Diary of Private Theodore Reichardt, Wednesday, May 21, 1862

Marched at six o'clock A. M. Passed the Savage House, at the Baltimore cross-roads, (headquarters of McClellan,) St. Peter's Church, where Washington was married to Mrs. Custis, and went to camp a few miles from Bottoms' Bridge. General McClellan issued two rations of whiskey to the soldiers.

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BLOG EDITORS NOTE: George Washington married Martha Washington on January 6, 1759, at the White House Plantation in New Kent County, Virginia. The wedding took place at Martha's estate, known as the "White House," where she had lived with her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. After their marriage, George and Martha Washington moved to Mount Vernon, which became their lifelong home. The White House Plantation stood on the Pamunkey River near present-day White House, Virginia. Although the original mansion no longer survives, it is remembered as the site of one of the most famous marriages in American history.

SOURCE: Theodore Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery, p. 43

Wendell Phillips on the Puritan Principle,* December 18, 1859

I THANK GOD for John Calvin. To be sure, he burned Servetus; but the Puritans, or at least, their immediate descendants, hung the witches; George Washington held slaves; and wherever you go up and down history, you find men, not angels. Of course, you find imperfect men; but you find great men; men who have marked their own age, and moulded the succeeding; men to whose might, daring, and to whose disinterested suffering for those about them, the succeeding generations owe the larger share of their blessings; men whose lips and lives God has made the channel through which his choicest gifts come to their fellow-beings. John Calvin was one of these — perhaps the profoundest intellect of his day; certainly, one of the largest statesmen of his generation. His was the statesmanlike mind that organized Puritanism, that put ideas into the shape of institutions, and in that way organized victory, when, under Loyola, Catholicism, availing itself of the shrewdest and keenest machinery, made its reactive assault upon the new idea of the Protestant religion. If in that struggle Western Europe came out victorious, we owe it more to the statesmanship of Calvin than to the large German heart of Luther. We owe to Calvin — at least it is not unfair to claim, nor improbable in the sequence of events to suppose, that a large share of those most eminent and excellent characteristics of New England, which have made her what she is, and saved her for the future, came from the brain of John Calvin.

Luther's biography is to be read in books. The plodding patience of the German intellect has gathered up every trait and every trifle — the minutest — of his life, and you may read it spread out with loving admiration on a thousand pages of biography. Calvin's life is written, in Scotland and New England, in the triumphs of the people against priestcraft and power. To him, more than to any other man, the Puritans owed Republicanism — the Republicanism of the Church. The instinct of his own day recognized that clearly distinguishing this element of Calvinism. You see it in the wit of Charles the Second, when he said, "Calvinism is a religion unfit for a gentleman." It was unfit for a gentleman of that day; for it was a religion of the people. It recognized — first since the earliest centuries of Christianity — that the heart of God beats through every human heart, and that when you mass up the millions, with their instinctive, fair-play sense of right, and their devotional impulses, you get nearer God's heart than from the second-hand scholarship and conservative tendency of what are called the thoughtful and educated classes. We owe this element, good or bad, to Calvinism.

Then we owe to it a second element, marking the Puritans most largely, and that is — action. The Puritan was not a man of speculation. He originated nothing. His principles are to be found broadcast in the centuries behind him. His speculations were all old. You might find them in the lectures of Abelard; you meet with them in the radicalism of Wat Tyler; you find them all over the continent of Europe. The distinction between his case and that of others was, simply, that he practised what he believed. He believed God. He actually believed him, just as much as if he saw demonstrated before his eyes the truth of the principle. For it is a very easy thing to say; the difficulty is to do. If you tell a man the absolute truth, that if he will plunge into the ocean, and only keep his eyes fixed on heaven, he will never sink you can demonstrate it to him — you can prove it to him by weight and measure — each man of a thousand will believe you, as they say; and then they will plunge into the water, and nine hundred and ninety-nine will throw up their arms to clasp some straw or neighbor, and sink; the thousandth will keep his hands by his body, believing God, and float — and he is the Puritan. Every other man wants to get hold of something to stay himself; not on faith in God's eternal principle of natural or religious law, but on his neighbor; he wants to lean on somebody; he wants to catch hold of something. The Puritan puts his hands to his side and his eyes upon heaven, and floats down the centuries Faith personified.

These two elements of Puritanism are, it seems to me, those which have made New England what she is. You see them every where developing into institutions. For instance, if there is any thing that makes us, and that made Scotland, it is common schools. We got them from Geneva. Luther said, "A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war." It was the essence of aristocracy: "Better submit to any evil from above than trust the masses." Calvin no sooner set his foot in Geneva than he organized the people into a constituent element of public affairs. He planted education at the root of the Republic. The Puritans borrowed it in Holland, and brought it to New England, and it is the sheet-anchor that has held us amid the storms and the temptations of two hundred years. We have a people that can think; a people that can read; and out of the millions of refuse lumber, God selects one in a generation, and he is enough to save a State. One man that thinks for himself is the salt of a generation poisoned with printing ink or cotton dust. The Puritans scattered broadcast the seeds of thought. They knew it was an error, in counting up the population, to speak of a million of souls because there were a million of bodies — as if every man carried a soul! — but they knew, trusting the mercy of God, that by educating all, the martyrs and the saints — that do not travel in battalions, nor ever come to us in regiments, but come alone, now and then one — would be reached and unfolded, and save their own times. Puritanism, therefore, is action; it is impersonating ideas; it is distrusting and being willing to shake off, at fitting times, what are called institutions. They were above words; they went out into the wilderness, outside of forms. The consequence was that, throughout their whole history, there is the most daring confidence in being substantially right. They asked not of safety; they never were frightened by appearances; they did the substantially right thing, and left the statesmen of a hundred years after, at a safe distance, to find out the reasons why they were right. The consequence is that, when conservatism comes together to-day, whether in the form of a "Union meeting" — dead men turning in their graves and pretending to be alive — whether it be in this form or any other, its occupation is to explain how, a hundred years ago, the course taken was right, and not to see the reflection of a hundred years ago staring them in the face to-day. Like the sitting figure on our coin, they are looking back-they have no eyes for the future. The souls that God touches have their brows gilded by the dawn of the future. A man present at the glorious martyrdom of the 2d of December, said of the hero-saint who marched out of the jail, "He seemed to come, his brow radiant with triumph." It was the dawn of a future day that gilded his brow. He was high enough, in the providence of God, to catch, earlier than the present generation, the dawn of the day that he was to inaugurate.

This is my idea of Puritan principles.

Nothing new in them. How are we to vindicate them? Eminent historians and patriots have told us that the pens of the Puritans are their best witnesses. It does not seem to me so. We are their witnesses. If they lived to any purpose, they produced a generation better than themselves. The true man always makes himself to be outdone by his child. The vindication of Puritanism is a New England bound to be better than Puritanism; bound to look back and see its faults and meet the exigencies of the present day, not with stupid imitation, but with that essential disinterestedness, that faith in right and God, with which they met the exigencies of their time. Take an illustration. When our fathers stood in London, under the corporation charter of Charles, the question was, "Have we a right to remove to Massachusetts?" The lawyers said, "No." The fathers said, "Yes; we will remove to Massachusetts, and let law find the reason fifty years hence." They knew that they had the substantial right. Their motto was not "Law and Order"; it was "God and Justice" — a much better motto. Unless you take "Law and Order" in the highest meaning of the words, it is a base motto — if it means only recognizing the majority. "Crime," says Victor Hugo, "comes to history gilded and crowned, and says, 'I am not crime; I am success." And history, written by a soul girded with parchments and stunned with half a dozen languages, says, "Yes, thou art success; we accept thee." But the faithful soul below cries out, "Thou art crime! Avaunt!" There is so much in words.

This is the lesson of Puritanism—how shall we meet it to-day? Every age stereotypes its ideas into forms. It is the natural tendency; and when it is done, every age grows old and dies. It is God's beneficent providence — death When ideas have shaped themselves and become fossil and still, God takes off the weight of the dead men from their age, and leaves room for the new bud. It is a blessed institution — death! But there are men running about who think that those forms, which the old and the experience of the past have left them, are necessarily right and indispensable. They are Conservatives. The men who hold their ears open for the message of the present hour, they are the Puritans.

