Freemantle

“ History is but past politics, just as politics are present history. This cardinal truth Mr. Freeman, as a narrator of events, fully apprehends; and this it is that gives such lucidity and value to all his writings. He has, moreover, moral courage of the highest order, and admirable tenacity of purpose. To his own mind his objects are invariably clear; and he takes the most direct, if sometimes not the most pleasant, means of clarifying the minds of others. ”

“ Men seldom see themselves as others see them; and while to ourselves everything connected with our contemplated escape appeared concealed, Mr. Freeland may, with the peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, have mastered the huge thought which was disturbing our peace. ”

“ You don't seem to set much value on your own exceedingly agreeable society."
She smiled very prettily at this, and again we walked on for a while up the slope without speaking. Once she turned her head as if listening for some sound from behind us, but our feet were making so much noise on the loose gravel, and the sound reverberated so much in the narrow space between the wooden fences that I, at least, heard nothing. ”

“ Freeman, who in his discriminating analysis of the Norman character declares the supreme, the directive, the dominant quality to be craft: a special power of intellect which seems to have been created or evolved by the necessities of those times—intellect fused with instinct and directed by a conscienceless common sense. ”

“ But the study of the laws which maintain order in nature, released from the fetters of preconceived ideas, has led the Freemasons to that doctrine, far more moral than the contrary belief, that labor is not an expiation, but a law of harmony, from the subjection to which man cannot be released without impairing his own happiness, and deranging the order of creation. The design of Freemasons is, then, the rehabilitation of labor, which is indicated by the apron which we wear, and the gavel, the trowel, and the level, which are found among our symbols. ”

“ What's George Freeman? What's all the Freemans? I ain't never liked them. They wa'n't never up to our folks. His mother ain't never had a black silk dress to her name—never had a thing better than black cashmere, an' they ain't never had a thing but oil-cloth in their front entry, an' the Perry's ain't never noticed them either. I ain't never wanted Flora to go into that family. I never felt as if she was lookin' high enough, an' I knew George couldn't get no kind of a livin' jest being clerk in Mason's store. ”

“ My faculties and powers of body and soul are not my own, but are the property of a fellow mortal, in no sense superior to me, except that he has the physical power to compel me to be owned and controlled by him. By the combined physical force of the community, I am his slave,—a slave for life." With thoughts like these, I was perplexed and chafed; they rendered me gloomy and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind may not be written.
At the close of the year 1835, Mr. Freeland, my temporary master, had bought me of Capt. Thomas Auld, for the year 1836. ”

“ The reader may be safely left to draw his own conclusion from the endless gyrations of this elusive antiquary, who first admits that he is 'doubly wrong', and then announces that he is going to prove that his 'guess' was right!
Mr. Rye's treatment of Freeman is a very serious matter. If and where it can be proved that Freeman has erred in his statements, let them by all means be corrected; I myself should be the last to deny one's right to do so. ”

“ Freeman, whom many people thought fierce, was one of the most soft-hearted of men, and tolerant of everything but perfidy and cruelty. Though disposed to be positive in his opinions, he was always willing to reconsider a point when any new evidence was discovered or any new argument brought to his notice, and not unfrequently modified his view in the light of such evidence or arguments. ”

“ Haven't I as much right to be in Folkestone as you have?"
"That is mere evasion. When I see a man who is usually rather carefully and very neatly dressed, walking in the streets of a seaport town without hat or a stick and with a collar that looks as if it had been used to clean out a saucepan, and great stains on his clothes, I am justified in inferring that something unusual has happened to him." ”

“ Freeman is not without his limitations. His mind is a peculiarly English mind, strong in facts and shrewd at inferences, but weak and timid in the application of first principles. Original speculators like Spencer or Bain might logically overthrow the very foundations of his political and religious beliefs, and he would never know or care. He is an accomplished specialist in letters, and he is content so to be. Living all his days the life of a squire of his county, his habits of thought are as realistic as those of the class of which he is so great and unwonted an ornament. ”

“ Freeland, we respectfully submit, is in placing the intellect and the passions in antagonism with each other, while, in truth, it is one passion, or one class of passions, which antagonizes another. The direction given to society by the predominating force of all the individual propensities is retrogressive, stationary, or progressive, revolutionary and destructive, or moderate and safe, according to the knowledge of facts and the prevision of consequences which may inform the judgments and enlighten the consciences of the masses. ”

“ In legislating for new conditions of society, men should resort to principles, and not be guided entirely by precedent. Qui hœret in literâ, hœret in cortice. The freehold was adopted by our ancestors as the test of qualification, not because there was any greater virtue in a lease for life, than for a term of ninety-nine years, but because, as the name implies, it was the peculiar tenure of the freeman, and the test of his being such, which in those primitive times was considered a sufficient qualification for the exercise of the elective franchise. ”

“ Pity me, my dear Lucy! Tell me that your good uncle has produced some change in your father's inflexible resolutions. Mr. Freeman is a wise man, although he loves my poor Horace so tenderly. Surely he might convince Mr. Hardcastle without invading on the prerogatives of the immortal Newton, that no material injury would be done to the planetary system by our writing to each other! He might go farther, and safely predict, that our marriage would not hasten a single comet. No extraordinary thunders would announce to the world, that happiness had triumphed over cent. ”

“ Freeman is right in his description of "that fearful deed, half of policy, half of vengeance, which has stamped the name of William with infamy", not very many of the victims of his cruelty can have made good their flight, for we are told that the bodies of the inhabitants of Yorkshire "were rotting in the streets, in the highways, or on their own hearthstones". ”

