Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

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I know that this one great mission is encompassed with difficulties; but
such is the inherent energy of our political system, and such its expansive
capability, that it may be made to govern the widest space. If by war we
become great, we can not be free; if we will be both great and free, our
policy is peace.

Biographical: John C. Calhoun was a distinguished American statesman. He is
noted for his advocacy of the annexation of Texas and his maintenance of
the cause of peace, when war with Great Britain was threatened by the
claims of the United States to Oregon. This selection is from one of his
speeches in the Senate on that subject.

* * * * *

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND

DANIEL WEBSTER

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be
passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They
are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating
power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace,
through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now
surveyed, the progress of the country during the lapse of a century. We
would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard
for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake of the pleasure
with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement.
On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose,
the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the rock of Plymouth,
shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it
lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall occupy our places,
some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just
estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government,
and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the
understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long
distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know,
at least, that we possessed affections which, running backward and warming
with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run
forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere
yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in
your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste
the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have
passed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and
the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great
inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good
government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of
science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent
sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and
children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational
existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting
truth!

Biographical and Historical: Daniel Webster stands out as America's
foremost orator. His eloquence, enhanced by the force of his personality,
was equally great whether answering an opponent in the Senate, pleading a
case as a lawyer, or in the more dispassionate orations of anniversary
occasions. He was the champion of the national idea and of complete union,
and therefore bitterly opposed Hayne and Calhoun. He supported Clay in the
compromise measures of 1850. His supremacy in American statesmanship, as
senator, and as secretary of state, makes him "the notablest of our
notabilities." These are the closing paragraphs from his oration delivered
at Plymouth, December 22, 1820, on the two hundredth anniversary of the
landing of the Pilgrims.

* * * * *

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS

DANIEL WEBSTER

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart
to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at
independence. But there is a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice
of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, she has
obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have
but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the
declaration? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give
up the war? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we shall be ground to
powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we
do not mean to submit. We never shall submit!

The war, then, must go on; we must fight it through. And if the war must go
on, why put off the declaration of independence? That measure will
strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. Nations will then treat
with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in
arms against our sovereign.

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people--the people,
if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves,
gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have
been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance
to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be
eradicated. Sir, the declaration of independence will inspire the people
with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the
restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, set before them the
glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew
the spirit of life.

Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn,
and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor.
Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of
religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall
with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them see it,
who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and
in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in
its support.

O Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live
to see the time this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die
colonists; die slaves; die, it may be ignominiously, and on the scaffold.
Be it so: be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall
require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the
appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live,
let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free
country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured--be assured that this declaration
will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand,
and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the
present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall
make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our
children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with
festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will
shed tears, copious, gushing tears; not of subjection and slavery, not of
agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves the
measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am,
and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and
I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the
declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it
shall be my dying sentiment; independence now, and independence forever.

Historical: Boston was deeply moved, on July 4, 1826, by the news of the
death of John Adams, just fifty years after the signing of the Declaration
of Independence. He was not only conscious of the significance of the day,
but had spoken of his colleague, Thomas Jefferson, and the fact that
Jefferson would survive him. A few days later, news came from Virginia that
Jefferson had died on the same day, a few hours earlier than Adams. The
whole country was deeply affected by this remarkable coincidence. On the
second of August a public memorial meeting was held in Faneuil Hall,
Boston, at which Daniel Webster delivered an oration on "Adams and
Jefferson." In this speech, merely a part of the oration, Webster
represents what Adams might have said at the time of the Declaration of
Independence.

* * * * *

SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE UNION

ROBERT HAYNE

I shall make no profession of zeal for the interests and honor of South
Carolina. If there be one state in the Union that may challenge comparison
with any other, for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion
to the Union, that state is South Carolina. From the very commencement of
the Revolution up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she
has not cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She
has adhered to you in your prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung
to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condition of
her domestic affairs, though deprived of her resources, divided by parties,
or surrounded with difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as
the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man became at
once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all seen
crowding together to the temple, bringing gifts to the altar of their
common country.

What was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? I honor New
England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But great as is the
praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due the South.
They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a generous zeal which did
not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute.
Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to
create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a
guaranty that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great
Britain. But, trampling on all considerations either of interest or of
safety, they rushed into the conflict, and, fighting for principle, periled
all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never were there exhibited in the
history of the world higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering,
and heroic endurance than by the Whigs of Carolina during the Revolution.
The whole state, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an
overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the
spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe.

