Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

“ Strange is it that of all those who sought this coast, the name of John Cabot, the first adventurer who landed upon it, should be so seldom mentioned: and History, called by a philosopher a Splendid Lie, should prove its title to mendacity, by giving all the glory of the land, "primum visa" to his son, Sebastian. To John Cabot, a Venetian, then a merchant of Bristol, England, in the reign of the Seventh Henry, is all the honor to be ascribed of setting the first European foot upon the then desert wilds that now bloom, the Garden of the United States ”

“ Educated at Harvard University and the University of Paris. He did his first work in poetry at Harvard in the stimulating companionship of a little group of poets including Trumbull Stickney, William Vaughn Moody, and Philip Henry Savage, all of whom, by a strange fatality, died within a few years after leaving the University. Mr. Lodge was a poet whose gift followed classical lines, but was none the less individual and sincere. His complete work in lyric and dramatic poetry has been gathered into two volumes: "Poems and Dramas", 1911. He died at Boston in 1909. ”

“ He had not been at home five days before he wrote to the younger Trumbull, congratulating him on his father's vigorous message in behalf of better federal government, which had not been very well received by the Connecticut legislature. He spoke of "the jealousies and contracted temper" of the States, but avowed his belief that public sentiment was improving. "Everything," he concluded, "my dear Trumbull, will come right at last, as we have often prophesied. My only fear is that we shall lose a little reputation first." ”

“ Logan of Philadelphia, under the promptings of Jefferson, as was commonly supposed, had gone on a volunteer mission to Paris for the purpose of bringing about peace between the two republics. He had apparently a fixed idea that there was something very monstrous in our having any differences with France, and being somewhat of a busybody, although a most worthy man, he felt called upon to settle the international complications which were then puzzling the brains and trying the patience of the ablest men in America. ”

“ The lion slept very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber.
It was soon after the reply to Hayne that Mr. Webster made his great argument for the government in the White murder case. One other address to a jury in the Goodridge case, and the defence of Judge Prescott before the Massachusetts Senate, which is of similar character, have been preserved to us. The speech for Prescott is a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and yet sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly free from any attempt to confuse or mislead, or to sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. ”

“ Francis Cabot, the second son, was the father of the noted giver, John Lowell, Jr. Charles, the third son, became an eminent Boston minister, and was the father of the poet, James Russell Lowell. On his mother's side the ancestors of John Lowell, Jr., were also prominent. His maternal grandfather, Jonathan Jackson, was a generous man of means, a member of the Congress [Pg 3] of 1782, and at the close of the Revolutionary War largely the creditor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was the treasurer of the State and of Cambridge University. ”

“ Webster in 1837 had defended the character of the opponents of slavery, and the sound of this new gospel from his lips fell strangely on their ears. So he goes on from one union meeting to another, and in speech after speech there is the same bitter tone which had been so foreign to him in all his previous utterances. The supporters of the anti-slavery movement he denounces as insane. He reiterates his opposition to slave extension, and in the same breath argues that the Union must be preserved by giving way to the South. ”

“ Webster never at any time treated the question of free trade or protection as anything but one of expediency. Under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, the South and West initiated a protective policy, and after twelve years it had become firmly established and New England had adapted herself to it. Mr. Webster, as a New England representative, resisted the protective policy at the outset as against her interests, but when she had conformed to the new conditions, he came over to its support simply on the ground of expediency. ”

“ Webster's strong argument in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law pleased the South, of course; but it irritated and angered the North. It promoted the very struggle which it proposed to allay, for it admitted the existence of only one side to the question. The consciences of men cannot be coerced; and when Mr. Webster undertook to do it he dashed himself against the rocks. People did not stop to distinguish between a legal argument and a defence of the merits of catching runaway slaves. ”

“ Then, seeing the English nation only hath right unto these countries of America from the Cape of Florida northward by the privilege of first discovery, unto which Cabot was authorised by regal authority, and set forth by the expense of our late famous King Henry the Seventh; which right also seemeth strongly defended on our behalf by the powerful hand of Almighty God withstanding the enterprises of other nations ”

“ The truth was, that in all this business Jefferson was thinking too much of France and of the cause of human liberty in Paris, while Washington thought of the United States alone. The result was the escape of the vessel, owing to Washington's absence, and the consequent humiliation to the government. To refrain from ordering Genet out of the country at once required a strong effort of self-control ”

“ The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves, but to the world, than any single possession. ”

“ Seals were seen, and the ships plowed through such shoals of codfish as had never before been heard of. Labrador was again seen. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine were next explored. The whole coast of New England and of the Middle States was now, for the first time since the days of the Norsemen, traced by Europeans. Nor did Cabot desist from this work, which was bestowing the title of discovery on the crown of England, until he reached Cape Hatteras.
6. The future career of Cabot was a strange one. Henry VII. was slow to reward the discoverer. ”

“ A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, everything, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. ”

“ According to Raimondo di Soncino, who wrote on 18 Dec. 1497, these discoveries were recorded by John Cabot on a map, and also on a globe, which are now lost (Weise, p. 192) . Nothing is known of the termination of this second voyage, and from this period the history of John Cabot ceases.
It is much to be feared, from the ambiguous and often contradictory accounts of the voyages of 1497 to 1499 in contemporary chronicles, that nearly if not all the discoveries that are usually assigned to Sebastian Cabot are really those of his father. According to Stow (p. 862) Sebastian (?) ”

