Elisha Benjamin Andrews

“ Being the most trying crisis ever successfully met by a self-governed people, the war lent powerful stimulus and tonic to the cause of free institutions everywhere, proving republican loyalty to be as firm and trustworthy as monarchical, and government by and for the governed to be not necessarily either inefficient or ephemeral. It demonstrated that a republic, without lessening its freedom, may become a great military power, generals of highest genius passively obeying a popularly elected Congress and Executive, these in turn maintaining full mastery, yet not hampering military movements. ”

“ The disunion leaders had rightly calculated that an open blow would
bring the border slave States into the Confederacy; but they had not
anticipated the effect of such a deed beyond Mason and Dixon's line.
When it was known that the old flag had been fired upon, a thrill of
passionate rage electrified the North from Maine to Oregon. Then was
witnessed an uprising unparalleled in our history if not in that of
mankind. From every city, town, and hamlet, loud and earnest came the
call, "The Union must be preserved! Away with compromise! ”

“ Americans did not prophesy, as more than one voice out of Europe itself had of late done, that the United States would some day cross the Atlantic as a conqueror. This, indeed, was a somewhat natural thought. The Old World reeled under its crushing burden of national debts and military taxes, and in material resources could not long compete with us, free from such burdens. But the American thought was that we should express our superiority in the form of ideas, not of arms, and use it in elevating mankind to richer culture and a nobler life. ”

“ Again, the war prepared the colonists for the Revolution by revealing to
them their own rare fighting quality, and by showing that the dreaded
British regulars were not invincible. No foe would, at Saratoga or
Monmouth, see the backs of the men who had covered the redcoats' retreat
from the field of Braddock's death, scaled the abatis of Louisburg, or
brained Dieskau's regulars on the parapet of Fort William Henry.
But there was one thing even more necessary to the Revolutionists than
skill at arms, and that was union. ”

“ This being so, while Calhoun and Taney were
right as against Douglas in ascribing to Congress all power over the
Territories, it was as impossible to find slaves in any United States
Territory as to find a king there. Slaves taken into Territories
therefore became free. Slaves taken into any free State became free.
Slaves carried from a slave State on to the high seas became free. Even
the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution must be applied in the way
least favorable to slavery. ”

“ He needed but to
conform, and great place was his. But conform he would not. True to the
inner light, braving the scoffs of all his friends, expelled from Oxford
University, beaten from his own father's door, imprisoned now nine
months in London Tower, now six in Newgate, this heroic spirit
persistently went the Quaker way. ”

“ Ordinarily at feud with one another, these tribes all now united in ghost dances, looking for the Great Spirit or his Representative to appear with a high hand and an outstretched arm to bury the white and their works deep underground, when the prairie should once more thunder with the gallop of buffalo and wild horses. ”

“ The South, subjected to a second conquest after having laid down its arms, felt outraged and grew sullen. To most people in that section, as well as to very many at the North, this dictation by Congress to acknowledged States in time of peace seemed high-handed and guilty usurpation. Northern Congressmen incessantly called slavery barbarism, and yet combined to transmute to-day into electors and law-makers those who but yesterday had been slaves. Black legislatures inevitably abused their power, becoming the instruments of base carpetbag leaders and rings in robbing white property-holders. ”

“ At this very
time Spain was pensioning men in high station there, including General
Wilkinson, commanding our force at New Orleans. Could not Burr detach
this district or a part of it from our Government and make here an
empire of his own? Or might he not take it as the base of operations for
an attack on Spanish America that should give him an empire there? Some
vision of this sort danced before the mad genius's vision, as before
that of Hamilton in the Miranda scheme. Many influential persons
encouraged him, with how much insight into his plan we shall never know. ”

“ In other words, the resolution
approves the admission of Arizona with the judicial recall, unless the
voters themselves repudiate it. . . . This provision of the Arizona
constitution in its application to county and State judges seems to me
pernicious in its effect, so destructive of independence in the
judiciary, so likely to subject the rights of the individual to the
possible tyranny of a popular majority, and therefore to be so injurious
to the cause of free government that I must disapprove a constitution
containing it. ”

“ But the spirit of true liberty, tolerance of the minority
and respect for individual opinion, had departed, and those deceitful
appearances concealed the despotism of an inexorable master, slavery,
before whom the most powerful of slave-holders was himself but a slave,
as abject as the meanest." Over wide sections, untitled manorial lords,
"more intelligent than educated, brave but irascible, proud but
overbearing," controlled all voting and office-holding. ”

“ From the novelty of the foreign display the American visitor returned proudly to the display made by his own land. Textiles, metal work, arms and tools, musical instruments, watches, carriages, cutlery, books, and furniture—a bewildering array of all things useful and ornamental—made Americans realize as never before the wealth, intelligence, and enterprise of their native country and the proud station she had taken among the nations of earth. ”

“ Washington not only as a remarkable negro, but as a remarkable man. Born poor as could be and fighting his way to an education against every conceivable obstacle, he had at the age of forty distinguished himself as a business organizer, as an educator, as a writer, and as, a public speaker. His modesty, discretion, and industry were phenomenal, at once constituting him a leader of his race and rendering his leadership valuable. ”

“ Philadelphia banker aided the cause as much as the best general in the
field.
Faithful and successful envoys as Jay and John Adams were, the
Revolution brought to light one, and only one, true master in the
difficult art of diplomacy--Franklin. Wise with a lifetime's shrewd
observation, venerable with years, preceded by his fame as scientist and
Revolutionary statesman, grand in his plain dignity, the Philadelphia
printer stood unabashed before the throne of France, and carried king
and diplomats with an art that surprised Europe's best-trained
courtiers. ”