National humiliation

“ If a person of great physical strength, he would be feared by some, esteemed by nobody and heartily detested as a public nuisance by the whole decent part of the community. A nation playing such a rôle would deserve and meet with the same judgment in the family of civilized nations, and at the same time it would cultivate within itself those forces of evil which are always developed by a perversion of the sense of honor, and the consequent loss of true moral dignity and of genuine self-respect. ”

“ Neither would any American having the honor of his country sincerely at heart find it compatible with the true moral dignity of this great republic that the American people should always be nervously on the lookout for something to offend or affront it, and eager to construe as a grievous injury or a deadly insult anything in the slightest degree capable of an unpleasant interpretation, in order to avenge it. ”

“ This state of national debasement and dishonor lay spread out, a wide scene of moral desolation, in the sight of statesmen, of dignified and subordinate ecclesiastics, of magistrates, of the philosophic speculators on human nature, and of all those whose rank and opulence brought them hourly proofs what great influence they might have, in any way in which, they should choose to exert it, on the people below them. ”

“ And scarcely less deserving of reprobation are those who have it in their power to prevent these crimes, but who remain inactive from indifference, or are dissuaded from throwing the shield of British power over the victim of oppression, by the sophistry, and the clamour, and the avarice of the oppressor. It is the reproach and the sin of England. May God avert from our country the ruin which this national guilt deserves! ”

“ Even the corruption of morals, this most terrible of all scourges, is not necessarily a cause of national ruin. If it were, the prosperity of a nation, its power and preponderance, would be in a direct ratio to the purity of its manners ”

“ Still the serf can rise in vengeance—can admonish the autocrat that humanity may yet turn again and rend him.
So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other nations have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling under foot the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our national existence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the face of the world. ”

“ Where the maxims of the government commanding, and the opinions of the people agreeing, that corporal punishment may be inflicted, on the ground of a favour conferred upon the person punished, a principle of humiliation is admitted that is well calculated to exclude and obliterate every notion of the dignity of human nature. ”

“ With what degrees of punctiliousness, at what cost of treasure and of life, ought a nation to resent insults directed against its dignity, its subjects and its flag? What is the meaning and what are the limits of national egotism and national unselfishness? ”

“ Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs. ”

“ A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive. My heart turned bitter within me. I could understand why Negroes are led to sympathize with even their worst criminals and to protect them when possible. By all the impulses of normal human nature they can and should do nothing less. ”

“ We do not claim any great show of bravery or firmness in this case, but then if self degradation and humiliation to save our country is a mark of patriotism, we would be sorry to hear of a more patriotic people than we of the north proved ourselves to be in this transaction. ”

“ Rely upon it, my Lords, that if anything can make more offensive the conduct of our agents in fostering revolt, and injuring the lawful government of our allies, it is the adding foul slander to gross indiscretion, revenging themselves on those whose valour and conduct has frustrated their designs, by blackening their characters, and committing that last act of cruel injustice, calumniating those you have injured, through your hatred of those to whom you have given good cause to hate you. ”

“ But jealousy and revenge, in a whole people, when they are abused, are laudable and politick virtues; without which they will never thrive, never be esteemed. How far they are to carry their resentments, I do not pronounce: The measures of it must be determined by circumstances; but still keen resentment ought to be shewn, and some punishment, or punishments, inflicted. When the dignity or interest of a nation is at stake, mercy may be cruelty. ”

“ Hideous and absurd as such performances must appear to the intelligence and the moral sense of mankind, and humiliating as they are to the patriotic pride of the American citizen who has the good name and the welfare of his country at heart, we might regard them now as mere lingering remnants of vicious old habits which are still desperately struggling against the advent of a better order of things. ”

“ A set of people less framed to provoke national self-complacency than the latter it would be hard to imagine. There is but one word to use in regard to them—vulgar, vulgar, vulgar. Their ignorance—their stingy, defiant, grudging attitude towards everything European—their perpetual reference of all things to some American standard or precedent which exists only in their own unscrupulous wind-bags—and then our unhappy poverty of voice, of speech and of physiognomy—these things glare at you hideously. ”

“ The incidents of any struggle of a large portion of a people with its Government, are sure, at some time or another, to elicit some sympathy with those who appear, to the careless view of a foreign nation, only as martyrs to the popular cause, and as victims of a Government conducted on principles differing from its own. ”

“ I can not bring myself to depict the humiliation to which this Government and people might be sooner or later reduced if the means for defending their rights are to be made dependent upon those who may have the most powerful of motives to impair them. ”

“ No misconception of national honor could be more grotesque than the fancy that the moral dignity of a nation can better be saved by punishing one's self with an absolutely useless demonstration of willingness to shed more blood and to squander more wealth and to create more misery, than by a wise and decorous acceptance of the inevitable. ”

“ But when the American people shall have proclaimed that they care nothing for a proper sense of honor in their public men and the public service, then a crop of corruption and demoralization will ripen such as we have never dreamed of. ”

