Various

“ For seven long years the little town of Fitchburg bore bravely and unflinchingly the hardships of the war. The burden to the inhabitants of furnishing their quota of men, money, and provisions, was a heavy one, the depreciation of the currency was ruinous; and they, in common with the rest of the people, found themselves in serious financial difficulties at the close of the war. Taxes were high and money scarce, and the efforts of the authorities to collect the sums levied on the inhabitants finally led to organized resistance, which has come down to us under the name of Shay’s Rebellion. ”

“ He does not take the public time, which belongs to his constituents, for his private practice in the United States Supreme Court. He is in the truest sense a representative of the people. He is quick in discovering, and vigorous in denouncing an abuse. He as quickly comprehends and as earnestly advocates a just cause. He is a safe guardian of the people’s money and has never cast his vote for an extravagant expenditure; but he does not oppose an appropriation to gain a reputation for economy, or aspire to secure the title of "watch dog of the Treasury," by resorting to the arts of a demagogue. ”

“ Such are some of the more salient points in the career of Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger. When another century shall have buried in oblivion his frailties, the valor of the partizan commander will shine in undimmed lustre. When the historian gives place to the novelist and the poet, his desperate achievements portrayed by their pens will render as romantic the borders of Lake George, as have the daring deeds of Rob Roy McGregor, rehearsed by Walter Scott, made enchanting the Shores of Lock Lomond. ”

“ In character, in ability, in education, and in those things generally which mark the representative citizen of New England, he is a worthy successor of the best men who have been called to the Chief Magistracy. His public career has been marked by dignity and an untiring fidelity to duty; his life as a private citizen has been such as to win for him the respect and good will of all who know him. He is a man in whom the people who confer honor upon him find themselves also honored. ”

“ If the visitor will remain motionless for a short time, birds and squirrels show themselves in all directions, and fill his ears with the sounds of the woods. Far away may be seen the white houses and the church spires of the town. No resting place for the dead could be more peaceful, more inspiring to meditation on the part of those who walk in the light of day. ”

“ Shurtleff, "it may have been a jest to be eternally remembered, as all light-minded treatment of serious matters must be. I hope with all my heart that a moment’s frivolity will not have life-long consequences of sorrow, but I cannot proceed in this happy ceremony that I have been called here to perform until the point is settled beyond dispute."
"See how habit rules him like a second nature," whispered Colonel Pepperrell aside to the Governor. "Nobody but a minister would stop to give a homily with those poor creatures before him in an agony of suspense." ”

“ Architecture has been with him a special study, and his magnificent winter residence, recently completed on Commonwealth Avenue, in our city of Boston, is a monument of his own architectural taste. In Europe this residence would be called a palace, here it is simply the home of a representative American citizen. Peculiarly happy in his domestic relations his home is beautified and ennobled by the virtues of domestic life. A generous hospitality is dispensed within its portals, where on every hand are found the evidences of the cultured refinement of its occupants. ”

“ The elegant railway station, a gift to the village from one member of the family, is a model of architectural beauty and convenience. The Gothic church and parsonage of the same style of architecture, are befitting adjuncts of the park-like cemetery, where rests the dust of the blacksmith ancestor who bravely struggled amid adverse surroundings to found the fortunes of his family, and build up a business which has extended wherever civilization has made its way. ”

“ To a young man of hardy constitution, possessed of enterprise, energy, and a fondness for forest sports, hunting afforded not only an attractive, but a profitable employment. Young Rogers had all these characteristics, and as a hunter, tramped through large sections of the wilderness between the French and English settlements. On such excursions he mingled much with the Indians, and somewhat with the French, obtaining by such intercourse some knowledge of their languages, of their modes of hunting, and their habits of life. ”

“ The door was swung slowly open by a servant and the bride and bridegroom came in, stopping just beyond the threshold as Katie caught sight of Elizabeth, and with a wondering face waited for her to come to her place. But the minister, not glancing up, went sternly on with the paper; and Elizabeth’s gaze was fixed on his face; she had drawn a step away from him; and her hands were pressed over one another. All at once he uttered an exclamation of dismay, and turned to her, a dread coming into his face as he met her eyes.
"What does it mean?" he gasped. "Heaven help us, is it true?" ”

“ He is a native of the Commonwealth, of whose laws he is the chief administrator, and comes of that sturdy stock which wresting a new country from savagery, fostered with patient industry the germs of civilization it had planted, and aided in developing into a nation the colonies that, throwing off the yoke of foreign tyranny, presented to the world an example of government founded on the equal rights of the governed and existing by and with the consent of the people. ”

“ If one will follow, in thought, a line starting at Louisburg, and thence running up this great river to Quebec and Montreal, and thence up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and on westward and south-westward to Frontenac, Niagara and Detroit, and thence down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, he will trace the line across which the two nations looked in defiance at each other, and see instantaneously that the claims of France were inadmissable, and that another war was inevitable. ”

“ I don’t know even that I can crave it of Heaven, for I have played with sacred things, and used a power given me for good, in an evil way, to further my own devices, and, after all, I have not furthered them. I am a man loving and unloved, one who has perhaps thrown away his soul on the chance of winning earthly joy,—but such joy,—and has lost it. ”

