Lily Dougall - "The Mermaid"

Henry Harford - "Fan"

Edwin L. Sabin - "Pluck on the Long Trail"

Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester} - "Girls and Women"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

G >> George S. Boutwell >> Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2




His want of faith in his Cabinet was shown in his preliminary statement
when he proceeded to read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Mr. Lincoln
was then about to take the most important step ever taken by a President
of the United States and yet he informed the men, the only men whose
opinions he could command by virtue of his office that the main
question was not open for discussion; that the question had been by him
already decided, and that suggestions from them would be received only
in reference to the formalities of the document.

It may be the truth, and our estimation of Mr. Lincoln would not be
lowered, if, indeed, it were shown to be the truth, that he chose to
act upon his own judgment in a matter of the supremest gravity, and
in which, from the nature of the case, the sole responsibility was
upon him. On the great question of the abolition of slavery his mind
reached a definite conclusion, a conclusion on which he could act, but
neither too early nor too late. The Proclamation was issued at a
moment when the exigencies of the war justified its issue as a military
necessity, and when, as a concurrent fact, the public mind was first
prepared to receive it, and to give to the measure the requisite support.

Mr. Lincoln prepared the way for the reorganization of the government.
Under him the old order of things was overthrown and the introduction
of a new order became possible. Through his agency the Constitution
of the United States has been brought into harmony with the Declaration
of Independence. The system of slavery has perished, the institutions
of the country have been reconciled to the principles of freedom, and
in these changes we have additional guarantees for the perpetuity of
the Union.

A just eulogy of Mr. Lincoln is a continuing encomium of the Republican
Party. By the election of 1860 he became the head of that party and
during the four years and more of his official life he never claimed
to be better nor wiser than the party with which he was identified.
From first to last he had the full confidence of the army and of the
masses of the voters in the Republican Party, and of that confidence
Mr. Lincoln was always assured. Hence he was able to meet the
aspirations of rivals and the censures of the disappointed with a good
degree of composure. To the honor of the masses of the Republican
Party it can be said that they never faltered in their devotion to the
President and in that devotion and in the fidelity of the President to
the principles of the party were the foundations laid on which the
greatness of the country rests.

The measure of gratitude due to Mr. Lincoln and to the Republican Party
may be estimated by a comparison of the condition of the country when he
accepted power in March, 1861, with its condition in 1885, and in 1893,
when we yielded the administration to the successors of the men who had
well-nigh wrecked the Government in a former generation.

The Republican Party found the Union a mass of sand; it left it a
structure of granite. It found the Union a by-word among the nations
of the earth, it left it illustrious and envied, for the exhibition of
warlike powers, for the development of our industrial and financial
resources in times of peace, for the unwavering fidelity with which
every pecuniary obligation was met; for the generous treatment
measured out with an unstinted hand to the conquered foe; and, finally,
for the cheerful recognition of the duty resting upon the Republican
Party and upon the country to enfranchise, to raise up, to recreate
the millions that had been brought out of bondage.

This work was not accomplished fully in Mr. Lincoln's time, but he was
the leader of ideas and policies which could have no other consummation.


At the end it must be said of Mr. Lincoln that he was a great man, in a
great place, burdened with great responsibilities, coupled with great
opportunities, which he used for the benefit of his country and for the
welfare of the human race. Among American statesmen he is conspicuously
alone. From Washington to Grant he is separated by the absence on his
part of military service and military renown. On the statesmanship side
of his career, there is no one from Washington along the entire line
who can be considered as the equal or the rival of Lincoln.

And we may wisely commit to other ages and perhaps to other lands the
full discussion and final decision of the relative claims of
Washington and Lincoln to the first place in the list of American
statesmen.


XLIV
SPEECH ON COLUMBUS

DELIVERED AT GROTON, MASS., OCTOBER 21, 1892

We celebrate this day as the anniversary of the discovery of the
American continent.

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome.
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew."

