Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
I know not if any whom I now have the honor of addressing have thought
to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as
the Mayflower with her company fared forth on their venturous voyage.
The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that he
had “soundly peppered off the Puritans.”[236] The morose Louis the
Thirteenth, through whom Richelieu ruled, was King of France. The
imbecile Philip the Third swayed Spain and the Indies. The persecuting
Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of Protestants, was Emperor of Germany.
Paul the Fifth, of the House of Borghese, was Pope of Rome. In the
same princely company, and all contemporaries, were Christian the
Fourth, King of Denmark, and his son Christian, Prince of Norway;
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; Sigismund the Third, King of Poland;
Frederick, King of Bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy Elizabeth of
England, progenitor of the House of Hanover; George William, Margrave
of Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Prussian house that has given an
emperor to Germany; Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria; Maurice, Landgrave
of Hesse; Christian, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg; John Frederick,
Duke of Würtemberg and Teck; John, Count of Nassau; Henry, Duke of
Lorraine; Albert, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Isabella, Infanta
of Spain, joint rulers of the Low Countries; Maurice, fourth Prince
of Orange, of the House of Nassau; Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy,
and ancestor of the King of United Italy; Cosmo de’ Medici, fourth
Grand Duke of Tuscany; Antonio Priuli, ninety-fifth Doge of Venice,
just after the terrible tragedy commemorated on the English stage as
“Venice Preserved”; Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Unitarian Transylvania,
and elected King of Hungary with the countenance of an African; and the
Sultan Osman the Second, of Constantinople, eighteenth ruler of the
Turks.
Such at that time were the crowned sovereigns of Europe, whose names
were mentioned always with awe, and whose countenances are handed down
by Art, so that at this day they are visible to the curious as if they
walked these streets. Mark now the contrast. There was no artist for
our forefathers, nor are their countenances now known to men; but more
than any powerful contemporaries at whose tread the earth trembled
is their memory sacred. (_Applause._) Pope, emperor, king, sultan,
grand-duke, duke, doge, margrave, landgrave, count,--what are they all
by the side of the humble company that landed on Plymouth Rock? Theirs,
indeed, were the ensigns of worldly power; but our Pilgrims had in
themselves that inborn virtue which was more than all else besides, and
their landing was an epoch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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