The American Union SpeakerPhilbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
General
The American Union Speaker
Philbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
Recitations
But when the crisis came, and the winds were let lose, and that sea of
March "wrought and was tempestuous," then you saw that he knew even you
only as you were, American citizens; then you saw him rise to the true
nature and stature of American citizenship; then you read on his brow only
what he thought of the whole Republic; then you saw him fold the robes of
his habitual patriotism around him, and counsel for all--for all. So,
then, he served you--"to be pleased with his service was your affair, not
his."
And now what would he do, what would he be if he were here to-day? I do not
presume to know. But what a loss we have in him! I have read that in some
hard battle, when the tide was running against him, and his ranks were
breaking, some one in the agony of a, need of generalship exclaimed, "Oh
for an hour of Dundee!" So say I, Oh for an hour of Webster now! Oh for one
more roll of that thunder inimitable! One more peal of that clarion! One
more grave and bold counsel of moderation! One more throb of American
feeling! One more Farewell Address! And then might he ascend unhindered to
the bosom of his Father and his God.
R. Choate.
XXIII.
THE FRUITS OF SKILFUL LABOR AND CULTIVATED INTELLECT.
Perhaps as striking an illustration on a large scale as could be desired,
of the connection between the best directed and most skilful labor and the
most cultivated and most powerful intellect, is afforded by the case of
England. British industry as a whole, is among the most splendid and
extraordinary things in the history of man. When you consider how small a
work-bench it has to occupy altogether, a little stormy island bathed in
almost perpetual fogs, without silk, or cotton, or vineyards, or sunshine,
and then look at that agriculture, so scientific and so rewarded, that vast
net-work of internal intercommunication, the docks, merchant-ships,
men-of-war, the trade encompassing the globe, the flag on which the sun
never sets,--when you look, above all, at that vast body of useful and
manly art, not directed, like the industry of France,--the industry of
vanity,--to making pier-glasses and air-balloons and gobelin tapestry and
mirrors, to arranging processions and chiselling silver and twisting gold
into filigrees, but to clothing the people, to the manufacture of woolen,
cotton, and linen cloth, of railroads and chain-cables and canals and
anchors and achromatic telescopes, and chronometers to keep the time at
sea,--when you think of the vast aggregate mass of their manufacturing and
mechanical production, which no statistics can ex-press, and to find a
market for which she is planting colonies under every constellation, and by
intimidation, by diplomacy, is knocking at the door of every market-house
upon the earth,--it is really difficult to restrain our admiration of such
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