Various

“ What appears to have been common in New Jersey in the early days of the eighteenth century—such as turning a Legislative minority into a majority—is so exceptional to-day as to excite general surprise, and more or less genuine indignation. In that State ten years ago it caused a political revolution.
231The golden age of American politics does not lie in the past. It looms up brightly in the future.
All the patriots, all the statesmen who have ever lived in our land, are by no means dead. To-day there are more with us than ever. ”

“ Let us have faith in the Republic, and in our present leaders, following where they lead aright, and leaving them when they go astray; remembering the golden rule in government, embodied in those matchless words:
“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” ”

“ I have seen yr Paragon, George Washington. He reached here on Saturday after he was in Springfield, & it was a Gala-day for Boston. There was a great Procession, Militia, marching very straight and fine, trades-people, each guild with the Device of its Craft, and many Gentlemen on horseback. Near the State-house was a triumphal Arch, built acrost the street. On one side were the words, “The Man Who Unites All Hearts.” ”

“ There is a glorious zest in this pursuit of power, in this forging to the front as a leader of men. Admirable ambition, if inspired by worthy motives. Fascinating, most attractive, to every virile man. What wonder, if in this eager thirst for eminence among his fellows, the ardent leader becomes oblivious at times to the relative rights of meum and tuum? Success is his aim. ”

“ He belongs in the company of the elect of all the ages. Only once in centuries does Nature form such a man, and then, like Caesar and Cromwell, he must be misunderstood, because he walks in a different atmosphere from the common throng. When I was in college I went on a hunting trip in the New Hampshire wilderness. Away up there in the Northland, suddenly, from a hilltop, I saw that splendid mountain peak, which has just been rightly named Washington. ”

“ You ask me if there are no handsome Springfield girls to take my attention, and keep me from being lonely. There are some very decent-looking young ladies, whom I see when I attend divine worship in the First Church, but you know very well why I do not care to cultivate their acquaintance. There is only One—no, I will not break my promise which I made, not to propose for your hand again for six months, but you know what I mean. I am going to tell you about the visit which that noble Patriot & Friend of Mankind, President George Washington, has just made to Springfield. ”

“ Perhaps when they have left this sublunary sphere as long as have Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Benton—nomina clara et venerabilia!—future generations looking back upon the eminent men of this day, through the haze of a century, may see our contemporaries surrounded by as effulgent a glamour as that which to our eyes enshrines the worthies who guided the first steps of the Nation along the paths of sure and permanent progress. ”

“ The truth is, Dorothy, his public life is one continual martyrdom and self-sacrifice. He does not care for public life. He loves his farm on the Potomac—his horses and his dogs, his tobacco and his wheat, and he would be happier there than in any office which the people can give him. ”

“ This mood is what some men mistake for hauteur, pride, arrogance. They call him Caesar, because he does not smirk and grin, and slap every country Tom and Jerry on the back. And yet, beneath that cold exterior, there is a nature which can be as warm and as tender as Spring. ”

“ The British van, commanded by Major Pitcairn, had thus stolen upon the militia unawares, while temporarily dismissed, and it was in sight of the formidable body that the little band of Americans was forming their ranks when the enemy halted at about twelve rods distance. Major Pitcairn with his aids, hastily rode up the Bedford road to right of the meetinghouse, and returned by the Concord road to the left; and having thus reconnoitered this handful of men, drew his pistol and cried: “Disperse, Rebels; throw down your arms and disperse,” gave orders to fire, and fired his own pistol. ”

“ A year later a resolution of the Legislature declared that the people of Alabama would cheerfully submit to any tax, not too oppressive in amount or unequal in operation, laid by the Confederate government for the purpose of reducing the volume of currency and appreciating its value. The Assembly also signified its disapproval of the scheme put forth at the bankers’ meeting at Augusta, Georgia—to issue Confederate bonds with interest payable in coin and to levy a heavy tax of $60,000,000 to be paid in coin or in coupons of the proposed new issue. ”

“ Here is a splendid field for the orator, to persuade by his burning eloquence; for the leader, to show his mastery over men; for the partisan, to cajole with the promise of sordid spoil, or to threaten the recreant with loss of influence. ”