“ Your property in your garden, and your own integrity, dear Sir, are sufficient security; but I would willingly remove every burthen from your shoulders, as well as give Mr Freeman every certainty in my power. I am every day more esteemed, and I believe, if I have life and health, there is little doubt of my success. ”

“ Had three come to me with that mad order to bring powder and shot in the stead of silk stockings and garters and cambric shifts and kerchiefs, I would have clapped full sail on the Golden Horn, though—" he hesitated, then spoke in a whisper—"my mind is against tyranny, to speak you true, though I care not a farthing whether men pray on their knees or their feet, or in gowns or the fashion of Eden. ”

“ The inversion of the true order of things which he finds today is simply that the bowels have become the end for which the body exists. Servants in control, instead of being controlled—this is the gist of the situation, the business as truly as the working classes coming normally under the serving or slave category. Freemen are a different class altogether—they are the higher types already described, whose manner of life the slaves make possible, those for whom the ordered life of society ultimately exists and from whom it normally receives its final direction. ”

“ Freeman had to submit to being called by the enemy ‘philanthropist’, whereas he was only ‘talking politics’ and putting questions they could not answer. [2]
It was about the same time that another historian—Professor Seeley—who held, like Mr. Freeman, that history is the training-ground for both citizenship and statesmanship, was addressing a working-men's club in London; and in the discussion that followed his lecture a remark was made which he often recalled, especially when he tried to measure the competence of the great mass of men for judging of large national issues. ”

“ Be it Witenagemót, Great Council, or Parliament, there has always been some body54 of men claiming, with more or less of right, to speak in the name of the nation. And bear too in mind that, down to the Norman Conquest, the body which claimed to speak in the name of the nation was, in legal theory at least, the nation itself. This is a point on which I mean again to speak more fully; I would now simply suggest the thought, new perhaps to many, that there was a time when every freeman of England, no less than every freeman of Uri, could claim a direct voice in the councils of his country. ”

“ Freeman says, "Sometimes we find direct mention of the presence of large and popular classes of men, as the citizens of London or Winchester": the implication in both cases being that all freemen had a right to attend, but that only those on the spot could readily avail themselves of the right. ”

“ No people on earth were more passionately enamored with liberty, or more obstinate in the defense of freedom than the inhabitants of Friesland. This is known from their ancient history. They enjoyed their liberty and retained a greater degree of independence than their neighbors, through a long course of years, even from Drufus to Charlemagne, and from Charlemagne down to the present time. [See Universal History.] They have always been distinguished for their free, independent spirit ”

“ However much we may condemn his political principles, however much we may condemn the rebellion, and however rejoiced we may be that he and it failed of success, yet, now that we know of the secret as well as the open difficulties with which he had to contend, we cannot but admire the talent, the energy, and the perseverance with which he overcame them all for months and years ”

“ This is chiefly with regard to the modes of appealing to God’s judgement in doubtful cases. The English did this by ordeal, the Normans by wager of battle. When a man of one nation appealed a man of the other, the accused chose the mode of trial. If an Englishman appealed a Frenchman and declined to prove his charge either way, the Frenchman might clear himself by oath. But these privileges were strictly confined to Frenchmen who had come with William and after him. Frenchmen who had in Edward’s time settled in England as the land of their own choice, reckoned as Englishmen. ”

“ It is not difficult now to say to the young freedman, cheated and cuffed about, who has seen his father's head beaten to a jelly and his own mother namelessly assaulted, that the meek shall inherit the earth. Above all, nothing is more convenient than to heap on the Freedmen's Bureau all the evils of that evil day, and damn it utterly for every mistake and blunder that was made. ”

“ It strikes Freeman and Trueman thus:
'This is the first gentleman's seat I've seen since we left England,' said Freeman.
'There must have been a fine coming of age here,' rejoined Trueman.
'As for that,' replied Freeman, 'comings of age depend in a manner upon meat and drink. They ain't in noways to be carried out with coffee and pipes. Without oxen roasted whole, and broached hogsheads, they ain't in a manner legal.'
The servants' Paradise is meat and drink in England or in Palestine, and Tancred's gentlemen were sorely tried with the coffee and pipes. ”

“ The Investigator had explained. No one was allowed to visit a Freeman Camp in other than the prescribed white coverall. Any other color would attract too much attention, even hostility. The precious right of freedom was an exclusive privilege. ”

“ Freeland's, my condition was every way improved. I was no longer the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey's, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my shoulders. Mr. Freeland was too just a man thus to impose upon me, or upon any one else.
It is quite usual to make one slave the object of especial abuse, and to beat him often, with a view to its effect upon others, rather than with any expectation that the slave whipped will be improved by it, but the man with whom I now was, could descend to no such meanness and wickedness. ”

“ A freehold is the qualification in England, and hence it is imagined to be the only proper one. The true idea, in his opinion, was, that every man having evidence of attachment to, and permanent common interest with, the society, ought to share in all its rights and privileges. Was this qualification restrained to freeholders? ”

“ I raced for my life, and when I heard the man gaining on me, I suppose I must have called out. Then I heard your shout from the upper part of the lane and ran on faster than ever to gain your protection. That's all, and I suppose you think that I have been making a great fuss about nothing."
"I don't think anything of the kind," I said, "and neither would our absent friend if I could get hold of him. By the way, what sort of person was he?—a tramp?"
"Oh, no, quite a respectable looking person; in fact, he would have passed for a gentleman." ”