The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, November 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, November 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
“I made a short speech, and concluded with the story of
the red cow, which was, that as long as General Jackson
went straight, I followed him; but when he began to go
this way, and that way, and every way, I wouldn’t go
after him; like the boy whose master ordered him to
plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he began
to plough, and she began to walk; and he ploughed all
forenoon after her. So when the master came, he swore
at him for going so crooked. ‘Why, sir,’ said the boy,
‘you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept after
her, but she always kept moving.’”
Most enthusiastic of all was his reception in Boston, where President
Jackson’s policy was most unpopular. It was even proposed to confer
on Crockett the degree of LL.D., an honor that had been awarded to
Jackson: but, unlike Jackson, Crockett had the wit to decline an honor
which neither of the two deserved.
The more he saw and heard the more humble he became. When called
up for an after-dinner speech in Boston he burst out in his honest
way—“I never had but six months’ schooling in all my life, and I
confess I consider myself a _poor tyke_ to be here addressing the most
intelligent people in the world.” If he had not culture, he had what
was far more rare in that age of truckling to one-man power—_manhood_.
It seemed as if unlettered David Crockett was the only man in public
life to stand up straight, and people acknowledged the power of true
character. The culture and wealth of the East bowed to unspoiled
manhood; it was a revelation fresh from Nature’s hand.
A few extracts from one of his more sustained and dignified efforts
will illustrate the development Crockett had attained by simple
observation. After praising New England he said:
“I don’t mean that because I eat your bread and drink
your liquor, that I feel so. No; that don’t make me see
clearer than I did. It is your habits, and manners,
and customs; your industry; your proud, independent
spirits; your hanging on to the eternal principles of
right and wrong; your liberality in prosperity, and
your patience when you are ground down by legislation,
which, instead of crushing you, whets your invention to
strike a path without a blaze on a tree to guide you;
and above all, your never-dying, deathless grip to our
glorious Constitution. These are the things that make
me think you are a mighty good people.
“I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he
possessed certain principles, and not because his name
was Andrew Jackson, or the ‘Hero,’ or ‘Old Hickory.’
And when he left those principles which induced me to
support him, I considered myself justified in opposing
him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I
don’t like it; it taints every action of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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