It’s 3 AM In Benghazi, Someone’s Calling Hillary She’s Stonewalling Just Like Obama!

Hillary’s Statements on the Attack in Benghazi

I first wrote this on October 27, 2012 as one of my Rant Political pieces before they shut Rant Political down…

You must remember that Hillary Rodham (Clinton) was a member of the staff we had gathered for our impeachment inquiry on President Richard Nixon in the WaterGate affair. During that time 1974, it was determined in Watergate that Hillary’s “Procedures were Ethically Flawed” thus having her own WaterGate scandal! (1)

Hillary’s 3 AM phone call did not come at the inconvenient time of 3 am for her, no it came at 4:05 pm EST; It came at the inconvenient time of 3 AM Benghazi time from those who were being attacked by Hillary and Obama’s compatriots in the Muslim world, September 11, 2012.

As she had asked in the primaries of 2008 when running against then candidate Obama.

February 2008, Hillary Clinton’s 3 AM Children National Security Ad

Here’s the full script for “Children”:

It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing.

Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call, whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.

It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?

It then cut to a clip of Mrs. Clinton, wearing eyeglasses, answering a telephone in a darkened room.

David Plouffe, the campaign manager for Mr. Obama at the time, dismissed the ad as a “shopworn tactic.” In a conference call with reporters this morning, he used the commercial as an opportunity to highlight Mrs. Clinton’s original support of the Iraq war.

“Senator Clinton had her red phone moment. She had it in 2002,” Mr. Plouffe said. “It was on the Iraq war – she and John McCain and George Bush all gave the wrong answer.”

He added, “This is about what you say when you answer the phone, what kind of judgment you demonstrate.”

Hillary, as did Obama, gave the wrong answer, passing the wrong judgement, and coming to the wrong conclusion September 11, 2012 4:05 PM EST.

Now as we can now plainly see, neither Clinton, nor Obama were up to the task, with either their answers, or their judgements!

New Emails Reveal Blatant Cover Up By Obama Administration on Benghazi

First was sent out at 4:05 pm on the day of the attack. It is titled “U.S. DIPLOMATIC MISSION IN BENGHAZI UNDER ATTACK!” It reads; “The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack. Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots, explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Steven’s, who is currently in Benghazi and 4 COM personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.” read more>

Reinforcements to Benghazi, Libya were told to “Stand Down”!

Barack Obama: The Buck Stops Elsewhere President!

Truth About What Took Place in Benghazi, From the Intel Community

The Condemnation of Barack Obama: Butcher of Benghazi

The Indictment of the Obama administration in the Benghazi, Libya Attacks

Statement on the Attack in Benghazi:

Press Statement

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 11, 2012

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.

PRN: 2012/1421

Statement on the Death of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya

Press Statement

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 12, 2012

It is with profound sadness that I share the news of the death of four American personnel in Benghazi, Libya yesterday. Among them were United States Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and Foreign Service Information Management Officer, Sean Smith. We are still making next of kin notifications for the other two individuals. Our hearts go out to all their families and colleagues.

A 21 year veteran of the Foreign Service, Ambassador Stevens died last night from injuries he sustained in the attack on our office in Benghazi.

I had the privilege of swearing in Chris for his post in Libya only a few months ago. He spoke eloquently about his passion for service, for diplomacy and for the Libyan people. This assignment was only the latest in his more than two decades of dedication to advancing closer ties with the people of the Middle East and North Africa which began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. As the conflict in Libya unfolded, Chris was one of the first Americans on the ground in Benghazi. He risked his own life to lend the Libyan people a helping hand to build the foundation for a new, free nation. He spent every day since helping to finish the work that he started. Chris was committed to advancing America’s values and interests, even when that meant putting himself in danger.

Sean Smith was a husband and a father of two, who joined the Department ten years ago. Like Chris, Sean was one of our best. Prior to arriving in Benghazi, he served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal, and most recently The Hague.

All the Americans we lost in yesterday’s attacks made the ultimate sacrifice. We condemn this vicious and violent attack that took their lives, which they had committed to helping the Libyan people reach for a better future.

America’s diplomats and development experts stand on the front lines every day for our country. We are honored by the service of each and every one of them.

PRN: 2012/1422

Remarks on the Deaths of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

September 12, 2012

Yesterday, our U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya was attacked. Heavily armed militants assaulted the compound and set fire to our buildings. American and Libyan security personnel battled the attackers together. Four Americans were killed. They included Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information management officer, and our Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. We are still making next of kin notifications for the other two individuals.

This is an attack that should shock the conscience of people of all faiths around the world. We condemn in the strongest terms this senseless act of violence, and we send our prayers to the families, friends, and colleagues of those we’ve lost.

All over the world, every day, America’s diplomats and development experts risk their lives in the service of our country and our values, because they believe that the United States must be a force for peace and progress in the world, that these aspirations are worth striving and sacrificing for. Alongside our men and women in uniform, they represent the best traditions of a bold and generous nation.

In the lobby of this building, the State Department, the names of those who have fallen in the line of duty are inscribed in marble. Our hearts break over each one. And now, because of this tragedy, we have new heroes to honor and more friends to mourn.

Chris Stevens fell in love with the Middle East as a young Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Morocco. He joined the Foreign Service, learned languages, won friends for America in distant places, and made other people’s hopes his own.

In the early days of the Libyan revolution, I asked Chris to be our envoy to the rebel opposition. He arrived on a cargo ship in the port of Benghazi and began building our relationships with Libya’s revolutionaries. He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya. The world needs more Chris Stevenses. I spoke with his sister, Ann, this morning, and told her that he will be remembered as a hero by many nations.

Sean Smith was an Air Force veteran. He spent 10 years as an information management officer in the State Department, he was posted at The Hague, and was in Libya on a brief temporary assignment. He was a husband to his wife Heather, with whom I spoke this morning. He was a father to two young children, Samantha and Nathan. They will grow up being proud of the service their father gave to our country, service that took him from Pretoria to Baghdad, and finally to Benghazi.

The mission that drew Chris and Sean and their colleagues to Libya is both noble and necessary, and we and the people of Libya honor their memory by carrying it forward. This is not easy. Today, many Americans are asking – indeed, I asked myself – how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.

But we must be clear-eyed, even in our grief. This was an attack by a small and savage group – not the people or Government of Libya. Everywhere Chris and his team went in Libya, in a country scarred by war and tyranny, they were hailed as friends and partners. And when the attack came yesterday, Libyans stood and fought to defend our post. Some were wounded. Libyans carried Chris’ body to the hospital, and they helped rescue and lead other Americans to safety. And last night, when I spoke with the President of Libya, he strongly condemned the violence and pledged every effort to protect our people and pursue those responsible.

The friendship between our countries, borne out of shared struggle, will not be another casualty of this attack. A free and stable Libya is still in America’s interest and security, and we will not turn our back on that, nor will we rest until those responsible for these attacks are found and brought to justice. We are working closely with the Libyan authorities to move swiftly and surely. We are also working with partners around the world to safeguard other American embassies, consulates, and citizens.

There will be more time later to reflect, but today, we have work to do. There is no higher priority than protecting our men and women wherever they serve. We are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault. Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior, along with the protest that took place at our Embassy in Cairo yesterday, as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear – there is no justification for this, none. Violence like this is no way to honor religion or faith. And as long as there are those who would take innocent life in the name of God, the world will never know a true and lasting peace.

It is especially difficult that this happened on September 11^th. It’s an anniversary that means a great deal to all Americans. Every year on that day, we are reminded that our work is not yet finished, that the job of putting an end to violent extremism and building a safe and stable world continues. But September 11^th means even more than that. It is a day on which we remember thousands of American heroes, the bonds that connect all Americans, wherever we are on this Earth, and the values that see us through every storm. And now it is a day on which we will remember Sean, Chris, and their colleagues.

May God bless them, and may God bless the thousands of Americans working in every corner of the world who make this country the greatest force for peace, prosperity, and progress, and a force that has always stood for human dignity – the greatest force the world has ever known. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Thank you.

# # #

PRN: 2012/1423

Statements on the Deaths of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 13, 2012

The attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya on Tuesday claimed the lives of four Americans. Yesterday, I spoke about two: Ambassador Chris Stevens and Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Today, we also recognize the two security personnel who died helping protect their colleagues. Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty were both decorated military veterans who served our country with honor and distinction. Our thoughts, prayers, and deepest gratitude are with their families and friends. Our embassies could not carry on our critical work around the world without the service and sacrifice of brave people like Tyrone and Glen.

Tyrone’s friends and colleagues called him “Rone,” and they relied on his courage and skill, honed over two decades as a Navy SEAL. In uniform, he served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2010, he protected American diplomatic personnel in dangerous posts from Central America to the Middle East. He had the hands of a healer as well as the arm of a warrior, earning distinction as a registered nurse and certified paramedic. All our hearts go out to Tyrone’s wife Dorothy and his three sons, Tyrone Jr., Hunter, and Kai, who was born just a few months ago.

We also grieve for Glen Doherty, called Bub, and his family: his father Bernard, his mother Barbara, his brother Gregory, and his sister Kathleen. Glen was also a former Navy SEAL and an experienced paramedic. And he put his life on the line many times, protecting Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hotspots. In the end, he died the way he lived – with selfless honor and unstinting valor.

We condemn the attack that took the lives of these heroes in the strongest terms, and we are taking additional steps to safeguard American embassies, consulates, and citizens around the world. This violence should shock the conscience of people of all faiths and traditions. We appreciate the statements of support that have poured in from across the region and beyond. People of conscience and goodwill everywhere must stand together in these difficult days against violence, hate, and division.

I am enormously proud of the men and women who risk their lives every day in the service of our country and our values. They help make the United States the greatest force for peace, progress, and human dignity that the world has ever known. We honor the memory of our fallen colleagues by continuing their work and carrying on the best traditions of a bold and generous nation.

Remarks at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony to Honor Those Lost in Attacks in Benghazi, Libya

(Same time she told Tyrone Woods Father “we’re gonna go after that film maker and prosecute him”)

The next day the video maker was taken into custody, he is yet to be released.

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Andrews Air Force Base

Joint Base Andrews, MD

September 14, 2012

SECRETARY CLINTON:Thank you very much, Chaplain. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Secretary Panetta, Ambassador Rice, Secretary Powell and Mrs. Powell, family members of the four patriots and heroes we bring home, members of the State Department family, ladies and gentlemen, today we bring home four Americans who gave their lives for our country and our values. To the families of our fallen colleagues, I offer our most heartfelt condolences and deepest gratitude.Sean Smith joined the State Department after six years in the Air Force. He was respected as an expert on technology by colleagues in Pretoria, Baghdad, Montreal, and The Hague. He enrolled in correspondence courses at Penn State and had high hopes for the future. Sean leaves behind a loving wife Heather, two young children, Samantha and Nathan, and scores of grieving family, friends, and colleagues. And that’s just in this world. Because online in the virtual worlds that Sean helped create, he is also being mourned by countless competitors, collaborators, and gamers who shared his passion.

Tyrone Woods, known to most as Rone, spent two decades as a Navy SEAL, serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2010, he protected American diplomatic personnel in dangerous posts from Central America to the Middle East. He had the hands of a healer as well as the arms of a warrior, earning distinction as a registered nurse and certified paramedic. Our hearts go out to Tyrone’s wife Dorothy, and his three sons Tyrone, Jr., Hunter, and Kai, born just a few months ago, along with his grieving family, friends, and colleagues.

Glen Doherty, who went by Bub, was also a former SEAL and an experienced paramedic. He too died as he lived, serving his country and protecting his colleagues. Glen deployed to some of the most dangerous places on Earth, including Iraq and Afghanistan, always putting his life on the line to safeguard other Americans. Our thoughts and prayers are with Glen’s father Bernard, his mother Barbara, his brother Gregory, his sister Kathleen, and their grieving families, friends, and colleagues.

I was honored to know Ambassador Chris Stevens. I want to thank his parents and siblings, who are here today, for sharing Chris with us and with our country. What a wonderful gift you gave us. Over his distinguished career in the Foreign Service, Chris won friends for the United States in far-flung places. He made those people’s hopes his own. During the revolution in Libya, he risked his life to help protect the Libyan people from a tyrant, and he gave his life helping them build a better country.

People loved to work with Chris. And as he rose through the ranks, they loved to work for Chris. He was known not only for his courage but for his smile – goofy but contagious – for his sense of fun and that California cool.

