Charles Francis Adams

“ In the first place, the modern newspaper, with its perfect machinery for sensational exaggeration, did not then exist,—having itself only recently come in the train of the locomotive;—and, in the next place, the circle of those included in the consequences of any disaster was necessarily small. It is far otherwise now. For weeks and months the vast machinery moves along, doing its work quickly, swiftly, safely; no one pays any attention to it, while millions daily make use of it. It is as much a necessity of their lives as the food they eat and the air they breathe. ”

“ Any sign of faltering on the part of the Plymouth people would have been fatal. Had they abandoned Wessagusset to its fate, the settlers there would have been exterminated, and the savages, maddened by a taste of blood, would have turned upon Plymouth. The woods would have rung with war-whoops and the feeble colony could scarcely have survived the ordeal of blood treading hard on that of famine. Standish crushed out the danger in the incipient stage. By ruthlessly murdering seven men he re-established the moral ascendency of the whites, and so saved the lives of hundreds. ”

“ The Referendum, the constant and easy Recall, the everlasting Initiative are dinned into our ears as the cure-alls of every ill of the body politic. On the contrary, I submit that while in the absence of any better method as yet devised and accepted, the process of reaching results by a count of the "majority told by the head" of the citizens then present and voting has certain political advantages, yet, for all this, as a final, scientific, political process, it is unworthy of consideration. A passing expedient, it in no degree reflects credit on twentieth-century intelligence. ”

“ The equality declared by our fathers in 1776 and made the fundamental law of Massachusetts in 1780, was Equality before the Law. Its object was to efface all political or civil distinctions, and to abolish all institutions founded upon birth. 'All men are created equal,' says the Declaration of Independence. 'All men are born free and equal,' says the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. These are not vain words. Within the sphere of their influence, no person can be created, no person can be born, with civil or political privileges not enjoyed equally by all his fellow-citizens ”

“ Has there been during the nineteenth century, taken as a whole, a distinct advance in the matter of sexual morality as compared with the eighteenth? Or has the change, which it is admitted has taken place, been only in outward appearance, while beneath a surface of greater refinement human nature remains ever and always the same? It is unquestionably true that in a large and widely differentiated community like that in which we live the individual, no matter who he is, knows very little of what may be called the real “true inwardness” of his surroundings. ”

“ It is, not to solve all political problems, but to put political problems as they arise in the hands of those whom he termed the "best,"—but whom we know as the most intelligent, observant and expert,—to be, through their agency, in the way of ultimate solution. If, adopting every ill-considered and half-fledged measure of so-called reform which might be the fancy of the day, we incorporated them in our fundamental law, but one thing could result therefrom,—ultimate confusion. The Constitution is neither a legislative crazy-quilt nor a receptacle of fads. ”

“ Suddenly, somehow, and somewhere,—at Versailles, at Norwalk, at Abergele, at New Hamburg, or at Revere,—at some hitherto unfamiliar point upon an insignificant thread of the intricate iron web, an obstruction is encountered, a jar, as it were, is felt, and instantly, with time for hardly an ejaculation or a thought, a multitude of human beings are hurled into eternity. It is no cause for surprise that such an event makes the community in which it happens catch its breadth ”

“ No nation has any right to enter upon a war, domestic or foreign, unless it is ready promptly to meet the cost thereof in flesh and blood, as well as in money. It should not be a question of voluntary enlistment, or of mercenary service; but, if a community elects to fight, it should put its fighting force at the absolute disposal of its government. Conscription and the draft should be the order of the day,—the unmarried first, the married next; and, for the able-bodied, no exemption. Never, in the whole history of Massachusetts, was the ordeal of a war thus systematically met. ”

“ Local representation through choice by numerical majorities within given confines, geographically and mathematically fixed, is a system so rooted and intrenched in the convictions and traditions of the American community that even to question its wisdom evinces a lack of political common-sense. It in fact resembles nothing so much as the attempt to whistle down a strongly prevailing October wind from the West. The attempt so to do is not practical politics! ”

