Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2Hoar, George Frisbie
History
Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2
Hoar, George Frisbie
United States -- History -- 1865-1921; United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1900
"Last week at Dartmouth, at the great celebration in honor
of Daniel Webster, that famous college gave the highest honor
in its power to a Negro, amid the applause of the brilliant
assembly. And there was no applause more earnest or hearty
than that of the successor of Taney, the Democratic Chief
Justice of the United States. I know that the people of that
race are still the victims of outrages which all good men
deplore. But I also believe that the rising sense of justice
and of manhood in the South is already finding expression
in indignant remonstrance from the lips of governors and preachers,
and that the justice and manhood of the South will surely
make their way.
"Ah, Fellow Citizens, amid the sorrow and the mourning and
the tears, amid the horror and the disappointment and the
baffled hope, there comes to us from the open grave of William
McKinley a voice of good omen! What pride and love must we
feel for the republic that calls such men to her high places?
What hope and confidence in the future of a people, where
all men and all women of all parties and sections, of all
faiths and creeds, of all classes and conditions, are ready
to respond as ours have responded to the emotion of a mighty
love.
"You and I are Republicans. You and I are men of the North.
Most of us are Protestants in religion. We are men of native
birth. Yet if every Republican were to-day to fall in his
place, as William McKinley has fallen, I believe our countrymen
of the other party, in spite of what we deem their errors,
would take the Republic and bear on the flag to liberty and
glory. I believe if every Protestant were to be stricken
down by a lightning-stroke, that our brethren of the Catholic
faith would still carry on the Republic in the spirit of a
true and liberal freedom. I believe if every man of native
birth within our borders were to die this day, the men of
foreign birth, who have come here to seek homes and liberty
under the shadow of the Republic, would carry it on in God's
appointed way. I believe if every man of the North were to
die, the new and chastened South, with the virtues it has
cherished from the beginning, with its courage and its constancy,
would take the country and bear it on to the achievement of
its lofty destiny. The Anarchist must slay 75,000,000 Americans
before he can slay the Republic.
"Of course there would be mistakes. Of course there would
be disappointments and grievous errors. Of course there would
be many things for which the lovers of liberty would mourn.
But America would survive them all, and the nation our fathers
planted would endure in perennial life.
"William McKinley has fallen in high place. The spirit of
Anarchy, always the servant of the spirit of Despotism, aimed
its shaft at him, and his life for this world is over. But
there comes from his fresh grave a voice of lofty triumph:
'Be of good cheer. It is God's way.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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