In the days since the attack, so many Libyans – including the Ambassador from Libya to the United States, who is with us today – have expressed their sorrow and solidarity. One young woman, her head covered and her eyes haunted with sadness, held up a handwritten sign that said “Thugs and killers don’t represent Benghazi nor Islam.” The President of the Palestinian Authority, who worked closely with Chris when he served in Jerusalem, sent me a letter remembering his energy and integrity, and deploring – and I quote – “an act of ugly terror.” Many others from across the Middle East and North Africa have offered similar sentiments.

This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.

The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts. And we will, under the President’s leadership, keep taking steps to protect our personnel around the world.

There will be more difficult days ahead, but it is important that we don’t lose sight of the fundamental fact that America must keep leading the world. We owe it to those four men to continue the long, hard work of diplomacy. I am enormously proud of the men and women of the State Department. I’m proud of all those across our government, civilian and military alike, who represent America abroad. They help make the United States the greatest force for peace, progress, and human dignity the world has ever known. If the last few days teach us anything, let it be this: That this work and the men and women who risk their lives to do it are at the heart of what makes America great and good.

So we will wipe away our tears, stiffen our spines, and face the future undaunted. And we will do it together, protecting and helping one another, just like Sean, Tyrone, Glen, and Chris always did. May God bless them and grant their families peace and solace, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

And now, let me have the great honor of introducing someone who came to the State Department earlier this week to grieve with us. He well understands and values the work that these men were doing for our country. The President of the United States.

PRN: 2012/1443

Remarks With Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf Before Their Meeting

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Waldorf-Astoria

New York City

September 24, 2012

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it’s wonderful to welcome the President of Libya and his distinguished delegation here to New York.

As we all know, the United States lost a great ambassador and the Libyan people lost a true friend when Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the terrorist assault on our consulate in Benghazi.

Remarks at the United Nations Security Council Session On Peace And Security in the Middle East

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

United Nations

New York City

September 26, 2012

Thank you very much, Minister Westerwelle, for calling us together at this critical moment to discuss peace and security in the Middle East on the heels of two tumultuous weeks during which violent protests rocked countries across the region. And although anger was directed against my country, the protests exposed deep rifts within new democracies and volatility that extremists were quick to instigate and exploit. As President Obama made clear yesterday in his address to the General Assembly, the United States rejects the false choice between democracy and stability. Democracies make the strongest, most capable partners. And we know that it takes a lot of hard work and oftentimes struggle.

~snip~

When violence came to our doorstep at embassies around the globe, this body joined the Arab League, the OIC, the AU, and the EU to give voice to the world’s condemnation of the attacks and call for restraint. You stood with us, and now we must stand together in support of the common aspirations of the people, of all people, for security and safety for our families, the freedom to live lives according to our own conscience, the dignity that comes only through self-determination. And as President Obama said yesterday, the United States will never shrink from defending these values. And we will not walk away from these new democracies.

We are not alone in this commitment. This is the work of all responsible nations. And we look forward to working closely with anyone who speaks out on behalf of our shared values. Thank you.

PRN: 2012/1525

Interview With Wendell Goler of FOX News;

Notice after the administration had to admit it was a terrorist attack, they then start saying, well, we need to wait for the investigation to be completed.

Interview:

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Lima, Peru

October 15, 2012

QUESTION: Forgive me – this is the first time we’ve had to talk since the Benghazi tragedy, and with respect to your hosts, I’d like to focus my questions on that. There’s a lot of discussion of the decision not to extend the mission of the additional security team in Tripoli. Would that have made a difference in the Benghazi situation?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Wendell, we’re going to find out through our Accountability Review investigation that’s going on exactly what did happen. There’s been testimony it wouldn’t have made a difference, but I’m not going to draw any conclusions until we have these very distinguished Americans given the chance to review everything and draw their own conclusions and make recommendations, because nobody wants to get to the bottom of this more than I. And I want to do everything I can to protect our people, and I also want to make sure that we track down whoever did this and bring them to justice.

QUESTION: Did that request come to you or does it come to a specialist in the Department on security?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’m responsible for the State Department, for the more than 60,000 people around the world. The decisions about security assets are made by security professionals. But we’re going to review everything to make sure that we’re doing what needs to be done in an increasingly risky environment around the world. There’s no doubt that our men and women from the State Department, USAID, the rest of our government are having to balance all the time how to do their jobs and not stay behind high walls, but to do it as safely as possible. And that’s an ongoing, daily calculation around the world.

QUESTION: There was an IED attack in June. Did you know about that? Was the White House informed about that?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I can’t speak to who knew what about that. We knew that there were security breaches and problems throughout Libya that was something that came about as the aftermath of the revolution to topple Qadhafi, with so many militias formed, so many weapons loose, and it was certainly taken into account by the security professionals as they made their assessments.

QUESTION: Now, a week after the attack, Ambassador Rice was still saying basically this is something that grew out of a protest against the anti-Islam movie. Can you explain that?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think the first thing to know is that everyone had the same intelligence. But I’ve been around long enough to know that it takes time to assess all the information that you have. And as the intelligence community has now said, their assessment over the last now more than a month changed, but everyone in the Administration was trying to give information to the best of their ability at the time, with the caveat that more was likely to be learned and that there would be most likely changes.

So the fog of war, the confusion that you get in any kind of combat situation – and remember, this was an attack that went on for hours. Our post was overrun by a significant number of armed men. Our annex was attacked. There had to be a lot of sorting out. And the intelligence community, as you know so well, they look backwards. They start going through everything: Did they miss something? Was there something else out there? Then they have to put out feelers to find out what people knew. And they’ve been doing that in a very vigorous way, and we’re learning more all the time about what happened.

QUESTION: So it’s possible you could have had the same information and drawn different conclusions?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I think it’s possible that everyone said here’s what we know, but it’s subject to change; it’s what we know at present. And I think that is what people tried to do. But I also understand, having been around for a while, how impatient people are to figure out what went on, what happened. We lost four really brave Americans. And come on, somebody tell me. And so it’s not very satisfying to say, look, we’re going to do this right, we’re going to get the information, and then when we do tell you, we will tell you as fully as we possibly can, which is why I immediately stood up the Review Board.

QUESTION: What do you make of the Republican claim that the Administration was reluctant to admit that al-Qaida is not on its heels, as the President often says?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t understand it completely, because we have certainly degraded core al-Qaida, including, of course, bin Ladin. But we have been very focused on al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. I spoke about that in the past, even a few weeks ago.

So al-Qaida in its affiliate form, if you will, poses a threat, not to the same extent as what we faced coming out of 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but let’s be very clear: This Administration knows all too well that we face extremists, wannabe al-Qaida types, new groups popping up that want to do harm to their own people, to the United States and our friends and allies. And we are as vigilant as we possibly can be around the clock.

QUESTION: Is Libya, with its militias and weapons, an example of why you don’t want to provide weapons to the rebels in Syria?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Every case is different. I do think that the disarming of the militias is particularly difficult in Libya because there were no institutions. There was no institutional, professional army. And we face a very challenging environment in Libya, as does the new Libyan Government, who we are certainly trying to support. I think it’s a different situation in Syria. It’s a different situation in Yemen. I mean, every situation has to be evaluated.

But I can say, generally, dangerous weapons in the hands of extremists is a problem that we pay a lot of attention to and we spend an enormous amount of energy – not just the State Department, but DOD and intelligence community – trying to figure out how to prevent these groups from getting access to more and more powerful weapons. So it’s a problem.

QUESTION: Thank you, Madam Secretary.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Wendell. Good to see you.

QUESTION: And you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thanks.

# # #

PRN: 2012/T71-05

It’s 3 am Madam Secretary Clinton! You failed with the “Phone Call”!

Hillary, You have disqualified yourself to run for your parties presidential nomination in 2016!

Footnotes:

1. From FreeRepublic.com Hillary Rodham’s 1974 Watergate “Procedures were Ethically Flawed”

Jerry Zeifman sent us the letter below, which is “based largely on material previously published” in his book, “Without Honor: The impeachment of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot.”

The book is now out of print. However, a small supply of the limited first edition is still available. Information about it, and how to obtain a copy, may be found at: http://www.iethical.org/book.htm

Previously published in the NEW YORK POST

August 16. 1999

HILLARY’S WATERGATE SCANDAL

By Jerry Zeifman
IN December 1974, as general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, I made a personal evaluation of Hillary Rodham (now Mrs. Clinton), a member of the staff we had gathered for our impeachment inquiry on President Richard Nixon. I decided that I could not recommend her for any future position of public or private trust.

Why? Hillary’s main duty on our staff has been described by as “establishing the legal procedures to be followed in the course of the inquiry and impeachment.” A number of the procedures she recommended were ethically flawed. And I also concluded that she had violated House and committee rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons.

Hillary had conferred personally with me regarding procedural rules. I advised her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O’Neill and I had previously agreed not to advocate anything contrary to the rules already adopted and published for that Congress. I quoted Mr. O’Neill’s statement that: “To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series.”

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted and would not advocate any such rules changes. I soon learned that she had lied: She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them.

In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. This, though in our then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in our offices. I later learned that the Douglas files were then removed from our general files without my permission, transferred to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff, and were no longer accessible to the public.

The young Ms. Rodham had other bad advice about procedures, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should neither 1) hold any hearings with or take the depositions of any live witnesses, nor 2) conduct any original investigation of atergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon – but to rely instead on prior investigations conducted by other committees and agencies.

The committee rejected Ms. Rodham’s recommendations: It agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This unfair recommendation was rejected by the full House. (The committee also vetoed her suggestion that it leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow special staffers.)

The recommendations advocated by Hillary were apparently initiated or approved by Yale Law School professor Burke Marshall – in violation of committee and House rules on confidentiality. They were also advocated by her immediate supervisors, Special Counsel John Doar and Senior Associate Special Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, both of whom had worked under Marshall in the Kennedy Justice Department.

It was not until two months after Nixon’s resignation that I first learned of still another questionable role of Ms. Rodham. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee, wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into a troubling set of events. That spring, Wiggins and other committee members had asked “that research should be undertaken so as to furnish a standard against which to test the alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon.” And, while “no such staff study was made available to the members at any time for their use,” Wiggins had just learned that such a study had been conducted – at committee expense – by a team of professors who completed and filed their reports with the impeachment-inquiry staff well in advance of our public hearings.

The report was not made available to members of Congress. But after the impeachment-inquiry staff was disbanded, it was published commercially and sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote that he was “especially troubled by the possibility that information deemed essential by some of the members in their discharge of their responsibilities may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff during the course our investigation.”

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: “Hillary Rodham of the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work. … After the staff received the report it was reviewed by Ms. Rodham, briefly by Mr. Labovitz and Mr. Sack, and by Mr. Doar. The staff did not think the manuscript was useful in its present form.”

On the charge of willful suppression, he wrote: “That was not the case … The staff did not think the material was usable by the committee in its existing form and had not had time to modify it so it would have practical utility for the members of the committee. I was informed and agreed with the judgment.”

During my 14-year tenure with the House Judiciary Committee, I had supervisory authority over several hundred staff members. With the exception of Ms. Rodham, Doar and Nussbaum, I recommend all of them for future positions of public and private trust.

Jerry Zeifman is the author of “Without Honor: The Impeachment of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot,” which describes the above matters in more detail. (See http://www.iethical.org/book.htm)

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No People Will Tamely Surrender Their Liberties, Where Knowledge is Shared and Virtue Preserved

Samuel Adams Regarding Private & Public Virtue [Click to enlarge]

No People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffused and Virtue preserved.

Samuel Adams To James Warren [shared as written with no attempt to modernize spelling, language, etc.]

Philada., Nov’r. 4th, 1775

My Dear Sir, — I thank you heartily for your very acceptable Letter of the 23 of October by Fessenden. It is very afflicting to hear the universal Complaint of the Want of that most necessary Article, Gunpowder, and especially in the Camp before Boston. I hope however that this Want will soon be supplied, and God grant that a good Use may be made of it. The Congress yesterday was presented with the Colors of the seventh Regiment taken in Fort Chamblee, [Fort Chambly is a historic fort in La Vallée-du-Richelieu Regional County Municipality, Quebec.] which is surrendered to Major Brown. The Acquisition of 124 Barrils of Powder gives a happy Turn to our Affairs in that Quarter the Success of which I almost began to despair of.