“ This vessel, he was told, he should presently command on a voyage across the Atlantic, bearing despatches to Congress.
Once arrived on English soil, it is far from strange that the lively mariner should have longed for a glimpse of old haunts. The circumspect gentlemen in Paris would hardly have smiled, however, upon their emissary’s sally into the heart of London; and his visit to his friends the Jumps, at their house in Stepney Causeway, spoke little for his sense of responsibility.
Mrs. Jump, Hynson’s friend, received him with tender rejoicing. ”

“ The fiction of the “good old days” is so strongly intrenched in our minds that it is very difficult to break away from it, yet the absence of bitterness to-day in the spirit of the public toward the chief magistrate is no less marked a change than the revolution in physical conditions. President Roosevelt was followed on his journey by the good will of all the people. ”

“ When the events of our Revolutionary war destroyed commerce with the mother country, it followed in nature, if obscurely, that Joseph Hynson, a young Maryland sea-captain, employed in the London carrying trade, should find his occupation gone. Beating about in search of a new one suited to his taste, Hynson shortly betook himself to France, there to solicit from the American Commissioners some maritime employment in the service of Congress. Several well-known Marylanders in Paris at the time vouched for the newcomer as an able seaman and an honest man. ”

“ In 1528 one of the mouths of the Mississippi was seen in the forlorn last voyage of Narvaez; and in 1541 the river was crossed far above its mouth, by the ambitious but ill-fated expedition of De Soto, and after his death it was descended by the survivors in boats to the Gulf. Four times within a period of forty-three years, the Spaniards reached by sea and by land the lower part of the Mississippi. They sought gold or silver in vain, and the extreme disasters of the last two expeditions caused them to abandon their purpose of planting colonies and making this region a part of New Spain. ”

“ President Roosevelt began his trip in the cab of a locomotive. President Washington started in his private coach, with much ceremony, attended by six servants. President Roosevelt travelled thousands of miles to Colorado and Texas, visiting territory, the existence of which was not even dreamed of in 1789. Washington went as far from New York as Portsmouth, N. H., and required a month in which to cover the distance between the two cities. But it is not so much the outward changes in conditions as the attitude of the people which is, after all, of the chief interest. ”

“ Instead, I believe that the islands visited by Vespucci on the return voyage were the northern part of the Bahama group. Without going so far from the coast and its inlets as to incur much danger of storms, or to completely lose the course and the reckoning in cloudy weather, canoe expeditions from the Bahamas could come frequently, as the narrative says, to attack the Indians in the region of Pamlico Sound. These Indians, too, sometimes pursuing their enemies homeward, might learn the situation of their islands, and would thus be able to pilot the way for Vespucci’s ships. ”

“ A Chinese oak with a novel history grows near by; many years ago a friend of Charles A. Dana, travelling in China, picked up a number of acorns under a tree growing by the grave of Confucius, and brought them to America for Mr. Dana, who planted them in his grounds. This tree was grown from one of these acorns.
There are also a number of other memorial trees planted in these grounds; among the most notable are a British oak commemorating the settlement of the Alabama claims, and two American elms, seedlings from the Washington elm growing at Cambridge. And there are many more. ”

“ In 1861, a bond issue of $2,000,000 for defense, and not liable to taxation, was authorized at one time; at another, $385,000 for defense besides an issue of $1,000,000 in treasury notes receivable for taxes. Of the first issue authorized only $1,759,500 was ever issued. Opposition to taxation caused the State to take up the war tax of $2,000,000 (August 19, 1861) , and for this purpose $1,700,000 in bonds were issued, the banks supplying the remainder. There was a relaxation in taxation during the war; paper money was easily printed, and the people were opposed to heavy taxes. ”

“ The lust for power is one of the deepest instincts of the human mind. Civilization has not quenched it, but has merely directed it into new channels. Instead of the savage chieftain who once impressed his will on his fellow-tribesmen by tomahawk or flint-tipped arrow-head, or 222by terrifying shamanism, we have the statesman—“politician,” if you will—exercising his mastery by all the subtle arts which a keen intellect and a profound knowledge of men and the influences to which they are severally and collectively subject, can devise. ”