Of these lines of Emerson, the last three are as true of Columbus, as of

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,"

for he, too,

"Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew."

And shall we therefore say that he is not worthy of praise, of tribute,
of memorials, of anniversary days, of centennial years, of national and
international gatherings and exhibitions, that in some degree mankind
may illustrate and dignify, if they will, the events that have followed
the opening of a new world to our advanced and advancing civilization?

In great deeds, in great events, in great names, there is a sort of
immortality, an innate capacity for living, a tendency to growth, to
expansion, and thus what was but of little comment in the beginning is
seen, often after the lapse of years, possibly only after the lapse of
centuries, to have been freighted with consequences whose value can only
be measured by the yearly additions to the sum of human happiness.

Franklin's experiments in electricity were followed at once by the
common lightning-rod, but a century passed before the electrical power
was utilized, and made subservient, in some degree, to the control of men.

Every decade of three centuries has added to the greatness of that one
immortal name in the literature of the whole English speaking race. The
security for the world that the name of Shakespeare and the writings of
Shakespeare cannot die may be found in the selfishness, the intelligent
selfishness of mankind, which will struggle constantly to preserve and
to magnify a possession which if once lost, could never be regained.

After four centuries of delay we have come to realize, with some degree
of accuracy, the magnitude of the event called the Discovery of America.
Identified with that event, and as its author, is the man Columbus.
Involved in controversies while living, the object of the base passions
of envy, hatred and jealousy, consigned finally to chains and to prison,
and in death ignorant of the magnitude of the discovery that he had
made, there seemed but slight basis for the conjecture that his name
was destined to become the one immortal name in the annals of modern
Italy and Spain.

As if accident and fate and the paltry ambitions of men had combined to
rob Columbus of his just title to fame, the name of the double continent
that he discovered was given to another. To that other the name
remains, but the continent itself has become the continent of Columbus.
In connection with the event no other name is known, and so it will
ever be in all the centuries of the future.

In these years we are inaugurating a series of centennial anniversary
celebrations in honor of Columbus, and in testimony of the importance
of the discovery that he made. This we do as the greatest of the states
that have arisen on the continent that he discovered, and I delay what
I have to say of Columbus and of the discovery that I may express my
regret and the reasons for my regret, that the celebration and the
ceremonies have not been made distinctively and exclusively national.
In this I do not disparage, on the other hand I exalt, the public
spirit, the capacity for large undertakings, the will and the courage
of the city and the citizens of Chicago in assuming burdens and
responsibilities from which any other city on this continent would have
shrunk.

My point is this: If the people and Government of the United States
were of the opinion that the discovery of a continent--a continent in
which one of the great governments of the world has found an abiding
place--was worthy of a centennial celebration, then the conduct of the
celebration ought not to have been left to the care of any community
less than the whole. Nor is it an unworthy thought that something of
dignity would have been added to the celebration if the nations of the
earth could have been invited to the capital which bears the name of
the discoverer of the continent and the founder of the Republic.

There are occasions which confer greatness upon an orator. Such are
revolutionary periods, the overthrow of states, radical changes in a
long-settled public policy, struggles for power, empire, dominion.
These and kindred exigencies in the affairs of men and states, seem to
create, or at least to furnish opportunity and scope for, statesmen,
orators, poets and soldiers.

This peaceful ceremony in peaceful times, of which we now speak, will
not produce orators like Patrick Henry and James Otis at the opening
of our Revolutionary struggle, like Mirabeau in France, or Cicero in
Rome, pleading for a dying republic, or Demosthenes in Athens
contending hopelessly against the domination of one supreme will.

An orator for this occasion was not to have been waited for, he was to
have been sought out and found if possible.

If Webster were living and in the fullness of his powers, the country
might have looked to him for an oration that would have so linked itself
with the anniversary that it would have been recognized in every
succeeding centennial observance.

