Chapter III: Part 3

You will observe, from this little classic allusion that I am on the side of those who favor in the curriculum the maintenance of the learned languages. For myself, whether an education in the classic languages and in the classic literature should or should not be discarded from the education of the noble youth of the country is the question whether it is worth while in the advancing and strenuous life of modern times that men should have a liberal education. For be sure that there is no trait in that education that entitles it to the name of liberal more sure and more valuable than this education in the literature, in the history, in the language of the great men of the ages past. If any boy is put through what is called a liberal education, and finds when he goes out from it, that he is not on a level with those who understand and cherish the Greek language and literature, he will find that he is mistaken in wishing to dispense with that distinguishing trait.

I am able to give you a very interesting anecdote, as it seems to me, of this very point, of how a great man, great in his power, great in his fame, yet of an ingenuous and simple nature, may look at this accomplishment. On my return from Europe, when I first visited it, upon a public errand, while President Lincoln was at the height of his fame from the assured although not completed success and triumph in the war, and from the great transaction that had made him one of the famous men for all ages--the emancipation of the slaves--I had occasion, in a friendly meeting with him, to express a hope that he would find it in his power after the cares of State were laid aside to visit Europe and see the statesmen and great men there whose mouths were full of plaudits for his assured accomplished fame. Said he: "You are very kind in thinking I should meet with a reception so gratifying as you have proposed, and I certainly should enjoy as much as any one the acquisition and the observation that such a visit would give; but," added he, "as you know very well my early education was of the narrowest, and in the society in which I should move I should be constantly exposed in conversation to have a scrap of Greek or Latin spoken that I should know nothing about." Certainly that was a very peculiar statement to be made by this wonderful man, but it struck me at the moment that his clear mind, his self-poised nature, recognized the fact that his greatness and his fame did not lie in the direction of an association with what he regarded as the accomplished men of society and of public life brought.

I believe, therefore, that we will stand by the college while it stands by the Greek and the Latin, and certainly as representatives of the great mass of graduates we can now talk more of Greek and Latin as a common accomplishment than the greatest genius and orators of ancient times, Demosthenes or Cicero, could of English. [Laughter.]

There are many things, gentlemen, that if I were the President of this association or the President of the University, I should say and expect to be listened to, while saying it. But I confess that I have pretty much exhausted, as I perceive, your patience and my own capacity. I am now living for the reputation of making short speeches, and I am only afraid that my life will not be long enough to succeed. But I promise you that if I get a good forum and a good audience like this I will run a short speech even if I run it into the mud. [Applause.]

* * * * *

LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD

[Speech of William M. Evarts at the banquet given by the Chamber of
Commerce of the State of New York, June 24, 1885, to the officers of
the French national ship "Isere," which brought over the Bartholdi
statue. Charles Stewart Smith, vice-President of the Chamber, presided
at the dinner and introduced the speaker as follows: "Gentlemen, fill
your glasses for the seventh regular toast: 'Liberty Enlightening the
World, a great truth beautifully and majestically expressed by the
unique gift which our guests of to-night have brought safely to our
shores.' The gentleman who will respond to this toast needs no
introduction--Senator William M. Evarts."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I may be permitted at the outset, to speak a little about the share that we have taken on this side of the water in this great achievement which in its glorious consummation, now receives the applause of the world.

When this great conception of friendship for America, joy at our triumph, and their own undaunted love of liberty, liberty for France, liberty for the United States, liberty for the world, arose, then the French people were set aflame with a desire to bring, as it were, their gifts of frankincense and myrrh to lay on this altar of liberty, that its censer might never die out, but forever perfume and ennoble the air of the world. [Applause.]

The genius of Art, the patriotism of France, the enthusiasm of its people, accomplished by contributions drawn from more than one hundred thousand, perhaps two hundred thousand givers, made up this statue, not equalled in the history of the world, and not conceived in its genius or its courage before. [Applause.]

Then it was for us to say whether we would furnish the pedestal upon which this great gift and emblem of Liberty should find its secure and permanent home; without the aid of the Government and by the movement of our own people in this city, an organization wholly voluntary, and without pretension or assumption had the faith that the American people would furnish a home fit for the statue of Liberty, however magnificent should be the reception, that would comport with its own splendor. [Cheers.]

This organization undertook actively its work in 1882, before the statue was completed, and while it remained somewhat uncertain to many who doubted whether the great statue would really be brought to its anticipated prosperity and success. But we went on, and now, within three years, this work, both of receiving and collecting subscriptions and of raising the pedestal itself, will have been completed, and I do not hesitate to say, in the face of all critics and all doubters, that a work of so great magnitude, either in its magnificence, or in its labor, has never before been completed in so short a time. [Applause.]

