Joseph Edgar Chamberlin

“ Let us suppose that Elizabeth had been able to find a consort as wise and as harmless as was Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Let us suppose that the pair had left behind them a thoroughly English prince, their own son, a man who would have been capable of continuing Elizabeth's prudent rule and of holding England to its traditions while maintaining the extraordinary advance that had marked her splendid reign. Without James's mingled poltroonery and tyranny to nurse and stimulate it, it is doubtful if Puritanism would have had its spasm of ascendency. ”

“ I esteem the occasion of this jubilee to be the proud discovery that the black race can contend with the white; that, in the great anthem which we call history, a piece of many parts and vast compass, after playing a long time a very low and subdued accompaniment, they perceive the time arrived when they can strike in with effect and take a master's part in the music. The civility of the world has reached that pitch that their more than moral genius is becoming indispensable, and the quality of this race is to be honored for itself. ”

“ In looking at mountains—most mountains—one sees beauty of an inspiring, an emotional sort. In looking from the summit of a mountain one sometimes indeed sees great beauty, but the impression of that beauty is overlaid by the sense of vastness, a feeling of awe, a sort of shudder at so much grandeur. The emotion excited by the scene is not one of æsthetic delight, but one of deep wonder. One goes to the mountain top for a revelation, not for simple delight, surely not for rest—and this the Nomad ventures to say in despite of Goethe, who said "Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruhe." ”

“ No man can imagine Washington taking such a step as that. La Fayette suffered from it, and he afterwards served his country nobly. But the eternal mischief of his weakness had been done. Girondists and Jacobins, relieved from the fear of him, turned to mutual destruction and murder. The Reign of Terror was on. The nation was plunged in an orgy of blood. Four hundred thousand men and women were put to death. Liberty in France was assassinated in the house of its friends.
One man, I have said, always comes to the top of things. With La Fayette gone, Robespierre, the man of blood, prevailed. ”

“ But the Stuarts came—and the troubles of England began in real earnest. Elizabeth's reign had been, as it then seemed to all Englishmen, and as in very many respects it was, the golden age of Britain. Never had art, and literature, and material prosperity, risen to so high a level. The world seemed opening to a new and glorious life, like a rose bursting into bloom. In literature it had been the age of Shakespeare and Bacon. But with the Stuarts, literature and art passed into a long eclipse. ”

“ Is it too much to say that the American republic would have been fatherless without Washington? Perhaps an arm might have been found—though that is doubtful—that could have wielded his sword. But where was the brain, the patience, the tact, the determination, that would have composed the differences in the American councils, and have kept the discordant colonies and the jealous commanders together?
That another man, that any combination of men, could have done what he did, is inconceivable. ”

“ It is indeed hard for New Yorkers to realize, as they live to-day under the Stars and Stripes, having forgotten what their State flag is, and being among the most zealous supporters of the Union, that their State led the opposition to the Constitution, and that but for the influence of a very few men in two other States, New York might have prevented the consummation of that "more perfect union." ”

“ If Elizabeth had married, as her people often implored her to do, and if her progeny had sat upon the throne and continued the sway of the Tudors, half a century of turmoil and bloodshed, under the essentially foreign rule of the Stuarts, might have been spared to England. The Revolution doubtless would never have taken place. The material and intellectual advance of England and all Britain would have been steady and sure upon the splendid foundation of the Elizabethan structure. ”

“ Thus, by the aid, first, of a tropical hurricane, and, second, through the efforts of the crew of the ship that bore him, in stifling a fire in the hold, Alexander Hamilton reached the American colonies just in time to be swept into the current of the movement for independence; to be made over anew into an ardent American, and to put his stamp forever upon the young nation which arose from the smoke of Bunker Hill. ”

“ The great soldiers who finally triumphed in the field as the instruments of Lincoln's policy and fought their way to victory for the Union—Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Meade, Sheridan—would have been ranged on the Northern side just the same whether Lincoln or another had been at the head of affairs. But it is doubtful whether another president would have found them out. Lincoln made his own grave mistakes regarding men. But he put forward no general because that general was his man. He observed and waited. A man of the people himself, grandly simple, he somehow nosed out the men of the same type. ”

“ If he had been defeated in battle by Pakenham, and New Orleans had been taken, his fame would have been extinguished then and there.
And without Jackson—should we ever have had machine politics? It was he who introduced these into our government. He was the inventor and discoverer of the spoils system. "To the victors belong the spoils" was the maxim of his lieutenant, Marcy, and his own principle of action. We have never been able quite to shake off the system which he fastened upon the country. Patronage has been the curse of our politics from that day to this. ”

“ The high noon of the nineteenth century was the golden moment for the commencement of their development along the line of Western civilization. If the hour had not struck then for them it would not have struck at all. Time, the helping hand, the protecting influence of an unselfish friend among the nations, and the golden gift of destiny, were all represented for Japan in the rescuing sails of Skipper Jennings's bark, that lucky day in the wide Pacific. ”

“ Pinzon, like any other practical navigator in a strange sea, was feeling his way, and answering the indications of the waters, the skies, the green grasses that drifted on the surface of the waves, the flocks of birds that wheeled, and dipped, and showed their heels to the far-wandered navigators, and seemed to know their way so well over that remote and uncharted wilderness of the deep. Columbus had said, "We will sail to the west, and ever to the west, until the west becomes the east." Which to the men before the mast was sheer lunacy. But Pinzon had already found strange Afric lands. ”

“ The sympathy of Europe was rapidly passing over to the Confederacy. But so long as Lincoln stood firm in the White House and Congress sat at the capital, "the government at Washington still lived," and the people felt it. The truce so kindly, so inexplicably permitted by Davis and Lee and Johnston enabled McClellan to organize and drill a great army, to fortify the capital, to spread renewed confidence in the North, and, in short, to establish a fulcrum for future victory. ”

