Standard Selections: A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions from Best Authors for Use in Class Room and on the Platform
General
Standard Selections: A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions from Best Authors for Use in Class Room and on the Platform
Recitations
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself are silent.
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and
wrong, throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood
face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other is the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle.
VI. MORAL ASPECT OF THE AMERICAN WAR
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Taken from a speech delivered in London, October 20, 1863. In a
series of five speeches in order at Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
Liverpool, and London, Henry Ward Beecher changed the attitude of
the English nation from one of open hostility to the Union to
neutrality and even to favor. It is doubtful if there ever was a
greater triumph in the history of eloquence.
This war began by the act of the South, firing at the old flag that had
covered both sections with glory and protection. The attack made upon us
was under circumstances which inflicted immediate humiliation and
threatened us with final subjugation. The Southerners held all the keys
of the country. They had robbed our arsenals. They had made our treasury
bankrupt. They had possession of the most important offices in the army
and navy. They had the advantage of having long anticipated and prepared
for the conflict. We knew not whom to trust. One man failed and another
man failed. Men, pensioned by the Government, lived on the salary of the
Government only to have better opportunity to stab and betray it. And
for the North to have lain down like a spaniel, to have given up the
land that every child in America is taught, as every child in Britain is
taught, to regard as his sacred right and his trust, to have given up
the mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadels without a blow,
would have marked the North in all future history as craven and mean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account