When we were reasonably assured of adequate funds, we commenced the concrete base on which this pedestal was to rest; and no structure of that kind, of that magnitude, of that necessity, of that perfection and permanence has ever been accomplished in the works of masonry before. [Cheers.] Commencing on the ninth of October, 1883, it was completed on the seventeenth day of May, 1884--and then commenced the work of the structure proper, of the pedestal, and it went on, and it went on, and it went sure, and it went safe, if it went slow, and there it stands. [Cheers.]

And now a word or two about the Committee. An eminent lawyer of our city was once detected and exposed and applauded for being seen standing with his hands in his own pockets [laughter], and for about three months, if you had visited the meetings of this Committee of ours, you would have seen the whole assembly standing with their hands in their own pockets [applause], and taking the first step forward asking their fellow-citizens to follow us, and not for us to follow them. [Cheers.] And so we went on, and on the tenth of this present month, we had received in hand $241,000, of which $50,000 came from the grand and popular movement of a great newspaper--"The World" [three cheers for "The World"]--fifty thousand dollars! and that made up substantially what we had announced in advance as what would be required to complete the pedestal. But where did we miscarry even in that calculation? The exploration showed us that the concrete mass must go deeper in the ground, and that cost us alone $85,000, about $30,000 more than we had counted upon before the exploration; and then the $20,000 more that makes it up to the $300,000 as our need to complete the pedestal (when we had counted upon $250,000), is made by such delay and such expenses as made the general outlay for this immense structure, continuing longer than would have been necessary, had the promptness of contributions kept pace with the possibility of completion.

Now, gentlemen, we have been patient and quiet. Nearly one-fourth of the contributions of the general citizens came from the pockets of the Committee. Instead of hearing from enterprising Chicago, and ambitious Boston, they are talking about the slowness and the dulness of New York's appreciation, of the delays in its contributions. Let the example of our patriotism and munificence be an example for them to imitate; and this city of Boston--let their people there reflect that, when they built Bunker Hill monument, it cost I am informed scarcely $100,000. They were twenty years in raising it, although the whole country was canvassed in its aid. [Laughter.]

Well, gentlemen, so much for that. And how great is this monument! How noble! How beautiful! How inspiring for the time that looks upon its completion and for the ages that shall mark it hereafter! If our country and France, as we hope, may go on in the enlargement and advancement of a glorious civilization, we may feel sure that if our descendants shall overtop us in wealth, in strength, in art, and equal us in love of liberty, they will not say that this was not a worthy triumph for the age in which we live [applause]; and if, unhappily, malign influences shall degrade our civilization and our fame, and travellers and dwellers here shall find their power has waned, and their love of liberty declined, if they shall have become a poverty-stricken and debased people, what will they think of this remaining monument of a past and lost age, but that it was a creation of the gods and that no men ever lived. [Cheers.]

Well, these French gentlemen, the Admiral and the Commandant, how shall we appreciate the beneficence of their visit, the urbanity of their attentions to us, and the happy and hearty manner in which they have accepted our hospitality. Why the Admiral--a greater triumph, let me say, than he could ever have by the power of his navy--has come here and carried New York by storm, without firing a gun. [Cheers.] And as for Commandant De Saune, he has done what in the history of the world--of our modern world, at least--no nation, no ruler has successfully attempted: he has kept "Liberty enlightening the World" under the hatches for thirty days. [Applause.]

It was tried in England, and "Liberty enlightening the World" cut off the head of the king. Tried again, it drove the dynasty of the Stuarts forever from that free island. In France, they tried to suppress it, and it uprooted the ancient monarchy and scattered the forces which were expected to repress it. The milder form of a limited monarchy, even, France would not submit to as a repression of liberty, and again twice over, under an Imperial government, "Liberty enlightening the World" has broken out from under the hatches. [Cheers.]

But Commandant De Saune is not only a bold represser of mutiny on board his vessel, but he is a great and cunning navigator; he did not tell it, but he planned it, and how narrow the calculation was. He arrived here on the seventeenth of June, Bunker Hill day [applause], and missed the eighteenth, the day of Waterloo. [Laughter and applause.]--It is thus that this French genius teaches us new lessons, and evokes irrepressible applause. [Cheers.]

I imagine that a navigator who could thus seize the golden moment, and miss the disastrous one, might, if he undertook it, discover the North Pole. [Laughter.] But I am sure he has better work before him in the world than that. [Applause.] But if he goes on to that destination, oh, let us contribute some portion of the cargo that he will put under the hatches! [Laughter.]

Well, gentlemen, this is a great event, this great triumph of civilization is indeed laden with many instructions, and many illustrations. No doubt "Liberty enlightening the World" in modern history finds its greatest instance in that torch which was lighted here; but from the enthusiasm and the inexorable logic of French philosophy on the "equality of man," was furnished we can never say how much of the zeal and of the courage that enabled our forefathers to shape the institutions of equality and liberty here [cheers], and all can mark the reaction upon France, by which our interests, our prosperity under them encouraged, ennobled and maintained the struggle for liberty there which overthrew ancient establishments and raised in their place new. And now both countries, at least, stand on the same happy combination of liberty regulated by law, and law enlightened by liberty. [Cheers.] And this great structure, emblem of so much else, example of so much else, guide to so much else, yet this emblem, this example, this guide is of the union between the genius and enthusiasm of liberty, the graceful statue and the massive and compact pedestal of our own granite by which it is upheld. [Cheers.]