I know these things seem very trite; they are very trite. All truth is trite. The difficulty is not in truth. Truth never stirs up any trouble mere speculative truth. Plato taught— nobody cared what he taught; Socrates applied truth in the streets, and they poisoned him. It is when a man throws himself against society that society is startled to persecute and to think. The Puritan did not stop to think. He recognized God in his soul, and acted. If he acted wrong, our generation would load down his grave with curses. He took the risk. He took the curses of the present, but the blessings of the future swept them away, and God's sunlight rests upon his grave. That is what every brave man does. It is an easy thing to say. The old fable is of Sysiphus rolling up a stone, and the moment he gets it up to the mountain top, it rolls back again. So each generation, with much trouble, and great energy and disinterestedness, vindicates for a few of its sons the right to think; and the moment they have vindicated the right, the stone rolls back again — nobody else must think! The battle must be fought every day, because the body rebels against the soul. It is the insurrection of the soul against the body-free thought. The gods piled Ætna upon the insurgent Titans. It is the emblem of the world piling mountains—banks, gold, cotton, parties, Everetts, Cushings, Couriers — every thing dull and heavy—to keep down thought. And ever again, in each generation, the living soul, like the bursting bud, throws up the incumbent soil, and finds its way to the sunshine and to God; and is the oak of the future, leafing out, spreading its branches, and sheltering the race and time that is to come.

I hold in my hand the likeness of a child of seventeen summers, taken from the body of a boy, her husband, who lies buried on the banks of the Shenandoah. He flung himself against a State for an idea; the child of a father who lived for an idea; who said, "I know that Slavery is wrong; thou shalt do unto another as thou wouldst have another do to thee" — and flung himself against the law and order of his time. Nobody can dispute his principles. There are men who dispute his acts. It is exactly what he meant they should do. It is the collision of admitted principles with conduct which is the teaching of ethics; it is the Normal school of a generation. Puritanism went up and down England and fulfilled its mission. It revealed despotism. Charles the First and James, in order to rule, were obliged to persecute. Under the guise of what seemed government, they had hidden tyranny. Patriotism tore off the mask, and said to the enlightened conscience and sleeping intellect of England, "Behold! that is despotism!" It was the first lesson; it was the text of the English Revolution. Men still slumbered in submission to law. They tore off the semblance of law; they revealed despotism. John Brown has done the same for us to-day. The Slave system has lost its fascination. It had a certain picturesque charm for some. It called itself "chivalry," and "a state." One assault has broken the charm—it is Despotism! Look how barbarous it is! Take a single instance. A young girl throws herself upon the bosom of a Northern boy, who himself had shown mercy, and endeavors to save him from the Christian rifles of Virginia. They tore her off, and the pitiless bullet found its way to the brave young heart. She stands upon the streets of that very town, and dare not avow the motive—glorious, humane instinct—that led her to throw herself on the bosom of the hapless boy! She bows to the despotism of a brutal State, and makes excuses for her humanity! That is the Christian Virginia of 1859. In 1608, an Indian girl flung herself before her father's tomahawk on the bosom of an English gentleman, and the Indian refrained from touching the traveller whom his daughter's affection protected. Pocahontas lives to-day, the ideal beauty of Virginia, and her proudest names strive to trace their lin eage to the brave Indian girl. That was Pagan Virginia, two centuries and a half ago.

What has dragged her down from Pocahontas in 1608 to John Brown in 1859, when humanity is disgraceful, and despotism treads it out under its iron heel? — who revealed it? One brave act of an old Puritan soul, that did not stop to ask what the majority thought, or what forms were, but acted. The revelation of despotism is the great lesson which the Puritan of our month has taught us. He has flung himself, under the instinct of a great idea, against the institutions beneath which we sit; and he says, practically, to the world, as the Puritan did, "If I am a felon, bury me with curses. I will trust to a future age to judge betwixt you and me. Posterity will summon the State to judgment, and will admit my principle. I can wait." Men say it is anarchy; that this right of the individual to sit in judgment cannot be trusted. It is the lesson of Puritanism. If the individual, criticising law, cannot be trusted, then Puritanism is a mistake; for the sanctity of individual judgment is the lesson of Massachusetts history in 1620 and '30. We accepted anarchy as the safest. The Puritan said, "Human nature is sinful"; so the earth is accursed since the Fall; but I cannot find any thing better than this old earth to build on; I must put up my corner-stone upon it, cursed as it is; I cannot lay hold of the battlements of heaven." So Puritanism said, "Human nature is sinful; but it is the best basis we have got. We will build upon it, and we will trust the influences of God, the inherent gravitation of the race towards right, that it will end right."

I affirm that this is the lesson of our history: that the world is fluid; that we are on the ocean; that we cannot get rid of the people, and we do not want to; that the millions are our basis; and that God has set us this task: "If you want good institutions, do not try to bulwark out the ocean of popular thought—educate it. If you want good laws, earn them." Conservatism says, "I can make my own hearthstone safe: I can build a bulwark of gold and bayonets about it high as heaven and deep as hell, and nobody can touch me, and that is enough." Puritanism says, "It is a delusion; it is a refuge of lies; it is not safe. The waters of popular instinct will carry it away. If you want your own cradle safe, make the cradle of every other man safe and pure. Educate the people up to the law you want." How? They cannot stop for books—show them manhood—show them a brave act. What has John Brown done for us? The world doubted over the horrid word "insurrection," whether the victim had a right to arrest the course of his master, and, even at any expense of blood, to vindicate his rights; and Brown said to his neighbors in the old school-house at North Elba, sitting among the snows—where nothing grows but men—wheat freezes—"I can go South, and show the world that he has a right to rise and can rise." He went, girded about by his household, carrying his sons with him. Proof of a life devoted to an idea! Not a single spasmodic act of greatness, coming out with no background, but the flowering of sixty years. The proof of it, that every thing around him grouped itself harmoniously, like the planets around the central sun. He went down to Virginia, took possession of a town, and held it. He says, "You thought this was strength; I demonstrate it is weakness. You thought this was civil society; I show you it is a den of pirates." Then he turned around in his sublimity, with his Puritan devotional heart, and said to the millions, "Learn!" And God lifted a million hearts to his gibbet, as the Roman cross lifted a million of hearts to it, in that divine sacrifice of two thousand years ago. To-day, more than a statesman could have taught in seventy years, one act of a week has taught these eighteen millions of people.

What shall it teach us? "Go thou and do likewise." Do it, by a resolute life. Do it, by a fearless rebuke. Do it, by preaching the sermon of which this act is the text. Do it, by standing by the great example which God has given us. Do it, by tearing asunder the veil of respectability which covers brutality, calling itself law. We had a "Union meeting" in this city a while ago. For the first time for a quarter of a century, political brutality dared to enter the sacredness of the sick chamber, and visit with ridicule the broken intellect, sheltered from criticism under the cover of sickness. Never, since I knew Boston, has any lip, however embittered, dared to open the door which God's hand had closed, making the inmate sacred, as he rested in broken health. The four thousand men who sat beneath the speaker are said to have received it in silence. If so, it can only be that they were not surprised at the brutality from such lips. And those who sat at his side—they judge us by our associates—they criticise us, in general, for the loud word of any comrade—shall we take the scholar of New England, and drag him down to the level of the brutal Swiss of politics, and judge him indecent because his associates were indecent? Gladly do I seize the opportunity of protesting, in the name of Boston decency, against the brutal language of a man,—thank God, not born on our peninsula,—against the noble and benighted intellect of Gerrit Smith, whom God bless with new health.

On that occasion, too, a noble island was calumniated. The New England scholar, bereft of every thing else on which to arraign the great movement in Virginia, takes up a lie about St. Domingo, and hurls it in the face of an ignorant audience—ignorant, because no man ever thought it worth while to do justice to the negro. Edward Everett would be the last to allow us to take an English version of Bunker Hill, to take an Englishman's account of Hamilton and Washington, when they ordered the scaffold of Andre, and read it to an American audience as a faithful description of the scene. But when he wants to malign a race, he digs up from the prejudice of an enemy they had conquered a forgotten lie—showing how weak was the cause he espoused, when the opposite must be assailed with falsehood, for it could not be assailed with any thing else. I said that they had gone to sleep, and only turned in their graves — those men in Faneuil Hall. It was not wholly true. The chairman came down from the heart of the Commonwealth, and spoke to Boston safe words in Faneuil Hall, for which he would have been lynched at Richmond, had he uttered them there that evening. I rejoice that a hunker cannot live in Massachusetts, without being wider awake than he imagines. He must imbibe fanaticism. Insurrection is epidemic in the State; treason is our inheritance. The Puritans planted it in the very structure of the State; and when their children try to curse a martyr, like the prophet of old, half the curse, at least, turns into a blessing. I thank God for that Massachusetts! Let us not blame our neighbors too much. There is something in the very atmosphere that stands above the ashes of the Puritans, that prevents the very most servile of hearts from holding a meeting which the despots of Virginia can relish. It is a hard task to be servile within forty miles of Plymouth. They have not learned the part; with all their wish, they play it awkwardly. It is the old, stiff Puritan trying to bend, and they do it with a marvellous lack of grace. I read encouragement in the very signs—the awkward attempts made to resist this very effort of the glorious martyr of the Northern hills of New York. Virginia herself looks into his face and melts; she has nothing but praises. She tries to scan his traits; they are too manly, and she bows. Her press can only speak of his manhood. One must get outside the influence of his personal presence before the slaves of Virginia can dig up a forgotten Kansas lie, and hurl it against the picture which Virginian admiration has painted. That does not come from Virginia. Northern men volunteer to do the work which Virginia, lifted for a moment by the sight of martyrdom, is unable to accomplish. A Newburyport man comes to Boston, and says that he knows John Brown was at the massacre of Pottawattomie. He was only twenty-five miles off! The Newburyport orator gets within thirty miles of the truth, and that is very near — for him! But Virginia was unable—mark you!—Virginia was unable to criticise. She could only bow. It is the most striking evidence of the majesty of the action.