“ It recognizes the truth that all just government exists by the consent of the governed. It recognizes the existence of the Monroe Doctrine. In a word, it recognizes every principle and precedent, whether natural or historical, which has from the beginning lain at the foundation of our American polity. It does not attempt the hypocritical contradiction in terms, of pretending to elevate a people into a self-sustaining condition through the leading-string process of "tutelage." It appeals to our historical experience, applying to present conditions the lessons of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela. ”

“ The whole community knows when it sees a block system, or a stronger car construction, or an improved train brake suddenly introduced that the sacrifice has not been in vain—that the lesson has been learned. It is by no means always so in the case of accidents on bridges. With these the cause of disaster is apt to be so scientific in its nature that it cannot even be described, except through the use of engineering terms which to the mass of readers are absolutely incomprehensible. The simplest of railroad bridges is an inexplicable mystery to at least ninety-nine persons out of each hundred. ”

“ I have spoken of the great sickness of 1751, and how it desolated Weymouth; but epidemics seem to have been far more prevalent during the last century than in this. The fearful scourge of the small-pox has left its pit-marks on every page of early New England history, and when, in 1775, a chronic dysentery prevailed to such an extent that three, four and even five children were lost in single families, a Weymouth woman writing from the midst of the general distress could only say “the dread upon the minds of the people of catching the distemper is almost as great as if it were the small-pox.” ”

“ The Old World, Europe and Great Britain, were, after all, right, and we of the New World have been wrong. From every point of view,—religious, ethnic, commercial, political,—we cannot, it is now claimed, too soon abandon our traditional position and assume theirs. Again, Europe and Great Britain have never admitted that men were created equal, or that the consent of the governed was a condition of government. ”

“ None the less, the existence of a monopolist class calls for no proof at the bar of public opinion. Not so the other and even more privileged class,—the so-called "wage-earner"; for, disguise it as the trades-unionist will, angrily deny it as he does, the fact remains that to-day under the operation of our jury system and of our laws, the Wage-earner and the member of the Trades-Union has become, as respects the rest of the community, himself a monopolist and, moreover, privileged as such. ”

“ A vague but deeply rooted conviction commonly prevails that the railroad has created a new danger; that because of it the average human being's hold on life is more precarious than it was. The first point-blank, bald statement to the contrary would accordingly strike people in the light not only of a paradox, but of a somewhat foolish one. Investigation, nevertheless, bears it out. The fact is that when a railroad accident comes, it is apt to come in such a way as to leave no doubt whatever in relation to it. ”

“ During the year 1775 ten town meetings had been held in Weymouth, and seven were held in 1776. And now we enter on a new phase of the struggle for independence. For us, with our recollections of the war of the rebellion still fresh in our memories, it is most curious to read these ancient records,—to observe how closely history repeats itself. We well remember the fierce, self-sacrificing patriotism of 1861,—how the country was all alive with eagerness, how money was poured forth like water, and how regiments enlisted faster than they could be put into the field. ”

“ No political system possible to devise is wholly above criticism,—not open to exceptional contingencies or to dangers possible to conjure up. Such have from time to time arisen in the past; in the future such will inevitably arise. This consideration must, however, be balanced against a general average of successful working; and I confidently submit that, weighing thus the proved advantage of the system we have against the possibilities of danger which hereafter may occur, but which never yet have occurred, the scale on which are the considerations in favor of change kicks the beam. ”

“ A practically irresistible force crashing through the busy hive of modern civilization at a wild rate of speed, going hither and thither, across highways and by-ways and along a path which is in itself a thoroughfare,—such an agency cannot be expected to work incessantly and yet never to come in contact with the human frame. ”