Liberty can only be supported by solid and sober institutions, founded upon law as built upon a rock; and the structure solid and sober which sustains it, if Liberty has fled, is but a shapeless and unsightly mass that is no longer worthy of respect as a structure, to be torn apart until it can be better rebuilt as the home of liberty. [Prolonged applause.]

THOMAS C. EWING

OHIO AND THE NORTH-WEST

[Speech of Thomas C. Ewing at the first annual banquet of the New York
Southern Society, February 22, 1887. Algernon S. Sullivan, the
President of the Society, was in the chair, and announced that General
Ewing would respond to the toast "Ohio and the Northwest." General
Ewing was greeted with applause and cheers for Ohio.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--Ohio and her four sisters of the Northwest are always proud and happy to be reminded of the fact of their kinship to Virginia. It was the valor and the intrepidity of the Old Dominion which, long before the Confederation was formed, wrested that great territory from the Frenchmen and the savages. It was her lofty generosity which gave to the poor young Republic that vast territory out of which has been formed five of our greatest States, and in which dwell millions of our people. It was her humane and unselfish statesmanship which annexed to the gift the condition that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, excepting punishment for crime, should ever exist in that magnificent domain. Thousands of our Revolutionary heroes sleep in Ohio in land given to them as a recognition of their own priceless services, and the beautiful district between the Scioto and the Little Miami is filled with their descendants. Therefore, Mr. President, whenever Virginia sits at the head of the table, Ohio claims a seat as one of the family.

I, too, coming from that great State, and proud of it and its condition, may join in congratulating you, gentlemen, on the establishment of this "Southern Society of New York." After the long season of strife and discontent this is one of the many signs which mark the vernal equinox, and foretell the coming summer. I believe, notwithstanding the infinite disasters of the war, the overthrow of slavery, and with it all the industrial system of the South, and the needless loss and the humiliations of reconstruction--I believe that there is to-day a kinder and more cordial fraternity between the North and South than ever existed since the agitation of the slavery question sixty or seventy years ago. This society formed, and meeting here in this great centre of American political and business life, can do much to promote that peace. We need more social intercourse between the Northern and Southern men, and we need, above all, a clearer and manlier understanding of each other, in order that the recollections of the war may cease to check the growing accord between us.

Gentlemen, the North craves a living and lasting peace with the South; it asks no humiliating conditions; it recognizes the fact that the proximate cause of the war was the constitutional question of the right of secession--a question which, until it was settled by the war, had neither a right nor wrong side to it. Our forefathers, in framing the Constitution purposely left the question unsettled; to have settled it distinctly in the Constitution would have been to prevent the formation of the union of the Thirteen States. They, therefore, committed that question to the future and the war came on and settled it forever. Now, the Northern people are not so mean, fanatical or foolish as to blame the South because it believed then and believes now that it had the right side of that question. How could we respect the South if it were to say now that it was insincere then, or if it were to pretend that its convictions on a question of constitutional construction had been changed by the cuffs and blows of the war? It is enough that the North and South alike agree that the war settled that question in favor of the Northern construction finally and forever.

The North does ask that the settlement of the war as embodied in the constitutional amendments shall be accepted, and obeyed in the letter and spirit, as good faith and good citizenship require. There have been undoubtedly very many instances of violation of the spirit of the amendments and there will be in the future, but no more than from the very nature of things was to have been expected; and I have no doubt that they will decrease in number as time goes on, and will finally disappear in the breaking-up of the color line in the South; and under the influence of that great sentiment become more familiar and more general every year, in favor of equal political rights to every American citizen. Aside from these questions, there is nothing to perpetuate alienation between the North and South. The new questions will lead to new divisions on other lines; already the representatives of Alabama are getting ready to stand with Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in support of the tariff on the iron industry; the spinners of the Dan and the Saco will stand very soon with the spinners of the Willimantic and the Merrimac in supporting the cotton interests, and now we see the cotton-growers of the South and the wheat-growers of the Northwest united in demanding a tariff for revenue only.