There is one picture which stands out in bright relief in this event. On that mountain-side of the Adirondack, up among the snows, there is a plain cottage — "plain living, and high thinking," as Wordsworth says. Grouped there are a family of girls and boys, hardly over twenty; sitting supreme, the majestic spirit of a man just entering age—life one purpose. Other men breed their sons for ambition, avarice, trade; he breeds his for martyrdom, and they accept serenely their places. Hardly a book under its roof but the Bible. No sound so familiar as prayer. He takes them in his right hand and in his left, and goes down to the land of bondage. Like the old Puritans of two hundred years ago, the muskets are on one side and the pikes upon the other; but the morning prayer goes up from the domestic altar, as it did from the lips of Brewster and Carver, and no morsel is ever tasted without that same grace which was made at Plymouth and Salem; and at last he flings himself against the gigantic system, which trembles under his single arm. You measure the strength of a blow by the force of the rebound. Men thought Virginia a Commonwealth; he reveals it a worse than Austrian despotism. Neighbors dare not speak to each other; Courts cannot wait for the slow step of Saxon forms and safeguards; startled Judges have no time to take notes of testimony; no man can travel on the highway without a passport; the telegraph wires are sealed, except with a permit; the State shakes beneath the tramp of cannon and armed men. What does she fear? Conscience. The apostle has come to torment her, and he finds the weakest spot herself. She dares not trust the usual forms of justice. Arraigned in what she calls her court, is a wounded man, on a pallet, unable to stand. The civilized world stands aghast. She says, "It is necessary." Why? "I stand on a volcano. The Titans are heaving beneath the mountains. Thought—the earthquake of conscience—is below me." It is the acknowledgment of defeat. The Roman thought, when he looked upon the Cross, that it was the symbol of infamy — only the vilest felon hung there. One sacred sacrifice, and the cross nestles in our hearts, the emblem of every thing holy. Virginia erects her gibbet, repulsive in name and form. One man goes up from it to God, with two hundred thousand broken fetters in his hands, and henceforth it is sacred forever.

I said, that to vindicate Puritanism, the children must be better than the fathers. Lo, this event! Brewster, and Carver, and Bradford, and Winthrop faced a New England winter and defied law for themselves. For us, their children, they planted and sowed. They said, "Lo! our rights are trodden under foot; our cradles are not safe; our prayers may not ascend to God." They formed a State, and achieved that liberty. John Brown goes a stride beyond them. Under his own roof, he might pray at liberty; his own children wore no fetters. In the catalogue of Saxon heroes and martyrs, the Ridleys and the Latimers, he only saw men dying for themselves; in the brave souls of our own day, he saw men good as their fathers; but he leaped beyond them, and died for a race whose blood he did not share. This child of seventeen years gives her husband for a race into whose eyes she never looked. Braver than Carver or Winthrop, more disinterested than Bradford, broader than Hancock or Washington, pure as the brightest names on our catalogue — nearer God's heart, for, with a divine magnanimity he comprehended all races - Ridley and Latimer minister before him. He sits in that heaven of which he showed us the open door, with the great men of Saxon blood ministering below his feet. And yet they have a right to say, "We created him."

Lord Bacon, as he takes his march down the centuries, may put one hand on the telegraph and the other on the steam engine, and say, "These are mine, for I taught you to invent." So the Puritans may bless John Brown, and say, "You are ours, though you have gone beyond us, for we taught you to believe in God. We taught you to say, God is God, and trample wicked laws under your feet." And now, from that Virginia gibbet, he says to us, "The maxim I taught you, practise it! The principle I have shown you, apply it! If the crisis becomes sterner, meet it! If the battle is closer, be true to my memory! Men say my act was a failure. I showed what I promised, that the slave ought to resist, and could. Sixteen men I placed under the shelter of English law, and then I taught the millions. Prove that my enterprise was not a failure, by showing a North ready to stand behind it, I am willing, in God's service, to plunge with ready martyrdom into the chasm that opens in the forum, only show yourselves worthy to stand upon my grave!"

It seems to me that this is the lesson of Puritanism, as it is read to us to-day. "Law" and "order" are only names for the halting ignorance of the last generation. John Brown is the impersonation of God's order and God's law, moulding a better future, and setting for it an example.

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* A Discourse delivered before the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, (Rev. Theodore Parker's,) in the Music Hall, Boston, on Sunday, December 18, 1859.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, pp. 105-18

Private John C. West to Mary Stark West, May 26, 1863

CAMP ON THE RAPIDAN,        

MAY 26TH, 1863.

MY PRECIOUS WIFE:

The order to move has been countermanded for the present, and we will be on picket duty for a few days. I wrote you yesterday, thinking it was Tuesday, and that Mr. Robinson would leave to day; so I will continue the account of my trip from Columbia. I left there on the 20th in company with Decca Stark, who was about to pay a visit to Mrs. Jennie Preston Means. I found Stark Means at the depot in Winsboro. He is looking very well and his wounds have nearly healed. I found all those up-country villages a great deal larger and more prosperous looking than I expected.

When I reached Weldon I found Troutman there as quartermaster, and spent an hour or two with him very pleasantly, talking over old college days. He has married Miss Napier and seems to be in good circumstances. Miss Lou Neely has married Ed. McClure. John Neely is dead. John McLemore, Lucius Gaston and Charlie Boyd (Capt), have all been killed in battle. The sacrifice of a nation of hired Hessians will not atone for the loss of such men as these. I took supper with Troutman, at the commissary's residence, and had a first-rate meal. I reached Richmond on Friday morning about 9 o'clock, and after paying a barber $2.50 for a shave and shampoo I took a stroll over the city; called on Mrs. Wigfall, Mrs. Chestnut, Miss Barnwell, etc., etc., and found all at home except Miss Nannie Norton, whom I also called to see; and I also called on Miss Mary E. Fisher. Miss Nannie was on a visit to Raleigh.

I had a letter from Mrs. Julia Bachman to Miss Fisher. She asked me in and gave me a drink of water, flavored with mint, which was very acceptable. Mrs. Carter, whom I met at Mrs. Barnwell's, seemed very glad to hear from you and asked to be remembered to you. Mr. Barnwell was quite sick. Mrs. Chestnut invited me to dine and Willie Preston to meet me; he is a major of artillery. Jack Preston has married Miss Huger. I delivered Mr. Carter's letter to Mr. Winston, but he had no time to talk to me; he has a task for each day and not a moment to spare. I spent more of my time sightseeing, but was especially interested in the equestrian statue of Washington, which surmounts a plain shaft of marble, with a granite base. There are also on the same monument statues of Jefferson, Mason and Henry. This is in Capitol Square, which is beautifully shaded. The Square is a great resort for all classes in leisure hours. Just at this point I was called out to our company drill, which has given me an hour and a half of good exercise. I must write a letter to some of the folks at Austin; so will have to curtail this. Let me repeat, you must take good care of yourself and not trouble about me. If you cannot manage any other way you must quit thinking of me entirely, except enough to keep from forgetting me altogether. My little picture of you copied from one in Columbia is charming, and is a source of great pleasure to me. Tell the servants to behave well, and to obey you, or I will haunt them. Talk to the children about me every day and tell Stark to say his lessons regularly.

Your husband, faithfully ever,

JOHN C. WEST.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 65-8

Victor Hugo to Maria Weston Chapman, July 6, 1851

PARIS, 6th July, 1851.

MADAME: I have scarcely any thing to add to your letter. I would cheerfully sign every line of it. Pursue your holy work. You have with you all great souls and all good hearts.

You are pleased to believe, and to assure me, that my voice, in this august cause of liberty, will be listened to by the great American people, whom I love so profoundly, and whose destinies, I am fain to think, are closely linked with the mission of France. You desire me to lift up my voice.

I will do it at once, and I will do it on all occasions. I agree with you in thinking, that, within a definite time—that within a time not distant—the United States will repudiate Slavery with horror! Slavery in such a country! Can there be an incongruity more monstrous? Barbarism installed in the very heart of a country, which is itself the affirmation of Civilization; liberty wearing a chain; blasphemy echoing from the altar; the collar of the negro chained to the pedestal of Washington! It is a thing unheard of. I say more; it is impossible. Such a spectacle would destroy itself. The light of the nineteenth century alone is enough to destroy it.

