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
But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of the
Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as he announces, "from a
State"--ay, sir, from South Carolina--he turns with lordly disgust from
this newly-formed community, which he will not recognize even as a "body
politic." Pray, sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism? Has
he read the history of "the State" which he represents? He cannot
surely have forgotten its shameful imbecility from Slavery, confessed
throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shameful assumptions for
Slavery since. He cannot have forgotten its wretched persistence in
the slave-trade as the very apple of its eye, and the condition of its
participation in the Union. He cannot have forgotten its constitution,
which is Republican only in name, confirming power in the hands of the
few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators on "a settled
freehold estate and ten negroes." And yet the Senator, to whom that
"State" has in part committed the guardianship of its good name, instead
of moving, with backward treading steps, to cover its nakedness, rushes
forward in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose it by provoking a
comparison with Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South
Carolina counts by centuries; where Kansas counts by years. But a
beneficent example may be born in a day; and I venture to say, that
against the two centuries of the older "State," may be already set
the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the younger
community. In the one, is the long wail of Slavery; in the other, the
hymns of Freedom. And if we glance at special achievements, it will
be difficult to find any thing in the history of South Carolina which
presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as appears in that
repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence,
where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The
matrons of Rome, who poured their jewels into the treasury for the
public defence--the wives of Prussia, who, with delicate fingers,
clothed their defenders against French invasion--the mothers of our
own Revolution, who sent forth their sons, covered with prayers and
blessings, to combat for human rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice
truer than did these women on this occasion. Were the whole history of
South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to
the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this
floor, civilization might lose--I do not say how little; but surely
less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in its valiant
struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science
of emigration. Already, in Lawrence alone, there are newspapers and
schools, including a High School, and throughout this infant Territory
there is more mature scholarship far, in proportion to its inhabitants,
than in all South Carolina. Ah, sir, I tell the Senator that Kansas,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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