Common political interests, the ministry of social and political intercourse, and perhaps higher than all, the pride of a common citizenship are rapidly supplanting sectionalism among our own people and leading us to stand together and work out our common destiny in fraternal reunion. It has often occurred to me, as a cause of thankfulness to Almighty God--and I believe He is guiding this Republic so as to work out the problem of self-government for all mankind--that the tremendous fact of the war has caused so little change in our system of government; constitutional amendments have been so limited by interpretation by the Supreme Court of the United States that they have hardly added anything to the powers of the general Government or impaired the powers of the States. The legislation following the war when Congress seemed to have run mad with the theory that it could legislate outside of the Constitution has to a large extent fallen under the decisions of that high tribunal. One would have supposed that it could have been certain that, considering the fact that the war was waged to extend the extremest proposition of State sovereignty, that the triumph of the Federal theory would have added enormously and permanently to the powers of the general Government and diminished very greatly and permanently the powers of the States. It is well for Republican government that that evil was averted. We have our free State Government, States still stand as the fortresses of American liberty, and our Federal government moves in its orb with scarcely a perturbation to mark the influence of the war upon it.

Gentlemen, we have successfully worked out the problem of self-government, and our example will undoubtedly and in due time be followed by the world. What else is there for this Republic to do? There is a tremendous question yet unsolved which is now rising unbidden in this and in every enlightened nation. It is the question of the proper distribution of the earnings of labor and capital combined. This is a question that will not down, and we have got to meet it. British publicists and statesmen from whom we have taken in the past far too much of our politics have either ignored that question entirely, or have treated it as practically settled by the apothegm of Ricardo, that the laborer is entitled out of his earnings to just enough food and clothing to keep the machine of his body in working order, and that when that machine becomes disarranged or worn out, he must go to the almshouse.

In the United States, so far as the question does not lie outside of the powers of the State or general Government, so far as those powers can be used fairly to adjust the question, methods of adjustment will fall within the lines relating to revenue, currency, corporations, police regulations. The settlement of the intricate problem and of that immensely important one, will not be added to by flagrant assaults on public authority, nor by the interference by bodies or individuals with the free right of every single workingman to work for whatever he pleases and for whomever he pleases and as many hours as he pleases; nor by the confiscation of real or personal property. And on the other hand that question will not be solved nor aided in its solution by police interference with the right of free assembly and discussion, nor by police interference with the right to form organizations open or secret, nor by police interference with the right of laboring men to combine for their own benefit if they keep within the limits of the law. On the other hand, I dissent _in toto_ from some of the sentiments expressed in the letter of Mr. Hewitt. [Abram S. Hewitt, Mayor of the City of New York.] This question will only be settled by the people at the ballot-box and by the enactment of such laws as will fairly distribute the net earnings which labor and capital combine to make.

Gentlemen, let us who have borne the heat and burden of the Civil War, commit it and its issues to the past, and join the incoming generation in settling this great industrial question in such a way as will be just to all, and best for the masses of the people. The South has always produced great statesmen. It was her peerless and immortal son whose love of the people and whose faith in their power of self-government did most to establish and animate our free institutions. And again let the New South send forth other statesmen armed with the power and animated with the spirit of Jefferson, [Applause.]

FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR

POET AND PAINTER

[Speech of Frederic W. Farrar, D.D., at the banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 3, 1884. He was at that time Canon and Archdeacon
of Westminster, and in 1895 became Dean of Canterbury. The President,
Sir Frederic Leighton, in introducing the speaker said: "In literature
as in science a different side of our subject is each year brought
into prominence according to the guest who does us the honor to
respond to it. To-night I have the pleasure to call on an accomplished
and eloquent divine, a writer whose sentences are pictures and his
language rich with color and who is known to you not only by his books
on the most sacred subjects, but also by the valuable chapters which
he has contributed to the study of language, the venerable Archdeacon
Farrar."]

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:--I have no pretension to be regarded as an adequate representative of English Literature, but the toast itself is one which could never be omitted at any banquet of the Royal Academy. The artist and the man of letters, though they differ in their gifts and in their methods, are essentially united in feeling and in purpose. They appeal to the same emotions; they enforce the same lessons; they illustrate the same truths; they labor for the same objects. The common aim of both is the emancipation and free development of our spiritual nature. The humblest artist as he reads the great works written by men of genius in all ages,--the humblest man of letters as year after year he has the delight of gazing on these splendidly illuminated walls--may claim that he belongs to one and the same great brotherhood--the brotherhood of those who have consistently labored to cheer, to bless and to elevate mankind. Turner called himself the "author" not the artist of his pictures; and indeed, writing and painting are but different forms of that one eternal language of which not even Babel could confound the significance. There is hardly a single work in this Exhibition which does not illustrate the close connection between literature and art.

Landscape painting has always been the chief glory of our English school, and what are the great poets of all ages but landscape painters, and what are the best landscape painters but poets? Alike they reproduce for us aspects of nature translated into human thoughts and tinged with human emotion. When Homer shows us bees swarming out of the hollow rock and hanging in grapelike clusters on the blossoms of spring; when Æschylus flashes upon us the unnumbered laughter of the sea-waves; when Virgil in a single line paints for us the silvery Galæsus flowing now under dark boughs, and now through golden fields; when Dante bids us gaze on a sky which is of the sweet color of the Eastern sapphire; when Wordsworth points us to the daffodils tossing in the winds of March beside the dancing waves of the lake; when Tennyson shows us "the gummy chestnut buds that glisten in the April blue;" when even in prose Mr. Ruskin produces scenes and sunsets as gorgeous as those of his own Turner--what are they but landscape painters.