The Gentlemen who have lately returned from the Camp may, perhaps all of them entertain a favorable Opinion of our Colony— I may possibly be partial in saying, not more favorable than it deserves. Be that as it may, the Congress have judged it necessary to continue the Establishment of the Men’s pay, and to enlarge that of the Captains and Lieutenants. In Addition to the Continental Army four new Batallions are to be raised, viz, three for the Defence of South Carolina and one for Georgia. These with 1000 Men before orderd for North Carolina, with the Assistance of provincial Forces, it is hoped will be sufficient to defend the three Southernmost Colonies.

It is recommended to N. Hampshire to form a Government to their own liking, during this Contest; and S. Carolina is allowd to do the same if they judge it necessary. I believe the Time is near when the most timid will see the absolute Necessity of every one of the Colonies setting up a Government within itself.

No Provisions or Produce is to be exported from any of the united Colonies to any part of the World till the first of March except for the Importation of the Unum Necessarium, and for Supplys from one Colony to another, under the Direction of Committees, and a further Exception of live Stock. Under the last Head, and Horses are allowd to be sent to the foreign West Indies. We shall by the Spring know the full Effect of our Non-exportation Agreement in the West Indies. Perhaps Alliances may then be formed with foreign Powers, and Trade opened to all the World Great Britain excepted.

You will possibly think I have set myself down to furnish a few Paragraphs for Edes and Gills paper, and what is more that I am betraying the Secrets of Congress. I confess I am giving my Friend as much Information as I dare, of things which are of such a Nature as that they cannot long be kept secret, and therefore I suppose it never was intended they should be. I mention them however in Confidence that you will not publish them. I wish I was at Liberty to tell you many of the Transactions of our body, but I am restraind by the Ties of Honor; and though it is painful to me, you know, to keep Secrets, I will not violate my Honor to relieve myself or gratify my Friend. [Nine lines are here erased, apparently after the receipt of the letter.] But why have I told you so trifling a Story, for which I cannot forgive my self till I have askd forgiveness of you. We live in a most important Age, which demands that every Moment should be improvd to some serious Purpose. It is the Age of George the Third; and to do Justice to our most gracious King, I will affirm it as my Opinion, that his Councils and Administration will necessarily produce the grandest Revolutions the World has ever yet seen. The Wheels of Providence seem to be in their swiftest Motion. Events succeed each other so rapidly that the most industrious and able Politicians can scarcely improve them to the full purposes for which they seem to be designd.

You must send your best Men here; therefore recall me from this Service. Men of moderate Abilities, especially when weakend by Age are not fit to be employed in founding Empires.

Let me talk with you a little about the Affairs of our own Colony. I persuade my self, my dear friend, that the greatest Care and Circumspection will be used to conduct its internal Police with Wisdom and Integrity. The Eyes of Mankind will be upon you, to see whether the Government, which is now more popular than it has been for many years past, will be productive of more Virtue moral and political. We may look up to Armies for our Defence, but Virtue is our best Security. It is not possible that any State should long continue free, where Virtue is not supremely honord. This is as seasonably as it is justly said by one of the most celebrated Writers of the present time. Perhaps the Form of Government now adopted may be permanent; Should it be only temporary, the golden Opportunity of recovering the Virtue and reforming the Manners of our Country should be industriously improvd.

Our Ancestors laid an excellent Foundation for the Security of Liberty, by setting up in a few years after their Arrival, a publick Seminary of Learning; and by their Laws, they obligd every Town consisting of a certain Number of Families to keep and maintain a Grammar School. I should be much grievd if it should be true as I am informd, that some of our Towns have dismissd their School masters, alledging that the extraordinary Expence of defending the Country renders them unable to support them. I hope this Inattention to the Principles of our wise forefathers does not prevail. If there should be any Danger of it, would not the leading Gentlemen do eminent Service to the Publick, by impressing upon the Minds of the People, the Necessity and Importance of encouraging that System of Education, which in my opinion, is so well calculated to diffuse among the Individuals of the Community, the Principles of Morality, so essentially necessary for the Preservation of publick Liberty. There are Virtues and Vices which are properly called political. “Corruption, Dishonesty to one’s Country, Luxury and Extravagance tend to the Ruin of States.” The opposite Virtues tend to their Establishment. But “there is a Connection between Vices as well as Virtues, and one opens the Door for the Entrance of another.” Therefore “Every able Politician will guard against other Vices” and be attentive to promote every Virtue. He who is void of Virtuous Attachment in private Life, is, or very soon will be void of all Regard to his Country. There is seldom an Instance of a Man guilty of betraying his Country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral Obligation in his private Connections. Before C[hurc]h was detected of holding a criminal Correspondence with the Enemies of his Country, his Infidelity to his Wife had been notorious. Since private and publick Vices, though not always apparently, are in Reality so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of Children, and the moral Sense universally kept alive, and that the wise Institutions of our Ancestors for those great Purposes be encouragd by the Government. For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders. There are other things which, I humbly conceive, require the most serious Consideration of the Legislative. We have heretofore complaind, and I think justly, that bad Men have too often found their Way into places of publick Trust. “Nothing is more essential to the Establishment of Manners in a State, than that all Persons employd in Places of Power and Trust be Men of exemplary Characters. The Publick cannot be too curious concerning the Characters of Publick Men.” We have also complaind, that a Plurality of Places incompatible with each other have sometimes been vested in one Person. If under the former Administration there was no Danger to be apprehended from vesting the different Powers of Government in the same Persons, why did the Patriots so loudly protest against it? If Danger is always to be apprehended from it, should we not by continuing the Practice, too much imitate the degenerate Romans, who upon the Fall of Julius set up Augustus? They changd indeed their Masters, and when they had destroyd the Tyrant sufferd the Tyranny to continue. Tell me how a Judge of Probate can consistently sit at the Council Board and joyn in a Decision there upon an appeal from his own Judgment? Perhaps, being personally interested in another Appointment, I may view it with a partial Eye. But you may well remember that the Secretary of the Colony declind taking a Seat at the Council Board, to which he had been elected prior to his Appointment, until, in the House of Representatives he had publickly requested their opinion of the Propriety of it, and there heard it explicitly declared by an eminent and truly patriotick Member as his Opinion, that as the Place was not then as it formerly had been, the Gift of the Crown but of the People, there was no Impropriety in his holding it. The rest of the Members were silent. Major H[awle]y has as much of the stern Virtue and Spirit of a Roman Censor as any Gentleman I ever conversd with. The Appointment of the Secretary and his Election to a Seat at the Board were both made in the Time of his Absence from the Colony and without the Solicitation of any of his Friends that he knew of—most assuredly without his own. As he is resolvd never wittingly to disgrace himself or his Country, he still employs his Mind on the Subject, and wishes for your candid and impartial Sentiments.

 I fear I have trespassd on your Leisure, and conclude, with assuring you that I am with sincere Regards to Mrs. Warren, your very affectionate Friend

S. A.

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Machine of Good Government Separating the Wheat from the Tares!

Good Machine of Government

The Machine of Good Government Created by the Wisdom Imparted to the Founding Fathers of America! I say “Wisdom Imparted to the Founding Fathers of America” because it was not their wisdom, it was the wisdom of God and Christ Jesus our Lord they loaned the Founding Fathers. Not that the Founding Fathers had or gained of their own volition, choice or opportunity!

Reminder to my TeaParty Peeps & Christian Patriot brothers & sisters from our dear forefather Edmund Burke

“When bad men combine the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Editorial Note… While watching it this week in the hospital, One of the things that struck me when watching the “Killing Jesus” movie from Bill O’Reilly’s historically accurate account of the life and death of Jesus. It was based SOLELY on historical accounts, nothing came from the Bible. This is why I saw it in the Light that I did, because I wasn’t looking at it as an account from the Bible which I love so tenderly, but as a historically accurate accounting of the greatest life who ever graced the earthen soil, and who ever gave of Himself to teach us so much about the way God meant for us to live our lives. O’Reilly and his collaborative author used ONLY historical accounts from people who were actually there.

Looking at it simply from a historical perspective caused me to see it in a New Light. The Leftist democrats today in America, use the very same tactics, rhetoric,, etc. against US on the Right and of “THE RIGHT” that they used against Jesus Christ in His time. It really is extraordinary how they Never Ever Change!

THE LAW OF GOD as it relates to our treatment of personal enemies, is clearly laid down in the closing verses of the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. No other part of the law is so hard for men to obey and obedience to no other part is more necessary in order to make men Christ-like. It is in brief this: Ye have heard that it was said an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, “Resist not him that is evil; but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be the sons of your Father which is in heaven.”

The Christian World recognizes this, theoretically at least, as a divine command which is to be obeyed; and whenever a Christian admits malice and personal hatred into his heart, and cherishes them and does not make any effort to expel them, he knows perfectly well that he is no longer in a state of grace, but is in rebellion against God. There is undoubtedly an immense amount of this rebellion in the Christian Church; but that does not change in the least the law of God respecting the treatment of personal enemies. That law is well established and well understood even if it is not well obeyed.

But a question of a different nature arises when we have to deal—not with personal enemies—but, so to speak, with public enemies, with knaves and evil doers, who may be classed as the enemies of all righteousness, through whom all sorts of corruption are brought into society or the Church or the State. These may be frankly, avowedly evil men, or they may be evil while pretending to be good. What is to be our attitude towards these? How are we to treat them as individuals?

According to the commonly accepted idea, the true and heroic soul must be ready at all times to defend all good and attack all evil. It must be utterly unselfish and self-sacrificing. It must be on the alert for the discovery of objects of attack and objects of defense. It must be untrammeled by circumstances and conditions. It must recognize no such thing as mere expediency. It must allow nothing but absolute right. In short, the hero must be a man of war to whom peace must not be permitted till every enemy of right and justice has been subdued.

That under this definition very few heroic souls can be found, goes without saying. Recall your own experience in life and you will not find it difficult to see that you have encountered a good deal of wrong, which you have not only done nothing to prevent, but against which you have not even borne any special testimony. It may not be humiliating to know that we are not heroic souls, as certainly most of us know that we are not; but it is humiliating to live in the midst of evil for the suppression of which we make no particular effort, and to feel all the time that we are perhaps not only cowardly, but also guilty of criminal neglect.

I should be very sorry to say anything which would excuse a cowardly neglect of duty or let men feel comfortable while they permit all manner of wrong to be done which they possibly might prevent. But I am of the opinion that even the holiest of wars ought not to be entered into without discretion and that even for the individual in society, the highest morality permits the free use of the tomahawk and scalping knife much less frequently than is supposed. I wish to throw upon this most interesting and perplexing subject of a Christian’s proper attitude towards wrong as embodied in bad men and bad measures, the light reflected from the teachings of Jesus, the world’s greatest hero, whose precepts and examples alike it is our highest honor to follow. I shall be much disappointed in the result if it shall not appear that the divine Master, whose soul in the presence of evil sometimes flashed with a Sinai-like righteous indignation and at other times was as gentle as a mother with her babe, has not left us some instruction that is not entirely in accord with the Christian world’s commonly received opinions on this subject.

One of the favorite methods of Jesus for imparting truth was the parable. Everybody must admit that His parables present truth in a very vivid and impressive manner. One may easily lose the connection of thought and mistake the logic of Paul’s Epistles. But no one need ever miss the point in one of Jesus’ parables. The simplicity and clearness with which they are expressed cannot easily be improved. They so perfectly reflect human experience in all ages that they are as instructive today as they were when they were first uttered by Jesus. One of these interesting parables is that of the tares and wheat. A certain man sowed good seed in his field, but in the night an enemy sowed tares. When the grain appeared, the tares also appeared. The servants of the farmer were much disturbed at the appearance of the tares and asked the master if he wished them to go and gather the tares up. But he answered with great wisdom, “no, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat also. Let both grow together till the harvest. And in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and hind them in bundles to burn them—but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Now as an abstract proposition, tares are bad and they are especially bad among wheat. Under certain conditions nothing wiser could be done than to gather up the tares as soon as they are discovered; but, if they are so mixed with the wheat as to be not easily separated, and the destruction of the one is to be the destruction of the other, true wisdom says, wait awhile.

The simple statement of this parable in perfect accord as it is with Jesus’ practice, illuminates the subject we are considering. What is wanted is wheat. The question of tares or 110 tares is of no consequence except in its relation to the wheat. If to root up the tares is to root up the wheat it would be the height of folly to disturb either; and if by possibility the wheat can grow to a mature and profitable harvest in spite of the tares, then it is the highest wisdom to let both grow together. And this truth, so simply drawn from the ordinary operations of the farmer’s field, governments in the exercise of their exalted powers, and churches in their disciplinary zeal and individuals with more of the zeal, of the servant than of the wisdom of the master, all alike will do well to heed.