Turning from this thought, which at best, can only serve as a standard
to which our hopes aspire, I venture the remark, that there is not one
of our countrymen who, by the studies of his life, by the philosophical
qualities of his mind, by the possession in some large measure of that
Miltonian power of imagination which Webster exhibited, is qualified for
the supreme task which I have thus imperfectly outlined.

For one day the rumor was voiced that Castelar of Spain had been invited
to deliver the oration at the more formal opening of the exhibition in
May next. That rumor has not been affirmed nor denied, but from the
delay, we cannot hope that its verification is now possible.

Historical knowledge, due to long and laborious studies, and the spirit
of historical inquiry, are not often found in the same person, combined
with argumentative power and the quality of imagination stimulated by
an emotional nature. From what we know of Emilio Castelar of Spain, it
may be said that he possesses this rare combination in a degree beyond
any other living man.

In the year 1856 when he was only twenty-four years of age, he was
appointed, after a competitive contest, to the chair of philosophy and
history in the University of Madrid. During his professorship, in
addition to other work, he delivered lectures on the history of
civilization.

The political disturbances, in which as a republican, he had taken an
active part, led to his exile for four years, but upon his return to
Spain he resumed his place in the University. In 1873 he was prime
minister during the brief existence of the republic. Of his published
works, the best known in this country is the volume entitled "Old Rome
and New Italy." At present he is a member of the Cortes, where he
gives support to the Government in its measures of administration
without yielding his political principles or indorsing the monarchical
system. If this country were to pass beyond its own limits in the
selection of an orator, then, without question Spain has the first,
and indeed, the only claim to consideration. Spain furnished the means
for the expedition and the world is indebted to her enlightened
patronage for the discovery. It may be assumed, reasonably, that
Castelar would have brought from the archives of Spain fresh information
in regard to the motives of Ferdinand and Isabella, trustworthy
statements as to the character and conduct of Pinzon, the ally of
Columbus, and at the end he might have been able to prove or disprove
the theory that Columbus had knowledge of the existence of this
continent, or that he had or had not reasons for believing that land
in the west had been visited by Scandinavian voyagers in the tenth
century.

As I pass to some more direct observations upon Columbus and the voyage
of 1492, and to the expression of some thoughts as to the future of the
country, I wish to say that I limit my criticism to our representative
men, whose estimate of the importance of the anniversary was quite
inadequate. They failed to see its connection with the past, its
relations to what now is, and more important than all else they failed
to realize that this celebration is the first of a long line of
centennial celebrations, each one of which will mark the close of one
epoch, and the beginning of another.

I cannot imagine that in a hundred years this anniversary, in its
organization and conduct, will be thought worthy of imitation. Let
us imagine, or rather indulge the hope that then all the States of the
south and the north, from the Arctic Seas to Patagonia, will be united
in a national and international celebration in recognition of an event
that has increased twofold the possibilities, comfort and happiness of
the human race.

Passing from these criticisms, at once and finally, it is yet true that
in this centennial celebration the two Americas, Southern Europe and
the Catholic churches throughout the world are united as one people,
and for the moment differences in religion and diversities of race are
forgotten. Italy was the birth-place of Columbus; Spain, after long
years of doubt and vexatious delays lent its patronage to the scheme of
the "adventurer" as he was called; and the church, of which Columbus
was a devoted, and perhaps a devout disciple, bestowed its blessing
upon those who staked their lives or their fortunes in the undertaking.
It is not probable that Columbus looked to that posthumous fame of which
he is now the subject. His vision and his hopes extended not beyond the
possession of new lands where he might rule as a potentate and enjoy
power; where Spain might found an empire, and where the church might
establish its authority over millions of new converts. Spain gained
new empires, and maintained her rule over them for three centuries and
more; the church enlarged its power by the acquisition of half a
continent, in which its ecclesiastical authority remains, even to the
close of the nineteenth century. For a moment, and but for a moment
in the annals of time, Columbus was permitted to realize the dream of
his life. After a brief period, however, instead of place, power,
gratitude, wealth, he was subjected to chains, and consigned to prison.
Of the three great parties to the undertaking, Columbus alone, seemed
to have been unsuccessful, but at the end of four centuries he
reappears as the one personage to whom the gratitude of mankind is due
for the discovery of the new world. Nor do we enter into any inquiry
as to the manner of man that Columbus was on the moral side of his
character. We know that he was an enthusiast, that he was richly
endowed with the practical virtues of patience, of perseverance, of
continuing fortitude under difficulties, and we know that neither Spain,
nor the Church, nor Pinzon the ship-builder and capitalist, nor all of
them together would have made the discovery when it was made. To
Columbus they were essential, but without Columbus they were nothing.

