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
Now, what can England make for the poor white population of such a
future empire, and for her slave population? What carpets, what linens,
what cottons can you sell them? What machines, what looking-glasses,
what combs, what leather, what books, what pictures, what engravings? [A
voice: "We 'll sell them ships."] You may sell ships to a few, but what
ships can you sell to two thirds of the population of poor whites and
blacks? [Applause.] A little bagging and a little linsey-woolsey, a
few whips and manacles, are all that you can sell for the slave. [Great
applause and uproar.] This very day, in the slave States of America
there are eight millions out of twelve millions that are not, and cannot
be your customers from the very laws of trade. [A voice: "Then how are
they clothed?" and interruption.] * * *
But I know that you say, you cannot help sympathizing with a gallant
people. [Hear, hear!] They are the weaker people, the minority; and you
cannot help going with the minority who are struggling for their rights
against the majority. Nothing could be more generous, when a weak party
stands for its own legitimate rights against imperious pride and power,
than to sympathize with the weak. But who ever sympathized with a weak
thief, because three constables had got hold of him? [Hear, hear!] And
yet the one thief in three policemen's hands is the weaker party.
I suppose you would sympathize with him. [Hear, hear! laughter, and
applause.] Why, when that infamous king of Naples--Bomba, was driven
into Gaeta by Garibaldi with his immortal band of patriots, and Cavour
sent against him the army of Northern Italy, who was the weaker party
then? The tyrant and his minions; and the majority was with the noble
Italian patriots, struggling for liberty. I never heard that Old England
sent deputations to King Bomba, and yet his troops resisted bravely
there. [Laugh-ter and interruption.] To-day the majority of the people
of Rome is with Italy. Nothing but French bayonets keeps her from going
back to the kingdom of Italy, to which she belongs. Do you sympathize
with the minority in Rome or the majority in Italy? [A voice: "With
Italy."] To-day the South is the minority in America, and they are
fighting for independence! For what? [Uproar. A voice: "Three cheers
for independence!" and hisses.] I could wish so much bravery had a better
cause, and that so much self-denial had been less deluded; that the
poisonous and venomous doctrine of State rights might have been kept
aloof; that so many gallant spirits, such as Jackson, might still have
lived. [Great applause and loud cheers, again and again renewed.] The
force of these facts, historical and incontrovertible, cannot be broken,
except by diverting attention by an attack upon the North. It is said
that the North is fighting for Union, and not for emancipation. The
North is fighting for Union, for that ensures emancipation. [Loud
cheers, "Oh, oh!" "No, no!" and cheers.] A great many men say to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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