We may deduce from this teaching the general proposition that we may not do even a right act, nor an act which under other circumstances would be a positive duty, if the outcome is to be injurious to the Kingdom of God, or to express it more secularly, if the outcome is to be destructive of the general good. In other words, Jesus teaches what Paul taught. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. I may do things or refuse to do things on the ground of expediency. I am not required to hit every knave’s head that I see, if as a consequence a number of honest people, including myself, are going to have their heads broken. Human society is a very complex affair. The dependence and interdependence of the parts are so complex as to baffle analysis. Perhaps there is nothing more disturbing to the peaceful working of this organization than a well-meaning moral lunatic who insists on his right to run amuck—who rushes here and there and everywhere, stabbing right and left at all whom he encounters, and who insists also that everybody who does not run amuck with him is a coward and a knave. His fanatic soul never pauses for an instant to consider the possibility of destroying good as well as evil.

It is unquestionable that we are obliged to endure, with what patience we may, a great deal of evil simply because we cannot get rid of it without bringing on others a great deal of undeserved trouble and suffering and imperiling the general welfare. Jesus bore in silence the tyranny and injustice of Roman power as exercised in Judea, over his own people, although the destruction of Roman power and the liberation of the Jews was what the Jews expected of the promised Messiah; and the silent patience of the Divine Master has been a power for good in the world through the centuries far transcending all that could have been accomplished by open denunciation of the Romans or incitement of his countrymen to rebellion. He was a reformer—but not a destructive reformer. The evolution of goodness was what he sought, and his silence respecting many public evils, is suggestive alike of the most sublime patience and of the highest wisdom.

Every thoughtful man, who looks at the world as it is today, must be impressed by the strange blending of good and evil, not merely in the world as a whole, but in its various organizations and even in the character of individuals. No matter how noble may be the purpose for which institutions exist, none of them are found to be perfect in operation; and no matter how grand a man may be in his character, no one is to be found who is not more or less like Nebuchadnezzar’s image–some part of him at least clay, and, therefore, easily broken.

In this mixed condition of human society and human character we are really none of us qualified to pass final judgment upon our fellows and proceed to execution; nor are we called upon to do so. You remember that memorable scene recorded in the eighth chapter of John, where the Scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman deserving death under the law and asked him what they should do to her, and he answered: He that is without sin among you—without this sin—let him be the first to cast a stone at her. There wasn’t any such man in the crowd. They, when they heard Jesus’ answer, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst.

If we are not qualified to pass final judgment upon our fellow men, it is manifest that, while we cannot help having opinions as to people’s character, we are under no obligation to express our judgment of men, even bad men as we think, and to vindicate our judgment by our own acts—except so far as Jesus did—and the exception, as will appear later in this address, is a most important one.

In general, established governments are to be obeyed, but there is such a thing as the right of revolution. But this is not an unqualified right. It is not permitted to every dissatisfied citizen to raise the standard of revolt even though the government be unjust and oppressive. There must be a reasonable prospect of success.

Revolution means blood-shed and misery—an awful uprooting of wheat as well as of tares. No nation should be plunged into this recklessly without any prospect of bettering its condition after all its bloody struggles. So that even in matters so large and dreadful as revolutions, the question of expediency is a controlling one; and the would-be-revolutionists are bound to inquire whether, as a result of their plans, more good or more evil is likely to be experienced. And if this is true of conflicts with organized society or government, it is not less true of conflicts with parties, churches, and individuals. Conflicts may be entered into wisely only when great evils are likely to be removed without greater evils being produced. A church suffers from the presence of a disreputable member; but it is a good deal better to let that tare grow till the harvest, than to stir up a church quarrel, generally the fiercest of all quarrels, and root up a great many stalks of wheat. Let both grow together till the harvest, says the Master, lest while ye root up the tares ye root up the wheat also.

The entire history of persecutions in connection with the Christian church is a history of attempts to root up supposed tares before the harvest. The line of persecution is almost unbroken through the centuries—Saul verily thinking he ought to do what he did against the Christians—Catholics persecuting Protestants, and Protestants persecuting one another and Catholics when they got the chance—down even to the early days of New England when the Puritans—not the Pilgrims— persecuted Quakers and Baptists; and the echoes still come to us from ecclesiastical councils which discipline or excommunicate men for differing with their brethren in creed or worship— the power of putting to death no longer existing—and as one travels back over the ground on which these historic events have occurred, it is painful to see that there is much more of wheat wilted and shriveled in the sun than there is of tares uprooted.

No half way measures—says the fanatic. Perfection or nothing. This is all nonsense. It is not Christ-like. Tearing everything to pieces is not Christ’s plan. Because Caesar gets more than he ought, and God less than he ought, “Down with Caesar and give him nothing,” says the fanatic. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s,” says Jesus, even at the moment when Caesar is a tyrant lording it over Judea.

Charles A. Dana was once Horace Greeley’s assistant on the New York Tribune. He exhibited the same characteristics for which he was noted many years as editor of the New York Sun. Any public man whom he had reason, as he thought, to believe to be a fraud or a knave, he attacked most mercilessly. His victims of course writhed under his attacks and they and their friends became enemies of the Tribune. Mr. Greeley stood it as long as he could, but at last he called a halt, exclaiming, “Dana, no paper on earth can stand it to attack all the scoundrels in the world.”

There are a great many people who are glad to see scoundrels exposed and attacked; but there are not very many who wish to join in the attack. They look on with complacency because the attack seems proper enough and they are not in it and therefore no odium attaches to them. It is for this reason that political reform is for the most part spasmodic or a failure. Somebody discovers that reform is needed and he tries to bring it about. The rest look on perfectly willing that he should try and even hoping that he will succeed—but without them. He does try—gets little sympathy and less help—soon finds that the forces of evil are much more compact and better organized than the forces of good—finds himself at last defeated and alone—and retires from the contest with a firm determination that the next man who tries to do anything for public and political reform, shall be somebody else than himself.

When we contemplate the condition of things even in our own country, or shall I say especially in our own country, we cannot fail to be impressed with the undesirable character of much which goes on. Bribery and corruption are manifestly dangerous to the republic. This is a representative government. We cannot meet in mass conventions for legislative purposes as New England has so long done in her town meetings. We choose our representatives. They with the representatives of all the rest of the people make laws, and elect United States senators who help to make laws for the whole country. Now, if the representative refuses to represent; if he is open to offers of pecuniary benefit for his vote; if he will vote for the candidate for senator who will give him the most money or offer him the best place; if he will vote for or against bills for public acts for a bribe, he has betrayed his constituents and set an example which if generally followed would make a farce of government and put all power into the hands of those who are rich enough and corrupt enough to buy legislatures. Such things are done and we know it. They are disgraceful, of course, to the briber and the bribed. But what are you going to do about it? The man who bought the votes has his seat in the United States senate or whatever else he wanted, all safe enough. The man who sold his vote has his money in his pocket or in some other place where it cannot be traced—and he does not feel a bit lonely, for there are so many others who have had their pockets lined in the same way that he has no lack of companionship. Nobody doubts what has been done. Nobody can prove anything, and if anybody did prove anything the matter would be whitewashed and he would have trouble for his pains. Such things go on in almost every state in the Union. They are disreputable, wrong, destructive of the best interests of the country. You regret to have things so; but you are busy and cannot look closely into these matters. If your own representative is guilty you will see to it that he does not get nominated again. You go to the next caucus, and sure enough the unfaithful representative is not a candidate. A new man is up for the nomination—apparently a clean man —one who can be trusted. You are delighted and gladly vote for him, and he is elected—but you learn later that he is the twin brother of the last man. Of course I am not speaking of this particular legislative district in which we are assembled. I need not say that this district, has not been represented recently by that sort of men. I am speaking of what is true in many more places and states than it ought to be; and I am calling attention not to the fact that so much bribery and corruption and trading exist, as everybody knows, but to the apparent helplessness of the people who do not like it and yet do not prevent it. They grumble and complain and call hard names and then let things go till the next election, when they generally go to the polls and help elect a brother-in-law of the twins.

Now the trouble with many reformers in politics is that they are a great deal more bent on pulling up tares than they are on raising wheat, and yet, wheat is the only good thing to be got and it there is no wheat the tares do no special harm. One saloon more or less in Sodom would make but little difference. To illustrate—let me, without offence to any one, say a few words respecting what so many people profess to have a holy horror of—the machine in politics. What is a machine? It is “a combination of bodies so connected that their relative motions are constrained, and by which, force and motion may be transmitted and applied to the production of some desired effect.” In mechanics, nothing better than a machine can be desired. This is the age of machines and a machine is always more than a match for untrained hand-labor.

In almost every state and every city of any size, there is what is commonly known in politics as the machine. It is an organization of men who go into politics more or less as a business. They give time, thought, and energy to it. They all have a common purpose and they work together with a harmony which makes the name machine eminently appropriate. Sometimes they do no great harm—they simply win where the other men fail. The reason that the other men fail is because they are in politics only in a half-hearted way, and they act without concert. When the time for the caucus comes, the machine is ready. It has its candidates for delegates. It knows just whom these delegates, if elected, will vote for.

It knows whom the men nominated by the delegates will vote for. It has a complete list of candidates who can be depended on from the local precinct to the United States senate. The machine has been attending to this business all the time. It is a compact organization, thoroughly disciplined, knowing its own men, able to predict the result, and in most cases sure to win. The dissatisfied element outside, good citizens, reformers, grumblers, loud advocates of pure politics, have no perfect organization, no plan that is worthy of the name, no candidates who are more than half-hearted in the fight, and so to the last everything is all sixes and sevens, a great deal of honest purpose and virtuous patriotism is wasted— not for anything very positive, but mainly to smash the machine—and the machine wins. There is no help for it. The regular army always beats the mob. It pays once in a great while to expose a company of raw militia to the fire of a thousand regulars, as it did on Lexington Green on the nineteenth of April, 1775; but in the ordinary processes of war it is criminal waste of life. And in politics it is hardly less a criminal waste of energy and high sentiment to array against a compact political organization having a definite purpose, an unorganized mass of citizens, without discipline, without leaders, and without plans.

If men want pure politics and honest officials they must give systematic attention to the matter, and not trust to a little spirit of excitement just before election, when in all probability it is too late to do any good. Eternal vigilance is the price of honest legislation as well as of liberty.

No one certainly can dislike the machine in its ordinary sense as a combination for corrupt purposes, more heartily than I do. But a machine is all right if it is properly used and used for proper purposes. And the only way to fight a bad machine is with a good one. If honesty is ever to win in politics, the men who desire it, must take their first lesson in practical politics from the machine and organize to some purpose. And until people who believe in honest legislation can be so banded together as to act with some of the efficiency of the machine, there is very little use in the individual citizen’s trying to pull up tares in the field of politics, except it be for his own moral exercise and growth.

If your idea of a proper caucus is one to which men shall go without any forethought as to candidates, your idea will never be realized. Somebody will have thought about it. If you have not, the machine doubtless has. Organization, concert of action among men of like minds is not only proper but desirable.

If the object to be secured is a good one, it is no worse because there has been an organized effort to secure it. Of course if the object to be secured is bad and the machine works for it, the machine is bad; hut it is so because it is working for evil and not at all because it is a machine. The lesson to be derived from all this is just what Edmund Burke said more than a hundred years ago. “When bad men combine the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” My point is this. Be earnestly active for something good, and not merely active against something bad. Keep sowing wheat, and do not confine your energies to pulling up tares. It is all right to remove temptation from the young by shutting up saloons and gambling dens if you can; but it is better to fill the minds of the rising generation with high ideals of noble living than to spend all your energies in removing temptation. It is even better to have men who cannot be tempted than it is to have no temptation.

Organize then for the attainment of the best things, and not merely for the temporary suppression of bad things. There will be, in spite of all that you can do, a good many tares growing with the wheat until the harvest; but it will be a poor harvest indeed, even if you pull up all the tares, if at the end there is no wheat.

There are those who say that civilization and even the Christian church are built upon injustice and robbery, and there is nothing to be done but to let both go and return to the simplicity of nature. That seems to me a wholesale rooting up of the wheat in order to get rid of the tares. Learning, Science, Literature, Art and Religion have been doing their best for centuries to make the world better; and they have succeeded in evolving from the primeval savage the modern civilized man and from the primitive bestial selfish degradation the modern methodical and systematic care for self, mixed with not a little altruism or brotherly kindness—and now our modern prophets want to destroy civilization and all that it implies, because, forsooth, some people own property which they never earned, and the members of the Christian church, unlike their Master, have every night where to lay their heads. And yet these prophets sleep regularly on just as soft pillows as the rest of the church, and draw their salaries from the accumulations of civilization with as much regularity and zest as if they liked it.