What! Slavery sanctioned, by law, among that illustrious people, who for seventy years have measured the progress of civilization by their march, demonstrated Democracy by their power, and liberty by their prosperity! Slavery in the United States! It is the duty of this Republic to set such a bad example no longer. It is a shame, and she was never born to bow her head.

It is not when Slavery is taking leave of old nations, that it should be received by the new. What! When Slavery is departing from Turkey, shall it rest in America? What! Drive it from the hearth of Omar, and adopt it at the hearth of Franklin! No! No! No!

There is an inflexible logic which develops more or less slowly, which fashions, which redresses according to a mysterious plan, perceptible only to great spirits, the facts, the men, the laws, the morals, the people; or better, under all human things, there are things divine.

Let all those great souls who love the United States, as a country, be re-assured. The United States must renounce Slavery, or they must renounce Liberty. They cannot renounce Liberty. They must renounce Slavery, or renounce the Gospel. They will never renounce the Gospel.

Accept, Madame, with my devotion to the cause you advocate, the homage of my respect.

VICTOR HUGO.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, pp. 103-4

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant John S. Morgan, Wednesday, February 22, 1865

The 28th Wis embark on the Belle ve Dere. Raining still. Our wagons loaded on Bell ve & detail sent arond with them, the Regt to go by car to lake Ponchertrain Genl A. J. Smiths Corps landing 4 miles below on the east side continues to rain & blow. Washingtons Birthday hundreds of flags & a national salute.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, p. 575

Diary of Senator Orville Hickman Browning, Saturday, February 22, 1862

At 1 O'clock P. M. the Senate proceeded to the Hall of the House, where Washingtons Farewell address was read in the presence of both Houses by Col. Forney, Secy of the Senate. *The Senate then returned to its chamber, and was in session till 4. P. M.

At night I returned to the Presidents and again sat up part of the night with his little son

SOURCE: The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, Vol. 1, p. 531

Diary of Private Theodore Reichardt, Saturday, February 22, 1862

Camp Wilkes. The rebels fired salutes in honor of Washington's birthday.

SOURCE: Theodore Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery, p. 32

Alexander H. Stephens to John J. Crittenden, February 17, 1852

WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 17, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR,—It is the wish of the committee that the birthnight celebration come off at Willard's Hotel on Saturday night, and that you should respond to a sentiment in allusion to the President and heads of the administration. I intended to call and give you notice of the position assigned you in the order of the day, but have been too much occupied. You must hold yourself in readiness for the call made upon you.

The dinner is an anti-Kossuth affair, or at least it is intended as a demonstration in favor of the neutral policy of Washington. It is our intention to have the proceedings of the evening, with all the speeches, etc., printed in neat pamphlet form for circulation. Hour of meeting, seven o'clock.

Yours most respectfully,

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 27

John J. Crittenden’s Speeches during the Congressional Celebration of Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1852

Mr. Crittenden, in answer to loud calls from all parts of the hall, rose and said:

Mr. PRESIDENT,—I regret that in this company, where there are so many others more capable, I should have been selected and called upon to respond to the toast announcing the Father of his Country as its mighty theme. You have met, sir, to commemorate the anniversary of his birth. The occasion and the associations by which we are surrounded,—here, in the city which he founded, at the capital and seat of government which he established, in sight of Mount Vernon, his chosen residence and the sacred sepulchre of his remains,—the occasion and the associations make us feel as though we were almost brought into his presence; at least his name is here,—a name which can never die,—a living name, before which every head in the civilized world is bent in reverence, and to which the homage of every true American heart is due. [Loud cheers.] I almost fear to speak on such a subject. The character of Washington has ascended above the ordinary language of eulogy. A Cæsar, a Napoleon, a Cromwell may excite the noisy applause of the world, and inflame the passions of men by the story of their fields and their fame; but the name of Washington occupies a different, a serener, a calmer, a more celestial sphere. [Great applause.] There is not in his character, and there is not about his name, any of that turbulence, and excitement, and glare which constitute glory in the vulgar and worldly sense of the term. His name has sunk deep into the hearts of mankind, and more especially has it sunk deep into the mind and heart of America, and in that secret and inner temple it will reside without any of the forms of ostentatious idolatry. It resides in the inner recesses of the hearts of his countrymen; and, like an oracle, is continually whispering lessons of patriotism and of virtue. [Great cheering.] He never sought or asked for what men call glory. He sought to serve his kind and his country by his beneficence and his virtues, and he found in that service, and in the performance of his duty, that only and that richest reward which can recompense the patriot and the statesman. [Renewed and enthusiastic applause.] That was our Washington. Let all the rest of the world present anything like his parallel. The verdict of mankind has already assigned to him a preeminent and solitary grandeur. [Applause.] In him all the virtues seemed to be combined in the fairest proportions. The elements were so mixed in him, and his blood and judgment were so commingled, that all the virtues seemed to be the natural result, and to flow spontaneously from the combination, as water from the purest fountain. In him the exercise of the most exalted virtue required no exertion; it was part and parcel of his nature, and of the glorious organization "to which every god had seemed to set his seal." [Applause.] Where was there any error in him? He was a man, and, therefore, in all humility, we, who share that humanity, must acknowledge that he had his imperfections; but who, through his long and eventful life, can point to an error or to a vice committed, or a duty omitted? His character was made up and compounded of all the virtues that constitute the hero, patriot, statesman, and benefactor [cheers], and all his achievements were but the practical developments of that character and of those virtues. [Applause.] He was the same everywhere,—in the camp, in the cabinet, at Mount Vernon. No difference could be distinguished anywhere. His greatness was of that innate and majestic character that was present with him everywhere. It was that which gave him his dignity, and not the occasional situations or offices which he held under the government. He dignified office; he elevated the highest rank, military or civil, which he ever held. No rank, military or civil, ever raised him, or could come up to that majesty of character which the God of his nature had implanted in him. [Great cheering.] That was our Washington. He was a firm believer in a divine Providence, and it belonged to his elevated and majestic mind to be so, a mind that connected itself with the throne of the Deity from which it sprung. His heart was purified, and his motives were elevated by constant recurrence to that divine assistance which he thought was extended to his country, and to himself in his service of that country. Our history as a people is, to a remarkable extent, a history of providences; and among all the benignities of Providence, in a worldly point of view, I know no greater gift that she has conferred upon us than in the person of Washington himself. [Cheers.] She raised him up at the appointed time. She raised him up at a grand crisis in the affairs of mankind, when the thoughts of men were about taking a new direction; when the old things, the old despotisms, were about to pass away under the influence of a dawning public opinion which was about to reassert the long-lost rights of mankind; when you, a new-born people, for whom this mighty continent had been reserved as the most magnificent land that the Almighty ever prepared for man, had grown to an estate to feel your strength, to know your rights, and to be willing to struggle for them; Washington was raised up to become the great leader of those great popular principles of human rights, and to consecrate them, as it were, by connecting them in his own person with every personal, moral, private, and public virtue; not leaving us to mere idealism, but exhibiting and embodying, in his own venerated and beloved person, all those mighty principles which were necessary to our success and to the establishment of our liberties. He led us triumphantly through a seven years' war; and our glorious Revolution being successfully accomplished, he applied himself, with all his influence and all his wisdom, to secure, by free and permanent institutions, all the blessings that liberty and independence could confer on his country. Our present Constitution and form of government were the grand results of his patriotic efforts. A new government being thus established, he was by the unanimous voice of his country called to the presidential office, that by his wisdom and influence he might put into practice and consolidate those new and untried institutions, by which all the blessings acquired by the Revolution and contemplated by that government were to be practically secured to the people of the United States. He served till the success of the experiment was demonstrated. He retired then to his beloved Mount Vernon, and there passed in honored privacy the remainder of his life. Where can another such character be exhibited on the pages of history? Providence intended him for a model. She has made his character cover the whole space of political and of private life. [Applause.] She trained him up in the humblest walks of private life. There he knew the wants and wishes and condition of the humblest of his fellow-citizens. The confidence which he inspired everywhere spread with every step that he advanced in life. He became commander of the army. With all the military despotism that belongs to such a state, he used his power without the oppression of a human being. During a seven years' war, amid such trials and troubles as no people ever saw, in no exigency, by no extremity, was he driven to the necessity of committing a trespass or wrong upon any man or any man's property. He needed no act of amnesty afterwards, by the government, to protect him against personal responsibility, which acts of violence might have rendered necessary to others. He led you triumphantly on. He was an example to all military men. He became President. He has left us an example there, to which we look back with filial reverence, and long, long may we do so. [Great applause.]

