JANUARY 27 This land shall fall unto you for inheritance. Ezekiel 47: 14. Legal Inheritors of Fundamental Blessings. (Extract from an address delivered January 27, 1838, before the Young Men's Lyceum at Springfield, Illinois.) In the great journal of things happening under the sun, the American people find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We find ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement nor the establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed to us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said: "This is my own, my native land?" -Sir Walter Scott. JANUARY 28 The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. Isaiah 60: 12. The Approach of Danger. (Extract from the Springfield address in 1838. Continued from preceding page.) At what point shall be we expect the approach of danger? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is this approach of danger to be expected? I answer: If it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide. When our land is illumined with liberty's smile, The flag of her stars and the page of her story! JANUARY 29 Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. I. Kings 1: 5. Towering Genius. (Extract from Springfield address. ceding page.) Continued from pre Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It does not add story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction, and, if possible, will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving free men. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed with the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stench, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate the design. There is a line by us unseen, There is a time, we know not when, -Dr. Alexander. JANUARY 30 None of these things move me. neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy. Acts 20:24. In the Hands of the People. (Interview published in the New York Tribune, January 30, 1861.) I will suffer death before I will consent or advise my friends to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege of taking possession of the Government to which we have a constitutional right; because, whatever I might think of the merit of the various propositions before Congress, I should regard any concession in the face of menace as the destruction of the Government itself, and a consent on all hands that our system shall be brought down to a level with the existing disorganized state of affairs in Mexico. But this thing will hereafter be, as it is now, in the hands of the people, and if they desire to call a convention to remove any grievances complained of, or to give new guarantees for the permanence of vested rights, it is not mine to oppose. God give us men! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking. J. G. Holland. JANUARY 31 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:34. Fox River. (To a Springfield neighbor, a minister who wished to know as to his future policy on the slavery question.) You know Father B., the old Methodist preacher? and you know Fox River and its freshets? Well, once in the presence of Father B., a young Methodist was worrying about Fox River, and expressing fears that he should be prevented from filling some of his appointments by a freshet in the river. Father B. checked him in his gravest manner. Said he, "Young man, I have always made it a rule in my life not to cross Fox River till I get to it." And I am not going to worry myself over the slavery question till I get to it. Too curious man, why dost thou seek to know -Dryden. |