To the wide domain of history may be left the inquiry as to the truth
of his visit to Iceland in the preceding decade, his knowledge of the
expeditions of the Scandinavian voyagers to Greenland and the coasts
of New England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and his theories
or beliefs concerning the spherical figure of the earth.

Whatever might have happened previous to the voyage from Palos, and
whatever might have been the extent of Columbus' knowledge, the
discovery of America for the purposes of settlement and civilization,
was made by Columbus himself at eight o'clock in the evening of
October 11, O. S., when he saw the shimmer of fire on the Island of
San Salvador. That fact being established, the fact of the existence
of land near by was established also. The sight of land at three
o'clock next morning was not the discovery; it was evidence only of
the reality of the discovery made by Columbus the evening before.

In these four hundred years the empires that Spain founded in the New
World have slipped from her grasp; the church has lost its temporal
power, but the fame of Columbus has spread more and more widely and his
claims to the gratitude of mankind have been recognized more generally.

At the end of each coming century, and for many centuries, no one can
foresay how many, millions on millions in the Americas and in Europe
will unite in rendering tribute of praise to the enthusiast and
adventurer whose limited ambitions for himself were never realized, but
who opened to mankind the opportunity to found states freed from the
domination of the church and churches freed from the domination of the
state.

We do not deceive ourselves, when we claim for the United States the
first place among the states on this continent. We are the first of
American states in population, in wealth, in our system of public
instruction, in our means of professional and technical education, in
the application of science to the practical purposes of life, and
finally, in experience and success in the business of government.

It should not be forgotten by any of us, nor should the fact be
overlooked or neglected by the young that these results have been
gained by the labors and sacrifices of our ancestors, and we should
realize that the task of preserving what has been won, is the task that
is imposed upon the generations as they succeed each other in the great
drama of national life. Vain and useless are all conjectures as to
the future. The coming century must bring great changes--equal,
possibly, to those that have occurred since 1792. At that time our
territory did not extend beyond the Mississippi River, our population
was hardly four million, our national revenues were less than four
million dollars annually, manufacturing industries had not gained a
footing, for agricultural products there was no market, the trade in
slaves from Africa was guaranteed in the Constitution, the thirteen
States had not outgrown the disintegrating influence of the
Confederation, the Post-Office Department was not organized, and the
National Government was not respected for its power, justice or
beneficence, of which the mass of people knew nothing.

In this century our territory has been enlarged fourfold, our
population is eighteen times as great as it was in 1792, our revenues
have been multiplied by a hundred, and the convertible wealth of the
people has been increased in a greater ratio even. The railway, the
telegraphic, the telephonic systems have been created. The dream of
Shakespeare has been realized--we have put a girdle round about the
Earth in forty minutes.

More than all else, and as the culmination of all else, we have
demonstrated the practicability of a government of the people, by the
people, and for the people. All this has been made possible by and
through a system of universal public education--a system which taxes
the whole people, and educates the whole people in good learning, and
in the cardinal virtues which adorn, dignify and elevate the individual
man and furnish the only security for progressive, successful,
illustrious national life.

This is the inheritance to which the generations before us are born.
A great inheritance--a great inheritance of opportunity, a great
inheritance of power, a great inheritance of responsibility, from which
the coming generations are not to shrink.