Before his retirement from office, he made to the people of the United States that "Farewell Address" so familiar to the thoughts of us all. It contains, as he himself said, the advice of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. It was the gathered wisdom of all his life and of all his experience. What a legacy! We rejoice in riches that no nation ever knew before. What are the mines of California with their perishing gold to this? You have a legacy left you in the wisdom of that man that is above all price. The Romans shouted, the Romans exulted, when Mark Antony told them that Cæsar had left them a few denarii, and the privilege of walking in his gardens. That was the imperial bequest. How ignoble, how trifling, does the Roman seem to you, my countrymen, who exult to-day in the legacy which was left you in the Farewell Address of Washington! [Great applause.] That is imperishable. So long as we remember it, it will render our government and our liberties imperishable; and when we forget it, it will survive in the memory, I trust in God, of some other people more worthy of it, even if it be to shame this degenerate republic. [Enthusiastic applause.] That Farewell Address contains wisdom enough, if we but attend to it; contains lessons enough to guide us in all our duties as citizens, and in all our public affairs. [Applause.] There are two subjects which recent occurrences have turned our attention to with particular interest, and which I may be allowed on this occasion to advert to, in no spirit of controversy or of unkindness towards any one, but in that spirit which induces me to desire to see every lesson of Washington daily, and constantly, and freshly brought to the mind of every citizen of the United States. To my children they were brought as their first lessons. There is none too old to profit by them, and they cannot be learned too early. You are familiar with that address, gentlemen, and I will therefore only ask you to allow me to allude to the two subjects upon which he has been peculiarly emphatic in his advice. The one is to preserve the union of the States [loud cheers]; that, he says, is the main pillar of the edifice of our independence and of our liberties; frown down every attempt to bring it into question, much less to subvert it; when it is gone all is gone. Let us heed this lesson, and be careful. I trust in God we have no grounds to apprehend such a degree of oppression as will compel us to raise our suicidal arms for the destruction of this great government, and of this Union which makes us brethren. [Great applause.] I do not allow my mind to look forward to such a disaster. I will look upon this Union as indissoluble, and as firmly rooted as the mountains of our native land. I will hope so; I will believe so. I will so act; and nothing but a necessity, invincible and overwhelming, can drive me to disunion. This is the sentiment, as I understand it, which Washington inculcates. Thank God, we have every hope of the restoration of every kind feeling now which made us, in times past, a united band of brothers from one end of this land to the other. [Loud cheers.] But there are external dangers, also, against which Washington warns us; and that is the second subject to which I desire to ask your attention. Beware, he says, of the introduction or exercise of a foreign influence among you. [Loud and prolonged cheering.] We are Americans. Washington has taught us, and we have learned to govern ourselves. [Cheers.] If the rest of the world have not yet learned that great lesson, how shall they teach us? Shall they undertake to expound to us the Farewell Address of our Washington, or to influence us to depart from the policy recommended by him? [Great cheering.] We are the teachers, and they have not, or they will not, learn; and yet they come to teach us. [Here the whole company rose, and gave three tremendous cheers.] Be jealous, he said, of all foreign influence, and enter into entangling alliances with none. Cherish no particular partiality or prejudice for or against any people. [Cheers.] Be just to all,—impartial to all. It is folly to expect disinterested favors from any nation. [Great cheering.] That is not the relation or character of nations. Favor is a basis too uncertain upon which to place any steadfast or permanent relations. Justice and the interests of the parties is the only sound and substantial basis for national relations. So said General Washington,—so he teaches. He asks, "Why quit our own, to stand on foreign ground?" [Cheers.] Go not abroad to mingle yourselves in the quarrels or wars of other nations. Take care to do them no wrong, but avoid the romantic notion of righting the wrongs of all the world, and resisting by arms the oppression of all. [Great cheering.]

The sword and the bayonet have been useful in defending the rights and liberties of those who used them, but in what other hands have they ever contributed to promote the cause of freedom or of human rights? [Cheers.] The heart must be prepared for liberty. The understanding must know what it is, and how to value it. Then, if you put proper arms into the hands of the nation so imbued, I'll warrant you they will obtain and sustain their freedom. [Applause.] We have given the world an example of that success. But three millions, scattered over a vast territory, opposed to the most powerful enemy on earth, we went triumphantly through our Revolution and established our liberties. [Cheers.] But it is said that we have a right to interfere in the affairs of other nations, and in the quarrels of other nations. Why, certainly we have, certainly we have. Any man has the right, if he pleases, to busy himself in the affairs and quarrels of all his neighbors; but he will not be likely to profit by it, and would be called a busybody for his pains. [Laughter and applause.] We, as a nation, have a right to decide—and it is always a question of expediency whether we will or will not interfere in the affairs of other nations. There are cases so connected with our own interests, and with the cause of humanity, that interference would be proper. But still, it is a question for the sound discretion of this people, a question always of expediency,—whether you will or will not interfere; and it is just because it is a question of that character, and because our passions and sympathies may often tempt us to err upon it, that Washington has made it the subject of this emphatic admonition. [Applause.] It is not because we have not the right to interfere, but it is because we have the right, and because we are surrounded by temptations, by the temptations of generous hearts and noble principles,— to transcend the limits of prudence and of policy, and to interfere in the affairs of our neighbors, that he has admonished us. [Applause.] Washington, with that forecast and that prophetic spirit which constituted a part of his character, saw through all this. He knew the warm and generous natures of his countrymen. He knew their susceptibility, and he knew where the danger of error was; and it is there that his wisdom has erected, as far as his advice can do it, a bulwark for our protection. [Applause.] He tells you, "Stand upon your own ground." [Renewed applause.] That is the ground to stand upon.

What can you do by interference? Argument is unnecessary. The name of Washington ought to be authority,—prophetic, oracular authority for us. Is our mission in this world to interfere by arms? It is but little now, comparatively, of good that the bayonet and the sword can do. The plowshare does a thousand times more than either. [Great cheering.] The time was when arms were powerful instruments of oppression; but they cannot do much now, unless they are aided by the mercenary and degenerate spirit of the people over whom they are brandished. What could we do by armed interference in European politics? So mighty at home, what could we do abroad? How would our eagles pine and die if carried abroad, without the auspices of Washington, and against his advice, to engage in foreign wars of intervention, in distant regions of despotism, where we could no longer feed them from the plenteous tables of our liberty! [Enthusiastic applause.] We can do nothing there. We can do nothing in that way. I am not one of those who shrink from this thing simply because blood is to be shed. I have seen war. I have voted for maintaining it. I have contributed to maintain it. I pretend to no exquisite sensibility upon the subject of shedding blood where our public interest or our public glory call upon my fellow-citizens to lay down their lives and shed their blood. [Applause.] But I do not wish to see them depart from those great and sure principles of policy which I am certain will lead my country to a greatness which will give to her word a power beyond that of armies in distant parts of the world. [Cheers.]

Our mission, so far as it concerns our distant brethren, is not a mission of arms. We are here to do what Washington advised us to do,—take care of our Union, have a proper respect for the Constitution and laws of our country, cultivate peace and commerce with all nations, do equal justice to all nations, and thereby set an example to them, and show forth in ourselves the blessings of self-government to all the world. [Applause.] Thus you will best convince mankind. Seeing you prosper, they will follow your example, and do likewise. It is by that power of opinion, by that power of reformation, that you can render the mightiest and greatest service that is in your power towards the spread of liberty all over the world. Adopt the policy of interference, and what is its consequence? War, endless war. If one interferes, another will interfere, and another, and another, and so this doctrine for the protection of republican liberty and human rights results in a perpetual, widespread, and wider-spreading war, until all mankind, overcome by slaughter and ruin, shall fall down bleeding and exhausted. [Applause.] I can see no other end, or good in it, unless you suppose that nations will consent that one alone shall erect itself into the arbiter and judge of the conduct of all the other nations, and that it alone shall interfere to execute what it alone determines to be national law. That alone can prevent widespread devastation from the adoption of this principle of intervention.

I beg pardon for the time I have occupied, but I hope that I may be excused for saying that I feel safer, I feel that my country is safer, while pursuing the policy of Washington, than in making any new experiments in politics, upon any new expositions of Washington's_legacy and advice to the American people. [Great cheering.] I want to stand super antiquas vias,— upon the old road that Washington traveled, and that every President, from Washington to Fillmore, has traveled. [Great cheering.] This policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries has been maintained and sanctified by all our great magistrates. [Renewed cheering.] I may be defective in what is called "the spirit of the age," for aught I know; but I acknowledge that I feel safer in this ancient and well-tried policy than in the novelties of the present day.

And now, in conclusion, I hope I may be excused for saying that it has been the effort, and the honest effort, of the present administration-I ask no compliment for it-to follow in the

track that Washington marked out, and, with whatever unequal steps, it has endeavored to follow after him. That has been the model upon which Mr. Fillmore has endeavored, as it regarded all foreign countries, to fashion the course of policy of his administration. [Great applause.]

 

(Close of the Congressional Banquet given in memory of General Washington, 22d of February, 1852, in Washington City.)