“ I still think too highly both of my own government and of the government of France to believe that such an untoward incident will fail to receive the serious attention it deserves. If I am wrong, and American citizens must expect to suffer such indignities and injuries at the hands of other governments without any effort at remonstrance and redress by their own government, I believe the public ought to know the humiliating truth. ”

“ The danger of our frequent fault-finding is that we thus allow our righteous indignation to evaporate in mere words.
Supineness in politics, an indolence which permits unworthy men to usurp the reins of government, is one of our great sins as a nation. Yet the corrupt manipulator who goes too far meets an uprising of popular indignation which thoroughly surprises him. ”

“ The sympathies of all mankind are enlisted against the revenge and fury of a single despot; and every attempt will be made to screen his victims. But how difficult is it to escape from the vengeance of an indignant people, roused into hatred by unfounded calumnies, or stimulated to cruelty by bitter political enmities, or unmeasured jealousies? ”

“ Low cunning is practised by men in the same ranks, to over-reach an approaching rival, and all the machinery of slander put in requisition to destroy him. Is he a man of superior talents and worth? Means proportionably base must be resorted to, in order to insure his destruction and drive him from the course. Disgusted at such corruption, the very men best calculated to advance our dearest interests and add new lustre to our national glory, are those who most dread the political arena and shrink from the public gaze. ”

“ If such are the men with whom bitter quarrels are waged, and upon whom unstinted contumely and contempt are poured out, shall we not all, upon every side, pause and reflect that to blow mere party fires to fury, and to trample personal character in the mire of angry political dispute, is to disgrace ourselves and the cause that we would serve, and the country whose good name depends upon us? ”

“ The only way in which these wars can be accounted for, is, first, from the general depravity of our nature, and from a singularly deep feeling of injury, and a high sense of national honour. They were not the hasty out-breakings of savage fury, but were commenced in the most solemn and deliberate manner, and not without a prelude of remonstrances from the aggrieved party, and attempts to sooth and conciliate from the other. This digression must not be considered as altogether from the purpose. ”

“ How little do we realise the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman, and to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so horrible a doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from philanthropy, but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of the good.
But I wander from M’Guire. ”

“ One such example is enough to confirm all that your worst enemies can say about your national selfishness and arrogance, and makes the people treat your pretensions to liberality and sympathy as mere hypocrisy. ”

“ Negligent of the interests of the nation, careless of its glory, averse to its religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its treasure, sparing only of its blood, he exposed it by his measures, though he ever appeared but in sport, to the danger of a furious civil war, and even to the ruin and ignominy of a foreign conquest. ”

“ We are giving the lives of our best beloved—giving them by thousands—to right wrong, to destroy oppression of our fellow-subjects, both white and black, to put an end to a very unjust and most corrupt form of government. ”

“ But when it comes to the discussion of the acts of nations, there seems to be less clearness of conception, less uniformity of standard of right and wrong, honor and dishonor. It is necessary, therefore, in charging a government or nation with dishonorable conduct, to show that its moral standard ought in nowise to differ from the moral standard of an individual; that what is cowardly, cruel, base in a man, is cowardly, cruel, base in a government or nation. ”

“ But I believe I have a duty to my country now, as sacred as that which called my grandfather to Lexington, and my father to Bull's Run. That duty is to crush the political life out of one of the most powerful and dangerous influences menacing this nation to-day—the incarnation of political cowardice, corruption, and demagoguery. ”

“ By R.T.O.'s and A.M.L.O.'s and camp commandments and town majors and staff pups men were bullied and bundled about, not like human beings, but like dumb beasts, and in a thousand ways injustice, petty tyranny, hard work, degrading punishments for trivial offenses, struck at their souls and made the name of personal liberty a mockery. ”

“ They also preach and practice disloyalty. No laws, I suppose, can reach corruptions of the mind and heart; but I should not speak of others without also speaking of these and expressing the even deeper humiliation and scorn which every self-possessed and thoughtfully patriotic American must feel when he thinks of them and of the discredit they are daily bringing upon us. ”

“ And it is humiliating to the pride, and painful to the heart of every true American patriot, who loves his country and glories in her institutions, to witness the abject and servile sycophancy of some in our land, who, incapable of appreciating the blessings they enjoy, or despising them, will crawl to the feet of gilded despotism ”

“ Some persons are inclined to look upon the evils following the war—dissolute legislation, moral turpitude, and political party profligacy, as neutralizing much if not the entire national benefits acquired at the enormous cost of the Rebellion. ”

“ And why are we making inveterate enemies by our barbarity, not only of the present inhabitants of a great country, but of their infinitely more numerous posterity; who will in future ages detest the name of Englishman, as much as the children in Holland now do those of Alva and Spaniard." This will certainly happen, unless your conduct is speedily changed, and the national resentment falls, where it ought to fall heavily, on your ministry, or perhaps rather on the king, whose will they only execute. ”

“ The incident showed the man's mind and his disposition in a lightning flash, and from all countries, even from wretched Belgium and from ruined Serbia, there came a laugh of hatred and contempt. Why are we so hated? Not because we are great and powerful and prosperous, but because we make our greatness an incubus, our power a tyranny and our prosperity an offence. ”