“ Let us be true to our own traditions, and follow our own precedents. Having relieved the Spanish islands from the dominion of Spain, we should declare concerning them a policy of "Hands-off," both on our own part and on the part of other powers. We should say that the independence of those islands is morally guaranteed by us as a consequence of the treaty of Paris, and then leave them just as we have left Hayti, and just as we left Mexico and Venezuela, to adopt for themselves such form of government as the people thereof are ripe for. ”

“ Yet the ills of the body politic, too, are complicated. Indeed, far more intricate in their processes and more deceitful in their aspects, they more deeply affect the general well-being and happiness than any ill or epidemic which torments the physical being, even the mosquito malaria. Yet the ills of the body politic, the complications which surround us on every side,—for these the unfailing panacea is said to lie in universal suffrage, that remedy which is immediately and of course laughed out of court if suggested in case of the simpler ills of the flesh. ”

“ You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. ‘And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. ”

“ It is the refrain of nearly three centuries; but, as an historical fact, it is undeniable that, from 1623 down to the year now ending, the American Anglo-Saxon has in his dealings with what are known as the "inferior races" lacked "that tenderness of the life of man which is meet," and he has made himself "a terror to poor, barbarous people." How we of Massachusetts carried ourselves towards the aborigines here, the fearful record of the Pequot war remains everlastingly to tell. How the country at large has carried itself in turn towards Indian, African, and Asiatic is matter of history. ”

“ With a Union established on the principle of absolutely unrestricted commercial intercourse, you here in South Carolina, and more especially in Columbia, are to-day making it, so to speak, uncomfortable for the cotton manufacturer in New England; and I am glad of it! A sharp competition is a healthy incentive to effort and ingenuity, and the brutal injunction, "Root hog or die!" is one from which I in no way ask to have New England exempt. When Massachusetts is no longer able to hold its own industrially in a free field, the time will, in my judgment, have come for Massachusetts to go down. ”

“ A shapeless blue mass of hands and heads and feet protruded among the splinters and frame-work, and gradually resolved itself into a closely-packed mass of human beings, all ragged and bloody and dinted from crown to foot with blue bruises and weals and cuts inflicted by the ponderous iron work, the splinters and the enormous weight of the train. ”

“ Two centuries and a half of municipal life are now completed, and in celebrating the event of to-day may we not fitly close with the earnest hope that the succeeding years may be as blessed as those which are past,—that unity, virtue and good-will may long find their abode within the limits of the ancient town, and that, even more in the future than in the past, “may peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces.” ”

“ In other words, modelling ourselves on Great Britain, we must slowly and methodically develop and build up a recognized and permanent governing and official class. The heathen and barbarian need to be studied, and dealt with intelligently and on a system; they cannot be successfully managed on any principle of rotation in office, much less one which ascribes the spoils of office to the victors at the polls. What these advocates of Imperialism say is unquestionably true: The political methods now in vogue in American cities are not adapted to the government of dependencies. ”

“ In this country, it was the period of the equality of man and individuality in the development of the type. It was generally believed that the world had hitherto been governed too much,--that the day of caste, and even class, was over and gone; and finally, that America was a species of vast modern melting-pot of humanity, in which, within a comparatively short period of time, the characteristics of all branches of Indo-Aryan origin would resolve themselves. A new type would emerge,--the American. These theories were also in their consequences far-reaching. ”

“ I think we should try to get rid in the public mind of any real distinction between the individual who, in a moment of passion or in a moment of heedlessness, takes the life of one fellow-man, and the corporation that in a moment of greed, of little trouble, of little expense, of little care, of little diligence, takes lives by wholesale. I think the first requisite of the public mind is to say that there is no accident in the case, properly speaking. ”

“ We are always accustomed to regard the past as a better and purer time than the present,—there is a vague, traditional simplicity and innocence hanging about it almost Arcadian in character. I can find no ground on which to base this pleasant fancy. Taken altogether I do not believe that the morals of Weymouth or of her sister towns were on the average as good in the eighteenth century as in the nineteenth. The people were sterner and graver,—the law and the magistrate were more severe, but human nature was the same and would have vent. ”