The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens.
Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of
her children. Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost
impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South
Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved,
by her conduct, that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her
people was invincible.

Historical: In January of 1830, Senator Foote of Connecticut introduced
into the Senate a resolution regarding the sale of public lands. The
subject of state rights being uppermost in their minds, the debaters
wandered off into a discussion of the Constitution. Senator Robert Y. Hayne
of South Carolina, in a brilliant speech set forth the doctrine of
nullification, and Daniel Webster answered him in one of the greatest
speeches ever delivered. This extract and the following are taken from this
memorable debate, when for the first time the two opposing theories of the
Constitution, the "state" and he "national," were clearly set forth.

* * * * *

REPLY TO HAYNE

DANIEL WEBSTER

I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard
for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South
Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride,
of her great name. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses,
the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions--Americans
all--whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their
talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same
narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the
country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the
whole country.

Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs
none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her
history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There
is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will
remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for
independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state from New England
to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American
liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and
sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full
of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party
strife and blind ambition shall hawk and tear it; if folly and madness, if
uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in
separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made
sure,--it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its
infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it
may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at
last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory and
on the very spot of its origin.

I cannot persuade myself to relinquish this subject without expressing my
deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than THE UNION OF THE
STATES, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public
happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in
view the prosperity and honor of the whole country and the preservation of
our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home and our
consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly
indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.

That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit, Under its benign
influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and
sprang forth with newness of life.

Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and
wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun
its protection or its benefits. It has been to us a copious fountain of
national, social, and personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie
hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of
preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of
disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of
the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs
of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering,
not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to
penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may
not rise,--that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind.

When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
a once glorious Union--on States dissevered discordant, belligerent,--on a
land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let
their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of
the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a
stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its
motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor
those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union
afterward"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light,
blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the
land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear
to every true American heart,--LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND
INSEPARABLE!

* * * * *

DEDICATION SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent,
a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that
all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war; testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can
not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world
will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so
nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

Historical: At the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg,
November 19, 1863, President Lincoln was asked to be present and say a few
words. This address has become a classic. Edward Everett, the orator who
had delivered the long address of the day wrote to Mr. Lincoln, "I should
be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of
the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

Several versions of the speech have appeared, but the one here printed was
given out by President Lincoln himself as the authorized version. See
"Lincoln's Gettysburg Address," Century Magazine, Feb., 1894.

* * * * *

LINCOLN, THE GREAT COMMONER

EDWIN MARKHAM

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour,
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road--
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
It was a stuff to wear for centuries,
A man that matched the mountains, and compelled
The stars to look our way and honor us.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;
The tang and odor of the primal things--
The rectitude and patience of the rocks;
The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;
The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The loving kindness of the wayside well;
The tolerance and equity of light
That gives as freely to the shrinking weed
As to the great oak flaring to the wind--
To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky.
And so he came.
From prairie cabin up to capitol
One fair ideal led our chieftain on.
Forevermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,
The conscience of him testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart:
And when the step of Earthquake shook the house
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,
He held the ridge-pole up, and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his place--
Held the long purpose like a growing tree--
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

Biographical: Edwin Markham was born in Oregon, taught school in
California, and more recently has been a resident of Brooklyn. His poem
"The Man with the Hoe" brought him immediate fame.

* * * * *

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Biographical and Historical: Walt Whitman will always be remembered as the
author of this poem. It differs from his other poems in that it shows a
great deal of attention to form, to metre, and rhyme. He wrote not so much
with the aim to please as to arouse and uplift. He was very democratic in
his taste, and loved to mingle with the crowds on the ferries and
omnibuses. At different times he was school teacher, carpenter, and
journalist. This poem was written in appreciation of Lincoln, at the time
of his death.

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE

Friends and Fellow-Citizens,

The period for a new election of a Citizen, to administer the Executive
Government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time
actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the
person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me
proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the
public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have
formed, to decline being considered among the number of those, out of whom
a choice is to be made....

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear
to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your
real independence,--the support of your tranquillity at home and your peace
abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you
so highly prize.

But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different
quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in
your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your
political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external
enemies will be most constantly and actively, though often covertly and
insidiously, directed,--it is of infinite moment that you should properly
estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and
individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourself to think and speak of it
as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for
its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may
suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate
any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties
which now link together the various parts.

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