“ Could you not write more often than once a week? It is very lonely here, but Springfield is really a lovely place. The river, as it comes sweeping down from the hills, is beautiful. There is a very pretty society here for a small town, and some assemblies. I think you love the country. I think that a girl, even one who had been brought up in Boston, might under certain circumstances be happy here. ”

“ I wish you Health and Happiness.”—Isabella Cleghorn to Capt. Joseph Hynson, in a letter from London dated the 13th of February, 1777, intercepted in the general post-office by the British Secret Service, and now preserved among the Auckland MSS. in King’s College, Cambridge.
Isabella Cleghorn? Who was she that her valentine fancies should weigh with nations and be treasured in the archives of a State? A factor in the birth of the American republic? Let those so minded review the evidence and construct an answer to suit themselves. ”

“ It is not the Effects of passionate heats or the Transports of Vindictive Tempers, but the Serious Resentments of a House of Representatives For a Notorious violation of the liberties of the people to whom they could not be just nor answer the trust reposed in them Should they declyne letting the Governor know they are Extremely Dissatisfied at so unkind a treatment Especially when its Causes and Effects Conspire to render it so disagreeable. ”

“ A friend of mine in New York, tells me for a fact, that this man comitted murder in his youth, & you have doubtless heard of those letters of his which have been found, that prove beyond the shadow of a Doubt, that this man, who is hailed as the Saviour of the Country, was really a Coward, that he was at heart as much of a Traitor as Benedict Arnold, only he lacked Arnold’s Boldness & Courage to carry it out. ”

“ The banking law was revised by the convention so that a bank might deposit with the State comptroller stocks of the Confederate States or of Alabama, receiving in return notes countersigned by the comptroller amounting to twice the market value of the bonds deposited. If a bank had on deposit with the comptroller under the old law any stocks of the United States, they could be withdrawn upon the deposit of an equal amount of Confederate stocks or bonds of the State. ”

“ The student of history, however, finds that human nature was and has been much the same through all the ages. The business contracts between merchants of Babylon, stamped on bricks five thousand years ago, and brought to light but yesterday, are in much the same terms as those settled in the courts to-day. ”

“ Only a very scanty statement was given by Vespucci concerning the voyage from some port on the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico, probably that of Tampico, at the mouth of the Panuco river, to “a harbour the best in the world,” which appears to have been on Pamlico Sound or river, whence, after repairing their vessels, the expedition returned to Spain. ”

“ By this time the Assembly was ready to lock horns with his Excellency, and to stand on its rights. It was accordingly resolved that it should be “full” before considering his suggestions, and a committee was appointed to wait on him and ask him to admit the three excluded members. He parried the issue, but the House would none of his evasions, and decided to do no business until those three men were admitted. The Governor wanted an appropriation for his support, and was compelled to yield and swear in the men, who took their seats October 26, 1705. ”

“ When the House met, November 10, 1703, a petition was presented, complaining of an undue election of five of the members returned for the Eastern Division. Sheriff Gordon, at his request, was furnished with a copy of the petition, and time was given him to answer it, and to send for such persons as he should find necessary for his defense. Gordon, by the way, was a member of the House from Perth Amboy, and so had a great advantage over his adversaries, as he could sit on his own case, and by judicious logrolling could influence votes in his own behalf. ”

“ That white livered Sneak & Coward, G. Washington, was in Springfield, yesterday. A lot of Fools dressed up in their best, and went over the river to see him. I hear he stopped at Zene Parsons’ Tavern, and rode in a fine Coach, with four Horses, and a whole company of Lackeys to bend & crouch & lick his Boots. He is more like a King than a president, and they say he grows wors every day. ”

“ It is certainly material, if he succeeds. For tho’ both Deane and Franklin may be, & are, according to Carmichael’s, account, too ambitious & Determined (or, in other Words, too malevolent against Great Britain,) ever to adopt any line of conduct short of American Independence, yet Deane and Franklin can, in themselves, individually, do little, & if they are betrayed by those whom they must employ, their Agency will soon come to Disgrace & Despair.”
No ships bearing arms or stores left France for America unknown to the English Admiralty if Hynson’s diligence could prevent it. ”