Again, how many memorable scenes of history are inseparable in our minds alike, and almost equally, from the descriptions of the writer or the conceptions of the artist? Shall we ever think of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots without recalling Mr. Froude's description of her, as she stood, a blood-red figure on the black-robed scaffold? Shall we ever think of Monmouth pleading for his life with James II, without remembering the picture which hung last year upon these walls? Is there no affinity between novelist and our many painters of ordinary scenes, with their kindred endeavor to shed light and beauty on the hopes and fears, the duties and sorrows of human life? Nay, even if the preacher and the divine may claim any part in the domain of letters, they, too, look to the artist for the aid and inspiration which, in their turn, they lend to him. Which of us can ever read the words, "These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends," or, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," without being helped to realize their meaning by the pathetic allegories of Mr. Millais and Mr. Holman Hunt? And if, sir, you will pardon the allusion, the verse, "Oh! had I the wings of a dove," is in my own mind henceforth inseparably associated, not only with the melody of Mendelssohn, in which we seem to see the dove hovering, as it were, in a cloud of golden music, but also with the picture I saw many years ago in this room, of a weary king sitting on his palace roof, his hair sable silvered, and his crown laid humbly upon the parapet beside him, whose eyes wistfully follow the flight of a flock of doves towards the twilight sky.

I am sure that I echo the sentiment of every painter, and of every author here when I say we are brothers in the effort to make the happy happier, and the sad less miserable, and in the poet's words, "to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous."

"High is our calling, friends! creative art,
(Whether the instruments of words she use
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)
Demands the service of a mind and heart
Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part
Heroically fashioned--to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert
Great is the glory, for the strife was hard."

[Cheers.]

JOHN R. FELLOWS

NORTH AND SOUTH

[Speech of Col. John R. Fellows at the third annual banquet of the New
York Southern Society, New York City, February 22, 1889. Col. John C.
Calhoun, President of the Society, said, in introducing him. "Now,
gentlemen, the next toast is: 'The Day We Celebrate.' I have been an
Arkansas traveller. We have here with us to-night as our guest another
who has also been an Arkansas traveller, but he has come on to this
great metropolis and located here, and to-day voices the sentiment of
a vast portion of our population. We now propose to hear from the Hon.
John R. Fellows."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SOUTHERN SOCIETY, AND THEIR GUESTS:--I have just come from a banquet board, the twenty-second of February gathering of a society over which for some time past I have had the honor of presiding, and which, therefore, commanded my first allegiance to-night. It is not often that I am accustomed to appear in the attitude of an apologist when called upon to respond to a sentiment such as you have assigned to me to-night, for it would be but the affectation of modesty to say that I have been unaccustomed to positions of this kind; yet I do feel something of reluctance in your presence to-night, at the first banquet of your society which I have done myself the honor of attending. I do feel some hesitation in attempting to respond to a toast which includes so much, and is so large in its scope as the one your partiality has given to me. It is altogether unexpected, for I had announced to your committee that my presence here would be of exceedingly limited duration, as I am compelled to leave your midst to visit another gathering, where I have other duties to perform to-night.

Yet I shall not hesitate to say something in response to the toast. He must be very far less than imbued with sentiments of love for his country and of a just conception of its greatness, who can fail to have something of that sentiment awakened upon an occasion like this, or in the presence of such a toast as you have given me.

I congratulate you, Mr. President, upon the auspicious character of this gathering. The youngest of all the societies which have now arisen to prominence in our midst, you give tokens in your infancy of what your future greatness is to be. It is exceedingly gratifying to hear a statement of your prosperity which insures for you so much of the future, confers so much of hope and promise upon your society as that to which we have listened to-night.

Especially is it gratifying to know of your financial condition; "the society owes nothing." In that respect the society differs radically from each of its individual members. [Laughter.] It is a Southern characteristic to owe all you can, to pay if you possibly can. There is a sentiment of honor about the Southerner that induces him to pay if he possibly can; but there is a sentiment of chivalry which always actuates him to contract debts without any reference whatever. [Laughter.] Having started your society on a basis so different from that which characterizes the units of the society is an evidence of how you have become permeated and tinctured with Yankee influences. I am glad to hear of your financial prosperity. It is a good augury, a hopeful sign of the success which awaits your efforts.

You have called upon me to respond to the toast of "The Day we Celebrate." I should rather have listened to what would be said of that toast from the lips of the eloquent Virginian who so admirably represents the State that was the birthplace of Washington, whose personal character and whose family have given so much of additional lustre and glory to the State. [Applause and cheers for General Lee.]

