Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader: Being Selections from the Chief American WritersMartin, Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas)
General
Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader: Being Selections from the Chief American Writers
Martin, Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas)
American literature
WILLIAM PENN stands the first among the lawgivers whose names and deeds
are recorded in history. Shall we compare him with Lycurgus, Solon,
Romulus, those founders of military commonwealths, who organized their
citizens in deadly array against the rest of their species, taught them
to consider their fellow-men as barbarians, and themselves as alone
worthy to rule over the earth?... But see William Penn, with weaponless
hand, sitting down peaceably with his followers, in the midst of
savage nations whose only occupation was shedding the blood of their
fellow-men, disarming them by his justice, and teaching them, for the
first time, to view a stranger without distrust. See them bury their
tomahawks in his presence, so deep that man shall never be able to
find them again. See them, under the shade of the thick groves of
Coaquannock, extend the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise
to preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall endure. See him then,
with his companions, establishing his commonwealth on the sole basis of
religion, morality, and universal love, and adopting, as the fundamental
maxim of his government, the rule handed down to us from Heaven, "Glory
to God on high, and on earth peace and good will towards men."
[Footnote 36: An eminent jurist and philologist, of French origin, but
for many years a citizen of Philadelphia.]
* * * * *
=_Charles J. Ingersoll,[37] 1782-1862._=
From the "Historical Sketch" of the War of 1812.
=_118._= CALHOUN CHARACTERIZED
John Caldwell Calhoun was the same slender, erect, and ardent logician,
politician, and sectarian, in the House of Representatives in 1814 that
he is in the Senate of 1847. Speaking with aggressive aspect, flashing
eye, rapid action and enunciation, unadorned argument, eccentricity of
judgment, unbounded love of rule, impatient, precipitate, kind temper,
excellent in colloquial attractions, caressing the young, not courting
rulers; conception, perception, and demonstration quick and clear, with
logical precision arguing paradoxes, and carrying home conviction beyond
rhetorical illustration; his own impressions so intense as to discredit,
scarcely listen to, any other suggestions; well educated and informed.
[Footnote 37: A native of Pennsylvania; long conspicuous in the law,
literature, and political life.]
* * * * *
=_119._= BATTLE OF CHIPPEWA.
In a fair national trial of the military faculties, courage, activity,
and fortitude, discipline, gunnery, and tactics, for the first time the
palm was awarded by Englishmen to Americans over Englishmen. Without
fortuitous advantage the Americans proved too much for the redoubtable
English, though superior in number, therefore universally arrogating to
themselves even with inferior numbers, a mastery but faintly questioned
by most Americana; no accident to depreciate the triumph of the younger
over the older nation; no more fortune than what favors the bravest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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