The American Union SpeakerPhilbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
General
The American Union Speaker
Philbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
Recitations
one interest, and one common country? Victorious and triumphant, you show
less temper than we, under defeat. When you are to contend with us, you can
seize the Aventine hill, you can possess yourselves of the Mons Sacer.
The enemy is at our gates,--the Æsquiline is near being taken,--and nobody
stirs to hinder it! But against us you are valiant, against us you can arm
with diligence. Come on, then, besiege the senate-house, make a camp of the
forum, fill the jails with our chief nobles, and when you have achieved
these glorious exploits, then, at last, sally out at the Æsquiline gate,
with the same fierce spirits, against the enemy. Does your resolution fail
you for this? Go then, and behold from our walls your lands ravaged, your
houses plundered and in flames, the whole country laid waste with fire and
sword. Have you anything here to repair these damages? Will the Tribunes
make up your losses to you? They will give you words as many as you please;
bring impeachments in abundance against the prime men in the State; heap
laws upon laws; assemblies you shall have without end; but will any of you
return the richer from these assemblies? Extinguish, O Romans, these fatal
divisions; generously break this cursed enchantment, which keeps you buried
in a scandalous inaction. Open your eyes and consider the management of
those ambitious men, who, to make themselves powerful in their party, study
nothing but how they may foment divisions in the commonwealth.
CXL.
THE BOSTON MASSACRE.
Tell me, ye bloody butchers! ye villains high and low! ye wretches who
contrived, as well as you who executed, the inhuman deed! do you not feel
the goads and stings of conscious guilt pierce through your savage bosoms?
Though some of you may think yourselves exalted to such a height that bids
defiance to the arms of human justice, and others shroud yourselves beneath
the mask of hypocrisy, and build your hopes of safety on the low arts of
cunning, chicanery, and falsehood; yet do you not sometimes feel the
gnawings of that worm which never dies? Do not the injured shades of
Maverick, Gray, Caldwell, Attucks, and Carr, attend you in your solitary
walks, arrest you even in the midst of your debaucheries, and fill even
your dreams with terror?
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