I may not venture, gentlemen, upon a review of the character of Washington, upon all that his life, and services, and influence meant to the world. The world, in the language of another, knows that history by heart. An hundred and fifty-seven years ago, I believe, this day, he was born. He lived almost the full age allotted to man, but he crowded that narrow life with deeds that would have rendered illustrious and immortal the history of a thousand years. He gave to the world an impetus, he impressed upon it a character and force, he gave it a conception of new power, of solidity of judgment, of strength of character, of unbending and unyielding integrity, of high devotion to principle, of just conception of duty, of patriotism and heroic resolve in the midst of temptation to wander and be subservient, of self-abnegation, of sacrifices for the benefit of others, such as would have adorned and rendered immortal--I repeat--the history of the lives of ten thousand ordinary men. [Applause.] You claim him for Virginia, but I speak the universal language when I repeat the eloquent expression of the most eloquent Irishman--"No country can claim, no age appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence Creation." [Applause.] Well was it that the English subject could say (though it was the defeat of their armies and the disgrace of their policy--even they could bless the convulsion in which he had his origin), "for if the heavens thundered and the earth rocked yet when the storm had passed how pure was the atmosphere it cleared, how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet it revealed to earth." An hundred years have passed since Washington, crowned with the honors of the successful chieftain, having led his country through the turmoil of seven years of blood and strife, in these streets and under these skies was crowned with the highest civic triumph this Republic can bestow upon its citizen.

And to-night we come to inquire less, perhaps, of Washington's history, of Washington's influence and character--for every child knows that--than we do of the country of which Washington was so conspicuous a part. It seems to me, gentlemen, that the great national holiday we celebrate, the Fourth of July, is the most significant of all holidays in the history of all the nations of the world. What does it typify, sirs? What does it signify to us? Your chairman has said that we have had an hundred years of national history. It is a little less than an hundred years since we inaugurated our first President. The Fourth of July does not celebrate the establishment of the independence of the United States; it marks but the beginning of the strife instead of its successful close. It was at the outset of the Revolutionary struggle that the Colonies threw down that gauge which defied all tradition, which stamped upon all past history, which mocked at ancient dogmas and hoary traditions, which introduced upon earth an entirely new and distinctive doctrine! Before that time men had fought for the realization of noble purposes and high aims; they had fought to win succor from distressful conditions; they had fought for relief against oppression; but they had fought for these only as the gaining of a boon and a privilege from powers that were; and everywhere it was conceded that there was upon earth a class of men ordained by Providence to rule, and that the vassal's obedience was the inheritance of the many. And when men rose up in their might to fight upon the plains of Runnymede, in earnest contest, for ancient rights, for ancient privileges, it was after all only asking something of the grace of the sovereign, and no one denied his absolute power to withhold or to grant it as he would. But the colonies threw down this defiance to earth--that there was no heaven-ordained class to govern men; that man, by virtue of his existence, by reason of his creation, was a sovereign in his own right; and that in these latter days all just rights in government were derived, not from the will of the ruler, but from the consent of the governed. [Applause.]

It was a new doctrine, I repeat, and if it could be successfully maintained there was no foundation strong enough for a throne to rest securely upon! And so all the startled nations rose up to oppose it, this innovation of all that had been in the preceding centuries; but guided by that star, led on by the resolute courage, the steadfast integrity of Washington, our fathers went on and on in pursuit of this doctrine, in quest of this precious boon, on through blood and toil, on when the struggle seemed like the very madness of despair, on and on when hope seemed to have fled, but patriotism remained; on over trembling dynasties and crumbling thrones, until they wrested that jewel of their love from the reluctant hand of a sullen king, and set it to glitter forever upon the brow of a new-born nation. [Applause.] Auspicious day, which an hundred years ago proclaimed both civil and religious liberty to all the populations of the earth! To-day we have set four other stars in our national heaven. [Applause.] Through all the years we shall go on adding to the glories of the constellation, each one with a radiance of its own, each one with an orbit of its own, but all swinging in delightful harmony in that larger orbit within which we recognize our common country, our Federal Union. [Applause.]

What did Washington do for us? Look around you! I cannot but say, as that monument in St. Paul's says of the architect of that splendid pile, Sir Christopher Wren. All of him that could die sleeps under the marble, but above his mouldering ashes there is this inscription: "Here lies the body of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's. Reader, would you see his monument, then look around you." [Applause.] There could be no higher evidence of the grandeur and greatness, the strength and character of the man and of his mind, than to point to the works he did. So we say of Washington. We have had an hundred years of experience in the form of government that his sword conquered for us, and that his statesman-like mind fashioned and controlled at the outset. The guidance he gave us we have never lost; the teachings he inculcated we cherish as dearly to-day as when they were uttered. Nay! nay! his memory and his fame grow brighter as the years recede, and as we get away from the frailties and foibles which attach to the weakness of our common humanity, even in the person of the strongest. As we get away it is like moving from some grand mountain peak. As you go away you see its symmetrical form rise clear in the clouds, with the eternal blue around the summit, with all its harsh and rugged outlines obliterated by distance; it is there in its perfect grandeur, in its completeness and beauty, without any of the weaknesses or foibles which attach to it.