“ But his education, his registration, his residence, his payment of a portion of the burdens of the State, and the other matters, are in his power and his control. I find it to be in accord with the wisdom of the people of the country that it is the true policy to let the States govern those matters for themselves. The Constitution of the United States touches those things that are out of the man’s control. ”

“ It is, perhaps, as a financier that Oliver Ames has won his widest reputation. Upon the death of his father the management of the vast enterprises which the later had controlled, suddenly devolved upon him. The greatness of the man showed itself in that he found himself equal to the emergency. The Oakes Ames estate was, at the time he took upon his shoulders its settlement, not only one in which immense and diversified interests were involved, scattered throughout different states of the Union, but it was also burdened with obligations to the extent of eight millions of dollars. ”

“ In the filibustering contest over the rules in the Forty-seventh Congress, first session, Mr. Robinson made a very earnest speech, which commended itself to all except the extreme filibusters. Stripping the contest of its technical parliamentary points, Mr. Robinson said: "Our rules are for orderly procedure, not for disorderly obstruction; not for resistance." Continuing he said that no tyranny is one-half as odious as that which comes from the minority. "Our fathers," he said, "put our Government upon the right of the majority to rule." ”

“ Industries and enterprises which would in time develop other industries and enterprises became the special objects of their encouragement. Where avenues of prosperity and success were lacking, they must be created; and in recognition of this necessity this family took the lead in making the seemingly inaccessible, accessible, and the far, near, by building a railway across the Continent. In this barest and most meagre outline of the history of a single family may be found in miniature an outline of the history of the development of Massachusetts, of New England. ”

“ No man has been universally great. Individuals who have made themselves prominent among their fellows have done so by achievements in special directions only, and confined to limited portions of their lives. Particularly true is this remark when applied to Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger, who, in our last French war, greatly distinguished himself as a partisan commander, and gained as wide fame as did any other soldier of equal rank and opportunity. ”

“ If you can, in this bill and under our Constitution, declare that the citizens, or any portion of them, in this country, because they act in their corporate capacity, shall lose their rights in the federal courts, it is but the next step to legislate that the man who is engaged in rolling iron, or in the manufacture of cotton, or of woolen goods, or is banker, or ’bloated bond-holder,’ shall not have any rights in the federal courts. ”

“ Energetic, enterprising young men were attracted to Fitchburg as a promising place for a home, and there was the exhilarating, hopeful atmosphere of a new and growing town, where changes are rapid and opportunities are many. ”

“ Can it be that the dead of past generations, who sleep on the hillside which overlooks the valley, have seen this transformation, and if so, will they behold all the changes of the future? Then may this and the coming generations prove themselves worthy of those who, during the years that have passed, have been its bone and sinew and life blood. ”

“ Looking into the Constitution and the laws of the sister States of Virginia and Georgia and Delaware and Pennsylvania we find similar provisions of the same antiquity justified by the communities that have adopted such legislation. And we say to all the States we leave to you those questions of policy, and we commend them to your judgment and careful consideration. Does any one claim that representation should be reduced because of insanity or idiocy, or because of convicts? Does any one claim that all laws requiring residence and registration should be done away? ”

“ In the same neighborhood are the large farms and expensive estates of the mill-owners, the wealthiest class in the community. Between the villages, in fact, upon all the roads, every turn brings in sight pleasing views which never repeat themselves or become monotonous. The cemetery is itself one of the most beautiful spots in the neighborhood. A massive granite gateway is being put up, the gift of the late Thomas Allen. ”

“ The descendants of William Ames, the Puritan, who settled in Braintree, are a representative New England family. Their history forms an honorable part of the history of Massachusetts, and fitly illustrates in its outlines the social and material advancement of the people from the poverty and hardships of the early Colonial days to the wealth and culture of the present. In the early days of the Colony they were poor, as were their neighbors of other names, but they honored toil and believed in the dignity of honest labor. Industry was with them coupled with thrift. ”

“ Thus there exists a real Democracy, an inestimable educator of the people possible only among an energetic people, who, by inheritance, have acquired a love for the practical; in the absence of arbitrary government have been long accustomed to the use of political rights, and from their character combine in their thoughts and actions, reason with understanding and conscience with religious sentiment. ”

“ The history of the Berkshire Agricultural Society may be traced back to its origin in 1807, when Elkanah Watson, who had recently become an inhabitant of the town, exhibited two fine merinoes, a ram and a ewe, on the green under the Old Elm. Great interest was aroused, and the importation of the best foreign breeds of cattle and sheep was encouraged and carried on by public-spirited and enterprising citizens. One farmer came into possession of a cow, in which he felt so much pride that it formed the subject of his conversation at all times and places, until his friends feared to meet him. ”

“ He inspired capitalists with confidence, money was forthcoming to further his carefully matured plans, and the ship freighted with the fortunes of his family, was, by his steady hand, piloted securely amidst the shoals and quicksands of disaster, and by rocks strewn with the wrecks of princely fortunes, to a safe anchorage. ”