There is no question whatever as to what a man’s attitude towards all recognized wrong ought to be. If he is a true man, it cannot be anything but an attitude of disapproval. But it is a question and a momentous question what he shall do about it. Here comes in the warning of Jesus—”Lest ye root up the wheat also. Let both grow together till the harvest.” Ah! there is to be a harvest, is there? Be comforted, my brother, you who have vexed your righteous soul with the unlawful deeds of the wicked, like Lot in Sodom—be comforted. There will be a harvest, and the harvest comes with great regularity, sometimes to individuals and sometimes to nations. A good many things will be revealed at the harvest. First, it will be found that the tares are not wheat. Second, it will be found that the Lord of the harvest does not value tares as he does wheat, and next it will be found that he does not make the same disposition of tares that he does of wheat. There comes a time, you see, when tares are neither mistaken for wheat nor treated as wheat. Suppose you do not dig up all the tares you see. There is sure to come a time when the tares will be got rid of. The harvest is a great discriminator.

The wheat will be gathered into the barn. It is valuable. It will feed and sustain men and women and children. The tares will be burned—not as fuel—they are worth nothing even as fuel—they will be burned not to do good, but simply to get rid of them. They are worthless—worse than worthless. They must be destroyed, because they are noxious. Bind them in bundles and burn them—and the rascality that you have longed to fight goes out at last in the cleansing flames of an awakened public conscience.

Does all this appear like lowering the standard of duty? Is a true life substantially summed up in minding your own business? Well—a good many lives would be better than they are if they were so summed up. But that is not my meaning. I have not yet said quite all that I have to say. There is one further lesson to be learned from Jesus and it is the most important one.

Jesus was, indeed, wonderfully patient. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? Jesus let Judas stay among the disciples as long as he would. He knew what Judas was; yet, he did not turn him out, excommunicate him, nor do anything else to him of a disciplinary nature. If he, with his perfect character, could stand the presence of such a being, we ought to be able to stand it till the harvest, if it is necessary.

But with all his tenderness towards all classes of men, Jesus never left the wrong-doer in doubt as to his judgment of the wrongdoer’s character. Even Judas knew that the Master understood him.

Jesus treated the woman of Samaria with great kindness. No other Jew would have talked with her. His disciples were astonished when they found him talking to her, for the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. But the woman did not go away with the impression that Jesus approved of her mode of life. When he said to her, “He whom thou now hast is not thy husband,” she knew what he thought of her.

Do not so associate with evil men as to make them believe that you think that they are all right. Jesus never did that.

To the woman condemned under the law, but at whom no man was found innocent enough to cast the first stone, Jesus said: “Neither do I condemn thee.” I do not pass sentence of punishment upon you. But ‘go and sin no more,’ told her what he thought of her life and conduct. God forbid that any one of us should refuse to give a helping hand to man or woman who, having been bad, repents and tries to be good. For them, the message spoken in kindness must always be—”Go and sin no more.”

“He receiveth sinners and eateth with them,” said the Pharisees. Only six days before the crucifixion they said of him as he went to the house of Zaccheus, the chief tax gatherer of Jericho, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.” They would not have done so. But he did. Was he less opposed to sin and crime than they were? But he did not go to be “hail fellow well met” with sinners, whether publicans or Pharisees. He associated with them only for their good, and he never sought to curry favor with them by pretending that he thought that they were on the whole ideal men. The Pharisee who thought he was doing Jesus great honor to admit him to his table and who was greatly disturbed because a woman who was a sinner had been permitted by Jesus to anoint his feet with ointment after she had washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair—receives the rebuke he deserves, high-toned aristocrat though he was. “I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet. Thou gavest me no kiss. My head with oil thou didst not anoint.” I have received at your hands no special kindness and hardly ordinary civility; but this woman at whose presence you are sneering, has with marvelous tenderness, unselfishness and liberality, more than supplied the defects of your self-complacent hospitality. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many—no concealment of that fact even in the presence of the woman—which are many, are forgiven her—for she loved much.

Jesus was the friend of publicans and sinners, as the Pharisees said. He was a helpful friend, full of sympathy and kindness and charity. But he never associated with them as persons with whose life he was satisfied and whose character He approved. He met them always as one trying to lift them out of evil and induce them to seek a better life. In a word His charity was no bestial indifference to the distinction between good and evil, or between honest men and knaves.

There is a proper time for pulling up tares, and when that time comes, they should be uprooted. First, in the development of our own characters. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. Second, in our relations to others—whenever the results will not be injurious to the general good. And third, with nations, whenever humanity demands that the organized power of Christian states shall be used for the relief and protection of the oppressed and down-trodden.

Such a time came 100 years ago to Christian Europe, when Turkey had filled up the measure of her iniquity by the murder of hundreds of thousands of helpless Armenians—her own subjects. But the Concert of Nations of Christian Europe, silent, selfish, jealous of each other, afraid of each other, stood by and permitted the Turk, already drenched to the shoulders in the blood of Armenia, to proceed still further and cut the throats of their brothers of Christian Greece in their heroic but useless struggle. Then was the time for these nations to strike a blow that would have avenged the wrongs of centuries. Then was the time for rooting up tares without the slightest danger of rooting up wheat. Such a time as this now exists in the Middle East with ISIS terrorists, along with Saudi and Iran State sponsors of terror—there still being some in Turkey to uproot. But Christian Europe, because the nations could not agree and a general European war was deemed worse even than the murder of Armenians, reserved its strength for the easier task of dismembering and parceling out China in the East, and left the unspeakable Turk undisturbed and unpunished.

It has been reserved for the young republic (The United States of America) of the West to set for Christendom an example of a foreign policy inspired not by selfishness, but by generosity and real nobility of spirit.

Our country was then engaged in a war with Spain, entered into, so far as appears, with little or no prospect of material gain to ourselves, but solely in the interest of humanity—to protect the people of Cuba from cruelty and wrong heaped upon them for centuries by Spanish oppression. No war was ever engaged in by any nation for more unselfish reasons; and if the God of Battles shall give the victory to our arms on sea and land, as I cannot doubt that He will, my earnest hope is that my country may not forget the high mission of mercy in which it is engaged, and may not, carried away by the lust of power and glory, convert a great contest in the interest of humanity, which ought to be an inspiring example to Christendom for all time to come, into an ordinary struggle for wider dominion and the gratification of unholy ambition. God save the Republic.

Ladies And Gentlemen:

“When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Peace is the desirable condition of life. I can ask nothing better for you than that in the earnest pursuit of the various occupations in which you may engage, you may enjoy peace, and may steadily grow in wisdom and in favor with God and man.

As today you recall the efforts which you have made to secure an education, you cannot but rejoice that your work is done and that the reward is assured. But in the midst of your rejoicing there must come thoughts of those who started with you but have fallen out by the way, and especially of those two, bright scholars and loyal friends, Carl Huhn and Edna May Stock, who had already won honors and confidently expected to stand here with you today, but who already have been promoted to a higher service above. The memory of your dead classmates cannot but chasten somewhat your expressions of joy on this auspicious occasion; and it will come to you many times in your future life as a solemn reminder of what we all at some time or other must meet. But for you the past at least is secure. You have found by your experience here, that wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness and that all her paths are peace. So may you find it in the future. And now, as we part, I beg you to accept my heartiest wishes for your happiness and usefulness in this life, and for an immortality of joy in the life hereafter. Farewell.

Sources: Bible, Killing Jesus, The Ariel, Volume 21

Copyright © 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

Obama’s Strategy to Deal with Militant Radical Islam in the Middle East

National Motto [Click to enlarge]

Radical Islam

The Obama Administration thinks we Americans are too stupid to understand the nuances of their thinking, Yet they also think the “uneducated” and “jobless” ISIS members do. Amazing, is it not?

Eric Holder complains “we spend more time talking about what do you call it as opposed to what do you do about it…you know? I mean really, you know, you know! If Fox [News] didn’t talk about this they’d have nothing else to talk about, it would seem to me. You know Radical Islam, Islamic Extremism, you know, um, (sighs heavily) I’m not sure an awful lot is gained, by, um, by saying that”

I can assure mr. Holder, Fox News spends much more time talking on what we do about it, than they do on what the administration is calling it. They also talk about how little the Obama administration is doing about it, as well as what should be done about it, with numerous military experts, generals, colonels, special ops, and various other experts, including Muslim reformers, experts on Muslim history and culture, ex-administration officials, diplomats, etc.

However the problem lies with the Obama administration, the reason the question of why Obama, and the people in his administration is even raised, is because of the fact Obama and his administration are doing as little as possible to prevent it. Obama and his administration are doing so little to stop the spread of Islamic extremism, not only are people of his own party also raising the question, even extreme leftist democrats are starting to take issue with it.

I see and hear all of these news people, political pundits etc., on Fox News or elsewhere, who strain their brains trying to analyze why Obama and his administration will not name the enemy, as they exist, they also ask why the admin is not doing more to stop the spread of the militant Muslim fanatics.

The Obama administration also says we need to change the economic outlook of the Muslim terrorists and the ideology that causes them to be terrorists. Wouldn’t that require “occupation” of those countries where the ideology is prevalent, and the control of those same countries economy? For years the Islamic administrations in those countries have failed to stop the Imam’s from spreading their extremist ideology, and have failed to control the corruption of their economies participants or governments who commandeer the relief funds, food, etc. that are given by other countries, meant to go to help the people. It is only reasonable then to come to the conclusion, all of this will require occupation forces, just as it did in Germany and Japan after World War 2. Isn’t it liberals and the democrats who have always accused Americans of being occupying forces or somehow Imperialistic? If the leaders in the Muslim world could be trusted to take on the ideology that creates Islamic terrorists, or have failed to grow their economies in order to benefit the people enough, where they do not turn to terrorism because of their poverty? How else do they propose to accomplish all of the incredibly clever nuanced strategy they promote?

If you look at Obama and the history of his administration, since he took office you can only conclude one thing. I will get to that conclusion later in this article.

Getting into history as I do, I tend to look, not only at the present, but also the past. This helps to give me a better understanding of the why, what, and where of something, so I can come to the correct conclusion, or at least one that is close to being correct.

Obama at the recent prayer breakfast referred to the Christian Crusades when talking about what is taking place in the Middle East with ISIS / ISIL, as if the Crusades that happened 900-1200 years ago, somehow justified the atrocities committed by present day Islamic Muslim terrorists. He also failed to mention, the crusades took place after 4-5 centuries of Muslim aggression, attacks that make today’s Muslim terrorists look like pikers. Note, the day before the prayer breakfast he had a meeting with various Muslim leaders in the White House, who the administration refused to name. Then within days after the prayer breakfast we are faced with a new ISIS / ISIL video showing the mass beheading of 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt, by militant Muslim savages who made the ISIS video and titled it. “A Message Signed With Blood To The Nation Of The Cross.” In the video an ISIS member with an American accent said among other things.

“Oh people, recently you have seen us on the hills of Al-Sham and Dabiq’s plain, chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross for a long time, and today, we are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message. All crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes especially if you are fighting us all together. Therefore we will fight you all together. The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.”

This coming from Libya where Obama in 2011 took part in military action to remove Gadhafi saying when he did. “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” Obama said. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” Libya, also touted by Obama as one of the successes of his foreign policy in the Middle East. Kind of amazing he doesn’t use the same kind of language when talking about the Islamic terrorists.

The war in Libya was preceded by protests in Zawiya, 8 August 2009 and finally ignited by protests in Benghazi beginning on Tuesday, 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces that fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country,with the moderate Muslim forces opposing Gaddafi establishing a governing body, the General National Congress, whose President [Mohamed Yousef Magariaf] came to the U.S. and did an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Bob Schieffer on September 16, 2012. This interview was in reference to the terrorist attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, where the U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. This interview was also the same day Ambassador Susan Rice did her infamous five Sunday talk shows blaming a youtube video, nobody ever watched until the Obama administration started blaming it on the video “The innocence of Muslims” whose creator, they promised would be jailed or punished.