I think there is no better evidence of the character and influence of Washington upon the American mind than what has transpired during and since the war. Look, sir, at the South of which you spoke! She was largely a lethargic people prior to the war. She lived in luxury; she was in the midst of a condition which yielded to her abundant support, and eliminated from her life the necessity of hard labor and earnest effort. The war came. We were bound around with a cordon we could not break; we were encircled by fire; we were thrown upon our resources. What resulted? Ah, sir, at once there leaped into life, with a splendor and with a giant's strength such as the world, such as ourselves had never conceived of, the true manhood of the South. Every man became a laborer, every woman a worker. There was nothing that the necessities of our life demanded that we did not fashion with our own hands. Deprived of all support, of all assistance from the outside world, we dug from our hills, and wrested from our soil, and evoked from resources the measure and extent of which we had never dreamed before, whatever was necessary for the support of the loved ones at home and the armies we maintained in the field. [Applause.] We illustrated a heroism and valor which is the admiration of the world, which is the highest pride and admiration of our gallant adversaries. They conquered no ignoble foe; the field was worthy even of their efforts. And when the war was over, the terrible strife had ended, while yet the land was filled with mourning, while every church on every Sunday in this North was crowded with women wearing the sable garments of woe for sons, for brothers, for husbands, for the loved of every kind and condition who were sleeping their last sleep on Southern hillsides--how did the spirit of Washington, the toleration, the kindness, the generosity, the magnanimity which in all his life he breathed out toward all exhibit itself here in the North? They took us by the hand. They lifted us to our feet again, or assisted in doing so. They gave us the recognition which one gallant man extends to another whose heroism and courage he has tested; they wrote the title of American Citizen upon our brows again, and told us to go on as parts of the Union, with our loves and hopes bound up in its common destiny. [Applause.]

The spirit of Washington has never died. The courage of Washington has never died. This war was a vital necessity--let us recognize it. This war was an ordination of Providence--let us confess it. There were issues distracting and dividing this country which no legislation, no government, and no decrees of courts could settle. At one time or another they had to be fought to their final conclusion upon the battle-field. When the contest was ended it eliminated from our national condition every element of strife, and welded us together in a bond ten thousandfold stronger and better than we had known before. [Applause.]

Now, what remains? Ah! so much remains that can never die! There are Northern soldiers here, there are Southern soldiers here. We stood face to face through the bitterness of that conflict; we stand heart to heart now. [Applause.] Whenever this country shall call upon her sons to do battle against a common foe, when North and South Carolina with Massachusetts and Vermont, when Georgia and Ohio, when all the South and all the North march side by side in behalf of Old Glory, then at the bivouac, then around our council fires, the sons will recall the valorous deeds their fathers wrought upon either side and under opposing flags during the civil strife, as the loudest call and the strongest inspiration to awaken effort in behalf of the rescued and re-united country. [Applause.] Has it not always been so? If you would awaken a flame of martial life in the sons of France, appeal to them as those whose eagles flew in triumph above Wagram, and Austerlitz, and Lodi Bridge, and bore upon the outstretched wings the glorious destinies of her favored child of fortune, her thunderbolt of war! If you would awaken Caledonia to battle, appeal to her sons as descendants of--

"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots whom Bruce has often led,"

and at once, from Loch Lomond, from Ben Nevis, and from the Grampian Hills, her kilted warriors will troop to death as to a feast, stimulated by the recollection of the glorious deeds of those from whose loins they sprang! And hereafter, sir, if eloquence shall want a theme to awaken her sublimest efforts, or poetry shall seek some shrine at which to offer its most harmonious numbers, orator and bard will not go back to the romantic period of Agincourt and Crecy, when Henry V led his armies to victory, and Douglas poured the vials of his wrath across Northumbrian plains--no need to go back there--but they will tell of the deeds of the glorious men who drew their swords at Lee's, or Johnston's, or Longstreet's bidding, or of those who flamed the demigods of war where Grant and Sherman and Sheridan led [applause]; of those whose camp-fires shone out on the dark walls of Blue Ridge, or lit up with their glow the waters of Gauley and of Shenandoah; of those who sleep in graves consecrated forevermore, where the starts look down to-night through shadowy trees in Spottsylvanian woods and Stafford groves; of the long lines whose musketry rang out their sublime peal in the early gray of that April morning at Shiloh, whose fierce battle-shout at Chancellorsville or in the Wilderness mingled with the farewell sounds that broke on Jackson's and on Sedgwick's ears, sounds scarcely stilled ere the acclamations of angels woke them to sublimer greeting. [Applause.]