“ Here is the Great Charter of every human being drawing vital breath upon this soil, whatever may be his conditions, and whoever may be his parents. He may be poor, weak, humble, or black,—he may be of Caucasian, Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian race,—he may be born of French, German, English, or Irish extraction; but before the Constitution of Massachusetts all these distinctions disappear. He is not poor, weak, humble, or black; nor is he Caucasian, Jew, Indian, or Ethiopian; nor is he French, German, English, or Irish; he is a MAN, the equal of all his fellow-men. ”

“ As he was in the act of repeating the blow, Warland's companion thrust him back upon the seat. This seemed to infuriate him, and starting to his feet he again tried to attack the wounded man. A frightful struggle ensued. It was a struggle for life, in a narrow compartment feebly lighted, for it was late at night, on a train running at full speed and with no stopping place for eighty miles. The passenger who had not been hurt clutched the maniac by the throat with one hand and grasped his knife with the other, but only to feel the blade drawn through his fingers, cutting them to the bone. ”

“ Gladstone who, years ago, made the often-quoted assertion that the Constitution of the United States was "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." I do not think he was far wrong; though we, of course, realize that the Federal Constitution was a growth and in no degree an inspiration. That Constitution has through a century and a quarter stood the test of time and stress of war, during a period of almost unlimited growth of the community for which it was devised. ”

“ It smacks of the savage; it is racy of the soil; it smells of the sea. It begins with the flight of Phineas Pratt from Wessagusset to Plymouth, his loss of the way, his fear lest his foot-prints in the late-lingering snow [Pg 122] banks should betray him, his nights in the woods, his pursuit by the Indians, his guidance by the stars and sky, his fording the icy river, and his arrival in Plymouth just as Miles Standish was embarking for Wessagusset. Nothing then can be more picturesque, more epic in outline, than Standish’s voyage, with his little company of grim, silent men in that open boat. ”

“ What has been, historically, our policy—the American, as distinguished from the European and British policy—towards those communities,—two of them Spanish, one African? So far as foreign powers are concerned, we have laid down the principle of "Hands-off." So far as their own government was concerned, we insisted that the only way to learn to walk was to try to walk, and that the history of mankind did not show that nations placed under systems of "tutelage,"—taught to lean for support on a superior power,—ever acquired the faculty of independent action. ”

“ Take, for instance, London and Boston—the Cannon street station in the one and the Beach street station in the other. The concentration of traffic at London is so great that it becomes necessary to utilize every foot of ground devoted to railroad purposes to the utmost possible extent. Not only must it be packed with tracks, but those tracks must never be idle. The incessant train movement at Cannon street has already been referred to as probably the most extraordinary and confusing spectacle in the whole wide circle of railroad wonders. ”

“ I, therefore, confidently here submit a doubt whether human ingenuity could devise any system calculated to lead to a greater waste of parliamentary ability, or more effectually keep from the front and position of influence that legislative superiority which was the arm of Aristotle to secure. "Cant-patriotism," as your Francis Lieber termed it; and, on this score, he waxed eloquent. "Do we not live in a world of cant," he wrote from Columbia here to a friend at the North seventy-five years ago, "that cant-patriotism which plumes itself in selecting men from within the State confines only. ”

“ Below and in front of the galleries the trains glide to and fro, coming suddenly into sight from beyond the bridges and as suddenly disappearing,—winding swiftly in and out, and at times four of them running side by side on as many tracks but in both directions,—the whole making up a swiftly shifting maze of complex movement under the influence of which a head unaccustomed to the sight grows actually giddy. ”

“ I refer to the political equality of man, and to that race absorption to which I have alluded,—that belief that any foreign element introduced into the American social system and body politic would speedily be absorbed therein, and in a brief space thoroughly assimilated. In this all-important respect I do not hesitate to say we theorists and abstractionists of the North, throughout that long anti-slavery discussion which ended with the 1861 dash of arms, were thoroughly wrong. ”