In this interview the Libyan President Magariaf] was asked by Schieffer about the attack in Benghazi, among the things Schieffer asked was whether the attack was preplanned, if the attackers were connected with al Qaeda, and where the attackers were from. Magariaf told him, yes the attack was preplanned [i.e. not spontaneous or part of a protest], the attackers were connected with al Qaeda, and it was planned and carried out by mainly foreigners, and some of them were definitely from Algeria and Mali.

Directly after having the Libyan President on, Schieffer then introduced Susan Rice “And joining us now, Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador, our U.N. ambassador. Madam Ambassador, he says this is something that has been in the planning stages for months. I understand you have been saying that you think it was spontaneous? Are we not on the same page here?” Susan Rice after referring to a non-existent FBI investigation went on to tell him according to the best intelligence they had,  it was a spontaneous protest, brought on by the video and the attackers had no connection to al Qeada.

As a side note: It would seem to me, the best intelligence would come from the President of Libya, who Schieffer had just interviewed before Rice.

What a slap in the face this must have been to the Libyan President, who had just told Schieffer it was al Qaeda, and a preplanned well organized attack. No wonder he and the Libyan government refused to let the FBI in to conduct an investigation until a month after the Benghazi attack.

Add to this the fact Obama refused to assist the fledgling moderate Muslim Libyan government, after helping them depose Gadhafi by bombing Libyan government forces. You begin to then wonder, why Obama helped them in the first place, if he was just going to leave Libya’s fledgling government, military, police, etc., to deal with the Radical Islamic Jihadis after Gadhafi’s overthrow and death, without assistance from the U.S.

We then go back to the Iranian Green revolution of 2009-2010 when moderate Muslim students, business owners, and others rose up against the tyrannical Iranian Mullah’s, and the government they have imposed in Iran. Out of all the moderate Muslim uprisings in around the world that took place after Obama took the presidency, the Muslims who rose up in Iran were truly moderates who wanted to overthrow the radical Muslims in power.

What did Obama do to encourage or help those moderate Muslims during the Green Movement in Iran? Not a thing, not a word of encouragement, not humanitarian aid, no condemnation of the radical mullah’s and their government henchman, nothing. This seemed strange, the whole world was clamoring for him to speak out, give some encouragement, something, anything!

When young people in Egypt started protesting and calling for change in 2011, Obama encouraged them a little, after refusing to for weeks or months. It wasn’t until the Muslim Brotherhood members took over the government in Egypt, that Obama became really supportive of the Egyptian movement. Then when the people rose up against the Muslim Brotherhood led government, Obama once again did little to encourage the protesters or take up their cause, angering many of the Egyptian protesters. This seems strange since the Muslim Brotherhood is known for its ties to terrorism, and other Islamic Jihadi organizations. Then however, you look at Obama and his administrations ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, its associates and members and you begin to understand.

The reason news journalists and political pundits on places like Fox news, keep asking the seemingly asinine questions, like why does Obama refuse to refer to mass beheadings, and other atrocities as Islamic terrorism, Radical Islam, etc., it is because Obama does very little to stop Radical Islam. In fact Obama does little to encourage the truly moderate Muslims, take Syria for example, or any of the other moderate Muslim movements. He does little or nothing to encourage, aid, or assist the moderates, and does little or nothing to stop the radical extremist Muslims. Look at Yemen, which just a few weeks or months ago Obama was holding up as a beacon of his successful foreign policy.

Speaking of Syria, we have heard numerous politicians and political pundits from the GOP and the democrats since the beginning of the “moderate” Muslim uprising in Syria: We’ve heard them say, the reason Obama, his administration and Congress weren’t doing anything to support the moderate rebels is because, they are having such a hard time identifying them. Why is it so hard to identify the “moderates”? If the “vast majority” of Muslims are moderate, why is it so hard to identify them? When Ali Khamenei the “Supreme Leader of Iran” shouts “death to America” this week, the Obama administration said Khamenei is saying it for “Domestic Consumption”. So what the Obama administration are really saying is the majority of Iranians are militant Islamic Muslims bent on Jihad and the leaders of Iran are really moderates who say these radical things to appeal to the vast majority of Muslims in Iran.

Let’s get back to the comments Barrack Hussein Obama made at the recent prayer breakfast, where he referred to the crusades in medieval times. You’ll notice Leftist democrats and Muslim terrorists use the same tactics, techniques, or same talking points when referring to events, past or present.

Obama’s sympathy is always with the enemies of America, especially the radical Muslim element. Leftist democrats also refuse to call out radical Muslims or refer to them as Islamic, and refuse to condemn Muslims, for what they do in reference to Sharia Law. This is because, leftist liberal progressive democrats serve the same master as the radical Muslims, both groups believe in forcing their beliefs, ideas, views, and ways on others who disagree with them, oppose them, or are part of the general population just trying to live their lives. Both groups also believe in punishing and / or destroying those same people, when those people say, do, or are in noncompliance with the beliefs, rules, etc., the leftist democrats or radical Muslims espouse.

Look at Obamacare that was “forced down the throats of the American people”. Look at what the media, especially the main stream leftist media did to Sarah Palin or any other number of conservative or christian republicans. Look at what they’ve tried to do to Ted Cruz, I don’t care who you are, you have to admit Cruz and Palin are the only ones who have shown they would actually change the way Washington DC works. Not change as Obama did, i.e. more of the same, only on steroids, but real change to the bureaucracy, change that brings it in subjection to the American people, instead of the American people being subjected to the dictates of faceless non-elected bureaucrats.

This leads us back to the news journalists, pundits, etc., mainly on the right or centrists when it comes to politics. The reason people like O’Reilly and others twist themselves in knots trying to understand why Obama does what he does, and says what he says, when it comes to radical Islam; It is because: They can’t bring themselves to believe, the American people actually elected a president who hates America, what it stands for, the principles of its founding, you name it. Let’s not forget Obama and his administrations attacks on conservatives and war against traditional Christian American values and the Bible. You know those Americans Obama referred to among his rich friends as “clinging to their guns and religion”. Funny he has never said that about the fundamental Islamic Muslim terrorists.

Why do you think Obama has done more to stir up racial, class strife, and other grievances  between various groups of Americans than he has done to unite the people and the country? He uses stronger words, and shows greater animation when talking against conservatives, than he ever does when speaking about the Islamic Muslim terrorists! If the terrorists from al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups, (or violent extremists as Obama likes to say) If, as Obama says, the Arabic terrorists are not Muslim, and they do not represent the “religion” of  Islam; Why are the U.S. State department, Pentagon / Defense department, and the Obama administration giving the terrorists / enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba copies of the Koran, Islamic Muslim prayer rugs, prayer beads, and giving them Islamic meals, etc?

When I take all of this into consideration, I can only conclude Obama hates America, and as he said he would in his book, he stands with the Muslims, he just failed to add radical, when he spoke of the Muslims he would stand with. All part of that great fundamental change he referred to…

Obama’s strategy to deal with Islamic terrorism is for America to lose, why else would he go to congress to get an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that ties not only the hands of the military, but also the hands of the next president, who would have to get a new authorization 3 years after the American people have become even more war weary in the first year of his / her administration?

Some other things I have noted: Rudy said “Obama doesn’t love America” the media throws a fit because they believe this is wrong or it is somehow saying Obama is unpatriotic. Yet Obama himself called his predecessor “unpatriotic” the media and the democrat party compared him to Hitler, wrote a book about killing him, and said numerous other outrageous things about him personally. Obama himself has numerous times said all Americans who don’t want to be taxed more are unpatriotic. The democrat party have said numerous completely outrageous things about Tea Party participants, conservative or christian republicans, yet you never hear the media throw a fit about it.

You have democrats throw a fit when a republican or conservative call Obama a Muslim or even question that he considering his numerous actions against traditional christians, conservatives, etc. and his obvious sympathy for Muslims. Why do they get outraged when people call Obama a Muslim when they are constantly telling us Muslims are good peace loving people. Then you had Obama say “America is no longer a Christian Nation” yet along with the outrage shown when he is called a Muslim, Obama and the media turn themselves in knots trying to convince the American people he is a christian.

Then we can all remember the Democrat National Convention where they voted 3 times whether “God” was going to be part of their party platform, the majority of convention goers voted “No” and finally the 3rd time amid the majority of the members there hissing and booing, the convention managers declared they had “voted” to add “God” to their party platform. Of course this was during election season and they were trying to convince Americans they believed in “God” and that Obama is a christian.

Why doesn’t the democrat party “own it” why do they not stand by what’s in their hearts. Why will they not admit they hate or at the very least greatly dislike the way America was founded, the principles the USA was founded on, and the obvious fact we were, are, and hopefully will always be a nation where the majority of the people are guided by christian principles. Why doesn’t the democrat party finally just own how they really think and feel? They have been accusing republicans and conservatives of being cowards, why don’t the democrats just own who they are? Cowards by any chance?

Obama is an embarrassment to our historic allies and a malleable dunce to our historic enemies!

Copyright © 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

Founder of Christianity vs Founder of Islam

John Quincy Adams regarding the promises of the Christian gospel [Click to enlarge]

1 John iv. 1-3: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

The spirits and their utterances are to be tried by their attitude to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Anointed and sent of the Father, the Saviour of the whole world, in whom God is well pleased.

John Quincy Adams in regards to reading the Holy Bible [Click to enlarge]

Christian Spectator Vol 1 excerpt; I Am not a Mohammedan i.e. Muslim, Because; Author unknown

I Am not a Mohammedan,—1. Because I cannot allow to the prophet of Arabia the character which he assumed, and which his followers ascribe to him :—in oilier words. I cannot admit that Mohammed was the most illustrious of all the messengers sent from heaven to our world. I should thus exalt him above all the prophets and apostles; above the Son of God himself. This I should also do, not only without reason, but in opposition to most weighty evidence.

The appearance of Mohammed, certainly his appearance in the character which he assumed, is no where foretold in the sacred scriptures, which even his followers acknowledge to be diviue. This is by no means true, with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. Long before his incarnation, his appearance, his character, the circumstances of his life and of his death, had been minutely detailed by prophecy. If the pretensions of Mohammed were well founded, why is not the same true, at least in a degree, with respect to him ?—why do the sacred pages contain so many predictions concerning him, who was to be born at Bethlehem, while nothing is said of him, who was to be born at Mecca? This is altogether unaccountable on the supposition, that the latter of these, surpasses the former in the dignity and importance of his character. I will not assert that no allusion is had to Mohammed in the prophetic parts of scripture; but if he is mentioned at all, it evidently is under the appellation of the false prophet.

Mohammed performed no supernatural operations, foretold no future events. The world is entirely destitute of evidence, that he ever did the least thing beyond the natural powers of man. For a long season, he made no pretensions of this kind. At length, to silence the demands of his opposers, and allay the apprehensions of his friends, he professed to have effected certain marvelous absurdities by supernatural assistance. But these things, beside being strangely inconsistent and self contradictory, want the proofs essential to establish a miracle. They were not performed in the face of day, nor under the eye of spectators,—consequently were never, like the miracles recorded in scripture, exposed to examination by the senses. These wonderful works, gained no general credit, even among those who lived at the time when tbey were said to be wrought; the story of them, was believed only by a few among the ignorant multitude; little dependence was placed on them by the prophet or his followers. If Mobammed was the most distinguished of all the messengers seut from God to men, how happened he to be destitute of this most important test of his divine mission?

I remark again, that the personal character of Mohammed, affords convincing evidence, that his high pretensions were unfounded. The prophets and apostles, who have spoken to men in the name of God, have uniformly been men of holy lives. For the Most High, to employ persons of any other description in this manner, would be inconsistent with all our ideas of his character. How then can we suppose that a man given up to debauchery, a man contemptible for the profligacy of his life, should be selected by Jehovah, as his most distinguished ambassador to our world? Such a man was Mohammed. This fact is abundantly supported by history, and is alone sufficient to destroy all belief that he was a true prophet; it clearly stamps him as an impostor. Mohammed’s retiring from public view for a season, and pretending in his seclusion to commence a reformation, and to receive certain secret communications from the invisible world, instead of diminishing, greatly increases our distrust in his assumed character. Such a course was admirably suited to promote the corrupt designs of a wicked and artful impostor.

I am not a Mohammedan—2. Because I cannot allow to the Koran, that respect, which belongs to the word of God. The difference between these books is vastly too great to admit the supposition, that both came from the same author. Their different style shews at once, that they are derived from different sources. The contrast between the Bible of Christians, and that of Mohammedans in this respect, is eloquently given by Mr. Gibbon, a man certainly not void of taste, nor prejudiced in favor of the sacred oracles. Of the Koran he says—”The harmony and copiousness of style, will not, in a version, reach the European infidel; he will peruse, with impatience, the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, precept and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of an Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same language.”