We may safely trust the story of the unequalled valor, the peerless chivalry of those years, on whichever side they fought, to the verdict which the unprejudiced future will utter. But I know if ever this country shall ask us again to flock to her standard and to do duty for her cause, there is no stronger inspiration that can be invoked, there is no enthusiasm that can be created or awakened that will lead men so quickly into the ranks of the foe and hold them so steadily in the face of death as to talk to each other of the deeds their fathers did when they stood as foes battling for what they thought was right. [Applause.] Nay! out of our very strife we have grown strong. The magnanimity of the conquering party has fused and welded us together in one irresistible, unbreakable party. No internal dissension shall disturb us henceforth; and the world arrayed in arms against us we do not fear. And all of this we derive from the teachings, the heroism, the courage, the patience, the faith, the example of the fathers, at the head of whom stood the illustrious one in whose behalf we celebrate this day. [Applause and cheers for Colonel Fellows.]

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD

THE TELEGRAPH

[Speech of David Dudley Field at the dinner given in honor of Samuel F.
B. Morse, New York City, December 27, 1863.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--In the early days of the electric telegraph, a proposition was made that it should be called the Morseograph. I cannot but think that that would have been a distinctive and appropriate designation; thus, in all future time, when the thing should be mentioned, recalling the history of its origin. But the name of the inventor is no secret; and the world will ratify the judgment we pronounce to-night that, as benefactor and discoverer, his name will be immortal.

If we were to measure the future of the telegraph by what it has already accomplished, we should predict for it an indefinite extension. Less than twenty years ago, the first line was built in the United States. Though it extended only from Washington to Baltimore, it was begun in doubt and completed with difficulty. Thence it stretched itself out first to Philadelphia and New York, then to other principal cities, and afterward along the great thoroughfares. On the other side of the sea it advanced from city to city, and from one market to another.

At first laid with hesitation underneath the rivers, it was next carried beneath narrow seas, and at last plunged into the ocean and passed from continent to continent. Compare its feeble beginning with its achievement of to-day. Think of the uncertainty with which, after weary months upon dusty Maryland roads, the last link of that first line was closed, and then think of the exultation with which great ships in mid-ocean brought up from the bottom of the sea a cable lost two miles down, and the problem was forever solved, not only that an ocean-telegraph cable was possible, but that it could not be so lost as that it might not be found.

Standing in the presence of the great inventor, I am constrained to congratulate him upon the fulness of his triumph as he remembers the early effort, and contrasts it with the marvels of this night in this hall. That little instrument, no larger than the clock upon the chamber mantel, and making as little noise, is yet speaking to both America and Europe; and what it says will be printed before the dawn, and laid at morning under the eyes of millions of readers. Did I say before the dawn? It will meet the dawn in its circuit before it reaches the confines of eastern Europe. In the opposite quarter, we know that the message which has just left us for the West will outstrip the day. Even while I have been speaking, the message has crossed the Mississippi, passed the workmen laying the farthest rail of the Pacific road, bounded over the Sierra Nevada, and dashed into the plains of California, as the last ray of to-day's sun is fading from the shore, and the twilight is falling upon the Pacific Sea.

It is, however, not alone its history which justifies us in predicting for the telegraph indefinite extension. Its essential character must sooner or later carry it to every part of the habitable globe. Of all the agencies yet vouchsafed to man, it is the most accessible and the most potent. While the machinery itself is simple and cheap, the element from which it is fed is abundant and all-pervading. It is in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth. You take a little cup and pass into it a slender wire, when lo! there comes to it a spark from air and water, from the cloud and the solid earth, which the highest mountains cannot stop, nor the deepest seas drown, as it dashes on its fiery way, indifferent whether its errand be to the next village or to the antipodes. No other voice can speak to the far and near at the same time. No other hand can write a message which may be delivered within the same hour at Quebec and at Moscow. By no other means may you converse at once with the farmer of Illinois and the merchant of Amsterdam, with the German on the Danube and the Arab under his palm.

To the use of such an instrument there can be no limit but the desire of man to converse with man. If from this populous and opulent capital you would speak with any inhabitant of either hemisphere, you have here an agent which may be brought to do your bidding. If any, however distant, desire to speak with us, they have these means at their command. How great will be the effect of all this upon the civilization of the human race, I do not pretend to foresee. But this I foresee, as all men may, that the necessities of governments, the thirst for knowledge, and the restless activity of commerce will make the telegraph girdle the earth and bind it in a network of electric wire.

The Atlantic, the most dangerous and difficult of all the seas, has been crossed. In the Pacific you may pass easily from island to island, till you reach the shores of Eastern Asia. There an American company will take it up and extend it from side to side of the central Flowery Land. And an English company is about to cross the straits which divide Australia from the elder continent. Indeed, I think that I declare not only what is possible but what will come to pass within the next decade, that there will be a telegraph-office wherever there is now a post-office, and that messages by the telegraph will pass almost as frequently as messages by the mail.