Trotwood's Monthly, Vol. II, No. 2, May, 1906 — John Shaqi
Trotwood's Monthly, Vol. II, No. 2, May, 1906Various
History
Trotwood's Monthly, Vol. II, No. 2, May, 1906
Various
Agriculture -- Southern States -- Periodicals; Horses -- Periodicals; Southern States -- Periodicals
And all the time New England, the head and front of the Republic, sat
sullen, secretly aiding the enemy and watching for a chance to secede.
“Is there a Federalist, a patriot in America,” said the Boston Gazette,
“who conceives it his duty to shed his blood for Bonaparte, for Madison
and Jefferson, and that host of ruffians in Congress who have set their
faces against us for years and spirited up the brutal part of the
populace to destroy us? Not one. Shall we then be held in slavery and
driven to desperate poverty by such a graceless faction? No more taxes
for New England until the administration makes peace.” As if the cuffed
and cudgeled administration was not doing its best, even to parting with
the last raiment on the back of its self-respect!
Since the beginning of things there have been two kinds of great
men—talkers and doers. The former are called orators when they talk so
much and so well that their talk becomes natural.
Clay was a talker—Jackson a doer. There was a time when these two men
ran side by side in the minds and memories of the living public. But
that public is dead now, and they are far apart. Only the doer lives,
as only the doer should live. Talk, since the beginning of time, has
been the cheapest commodity of the human race. “And Moses said unto the
Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent.... But I am slow of speech and of
a slow tongue.... And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses,
and he said. Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can
speak well.... And he shall be to thee instead of a mouth.” That is the
Biblical precedent for placing the orator over the doer.
Jackson was a Moses, Clay an Aaron. Clay, oily and brainy, and a man who
“can speak well,” was sent over to make peace, with Bayard, and Gallatin,
and Crawford and Adams—all Aarons and orators, and, praise God, all now
dead and fast being forgotten. And they had been in Europe twelve long
months, cooling their heels at the doors of diplomacy, or begging at the
back door of its kitchen for such crumbs as the children might sweep off
for the dogs. And after a while they got a few crumbs—England might be
induced to quit her laying on of the lash if certain things were done to
salve her wounded honor, including the fact that she could still impress
American seaman wherever she could find them, and certain territory
transferred to England, including what is now Wisconsin and Michigan and
parts of Illinois and Indiana. For England of that day was the England of
this day—a bully and a land-grabber.
And then the climax came—Bonaparte went under. Bonaparte, who had kept
England so busy she hadn’t had time to whip us before, now in his fall
unfettered the one thousand warships of Britain that had kept him out of
the Channel and the Mediterranean and the army that later sent him to his
Waterloo, and all these were free to fight the helpless under-dog across
the waters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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