With regard to the most important religious doctrines, the Koran is still more diverse from holy writ. In the sacred scriptures we are clearly taught the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and are assured that it is only by his obedience unto death, that any of our race can be pardoned and received into favor with God. In the Koran, Christ is declared to be only a man like ourselves. So far, is he said to be, from dying on account of human guilt, that even the fact, that he died at all, is denied. According to this book, the sufferings of the Saviour were only in appearance, and men, instead of needing a vicarious atonement for their sins, may, by a trifling restraint from open vice, become interested in the divine favor, and entitled to the happiness of heaven. Nor is the heaven promised, less different from the heaven of the scriptures, than the means of obtaining h. While the Christian expects a heaven, where he will be free from sin, where he will be entirely divested of every sensual appetite, and be happy only in the enjoyment of God, the Mussulman is taught to look for a paradise, great part of whose happiness will consist in carnal indulgence. Thus diverse, thus directly opposite, are the doctrines of the word of God, and those of the Koran of Mohammed.

Nor do these volumes bear a nearer resemblance, when we contemplate the morality which they inculcate. The former enjoins upon men, the restraint and the correction of their disorderly passions and propensities; requires them to be holy as their Father who is in heaven is holy; lays the foundation of morality in the heart, and inculcates love and benevolence towards all mankind. Wherever the precepts of the gospel have been obeyed, friendship and peace have prevailed, and the human character has been refined and exalted. Precisely the reverse of this, is true of the Koran. It is, in every respect, such as might be expected from its author. It requires no mortification of corrupt affections, no subduing of wicked passions, no guarding of the heart from sin. On the other hand, it encourages the indulgence of envy, pride, ambition, and sensual desire. Instead of breathing peace on earth and good will to men, it speaks misery and extermination; it literally declares war upon the human race.— Hence, in a moral view, the Koran has ever carried with it pestilence and death. Wherever its principles have been reduced to practice, man has been rendered the foe of man, and has sought the mischief and the ruin’ of his fellow;—in a word, the doctrines of this book, are, in a high degree, adapted to debauch and to brutalize the human character. Other points of difference between the sacred scriptures and the Koran, might be mentioned; bat enough has been said to shew, that if one of these books is what it purports to be, the other must be a forgery. Hence, before I can be a Mohammedan, I must regard the word of God as a fable; but then my Mohammedan creed would be imperfect, since Mussulmans [Muslims] profess to acknowledge the divinity of the holy scriptures.

As a further objection to Mohammedanism, should be mentioned the manner, in which this religion was originally propagated in the world. At first, it was established by fraud and deception, afterwards by fire and sword. It was never, like the religion of Christ, addressed to the understanding and the conscience of men, and spread in opposition to the corruptions of the human heart, and the power of civil authority. Islamism, however, was never proposed for investigation; it lays its strong hold in the depravity of man; has ever been supported by the arm of the magistrate, and has erected its bloody trophies over the miseries and desolations of the world.

Thus, whether I consider the personal character of Mohammed, or the want of prophecy and of miracles in his support; when I reflect on the style, in which his instructions are delivered; on the doctrines which he taught; the morality which he inculcated, or the manner, in which his religion was spread,—when I contemplate these things together or apart, I find abundant reason, why I cannot lay my hand on the Koran and cry,— “Ala, there is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

John Quincy Adams regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ [Click to enlarge]

Extract from A Missionary’s Letter to a Muslim friend

Attitude of the Quran to Christ.

Testing the Quran thus, it is found to be characterized by a certain veiled hostility and studied depreciation of him. While it admits his perfect sinlessness and prophetic character, it bitterly denies his divinity, and all implied in his being the Son of God. I will quote a passage at random, a sample of countless others.

Sura XLIIL, Surat al Zukhraf, Ornaments of Gold, v. 59: “Jesus is no other than a servant, whom we favored with the gift of prophecy; and we appointed him for an example unto the children of Israel.” V. 63: “And when Jesus came with evident miracles, he said, Now I am come unto you with wisdom, and to explain unto you part of those things concerning which ye disagree.”

It is not strange that, while Muslims say much of their love and honor for the Lord Jesus, he is to the Shiahs only one of one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets, all considered sinless, Adam and Noah being among the number. The Sunnis recognize a hundred and forty-four thousand. Neither is it wonderful that so few of them take the trouble to familiarize themselves with the life and teachings of one who, as they suppose, was only a prophet for the Jews.

In the light of the great discrepancies and flat contradictions existing between the Bible and the Quran, I beg you to examine with the greatest care the foundations of Islam, remembering that your salvation depends upon arriving at the truth. Are you prepared to venture all on the word of one man, or even one angel, when that word plainly supersedes and abrogates the well-established revelations which preceded it? The former systems of religion are like a strong castle founded on a rock, and standing “four square to every wind that blows”; but Islam, resting on the authority of one witness, rather resembles a pyramid poised on its apex.

Thomas Jefferson concerning the advantages of Jesus [Click to enlarge]

Words of Jesus

Let us look at the words of Jesus, for to them he appealed to authenticate his divine character and mission. Leaving out those spoken by him, as we believe, through the prophets before his birth, and the apostles after his ascension, we will confine our attention to the utterances of his brief ministry of three and a half years.

The wisdom of the whole world has produced nothing like them; they unlock the mysteries of time and eternity, bring ” life and immortality to light,” and satisfy alike the loftiest demands of the intellect and the deepest cravings of the heart. How inimitable his parables! how perfect his precepts, wonderful in condensation and scope! What stores of comfort and instruction in every word, whether uttered in formal teaching or in the familiar intercourse of daily life!

Teachings of the Quran.

But when we turn to the Quran we are reminded of the saying, “What is true is not new, and what is new is not true.” The great doctrines of the unity and holiness of the Creator, his wisdom, justice, and mercy, sin and judgment, the resurrection of righteous and wicked men, heaven and hell, had long before been so fully set forth in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures that no additional revelation was needed. Had the knowledge of sacred books been diffused as it should have been, the Arabs could never have made the mistake of supposing these cardinal truths to be revealed for the first time. We must confess this to have been the fault of the Christian Church, which, having left the simplicity of the faith for image and relic worship, and received for doctrines the vain traditions of men, had forgotten to preach a pure Gospel, and neglected the last command of her Lord to teach all nations his words and works. She paid the penalty of disobedience in being powerless to prevent the rise of the new persecuting religion which was destined to prove her mortal enemy.

“What was true was not new.” Nothing, absolutely nothing, is added by the Prophet in the way of information or enforcement, while many of the old truths are belittled, misstated, and contradicted.

“What was new was not true”: the change of base from Isaac to Ishmael, from the Jew to the Arab, from Jerusalem to Mecca, from Jesus Christ to Muhammad, from salvation by grace to salvation by works, cannot be accepted. The new views of God, the new terms of salvation, the new regime of force, the mechanical character of the new obedience, are all inferior to the light, life, and liberty of Christianity. How, then, can we believe they emanate from the same source? He who has known the liberty of a son in the Father’s house cannot but hesitate when called to assume the station of a slave bowing beneath the inscrutable will of a far-off and unapproachable Master.

George Washington quote concerning the guidance of God in his life [Click to enlarge]

Prophetic Gifts and Saving Grace.

We have already adverted to the gifts of prophecy and miracle abounding in the Lord Jesus, but in Muhammad conspicuous by their absence; but we must not lay undue stress on these as primary credentials of a true prophet.

The Old Testament, in the example of Balaam, and the New in that of Caiaphas, show us that, anomalous as it may appear to us, God can use wicked men to utter true prophecies. Of miracles, we see no reason to doubt that they were wrought by Judas as well as his fellow-apostles when Christ sent them out “with power and authority over the devils, and to cure disease.”

Matthew vii. 21-23, our Saviour says: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Matthew xxiv. 24: “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”

2 Thessalonians ii. 9: “Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders.”

Those whose trust is based only On the evidence of prophecy and miracles, or what appears to be such, may build on a sandy foundation, and in the decisive day of trial find themselves overwhelmed by fearful and remediless disaster. God, in his mercy, has provided us with a criterion by which to judge the pretensions of those who profess to be his representatives.

James Monroe concerning the blessings of God. [Click to enlarge]

Test of True Prophets.

Matthew vii. 15-18: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” The supreme test taught and met by Christ himself is personal holiness of character. He spoke of himself as coming, not to destroy, but to fulfil the law of God. If we accept his own word, he as divine was the author of the moral law, yet we never find him taking up a position of superiority to its requirements. On the contrary, we recognize in him the only human being who has ever completely kept the commandments in letter and spirit. Perfect in love to God and love to man, he ” brought in an everlasting righteousness ” sufficient to satisfy all demands of justice, and, as imputed to those who trust in him, able to save even ” unto the uttermost.”

James Madison regarding the Rights of Conscience. [Click to enlarge]

Sinlessness of Christ.

He set a faultless example to his followers, offering to God a perfect obedience to his will, and to man a wondrous devotion, even laying down his life for the guilty race with which he identified himself. We have the testimony of his disciples to his sinless perfection, men associated with him for three and a half years on the familiar terms of close intimacy. Much of this time was spent in touring: on the road, or in the crowded conditions of Oriental village hospitality, so trying to ordinary friendship. They saw him weary, hungry, exposed to strong provocations. They saw him when the popular tide ran strong in his favor, and again when it ebbed, and most of his followers left him, in danger, betrayal, and death. Looking back on all, they deliberately tell us his life sustained his professed character, and he was indeed a sinless man. Not only their word, but the record of his words and actions as we have it, bears them out in their assertion. Tried by the most exacting standard of modern morality, he is without fault. His friends had every opportunity to judge him by the highest criterion, not the ability to utter beautiful poetry, which even depraved men often possess, but the power to lead a holy life.

We have seen his enemies dogging his steps with keen eyes of hate and prejudice, but unable to find any accusation against him. We have seen the infidelity of nineteen centuries scanning his life, eager to discover some flaw in his moral perfection, but compelled, like the Roman judge, to declare, ” I find no fault in him.” Those who reject him as a divine Saviour are lavish in praising him as the ideal man, the unique flower of humanity. The worst reproach brought to-day against Christians is that they are not like their Master, Jesus of Nazareth, the obscure Jewish carpenter, dying early as a criminal and an offender against Roman law. He who bore the punishment of a slave on the accursed cross furnishes to-day the standard by which all men are judged, while he himself is judged of no man.

John Adams regarding Christianity [Click to enlarge]

Morality of Muhammad.

What a contrast to Muhammad, who, setting up a far inferior code of morals, giving indulgence to the weaknesses of the flesh, and proclaiming liberty to its lusts, could not himself observe the law he promulgated as from God! On the ground of his prophetic office he claimed to be superior to its requirements and exempt from its penalties, and it is notorious that he freely acted on this principle.

Readers of the Quran are familiar with the Suras, which specially excuse him from observing the marriage and divorce laws of Islam, though they appear to most persons sufficiently elastic to satisfy any one. To cite but one instance. Sura XXXIIL, Surat ul Ahzab, the Confederates, v. 49-57: ” O Prophet, we have allowed thee thy wives unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy right hand possesseth, of the booty which God hath granted thee; and the daughters of thy uncles, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on thy father’s side, and on thy mother’s side, who have fled with thee from Makkah, and any other believing woman if she give herself to the Prophet, in case the Prophet desireth to take her to wife. This is a peculiar privilege granted to thee above the rest of the true believers. We know what we have ordained them concerning their wives and the slaves which their right hands possess; lest it should be deemed a crime in thee to make use of the privilege granted thee; for God is gracious and merciful. Thou mayest postpone the turn of such of thy wives as thou shalt please; and thou mayest take unto thee her whom thou shalt please: and her whom thou shalt desire of those whom thou shalt have before rejected; and it shall be no crime in thee. This will be more easy, that they may be entirely content and may not be grieved, but may be well pleased with what thou shalt give every one of them. God knoweth whatever is in your hearts: and God is knowing and gracious. It shall not be lawful for thee to take other women to wife hereafter, nor to exchange any of thy wives for them, though their beauty please thee, except the slaves whom thy right hand shall possess; and God observeth all things. O true believers, enter not the houses of the Prophet, unless it be permitted you to eat meat with him, without waiting his convenient time; but when ye are invited, then enter. And when ye shall have eaten, disperse yourselves, and stay not to enter into familiar discourse; for this incommodeth the Prophet. He is ashamed to bid you depart, but God is not ashamed of the truth. And when ye ask of the Prophet’s wives what ye may have occasion for, ask it of them from behind a curtain. This will be more pure for your hearts and their hearts. Neither is it fit for you to give any uneasiness to the Apostle of God, or to marry his wives after him forever, for this would be a grievous thing in the sight of God. Whether ye divulge a thing, or conceal it, verily God knoweth all things. It shall be no crime in them, as to their fathers, or their sons, or their sister’s sons, or their women, or the slaves which their right hands possess, if they speak to them unveiled: and fear ye God, for God is witness of all things. Verily God and his angels bless the Prophet; O true believers, do ye also bless him and salute him with a respectful salutation. As to those who offend God and his Apostle, God shall curse them in this world and in the next, and he hath prepared for them a shameful punishment.”