“ Once more, what is it to be an American? Putting aside all the outer shows of dress and manners, social customs and physical peculiarities, is it not to believe in America and in the American people? Is it not to have an abiding and moving faith in the future and in the destiny of America?—something above and beyond the patriotism and love which every man whose soul is not dead within him feels for the land of his birth? ”

“ Lowell did not know “a single bold and ardent man” among the Massachusetts or Connecticut delegates. In the “Centinel” of December 7 he described Cabot’s tendencies in language evidently intended as a warning to Cabot himself:—
“There are men who know that our troubles are not the offspring of this war alone, and will not die with it. ”

“ Shortly after the death of Henry VIII (28 Jan. 1547) , Cabot received tempting offers from friends in England to transfer his services to the country of his birth. That no time was lost in accepting them is proved by the following minute of the privy council of Edward VI under date of 9 Oct. 1547: ‘Mr. Peckham had warrant for 100 li for the transporting of one Shabot () , a pilot, to come out of Hispain to serve and inhabit in England.’ According to Strype (ii. i. 296) , he once more settled in his native town, Bristol. In the following January he was awarded a pension of 166l. ”

“ They sailed in a ship named the Matthew, and on the 24th of June, 1497, discovered the mainland of America, eighteen months before Columbus set foot upon it at the mouths of the Orinoco. For a long time it was supposed that Cabot had landed upon Newfoundland, but it is now considered settled that Labrador was the portion of the continent first discovered by a European. No account of the further prosecution of the voyage has reached us, and the only official record of Cabot's return is an entry in the privy-purse expenses of Henry, 10th August, 1497:-"To hym that found the New Isle, 10l." ”

“ They throw a flood of light on the great underlying forces which enabled the American people to save themselves in that time of storm and stress. They are the utterances of a very young man, not thirty years old when he died in battle, but much beyond thirty in head and heart, tried and taught as he had been in a great war. What precisely such young men thought they were fighting for is put strikingly by Lowell's younger brother James, who was killed at Glendale, July 4, 1862. ”

“ The brilliant career, the shining courage, best seen always where the dead were lying thickest, the heroic death of Charles Lowell, are good for us all to know and to remember. Yet this imperfect story of his life has not been placed here for these things alone. Many thousand others, officers and soldiers alike, in the great Civil War gave their lives as freely as he, and brought to the service of their country the best that was in them. ”

“ Webster depicted practical nullification, and showed that it was nothing more or less than revolution when actually carried out, was really the conclusive answer to the nullifying doctrine. But Mr. Calhoun and his school eagerly denied that nullification rested on the right to revolt against oppression. They argued that it was a constitutional right; that they could live within the Constitution and beyond it,—inside the house and outside it at one and the same time. They contended that, the Constitution being a compact between the States, the Federal government was the creation of the States ”

“ When the heart has laid down what it loved most, then it is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honourable inscription, no ever burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects of our affections. ”

“ The reply to Hayne gave magnificent expression to the popular feeling, while that to Calhoun supplied the arguments which, after years of discussion, converted that feeling into a fixed opinion, and made it strong enough to carry the North through four years of civil war. But in his final speech in this debate Mr. Webster came back to his original ground, and said, in conclusion, "Shall we have a general government? Shall we continue the union of States under a government instead of a league? This vital and all-important question the people will decide." ”

“ From the [39] time the Norsemen left “Vinland the Good,” Cabot was the first European to touch the mainland of North America. He sailed some distance along the coast of what he thought was “the land of the great Khan.” He saw no inhabitants, but observed that the sea swarmed with fish, and on his return he suggested that England should send fishermen thither instead of depending on the fisheries of Iceland. He noted, too, that “the tides are slack and do not flow as they do here,” that is, in England. ”

“ Mr. Webster was now able to turn his undivided attention to the long-standing boundary question. His proposition to agree upon a conventional line had been made known by Mr. Fox to his government, and soon afterwards Mr. Everett was informed that Lord Ashburton would be sent to Washington on a special mission. The selection of an envoy well known for his friendly feeling toward the United States, which was also traditional with the great banking-house of his family, was in itself a pledge of conciliation and good will. ”

“ Jefferson was a lover of peace, given to quiet, hating quarrels and bloodshed, and at times timid in dealing with public questions. Washington was deliberate and conservative, after the fashion of his race. Jefferson was quick, impressionable, and always fascinated by new notions, even if they were somewhat fantastic. A thoroughly liberal and open-minded man, Washington never turned a deaf ear to any new suggestion, whether it was a public policy or a mechanical invention, but to all alike he gave careful consideration before he adopted them. ”

“ It was a wilderness of forests and prairies, teeming with game, and inhabited by many warlike tribes of Indians.
Here and there through it were dotted quaint little towns of French Creoles, the most important being Detroit, Vincennes on the Wabash, and Kaskaskia and Kahokia on the Illinois. These French villages were ruled by British officers commanding small bodies of regular soldiers or Tory rangers and Creole partizans. The towns were completely in the power of the British government; none of the American States had actual possession of a foot of property in the Northwestern Territory. ”