Mr. Crittenden rose and said: This is the anniversary of the battle of Buena Vista. We commemorate it as the birthday of our Washington. I have said that Washington is a name that cannot die; it is a living name, and it will be a living name until we as a people are dead. It fought with us at the battle of Buena Vista. The name passed from soldier to soldier when those fearful odds of battle were counted: twenty-five thousand to four or five thousand raw militia! and the frequent exclamation heard among our ranks that "This is Washington's birthday” gave strength to every arm and fortified the courage of every heart. The name and spirit of Washington enabled us to conquer that day.

An honored and venerable gentleman (Mr. Curtis) has said “that the grave claims its due." Well, let the old usurer have it. What is it at last that is his due? The poor corporeal remnants of this poor humanity.

The spirit lives after it. The spirit of Washington is immortal, and still moves and acts upon the hearts of his countrymen. His form—his visible bodily form—has passed away from us, that majestic form “where every god had set his seal to give the world assurance of a man." [Cheers.] That is buried! gone beyond our sight! But his great spirit remains with us that potent, mighty spirit; mighty to save, mighty to inspire, mighty to do battle for his countrymen, for whom he lived—for whom he died. That spirit did inspire us at Buena Vista, and to its influence we owe that memorable victory. It lives everywhere,—lives, sir, in us. The judge upon the bench partakes it. Presidents and generals acknowledge its power, and seek to emulate and follow the example of Washington. I know from intimate and long acquaintance that that old soldier (pointing to General Scott) who has so victoriously commanded our armies and led them to battle and to victory, has felt and cultivated the influence of that spirit, that his great ambition has been to fashion himself after that model man, General Washington.

But, Mr. President, we cannot well celebrate the 22d of February without having our hearts turned, also, to some memory of the victory of Buena Vista,—occurring on the same day, and seeming to have emanated from the nativity of our Washington to shed, like a bright star, new lustre upon it.

We cannot think of Buena Vista without a grateful remembrance of that famous old soldier and leader to whom, under Providence, we were indebted for that victory—a victory almost without a parallel in history. The battles of his life are all over, and he sleeps with the mighty dead.

Allow me to offer you the illustrious name of that brave, good, and patriotic man, the hero of Buena Vista, General Taylor, the late President of the United States.

This toast was drunk standing and in silence.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 28-36

Senator Charles Sumner to the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives, May 14, 1851

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

BY the hands of the Secretary of the Commonwealth I have received a certificate, that by concurrent votes of the two branches of the Legislature, namely, by the Senate on the 22d day of January, and the House of Representatives on the 24th day of April, in conformity to the provisions of the Constitution and Laws of the United States, I was duly elected a Senator to represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States for the term of six years, commencing on the 4th day of March, 1851.

If I were to follow the customary course, I should receive this in silence. But the protracted and unprecedented contest which ended in my election, the interest it awakened, the importance universally conceded to it, the ardor of opposition and the constancy of support which it aroused, also the principles which more than ever among us it brought into discussion, seem to justify, what my own feelings irresistibly prompt, a departure from this rule. If, beyond these considerations, any apology is needed for thus directly addressing the Legislature, I may find it in the example of an illustrious predecessor, whose clear and venerable name will be a sufficient authority.

The trust conferred on me is one of the most weighty which a citizen can receive. It concerns the grandest interests of our own Commonwealth, and also of the Union in which we are an indissoluble link. Like every post of eminent duty, it is a post of eminent honor. A personal ambition, such as I cannot confess, might be satisfied to possess it. But when I think what it requires, I am obliged to say that its honors are all eclipsed by its duties.

Your appointment finds me in a private station, with which I am entirely content. For the first time in my life I am called to political office. With none of the experience possessed by others to smooth the way of labor, I might well hesitate. But I am cheered by the generous confidence which throughout a lengthened contest persevered in sustaining me, and by the conviction, that, amidst all seeming differences of party, the sentiments of which I am the known advocate, and which led to my original selection as candidate, are dear to the hearts of the people throughout this Commonwealth. I derive, also, a most grateful consciousness of personal independence from the circumstance, which I deem it frank and proper thus publicly to declare and place on record, that this office comes to me unsought and undesired.

Acknowledging the right of my country to the service of her sons wherever she chooses to place them, and with a heart full of gratitude that a sacred cause is permitted to triumph through me, I now accept the post of Senator.

I accept it as the servant of Massachusetts, mindful of the sentiments solemnly uttered by her successive Legislatures, of the genius which inspires her history, and of the men, her perpetual pride and ornament, who breathed into her that breath of Liberty which early made her an example to her sister States. In such a service, the way, though new to my footsteps, is illumined by lights which cannot be missed.

I accept it as the servant of the Union, bound to study and maintain the interests of all parts of our country with equal patriotic care, to discountenance every effort to loosen any of those ties by which our fellowship of States is held in fraternal company, and to oppose all sectionalism, in whatsoever form, whether in unconstitutional efforts by the North to carry so great a boon as Freedom into the Slave States, in unconstitutional efforts by the South, aided by Northern allies, to carry the sectional evil of Slavery into the Free States, or in any efforts whatsoever to extend the sectional domination of Slavery over the National Government. With me the Union is twice blessed: first, as powerful guardian of the repose and happiness of thirty-one States, clasped by the endearing name of country; and next, as model and beginning of that all-embracing Federation of States, by which unity, peace, and concord will finally be organized among the Nations. Nor do I believe it possible, whatever the delusion of the hour, that any part can be permanently lost from its well-compacted bulk. E Pluribus Unum is stamped upon the national coin, the national territory, and the national heart. Though composed of many parts united into one, the Union is separable only by a crash which shall destroy the whole.

Entering now upon the public service, I venture to bespeak for what I do or say that candid judgment which I trust always to have for others, but which I am well aware the prejudices of party too rarely concede. I may fail in ability, but not in sincere effort, to promote the general weal. In the conflict of opinion, natural to the atmosphere of liberal institutions, I may err; but I trust never to forget the prudence which should temper firmness, or the modesty which becomes the consciousness of right. If I decline to recognize as my guides the leading men of to-day, I shall feel safe while I follow the master principles which the Union was established to secure, leaning for support on the great Triumvirate of American Freedom, Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson. And since true politics are simply morals applied to public affairs, I shall find constant assistance from those everlasting rules of right and wrong which are a law alike to individuals and communities.

Let me borrow, in conclusion, the language of another: "I see my duty, that of standing up for the liberties of my country; and whatever difficulties and discouragements lie in my way, I dare not shrink from it; and I rely on that Being who has not left to us the choice of duties, that, whilst I conscientiously discharge mine, I shall not finally lose my reward." These are words attributed to Washington, in the early darkness of the American Revolution. The rule of duty is the same for the lowly and the great; and I hope it may not seem presumptuous in one so humble as myself to adopt his determination, and to avow his confidence.

I have the honor to be, fellow-citizens,

With sincere regard,        

Your faithful friend and servant,                    

CHARLES SUMNER.

BOSTON, May 14, 1851.

SOURCE: The Works of Charles Sumner, Volume 2, 437-40

Diary of Private John J. Wyeth, November 28, 1862

We went to bed late last night, but had to get up at the regular time this morning. It was hard work after having had a holiday to strike into the old routine at once. There is nothing ahead now but Christmas, pay-day, Washington's Birthday, or another march to enliven us. We have had a few boxes from home, but hope for more, as yesterday a vessel arrived. Our letters say they are coming. We hope to get them about Christmas time, but will use them if they arrive sooner.

At dress-parade to-night Col. Lee complimented us on our behavior yesterday, and upon the way we celebrated.

SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of North Carolina from September 1862 to June 1863, p. 22-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 22, 1865

Bright and frosty. A fine February for fruit. Yesterday the Senate postponed action on the Negro bill. What this means I cannot conjecture, unless there are dispatches from abroad, with assurances of recognition based upon stipulations of emancipation, which cannot be carried into effect without the consent of the States, and a majority of these seem in a fair way of falling into the hands of the Federal generals.

The House passed the bill to abolish quartermasters and commissaries in a modified form, excepting those collecting tax in kind; and this morning those officers in this city under forty-five years of age advertise the location of their places of business as collectors of tax in kind, Capt. Wellford, a kinsman of Mr. Seddon, among the rest, the very men the bill was intended to remove! Alas for Breckinridge and independence!

The following dispatch has just been received from Gen. R. E. Lee :

HEADQUARTERS, February 22d, 1865.

 

From dispatches of Gen. Bragg of 21st, I conclude he has abandoned Cape Fear River. He says he is embarrassed by prisoners. Enemy refuses to receive or entertain propositions. I expect no change will be made by Gen. Grant. It is his policy to delay. Have directed prisoners to be sent to Richmond by rail or highway, as may be most practicable; if wrong, correct it.

 

R. E. LEE.

This looks like the speedy fall of Wilmington, but not of Richmond.

