Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

POPULAR ELECTIONS.

169

[ocr errors]

79. EXCITEMENT IN POPULAR ELECTIONS.

SI

IR, I maintain that there is a tendency in our coun

try to carry the feeling of indifference to public affairs to a dangerous extreme. From the peculiar structure and commercial spirit of modern society, and the facilities presented for the acquisition of wealth, the eager pursuit of gain predominates over our concern for the affairs of the Republic.

Wealth is the object of our idolatry, and even liberty is worshipped in the form of property. Although this spirit, by stimulating industry, is unquestionably excellent in itself, yet it is to be apprehended, that in a period of peace and tranquillity, it will become too strong for patriotism, and produce the greatest of national evils POPULAR APATHY. We have been frequently told that the farmer should attend to his plough, and the mechanic to his handicraft, during the canvass for the presidency. Sir, a more dangerous doctrine could not be inculcated.

If there is a spectacle from the contemplation of which I would shrink with peculiar horror, it would be that of the great mass of the American people sunk into a profound apathy on the subject of their highest political interests. Such a spectacle would be more portentous to the eye of intelligent patriotism than all the fiery signs of the heavens to the eye of trembling superstition. If the people could be indif ferent to the fate of a contest for the presidency, they would be unworthy of freedom. If I were to perceive them sinking into this apathy, I would even apply the power of political galvanism, if such a

.

170

POPULAR ELECTIONS.

power could be found, to raise them from their fatal lethargy.

Keep the people quiet! Peace - peace! Such are the whispers by which the people are to be lulled to sleep in the very crisis of their highest concerns. Sir, you make a solitude, and call it peace." Peace? It is death! Take away all interest from the people in the election of their CHIEF RULER, and liberty is no

[ocr errors]

more.

If the people do not elect the president, the mercenary intriguers and interested office-hunters of the country will. Make the people indifferent, and you throw a general paralysis over the body politic! Tell me not, sir, of popular violence. Show me a hundred political factionists, men who look to the election of a president as the means of gratifying their high or their low ambition, — and I will show you the very materials for a mob, ready for any desperate adventure connected with their common fortunes. The ambitious few will inevitably acquire the ascendency in the conduct of public affairs, if the patriotic many, the people, are not stimulated and roused to a proper activity and effort.

No nation on earth has ever exerted so extensive an influence on human affairs as this will certainly exercise if we preserve our glorious system of government in its purity. The liberty of this country is a sacred depository a vestal fire which Providence has committed to us for the general benefit of mankind. It is the world's last hope. Extinguish it, and the earth will be covered with eternal darkness ! But once put out that fire, and I know not where is the Promethean heat which can that light relume.

THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE.

171

80. THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE.

one. I have read the

OUR cause is a progressive first temperance society

formed in the State of New York in 1809, and one of the by-laws stated, "Any member of this association who shall be convicted of intoxication shall be fined a quarter of a dollar, except such act of intoxication shall take place on the Fourth of July, or any other regularly appointed military muster." We laugh at that now; but it was a serious matter in those days: it was in advance of the public sentiment of the age. The very men who adopted that principle were persecuted they were hooted and pelted through the streets, the doors of their houses were blackened, their cattle mutilated.

The fire of persecution scorched some men so that they left the work. Others worked on, and God blessed them. Some are living to-day; and I should like to stand where they stand now, and see the mighty enterprise as it rises before them. They worked hard. They lifted the first turf-prepared the bed in which to lay the corner-stone. They laid it amid persecution and storm. They worked under the surface; and men almost forgot that there were busy hands laying the solid foundation far down beneath.

By and by they got the foundation above the surface, and then began another storm of persecution. Now we see the superstructure - pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, with the capitals emblazoned with "Love, truth, sympathy, and good will to men." Old men gaze upon it as it grows up

-172 before them. They will not live to see it completed; but they see in faith the crowning cope-stone set upon it. Meek-eyed women weep as it grows in beauty; children strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers.

THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE.

We do not see its beauty yet - we do not see the magnificence of its superstructure yet because it is in course of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar the beauty of the building; but by and by, when the hosts who have labored shall come up over a thousand battlefields waving with bright grain never again to be crushed in the distillery-through vineyards, under trellised vines, with grapes hanging in all their purple glory, never again to be pressed into that which can debase and degrade mankind when they shall come through orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, pulpy fruit, never to be turned into that which can injure and debase when they shall come up to the last distillery and destroy it; to the last stream of liquid death and dry it up; to the last weeping wife and wipe her tears gently away; to the last child and lift him up to stand where God meant that child and man should stand; to the last drunkard and nerve him to burst the burning fetters and make a glorious accompaniment to the song of freedom by the clanking of his broken chains-then, ah! then will the cope-stone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the building will stand in its wondrous beauty before an astonished world. Loud shouts of rejoicing shall then be heard, and there will be joy in heaven, when the triumphs of a great enterprise usher in the day of the triumphs of the cross of Christ.

[blocks in formation]

A

81. SUCCESS.

HUMAN form has many weaknesses.

A mere

inscription on paper, or on a monument, is nothing, for they involve only questions of material durability; but when a man's name is heard and loved for a hundred years after he has ceased to use it, we conclude that it may live a thousand, and agree to respect that name forever. This, as men think, is to touch the top round of complete success.

True successes are not the result of accident; a man may blunder into a triumph, but he is a blunderer still. A world was discovered by one man; but he was not looking for it. The discovery of the birthplace of a dew-drop, by another man, was a greater piece of work.

[ocr errors]

And that man in the battle of Chesapeake Bay, not the admiral, not he who opened his kennels, and nnmuzzled his surly dogs, and crashed his way to glory, but the man who never handled a lanyard in all his life, never heard of fame, who all through that storm of shot and shell, and splintered fire, calmly felt the good ship's way with lead and line, and cried, steady and strong, all through that thunder, "Four fathoms three," "Five fathoms four; in that day and hour, that man achieved a grand success.

Sir John Moore fell on the works at Corunna, and they buried him out of sight by the flicker of a lantern. The sods lay heavily on that dead hero's breast, until an obscure Irishman, one who preached to peasants, lifted the cumbering sods with his

"Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note;"

« AnteriorContinuar »