a man to his soul. The one denies his right to
think for himself, the other the right to act for him
self One, assuming the livery of Democracy, steals
men, and sells men, and buys men it would not pay
to steal, men beneath the slave, inasmuch as he never
stooped to the degradation of selling himself. The
other assumes the livery of Heaven, not to traffic in
the bodies of men so, much as in their souls. For so
much it win absolve, for so much pass you over that
hard road to travel, Purgatory. Fortunately men
are not as bad as their systems. There is something
deep down in the soul of every man, be he Catholic
or Protestant, which rebels eternally against absolute
authority, and that, when you find it, is Protestantism,
You ask me, will our republic be subdued by these
despotic elements ? I tell you, No ! No ! 1 gather

23
hope to the contrary from this roused spirit of the
people, rising like the voice of many Avaters here to
day. There is no danger, because the people are
awake. There is danger only when the people
sleep, and from a secret enemy. Liberty loves the
storm. When the winds blow and the waves rise,
then she is safe. Methinks I see, moving upon the
face of the troubled waters, the spirit of Divinity as
of old ! Methinks I hear above the roar of the tem
pest its glad voice, saying, " Be of good cheer ! It
is I ! Be not afraid ! " _
[Here Mr. B. said, that with the heat of patriot
ism, and the heat of the Aveather, he thought they
must be too warm to hear any more — but upon being
unanimously requested to go on, he proceeded as
follows :]
Fellow citizens — these elements will not overthrow
our republic. Beyond the gloom of the present, I
behold the brightness of the future. I speak thus
hopefully because I belieA'^e in progress. I believe
the future is as secure as the past. I believe with
the great Leibnitz, that everything, from the simplest
substance up to man, is advancing towards the
bosom of God, I believe that though individuals
and their systems perish, society lives on — that civi
lization has advanced from East to West, in regular
order, until it has nearly completed the circuit of the
whole earth. At first men gathered together in the
valleys of the great Eastern rivers, then spread along
the shores of the Mediterranean, then developed
themselves in the great basin of the Atlantic, and

24
now the advancing brow of civilization is fanned by
the breezes of a yet broader ocean. The false sys
tems of the Euphrates and the Nile gave way before
the higher systems of Greece and Rome, and these
again to Christianity. I cast these propositions like
a rainbow in the sky of your hopes — logic and
mathematics require conditions of the future beyond
the reach even of our most gorgeous imaginations.
See what mighty strides our own republic has
taken under the inspiration of that fair opportunity
which our system allows ! See the contrast of the
past and the present, even here ! Take for this pur
pose the period just subsequent to the Revolution —
what was the condition of things then ? The country
was scarcely more populous than is New York to-day,
not so rich in personal property as is Massachusetts
now. The country was an hundred millions in debt.
The government was an untried experiment. Its
flag was friendless on the sea and on the land. Men
Avere assailing with a vindictiveness we can now
scarcely comprehend the pure character of Washing.
ton, whose image is not more unmistakably engraven
upon the canvas before me, than it is upon the heart
of every on6 who listens to me here to-da3^ The
whole West Avas about to blaze with Indian battle-
fires. A few feeble States were creeping up the
slope of the AUeghanies, and gaping with timorous
eye over into the dark unknown valley of the Missis
sippi. In short, from Maine to Georgia, the wild
beast's howl was answered back by the Atlantic's
roar.

25
Behold the republic to-day expanded from the
frozen regions of the North to the unfading flowers
of the South — a wide, wide empire, Avhere geographers
tell us the currents of the air and water and the
configuration of the earth conspire to produce the
noblest specimens of physical and intellectual life —
an empire traversed by the loftiest ranges of moun
tains and drained by the noblest rivers in the world.
Here, on the laughing sides of its hills, and in its
happy valleys, behold twenty-three millions of peo
ple, who, under the inspiration of free institutions — I
say free institutions, for these alone are national, are
increasing two and a half per cent faster than are the
people of any other quarter of the globe, doubling
themselves every twenty-five years — so that if that
boy before me shall live fifty years, he will behold a
hundred millions of people gathered under that star
ry banner.
Five thousand miles of canal are already finished ;
sixteen thousand miles of telegraph now stretch over
the land ; thirty-one thousand miles of railroad are
completed, or are in the hands of contractors ; our
rivers, those shining lines of beauty,' are navigable
fifty thousand miles by the shore line, and our com
merce is increasing faster than tongue can tell. The
little " Blessing of the Bay," has multiplied itself un
til now our ocean tonnage is within a few thousand
tons of that of the British Empire ; and when we
add our lake and river tonnage it is as two to one.
We rule to day on the stormy Atlantic, and on the
peaceful Pacific, in the icy region of the north, and
through the great Southern Ocean by those beautiful

