The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster: With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English StyleWebster, Daniel
History
The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster: With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861; Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852
I shall not detain the committee, Mr. Chairman, by any attempt to recite
the events of the Greek struggle up to the present time. Its origin may
be found, doubtless, in that improved state of knowledge which, for some
years, has been gradually taking place in that country. The emancipation
of the Greeks has been a subject frequently discussed in modern times.
They themselves are represented as having a vivid remembrance of the
distinction of their ancestors, not unmixed with an indignant feeling
that civilized and Christian Europe should not ere now have aided them
in breaking their intolerable fetters.
In 1816 a society was founded in Vienna for the encouragement of Grecian
literature. It was connected with a similar institution at Athens, and
another in Thessaly, called the "Gymnasium of Mount Pelion." The
treasury and general office of the institution were established at
Munich. No political object was avowed by these institutions, probably
none contemplated. Still, however, they had their effect, no doubt, in
hastening that condition of things in which the Greeks felt competent to
the establishment of their independence. Many young men have been for
years annually sent to the universities in the western states of Europe
for their education; and, after the general pacification of Europe, many
military men, discharged from other employment, were ready to enter even
into so unpromising a service as that of the revolutionary Greeks.
In 1820, war commenced between the Porte and Ali, the well-known Pacha
of Albania. Differences existed also with Persia and with Russia. In
this state of things, at the beginning of 1821, an insurrection broke
out in Moldavia, under the direction of Alexander Ypsilanti, a
well-educated soldier, who had been major-general in the Russian
service. From his character, and the number of those who seemed inclined
to join him, he was supposed to be countenanced by the court of St.
Petersburg. This, however, was a great mistake, which the Emperor, then
at Laybach, took an early opportunity to rectify. The Turkish government
was alarmed at these occurrences in the northern provinces of European
Turkey, and caused search to be made of all vessels entering the Black
Sea, lest arms or other military means should be sent in that manner to
the insurgents. This proved inconvenient to the commerce of Russia, and
caused some unsatisfactory correspondence between the two powers. It may
be worthy of remark, as an exhibition of national character, that,
agitated by these appearances of intestine commotion, the Sultan issued
a proclamation, calling on all true Mussulmans to renounce the pleasures
of social life, to prepare arms and horses, and to return to the manner
of their ancestors, the life of the plains. The Turk seems to have
thought that he had, at last, caught something of the dangerous
contagion of European civilization, and that it was necessary to reform
his habits, by recurring to the original manners of military roving
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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