“ The planting of Pennsylvania was a true colonization. Not only did it amount to the creation of a great and model commonwealth, full-fledged, with a composite new-world population, in twenty or even ten years' time, but it furnished the keystone to the arch of states that constituted the American republic in the next century after Penn's settlement. ”

“ Never did greater events hinge upon a woman's caprice against marriage than those which were poised on the will of Elizabeth, Queen of England, in the long years that lay between the time when, as a young queen, it was proposed to marry her to the Duke of Anjou, and the sere and yellow leaf of her womanhood, when her potential maternity was past. ”

“ If Charles II Had Accepted the Kingship of Virginia ONCE at least the New World has furnished to the Old World a reigning, actual king; once, for thirteen years, a monarch, sitting on a throne in America, ruled thence an ancient kingdom in Europe. And twice this singular thing might have happened, with this time an enthroned sovereign on the banks of the James instead of on the shore of a Brazilian bay, if a certain king's son and king-to-be had been of a somewhat more venturing and less indolent disposition. ”

“ Events in Japan must have anticipated the subsequent history of Egypt, on a much more magnificent scale. Again, though there would have been a readier entrance for American and European trade than in the case of Russian intervention, the best of everything Japanese would certainly have gone to England. And once again, the free, independent, powerful, masterful Japanese empire of the present day, thrilling with a new life in which all the civilization of the Occident is made the handmaid of an ancient and undaunted Asiatic people, would not have been. ”

“ Our civilization might have risen as high as it has ever gone, in art, in the grace of life; but instead of being inspired with the eager desire of progress, by the restless Hellenic necessity of doing something better and higher, or at least something other, something new—instead of this, the spirit of peace and of satisfaction with old ideals would have permeated our systems and our life. ”

“ Whether or not we believe that events are consciously ordered before their occurrence, we are compelled to admit the importance of Contingency in human affairs.
If we believe in such an orderly and predetermined arrangement, the small circumstance upon which a great event may hinge becomes, in our view, but the instrumentality by means of which the great plan is operated. It by no means sets aside the vital influence of chance to assume that "all chance is but direction which we cannot see." ”

“ Abd-er-Rahman, the victorious Moor, advanced into northern France, overthrowing armies with ease, and sacking cities, churches and convents as he marched. Nothing could stay him, as it appeared. He had planted the standard of the prophet at the gates of Tours, which is one hundred and thirty miles, as the crow flies, from Paris. But meantime the usurping and base-born Charles, in command of a small army mostly composed of gigantic and well-seasoned German warriors, was sneaking along, like an Indian, under the shelter of a range of hills, toward the Saracen camp ”

“ But King Charles took good care to inform him that the name "Pennsylvania," officially bestowed on the colony, was not in honor of the founder, but in compliment to the admiral, his father.
Narrow as this contingency may have been, since so great an event depended on the impulse of one man, it was after all a moral contingency, and not due of physical accident, as so many others have been. It is the more impressive for this reason. It is good to know that a few heartbeats the more, in the breast of a man who can be kind as well as hot-tempered, may create a mighty empire. ”

“ Europe was certainly nearer to conquest by the Moors in the eighth century than most people suppose. There are few finer or more heroic episodes in history than the extraordinary series of conquests by means of which, a handful of fanatical Arabs, inspired by the prophet Mohammed, carried, with fire and sword, the faith of Islam over the world, until, within two hundred years of the date of the prophet's birth, it reigned from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Indus. ”

“ Without his steadying hand in the war, the American army would have followed a devious course to death, and the young republic one to its destruction.
As to the decisive part which he played in the formation of the union of the States after the war, the word of his companions in the Federal Constituent Convention is conclusive. "Were it not for one great character in America," said Grayson of Virginia, referring to Washington, "so many men would not be for this government; we do not fear while he lives, but who besides him can concentrate the confidence and affection of all Americans?" ”

“ If we had not turned over our music making to professionals it would be so now. Instead of going to the concert or the opera after the evening meal, or playing bridge or talking scandal, people would have participated in the singing of madrigals, glees or whatever other sort of popular spontaneous music had been developed, and all would have been sustained and uplifted by the exalted joy that comes from joining with others in the production of good music. ”

“ Change, indeed, makes the opportunity of the strong; and the fate of nations and continents depends upon the character of the strong man who is brought forth. If he is good, as Washington was good, his fellow-countrymen derive lasting and unmeasured benefit from his grasping of his opportunity. If he is bad, as Napoleon Bonaparte was bad, the evil harvest of his vices may be reaped through generations and centuries, as France has reaped, and is now reaping, an inheritance of strife and national decline. ”

“ At the same time their protection led to the elevation into the same middle class of a race of cultivators who had been peasants. Furthermore, the Norman rule expanded villages into towns and cities, and these in time began to stand, as powerful boroughs, for the rights of the people. The conquest, says Green, "secured for England a new communion with the artistic and intellectual life of the world without her. To it we owe not merely English wealth and English freedom, but England herself." ”

“ He was first of all a sailor, and he had seen nothing to compare with the magnificence of this great embouchure. Here were scope and refuge for the greatest of navies! Here, it seemed, was a place designed by the Almighty to be the seat of an empire! ”

“ As long as South Carolina was let alone, her case plainly said to all the other slave States, "You see we can withdraw from the Union; we have withdrawn from the Union; and the [Pg 179] Union takes no step to keep us in; you can do the same thing."
At this time North Carolina and Virginia were opposed to secession. Governor Sam Houston, of Texas, stood like a rock against it. Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, never seceded. Other States were wavering. A great deal depended on the degree of success which South Carolina, the leader in the revolt, might have. ”