Joel Chandler Harris' life of Henry W. Grady including his writings and speeches
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Joel Chandler Harris' life of Henry W. Grady including his writings and speeches
Grady, Henry Woodfin, 1850-1889
Of all the young men in America none had such power for good.
None had the ear of the public so completely as he to be heard.
None had so eloquent a tongue to produce conviction. None had so
magnetic a bearing to induce followers. He was ambitious, yes,
but for what? Not for the spoils of office, not for command of
his fellow-man, not for himself, but for his people. Years ago
when his friends all over Georgia urged him to allow his name to
be presented for a post of honor in the counsels of the Nation
he refused. His letter of declination was so strong, so
patriotic, and so unselfish that it commanded the admiration of
the world. I know that even far-off New Zealand published his
words and did him honor. His eloquent speech in New York
completed the structure of his national fame. From the night of
its delivery the whole country ranked him among its foremost
citizens. Even in down-trodden and oppressed Cuba his eloquent
words were translated into the Spanish tongue and read with
delight while I was there. The echoes of his last eloquent,
matchless defense of the South yet linger in Faneuil Hall, and
so long as its historic walls shall stand they will be classed
with the best efforts of Everett and of Webster. His friends all
over the country read his words, and wondered that he was so
great. Ambitious; yes, ambitious to be able to present the cause
of the South in such a manner as to produce conviction in the
minds and in the hearts of its most ultra defamers, that our
people now in good faith accept as final the construction placed
upon the Constitution of this country by the victors, and that
they are as absolutely loyal and devoted, as are the people of
the North, to that Union against which his father had fought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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