26
models which have from time to time leaped from the
live brain of New England upon the wave.
These are a few random statistics of our material
prosperity. But has there been no moral progress 1
Compare the religious bigotry of a little while ago
with the almost general toleration of to day. There
are men present who can remember when party feel
ings ran so high in this State that old men in demo
cratic and federal times, forgetting the propriety ef
life, would go into the street and fight each other like
dogs ; religious differences separated families for
years, and sometimes forever. Even Slavery itself,
that master curse of all, like the serpent in its ring
of fire, begins to sting itself to death ; we are wit
nessing the last spasms of this dying monster. Com
pare the sickly newspapers of but little while ago
with those of to-day, with a circulation of more than
four hundred millions of copies every year in the re
public. Compare the little seven by nine school
houses of a little while ago, with those which are now
the glory of our hills and valleys, in which the
boys and girls of to day might teach President Ed
wards geography, were he to come back to this world
no farther advanced in that science than he was when
he left it.
Our fathers, it is true, gazed upon the same charm
ing earth, the same beautiful heavens bent above
them, they felt the sweet influences of the Pleiades
and beheld the bright Belt of Orion ; but could they
resolve the distant nebulae into clustering stars, could
they sweep the whole heavens with the eye of science
and pass into the high empyrean, bringing down new

27
worlds and new systems of worlds ? They felt the
land breeze and the sea breeze, but could they tell
that these were caused by the changing temperature
of the sea and the land ? They knew something of
the configuration of the earth ; but could they teU
why the continent of North America is the best wa
tered, why in the south of Hindostan the air, water
and earth combine to produce those noble specimens
of animal and vegetable life we there behold — ani
mals whose gigantic tread shakes the solid earth, and
the beautiful palm trees whose leaves stretch out for
ty feet in diameter ? They could not tell why the
western shores of the great continent are warmer
than the eastern shores. They knew nothing of those
pleasant gales blowing perpetually upon them bear
ing the bloom of flowers up to the high latitudes of
the Orkneys, the Highlands and the Oregon ; noth
ing of the mysterious march of the icebergs, nothing
of the causes of those dazzling lights whose shim
mer fills our northern heavens with glory. The land
and the sea were mysteries. The surveyor had not
borne his theodolite or drawn his measuring chain
over the ancient beaver-dam. Audubon had not ruf
fled the bright plumage of all the birds of the conti
nent with his rattling shot. Kit Carson had not yet
pointed out the paths of the buffaloes where future
railroads must be built. The daring Fremont had
not climbed the icy heights of the Sierra Nevada, and
the brave Humboldt had not gazed through the clear
atmosphere of Mexico, or reposed in the shadows of
Chimborazo. The ocean was a mystery. Our fath
ers heard its tread of thunder on the shore ; the

28

skipper's solitary sail trembled along the wide waste
of waters ; and latterly from this good old commer
cial town, the brave Indiaman went out once a year
on its lonely voyage, to the rich land of the Orient.
But the sea was a mystery. Its treacherous currents,
its fogs, its sunken rocks, its coral reefs, its belts of
storms, and its belts of calms, were all mysteries. For
science had not yet sounded its awful depth, down,
seven miles down, below the wave, below the fish,
below the line of life, below the green light at which
the drowning sailor clutches in his last agony, Guyot
had not written. Agassiz had not lectured. And
Maury, that American of whom we aU should be
proud, had not so ma^jped out the ocean as to say
what winds blow in what places, with such accuracy
that a vessel leaving New York and close sailing by
his directions, reached San Francisco within a few
hours of the time he had indicated for her arrival.
But the wing of imagination groAvs weary as it
tries to keep pace with the progress of civilization in
our dear native land.
Americans ! May we not exult on this the birth
day of the nation's freedom, in these rich fruits of its
liberty ? And now, the sands of my hour having long
since run out, I must close. I close, happy that I
have seen this day, my step shall be freer and proud
er for it. I shall bear away in my memory the melo
dy of the rich voices I have heard, and the light of the
faces I have seen. May the good God, who holds us
all in the hollow of His hand, keep us, and may He
preserve and prosper our dear native land, till time
shall be no more !