American Eloquence, Volume 3: Studies In American Political History (1897)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 3: Studies In American Political History (1897)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a
crime has been committed, which is without example in the records of
the past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish
governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient
instance, which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible
impeachment by which the great Roman orator has blasted through all
time the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the
enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and
which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arresting the
sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is, that away in
Sicily he had scourged a citizen of Rome--that the cry, "I am a Roman
citizen," had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant
governor. Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of
art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines. It was in the presence
of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple of
the Forum; amidst crowds--such as no orator had ever before drawn
together--thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to
the house-tops and neighboring slopes--and under the anxious gaze of
witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander
far--of higher dignity--of more various people, and of wider
intelligence--the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in
every land, where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name
has been recognized,--has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with
condemnation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an age of light, and a
land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are
justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly
assert that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thus memorable in history,
were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines
of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, have been
desecrated; where the ballot-box, more precious than any work, in ivory
or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and where
the cry, "I am an American citizen," has been interposed in vain against
outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against sacrilege?
I present it for your execration. Are you against;robbery? I hold it up
to your scorn. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I show
you how their dearest rights have been cloven down, while a Tyrannical
Usurpation has sought to install itself on their very necks!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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