Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]New York State Historical Association. Meeting
History
Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]
New York State Historical Association. Meeting
New York (State) -- History -- Periodicals; New York State Historical Association -- Periodicals
It has been said of him that he resigned from the army out of spite.
Well, if he did, he was perhaps blamable. But we should remember that he
was dealing with a Continental Congress of the latter years of the war,
and if you search history for a thousand years you will not be able to
find an aggregation of political castros equal to this same Continental
Congress. The men who had made the primal congresses great had set
themselves to serve the nation in other ways, and Congress had fallen
to those who had some money without brains or brains without principle,
or lacking both, were like our modern ones in that they loved "graft"
and knew how to get it.
Sullivan was not a liar, and he himself says that his health was
failing. If we care to plow through the many diaries kept by officers
under him we can well believe that he told the truth, for with the
spoiling of the provisions sent to the expedition most of the soldiers
did suffer from chronic intestinal troubles, and it would be strange if
the commander who takes the same fare as his subordinates should not
suffer in the same manner.
And to back up this we must remember that even after he retired he never
lost the confidence or the love of the greatest of them all, General
Washington. Much has been written of General Sullivan's fallibilities,
and fallibilities the greatest have.
We should remember that Sullivan was a Kelt. And through the centuries
the Kelts have given us the lordliest orators and golden artists, but
for tenacity of purpose no one has celebrated them.
General Sullivan when he was taken prisoner and fell under the influence
of the British military power, and contrasting them with the meagerness
that he had been accustomed to, for once his heart failed him and his
soul sank within him, and it is no sorrow to his name to say that for
the moment he thought the liberty of mankind in the Western continent
was doomed.
He came from the British to us seeking peace, but after he was exchanged
and in his old environment his true native Keltic courage returned and
his after life was the life of an ardent patriot.
I do not think we give enough credit to the perceptions of the ignorant.
Suppose to ten thousand ignorant people this entirely hypothetical
question should be stated: Around the globe is a people who for three
hundred years had been fighting a tyrannical power and well nigh
achieved success. Would it be right for a republic to step in and take
them away from the power they were in rebellion against, and then this
republic by force of arms prevent them from becoming an independent
republic? State to ten thousand ignorant people this question, and they
will shout with one voice "that it is not right." State this question
to ten thousand college professors, and they will back and fill, debate
and re-debate, and finally be fogged by their very knowledge and at last
come to no conclusion at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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