To-day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington, and of the inauguration of Davis; but I hear of no holiday. Not much is doing, however, in the departments; simply a waiting for calamities, which come with stunning rapidity. The next news, I suppose, will be the evacuation of Wilmington! Then Raleigh may tremble. Unless there is a speedy turn in the tide of affairs, confusion will reign supreme and universally.

We have here now some 4000 or 5000 paroled prisoners returned by the Federal authorities, without sufficient food for them, and soon there may be 10,000 Federal prisoners from Wilmington, which it seems cannot be exchanged there. Is it the policy of their own government to starve them?

Mr. Burgwyn, of North Carolina, writes to the President (11th inst.) that some 15,000 bales of cotton are locked up in Wilmington, belonging to speculators, awaiting the coming of the enemy, when the city will certainly fall into their hands. He says Gen. Bragg's orders regarding its removal are wholly disregarded; and he implores the President to prevent its falling into the enemy's hands, and disgracing his State as Georgia was disgraced by the cotton taken at Savannah. He says these speculators have an understanding with the enemy. The President indorses, simply, "For attention.—J. D."

I bought quarter ounce early York cabbage-seed to day at $10 per ounce.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 429-30

Daniel Webster to Josiah Randall & Others, November 14, 1850

Boston, November 14, 1850.

GENTLEMEN,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th of this month, inviting me, in behalf of the friends of the Constitution and the Union, without distinction of party, resident in the city and county of Philadelphia, to attend a public meeting in that city on the 21st instant. I most sincerely wish that it was in my power to attend that meeting. That great central city is not only full of the friends of the Constitution, but full, also, of recollections connected with its adoption, and other great events in our history. In Philadelphia the first revolutionary Congress assembled. In Philadelphia the Declaration of Independence was made. In Philadelphia the Constitution was formed, and received the signatures of Washington and his associates; and now, when there is a spirit abroad evidently laboring to effect the separation of the Union, and the subversion of the Constitution, Philadelphia, of all places, seems the fittest for the assembling together of the friends of that Constitution, and that Union, to pledge themselves to one another and to the country to the last extremity.

My public duties, gentlemen, require my immediate presence in Washington; and for that reason, and that alone, I must deny myself the pleasure of accepting your invitation.

I have the honor, gentlemen, to be, with great regard, your fellow-citizen and humble servant,

DANIEL WEBSTER.

TO JOSIAH RANDALL, ISAAC HAZLEHURST, ROBERT M. LEE, C. INGERSOLL, JNO. W. FORNEY, JOHN S. RIDDLE.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 403-4

Congressman Albert G. Brown’s Speech on Homesteads, July 26, 1850

WHEN arrested in the progress of my remarks yesterday, I was about to say that I approved of the main object of the bill reported by the Committee on Agriculture, and which had been advocated with so much zeal and ability by the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. I was about to say that my judgment approved the policy of supplying, by some appropriate means, a home to every citizen.

Ours is essentially an agricultural community. The national prosperity of this country, more than any other, depends upon the production of its soil. Whatever tends to increase that production, enhances the national wealth, and, by consequence, increases the national prosperity. The first care of this nation should be to promote the happiness and prosperity of its citizens; and acting on this hypothesis, it has been my constant aim to promote the passage of all laws which tended to ameliorate the condition of the toiling millions.

I have always thought, and now think, that some salutary reform in our land system, by which a fixed and permanent home should be placed within the reach of every citizen, however humble his condition in life, would promote the national prosperity, add to the wealth of the states, and give fresh impetus to the industry and perseverance of our people.

I repeat, sir, that I am for giving to every man in the United States a home—a spot of earth—a place on the surface of God's broad earth which shall be his against the demands of all the world—a place where, in the full enjoyment of all his senses, and the full exercise of all his faculties, he may look upon the world, and, with the proud consciousness of an American citizen, say, This is my home, the castle of my defence; here I am free from the world's cold frowns, and exempt from the Shylock demands of inexorable creditors. These, sir, are my sentiments, long entertained, and now honestly expressed; nor am I to be deterred from their advocacy by any general outcry. Call these sentiments Socialism, Fourierism, Free-Soilism—call them what you please—say this is the doctrine of "vote yourself a farm"—say it is anti-rentism—say what you please—it is the true doctrine; it embraces great principles, which, if successfully carried out, will lead us on to higher renown as a nation, add to the wealth of the separate states, and do more for the substantial happiness of the great mass of our people than all your other legislation combined.

Congress has been in session nearly eight months, and what have you done?—what have you been trying to do? More than six months of that time has been expended in attacking and defending the institution of slavery—the North depreciating and trying to destroy the sixteen hundred millions of dollars invested in this species of property; and the South, forgetting for a season her party differences, banding together for the defence of this vast interest. Sometimes the monotony of this tedious drama has been relieved by a glance at other matters,—a member has appeared to advocate the manufacturing interests, or possibly to put on foot some grand scheme of internal improvement. But, whatever has been said in all our discussions, or by whomsoever it has been said, "the upper ten" have been constantly in view. No one has thought it worth his while to take account of the wants of the millions who toil for bread. The merchants and the manufacturers, the mariners and the speculators, the professions and the men of fortune everywhere, have their advocates on this floor. I speak to-day for the honest, hard-fisted, warm-hearted toiling millions—I speak here, in the councils of this nation, as I speak in the midst of my constituents; and whilst I do not object to the consideration which you give to other interests and other pursuits, I stand up here to demand even-handed justice for the honest but humble cultivator of the soil.

I cannot forget my allegiance—I know the men whose devotion sustains this government—I know the men whose friendship sustains me against the attacks of slander and the malignity of the interested few. For them I speak, and by no senseless cry of demagoguism, will I be turned from my purpose of vindicating their rights on this floor.

Talk, sir, of your lordly manufacturers, your princely merchants, your professional gentry, and your smooth-tongued politicians. The patriotism of one simple-hearted, honest old farmer would outweigh them all; and, for private friendship, I had rather have the hearty good will of one of those plain old men than the hypocritical smiles of as many of your smooth-tongued oily fellows as would fill this Capitol from its dome to its base.

It is my fortune to represent a constituency in which is mingled wealth and poverty;—whilst some are wealthy, and many possess more than a competency, there are many others on whom poverty has fixed his iron grasp. All, I hope, are patriotic. But, sir, if I were going to hunt for patriots who could be trusted in every emergency; patriots who would pour out their blood like water; and who would think it no privation to lay down their lives in defence of their country, I would go among the poor, the squatters, the preemptors, the hardy sons of toil. Though I should expect to find patriots everywhere, I know I should find them here.

Sir, in the great matter of legislation, shall men like these be neglected? I invoke gentlemen to forget for a moment the loom and the furnace, the storehouse, and the ships on the high seas, and go with me to the houses of these people; listen to the story of their wrongs, and let us together do them justice.

Men in affluent circumstances know but little of the wants of other men, and, unfortunately, care less for the miseries of the poor. Rocked in the cradle of fortune from infancy to manhood, they do not understand why it is that some men toil with poverty all their lives, and die at last in penury. Let gentlemen picture to themselves a man reared in humble life, without education, and with no fortune but his hands; see him going into the wild woods with a wife and a family of small children, there, by his unaided exertions, to rear his humble dwelling, to clear the forest and make way for his planting. See him after the toils of the day are over, returning to that humble dwelling to receive the smiles of his wife and hear the merry prattle of his little children. Watch him as he moves steadily and firmly on from day to day; fancy to yourself his heart buoyant with hope as he marks the progress of his growing crop, and pictures to himself the happiness of his wife and little children when he shall have gathered the reward of his summer's toil, sold it, and with the proceeds secured this his humble home.

Look, sir, at this scene; gaze on that sun-burnt patriot, for he is worthy of your admiration. Now go with me one step further, and behold the destruction of all these fairy visions; blighting seasons, low prices, disease, a bad trade, or some unforeseen disaster has overtaken him. His year of honest industry is gone-the time has come when government demands her pay for this poor man's home. He is without money—government, with a hard heart and inexorable will, turns coldly away, and the next week or the next month she sells her land, and this man's labor, his humble house and little fields, are gone. The speculator comes, and with an iron will, turns him and his family out of doors; and all this is the act of his own government—of a government which has untold millions of acres of land. Now, Mr. Speaker, let me ask you, can this man love a government that treats him thus? Never, sir, never. To do so, he should be more than man, and scarcely less than God. Treatment like this would have put out the fire of patriotism in Washington's breast, and almost justified the treachery of Arnold.

Instead of treating her citizens thus, I would have this government interpose its strong arm to protect them from the iron grasp of the heartless speculator. By doing so, you encourage industry, promote happiness, develope the resources of the soil, make better men and purer patriots. In a word, you perform a vast amount of good without the possibility of doing harm.

Not having seen the bill reported by the committee under circumstances which afforded an opportunity for a critical examination, I am not prepared to say that its details meet my approbation.