XLV
IMPERIALISM AS A PUBLIC POLICY

This paper is introduced upon two grounds mainly. It sets forth with a
reasonable degree of fulness the views that I have entertained for
three years in regard to President McKinley's policy in the acquisition
and control of the islands in the Caribbean Sea and in the Pacific
Ocean, and it presents a history of my relations to political movements
through a long half century.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT SALEM, MASS., OCTOBER 18, 1900, IN REPLY TO A SPEECH
MADE BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. MOODY, M. C.

A truthful statement that I have been inconsistent in the opinion that
I have held and advocated upon questions of public concern, would not
disturb me by day, nor consign me to sleepless nights.

It is now sixty years since I first held public office by the votes of
my fellow-citizens. In that long period of time my opinions have
undergone many changes. When I have had occasion to address my fellow-
citizens upon public questions I have not reviewed my previous sayings
through fear that some critic might arraign me for inconsistency.

I have considered only my present duty in relation to the questions
immediately before me.

In the first ten or fifteen years of my manhood I accepted political
economy as a cosmopolitan science and free trade as a wise policy for
every country. My views in favor of free trade for the United States
are set forth in printed articles, which are now accessible. They are
at the service of the critics and of the advocates of free trade.
Consistency is not always a virtue, and inconsistency is not always a
vice. Even courts of justice change their rulings and holdings when
they find themselves in error.

The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed its first decision
in the cases that have arisen under the confiscation acts of 1862, and
in other cases the court has qualified its opinions from time to time.
This authority is valuable as proving or as tending to prove, that
inconsistencies in opinion may be consistent with integrity of purpose.

An attempt to change the issue while the trial is going on is not
infrequently the weak device of misguided advocates who happen to be
charged with the care of weak cases.

It is now twenty years of more since I appeared before Judge Endicott
of your city in a cause between a trustee and the _cestui que_ trust.
The counsel for the trustee in an argument of considerable length,
proceeded to demonstrate the unwisdom, the incapacity, indeed, of my
administration of the Treasury Department. I made no attempt to meet
the new issue, and the Judge gave no opinion upon it. I made an effort
to satisfy the Judge that the trustee was withholding money that
belonged to my clients, and Judge Endicott so held. My opponent had an
opportunity to argue an issue that was not before the court, and his
client was doomed to lose his case.

A cause is now pending before the American people. The issue is this:
Is it wise and just for us, as a nation, to make war for the seizure
and government of distant lands, occupied by millions of inhabitants,
who are alien to us in every aspect of life, except that we are
together members of the same human family? The seriousness of this
issue cannot be magnified by the art and skill of writers and speakers,
nor can it be dwarfed to the proportions of a personal controversy.
Nor does it follow from any possible construction of the Constitution
that it is wise and just for the American people to seize, through
war, and to govern by force, the hostile tribes and peoples of the
earth whether near to or remote.

The advocates of weak causes have two methods of defence to which they
most frequently resort: epithets and a change of issues.

It was in this city that Mr. Webster made a remark that is applicable
to the use of epithets and the avoidance of issues. Mr. Webster had
come to this city to aid the Attorney-General in the trial of Frank
and Joseph Knapp. His presence was disagreeable to the counsel for
the accused, and they more than intimated that he had been brought to
Salem to carry the court against the law, and to hurry the jury beyond
the evidence. In reply, Mr. Webster referred to the Goodridge trial,
in which he had appeared for the accused, and he said: "I remember
that the learned head of the Suffolk Bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in
aid of the officers of the government. This was regarded as neither
strange nor improper. The counsel for the prisoners, in that case,
contented themselves with answering his arguments, as far as they were
able, instead of carping at his presence." This is, in substance, the
demand that we make upon the supporters of the war in the Philippines.
Let them cease to denounce us as traitors; let them explain the facts
on which they are arraigned; and let them answer the arguments that we
offer in defence of the Republic.

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