American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
Her liberty is to be
found--where? You will find it in the Word of God, you will find it
in the code of history; but you will also find it in the Price Current
[Hear, hear!]; and every free nation, every civilized people--every
people that rises from barbarism to industry and intelligence, becomes a
better customer.
A savage is a man of one story, and that one story a cellar. When a man
begins to be civilized, he raises another story. When you Christianize
and civilize the man, you put story upon story, for you develop faculty
after faculty; and you have to supply every story with your productions.
The savage is a man one story deep; the civilized man is thirty stories
deep. [Applause.] Now, if you go to a lodging-house, where there are
three or four men, your sales to them may, no doubt, be worth something;
but if you go to a lodging-house like some of those which I saw in
Edinburgh, which seemed to contain about twenty stories ["Oh, oh!" and
interruption], every story of which is full, and all who occupy buy of
you--which is the better customer, the man who is drawn out, or the man
who is pinched up? [Laughter.] Now, there is in this a great and sound
principle of economy. ["Yah, yah!" from the passage outside the hall, and
loud laughter.] If the South should be rendered independent--[at this
juncture mingled cheering and hissing became immense; half the audience
rose to their feet, waving hats and hand-kerchiefs, and in every part of
the hall there was the greatest commotion and uproar.] You have had your
turn now; now let me have mine again. [Loud applause and laughter.] It
is a little inconvenient to talk against the wind; but after all, if you
will just keep good-natured--I am not going to lose my temper; will you
watch yours? [Applause.] Besides all that, it rests me, and gives me a
chance, you know, to get my breath. [Applause and hisses.] And I think
that the bark of those men is worse than their bite. They do not mean
any harm--they don't know any better. [Loud laughter, applause, hisses,
and continued up-roar.] I was saying, when these responses broke in,
that it was worth our while to consider both alternatives. What will be
the result if this present struggle shall eventuate in the separation
of America, and making the South--[loud applause, hisses, hooting,
and cries of "Bravo!"]--a slave territory exclusively,--[cries of "No,
no!" and laughter]--and the North a free territory,--what will be
the final result? You will lay the foundation for carrying the slave
population clear through to the Pacific Ocean. This is the first step.
There is not a man that has been a leader of the South any time within
these twenty years, that has not had this for a plan. It was for this
that Texas was invaded, first by colonists, next by marauders, until
it was wrested from Mexico. It was for this that they engaged in the
Mexican War itself, by which the vast territory reaching to the Pacific
was added to the Union.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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