I am disinclined to give to the settler an absolute title to lands. I am so, sir, because I would secure him in the possession of his home against his misfortunes, and even against his own improvidence. If he is an honest and industrious man, he should have a home where that honest heart could repose in peace, and where the hand of industry could find employment. If he be dishonest, give him a home where, in the bosom of his family, he may hide his shame, and where they may find shelter from the frowns of a cruel world. If he is idle and worthless, give him a home where his wife and children may toil, and, by their example, bring him back to habits of honest industry. In any and in every event, give him a home, and secure him in the possession of that home, against all the contingencies of life and vicissitudes of fortune. When you have done this, rest satisfied that you have at least made a better man, and done something towards the general prosperity.

My own scheme has been reduced to the form of a bill, and before I take my seat I beg leave to send it to the Clerk's desk, that it may be read—promising that I am wedded to no special plan. The object is a good one; it meets my cordial approbation, and I shall most heartily unite in any scheme which gives reasonable promise of success.

I offer the paper which I hold in my hand as a substitute for the original proposition, and ask that it may be included in the motion to print.

Mr. Brown's proposition was read.

Strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert as follows:

 

That the laws now in force granting preemption to actual settlers on the public lands, shall continue until otherwise ordered by Congress, and that the same be extended to all the territories of the United States.

 

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That from and after the passage of this act, the rights of preemptors shall be perpetuated: that is to say, persons acquiring the right of preemption shall retain the same without disturbance, and without payment of any kind to the United States, but on these conditions: First, The preemptor shall not sell, alienate or dispose of his or her right for a consideration, and if he or she voluntarily abandons one preemption and claims another, no right shall be acquired by such claim, until the claimant shall first have testified, under oath, before the register of the land office when the claim is preferred, that he or she has voluntarily abandoned his or her original preemption, and that no consideration, reward or payment of any kind has been received, or is expected, directly or indirectly, as an inducement for such abandonment; and any person who shall testify falsely in such case, shall be deemed guilty of perjury. Second: Any person claiming and holding the right of preemption to lands under this act, may be required by the state within which the same lies, to pay taxes thereon in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if he or she owned the said land in fee simple; and in case such lands are sold for taxes, the purchaser shall acquire the right of preemption only. Third: Absence of the preemptor and his family for six consecutive months, shall be deemed an abandonment, and the land shall, in such case, revert to the United States, and be subject to the same disposition as other public lands.

 

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That lands preempted, and the improvements thereon, shall not be subject to execution sale, or other sale for debt; and all contracts made in reference thereto, intended in anywise to alienate the right, or to embarrass or disturb the preemptor in his or her occupancy, shall be absolutely null and void.

 

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the preemptor may, at any time, at his or her discretion, enter the lands preempted, by paying therefor to the proper officer of the United States one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.

 

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That in case of the preemptor's death, if a married man, his right shall survive to his widow and infant children, but the rights of the older children shall cease as they respectively come of age, or when they reach the age of twenty-one years; in all cases the right of preemption shall remain in the youngest child. And in case of the death of both father and mother, leaving an infant child or children, the executor, administrator, or guardian, may at any time within twelve months after such death, enter said preempted lands in the name of said infant child or children, or the said preemption, together with the improvements on the lands, may be deemed property, and as such, sold for the benefit of said infants, but for no other purpose, and the purchaser may acquire the right of the deceased preemptor by such purchase.

 

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In reply to Mr. Morse, of Louisiana, Mr. BROWN said: Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Morse], in the progress of his remarks was understood by me to assume the ground that my proposition is unconstitutional. I did not, as you know, Mr. Speaker, undertake to explain, much less to vindicate that proposition. Its provisions are so few and so simple, that it may be well left to speak its own vindication, even against the furious assault of the honorable gentleman.

It proposes simply to perpetuate a law which has stood for years on your statute book, an honorable monument to the wisdom and justice of Congress. To-day, for the first time, it has been discovered to be unconstitutional. The preemption law struggled into existence against the combined opposition of many of the first minds in the country. It has received the repeated sanction of Congress, and to-day I know of no man from the new states who desires its repeal, or who has the boldness to avow such desire if he feels it. Instead of limiting the right of the preemptor to one year or two years, I simply propose to perpetuate that right, and this is the measure which the astute gentleman from Louisiana says is unconstitutional. I shall not stop to vindicate the measure from such a charge. The government has full power to dispose of the public lands, and in the exercise of this power, it has from time to time reduced the price, and in many hundred instances given them away.

I ask the honorable gentleman if the act by which five hundred thousand acres of the public lands were given to the state of Louisiana was unconstitutional? Were the various acts giving lands to the states, Louisiana among the rest, for educational purposes, unconstitutional? Did the honorable gentleman violate the Constitution last year, when he voted to give to his own state five millions of the public lands for works of internal improvement? Did we all violate the Constitution the other day, when we voted bounty lands to the soldiers of the last war with Great Britain and all our Indian wars?

No one knows better than the honorable gentleman, that this government has habitually given away the public lands—given them to the states for internal-improvement purposes; given them to establish colleges and primary schools; given them to railroad and canal companies given them to states and to soulless corporations, for almost every conceivable purpose; and all this has been done within the Constitution; but now, sir, when it is proposed to allow the humble citizen to reside on these lands, the gentleman starts up as though he had just descended from another world, and startles us with a declaration that we are violating the Constitution.

It has pleased the honorable member to denominate this as a villanous measure; and with great emphasis he declares, that its supporters are demagogues. It will not surprise you or others, Mr. Speaker, if I speak warmly in reply to language like this. The gentleman was pleased to extract the poison from his sting, by declaring that he used these words in no offensive sense. In reply, I shall speak plainly, but within the rules of decorum.

"Demagoguing,"—“demagoguing," says the honorable gentleman, "for the votes of the low, ill-bred vagrants and vagabonds." Sir, this is strange language, coming from that quarter. I know something of the gentleman's constituents. Many of the best of them are of this despised caste; many of them are the low, ill-bred vagabonds, of which the gentleman has been speaking. Many, very many, of them are squatters on the public lands. Sir, I should like to hear the honorable gentleman making the same speech in one of the upper parishes of Louisiana, which he has this day pronounced in the American Congress. I can well conceive how his honest constituents the squatters, would stare and wonder, to hear a gentleman, so bland and courteous last year, now so harsh and cruel. Yes, sir, the gentleman's squatter constituents would stand aghast to hear the representative denouncing them as a dirty, ill-bred set of vagabonds and scoundrels—when the candidate, with a face all wreathed in his blandest smile, had told them they were the cleverest fellows in the world!

It may do very well, Mr. Speaker, for gentlemen, when they come on to Washington, to get upon stilts and talk after this fashion. It may sound beautiful in the ears that are here to catch the sound, thus to denounce a measure intended to relieve the poor man's wants as villanous, and its advocates as demagogues. But, sir, I take it upon myself to say there is not a congressional district in the West or Southwest where a candidate for Congress would dare to use such language.

Sir, I know very well how popular electioneering canvasses are conducted, and bold and valiant as the gentleman is, he would scarcely commit the indiscretion of saying to any portion of the voters in his district that they were an ill-bred set of vagabonds, and if he did, they would hardly commission him to repeat the expression in Congress. Let me warn the gentleman, that if the speech made by him to-day shall ever reach his constituents, it will sound his political death-knell. If I owed the gentleman any ill-will, which I take this occasion to say I do not, it would be my highest hope that he would write out and print that speech just as he delivered it. I should at least have a comfortable assurance that the speech would be the last of its kind.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have to repeat that, notwithstanding the maledictions of the gentleman from Louisiana, I am still for this proposition; and though that gentleman may continue to denounce the squatters on the public lands as a worthless, ill-bred set of vagabonds, I am still their friend. They are honest men, pure patriots, and upright citizens. They are worthy of our care. If the candidate can afford to flatter them for their votes, the representative should not skulk the responsibility of voting to protect their interests. I hold but one language, and it shall be the language of honest sincerity. I would scorn to flatter a poor squatter for his vote in the swamps of Louisiana, and then stand up before the American Congress as his representative, and denounce him as a worthless vagabond.

Sir, if the men are worthless the women are not, and I could appeal to the well-known gallantry of the honorable member to interpose in their behalf. If you will do nothing for the ruder sex, interpose the strong arm of the law to shield the women and children, at least, from the rude grasp of the avaricious speculator. If a man be worthless, let the appeal go up for his wife and little children. Secure them a home, and that wife will make that home her castle. It will shelter her and her little children from the rude blasts of winter, and the rude blows of a wicked world. She will toil there for bread, and with her own hand. plant a shrub, perchance a flower. She will make it useful by her industry, and adorn it by her ingenuity. Give it to her, sir, and she will invoke such blessings on your head as a pious woman alone can ask.

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana, not for his speech, but for his courtesy in giving me a part of his time in which to reply.

SOURCE: M. W. Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon. Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, p. 194-9