V. 60-61: “Verily if the hypocrites and those in whose hearts is an infirmity and they who raise disturbances in Medina, do not desist, we will surely stir thee up against them to chastise them; henceforth they shall not be suffered to dwell near thee therein except for a little time and being accursed: wherever they are found, they shall be taken and killed with a general slaughter.”

It is not from unfriendly or neutral historians, but from his own apologists and eulogists, we learn how fully the Prophet availed himself of his exceptional matrimonial privileges. “It is said, in his youth he lived a virtuous life. At the age of twenty-five he married Khadijah, a widow forty years old: and for five and twenty years was a faithful husband to her alone. Shortly after her death he married again, but it was not till he had reached the mature age of fifty-four that he became a polygamist, taking Ayesha, a child of seven or eight years, daughter of Abu Bekr, as rival of Sawda. In his fifty-sixth year he married Hafra, daughter of Umar; and the following year, in two successive months, Zeinab bint Khozeima and Omm Salma; a few months after, Zeinab, wife of Zeid, his adopted son. In the same year he married a seventh wife and also a concubine. And at last, when he was full three score years of age, no fewer than three new wives, besides Mary the Coptic slave, were within the space of seven months added to his already well-filled harem.”* The injunction touching his obnoxious neighbors, the Jews of Medina, we learn from Muslim historians, was carried out by assassination and banishment of his opponents, whole tribes being expatriated or exterminated.

John Adams regarding Christians [Click to enlarge]

Force as a Means of Propagandism.

While Islam has not been a religion propagated solely by the sword, it is a well-established matter of history that a large part of its success has been by force of arms. As we have seen, the Quran permits and commands believers to put the enemies of Islam to death. It is written in the Hyat ul Kuloob of the birth of Muhammad: “On that night under the name of the Prophet, in every Torat, Inj eel, or Zabour in the world, a drop of blood appeared, signifying that he would be a prophet armed with the sword.”

We find it impossible to associate such ideas with the personality of the Lord Jesus. In him what meekness, obedience, reverence for the Father, purity, zeal, hatred of sin, combined with infinite love for the sinner and matchless self-sacrifice! In Muhammad what growing pride, ambition, love of power, self-glorification! His apologists are never weary of reminding us how far he rose above his contemporaries, the idolatrous Arabs who surrounded him. Do they not admit the weakness of their cause by thus measuring him from that which was confessedly a very low standard instead of by that perfect ideal of manhood which had been given to the world almost six hundred years before? If he were a true prophet, we have a right to expect higher moral and spiritual attainments than we find in his predecessors. If he were not a true prophet sent of God, what was he? We read the earlier Suras, and admire the lofty thoughts and exalted descriptions of God, imperfect though they seem when placed beside our inspired Scriptures. Turn then to the later Suras, and mark how the commanding personality and central figure has become that of the Prophet himself. He dominates everywhere; we are not suffered for a moment to forget him. The Almighty, relegated to the background, has become an infinitely great and powerful shadow of Muhammad, constantly ministering to the Prophet’s glory, and promptly complying with his desires. A tradition says that Ayesha once said to him: “How kind your God is to you! Verily he always does whatever you wish!” The archangel Gabriel speeds from heaven—for what? To reveal some wondrous depth of divine wisdom, some sweet secret of eternal love, some new incitement to holiness, benevolence, purity? No, verily, but to say to the Prophet, if his wives are not content with his treatment and provision for them, he is permitted to divorce them and God will give better ones in their places. Or he comes to adminish visitors not to indulge in loud conversation before Muhammad’s door, to enter unbidden, or prolong their stay. He comes to vindicate the reputation of one wife, to reinstate her in the affections of her suspicious husband, and to rebuke the jealousies and contentions of the rest of the harem. One cannot help thinking if a prophet, and the greatest of prophets, could not manage his polygamous household without such frequent intervention and aid from above, what can ordinary men do under like circumstances? One fact stands out clearly: Muhammad is evidently the principal figure in his own estimation, and everything, angelic visits included, is made to subserve his glorification.

Thomas Jefferson regarding his Bible [Click to enlarge]

Superseding of Jesus as Saviour.

We understand from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments that God accepted and commissioned the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, the only Mediator between man and his Maker. In him he found a perfect righteousness, which by faith could be imputed and imparted to the sinner, a perfect example of the obedience man owes to God, a perfect sacrifice to take away the guilt of sin and bear its punishment. God gave to Jesus the promised sign of acceptance by raising him from the dead on the third day, and causing him to ascend to heaven in the sight of his disciples. He was afterward seen in vision sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting, as had been predicted of him, till his enemies should be made his footstool. When and why did God reject this Holy One whom he himself had chosen, and with whom he was well pleased—with whom he had covenanted with an oath, sworn by himself, that all kingdoms and tribes should serve him, and of his kingdom there should be no end? If the Lord was faithful, as we know he was, even unto death, why should God remove him from his office and introduce another scheme of salvation for mankind? Was not the divine law of perfect love to God and love to man, which Jesus taught and practised, the highest and best rule of life of which we can conceive? Is it not sufficient to transform earth to heaven and sinners to saints? What need had man of Muhammad? What need of Islam?

Thomas Jefferson regarding the character of Jesus Christ [Click to enlarge]

Muslim Intolerance.

As you know,  Islam is the paramount faith; the adherents of other religions only exist on sufferance, theoretically with no rights, in a semi-servile state, dependent on the mercy of the dominant race. No Muslim is allowed to change his belief, on pain of death, nor is he permitted to hear of or investigate the truth of any other religion.

Thomas Jefferson regarding Morality and Religion [Click to enlarge]

Christianity in Great Britain.

About the same time that the conquering sword introduced Islam into your country, the Gospel entered the British Isles with no weapon save the “sword of the Spirit,” the Word of God. It came with persuasive love and power to a people far below the grade of the civilization of your ancient land, a race little removed from the level of savages, wild and idolatrous. You have asked, Where are the modern miracles of Christianity? Surely the mental, moral, and spiritual change wrought by the Bible on the Anglo-Saxon race, and the manifest blessings they have enjoyed since they accepted Christ, may answer your question.

It is true that Christian countries contain much of crime and evil, because no nation, as such, has yet become thoroughly Christian. The kingdoms of this world are still ruled by Satan; they are not yet the kingdoms of God and of his Christ. No church even in its entirety is a perfect exemplification of the character and teachings of its Divine Founder. The tares flourish among the wheat, which itself is not yet fully matured and ready for the garner. No individual Christian even has attained to the perfection which is set before him. The sins of so-called Christendom are black enough, but they constitute no part of our religion; indeed, they are flagrant transgressions of it, and as such always strongly for, bidden. But polygamy, slavery, divorce, religious war, disregard of the rights of non-Muslims, are vital and essential points of Islam, practised by its founder and commander in its sacred book.

It is not fair to judge your religion by the conduct and character of all its adherents. I do not wish you to form an opinion of Christianity from the lives of many who profess and disgrace its name. Let us compare those who have most truly received and most deeply drunk of the spirit of their respective faiths, who most carefully regard the precepts and most closely imitate the founder of their religion. We fear no such comparison of the true Christian with the true Muslim.

Nor do we fear any examination of the two religions as to their power of renovating and purifying the heart, of sustaining in the trials and exigencies of life, and of conquering in the dread hour of death. You have tried Islam many years, but, after all, confess it has brought no real peace to your soul. You have said, did you not fear to rush unbidden into the presence of a justly offended God, you would gladly throw aside life as a burden too heavy to be borne. But the Christian’s inheritance is peace, left to us by the last words of our Saviour—John xvi. 33: “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The Christian endures the ills of life without a murmur, sustained by a secret joy; in his cross is a hidden sweetness, since its heavier weight is sustained by an invisible companion and lightened by an enduring hope. He knows his trials are ordained by infinite wisdom and love, to secure his final perfection and harmonious relation to God; he anticipates endless holiness and happiness in the society and under the rule of his adored Redeemer. 1 Peter i. 8, 9: “Whom not having seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”

Volumes of evidence might be adduced to show the holy lives and triumphant deaths of Christians. My own eyes have repeatedly seen how

“Jesus can make a dying bed
Seem soft as downy pillows are.”

Nay, more, the departing believer often experiences such rapturous joy, such foretastes of eternal bliss, that death is no more death, but truly “swallowed up in victory.” The wondering eyewitnesses of such a scene can only exclaim, ” Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” And why should not he rejoice who can say, ” The eternal God is my refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms?” “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

In the New Testament the Christian is never spoken of as dying, for the brief sojourn of our Lord within the realm of death has robbed the enemy of his terrors. Christ is risen! his body rests in no earthly grave: “He is ascended on high, leading captivity captive.”

But the body of Muhammad has long lain at Medina, and the pilgrimages made to his tomb and to those of his successors tell us that your hopes rest on dead saviours, who could not rescue themselves from death and the grave.

Thomas Jefferson regarding God’s Divine Will [Click to enlarge]

Islam in Death.

You know better than I what hope or comfort your religion offers in the last hour to the trembling spirit, bowed under a load of guilt and apprehension, and what are its consolations for the survivors. I have seen the deep gloom cast by the mention of death on your people, the unreasoning terror they manifest on its occurrence in their homes, and have heard the wild cries of anguish when the blow has fallen, and they seem to “mourn as those without hope.” That event must indeed be invested with dark forebodings to those who dare not say of the dead that their immediate salvation is assured. I have heard them comfort themselves with the assurance that whoever recites the Muslim Creed in death, the Kalima Shahidat, “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Apostle of God,” will find his sins fall from him as the leaves of a tree in autumn. But, alas! if the analogy were true, when the tree buds again, its leaf and fruit will be unchanged. He who has no guarantee of a radical change of nature must needs fear that, as he has sinned here, he will continue to do so in another world. Where sin remains, must remain alienation from God, punishment and sorrow.

The traditions which we may take as representing the popular belief are far from reassuring. In the Hyat ul Kuloob is written that Salman, the freedman of the Prophet of God, before his death, went to a cemetery to interrogate the dead. “One in his grave began to speak, saying, ‘ Lo, I hear thy words, and will quickly answer. Ask what thou wilt.’ Salman rejoined, ‘ O thou that speakest after death and its sorrows, art thou of Paradise, or of hell?’ The dead replied, ‘I am of the number on whom God has bestowed favor and in his mercy introduced to Paradise.’ Salman said, ‘Thou servant of God, describe to me what thou hast experienced.’ He answered, ‘Verily, cutting the body to pieces many times with shears is easier than the agonies of death. Know thou the Most High had bestowed divine favors on me in this world, and I had well discharged my duties. I read the Quran, and was very dutiful to my father and mother. I avoided what was forbidden, and feared to be unjust and oppressive to servants. Night and day I took pains and strove to find out and do what was lawful, through fear of standing before God to be questioned. The angel of death now approached and gradually drew my soul from my body. Every pull he made was equal in agony to all the pains under heaven. This continued till he reached my heart, when he signed to me with a dart, which, if he had laid upon the mountains, would have melted them, and forcibly drew my soul from my nostrils.'” He then tells of his burial, of the dreadful ordeal of examination by the two angels Munkir and Nakeer, who question him of his faith and practice. Of the latter angel he says, “He then laid me down in the grave, and said, Lie like a bridegroom. At my head he opened a door to Paradise, and at my feet a door to hell, and said, See what you will enjoy and what you are saved from. He then closed the opening to hell and expanded the gate of Paradise, from which its delightful perfume was wafted to me. He then enlarged my grave as far as the eye could see, and left me.”

 

Benjamin Harrison concerning the Holy Bible [Click to enlarge]

State of Muslim Women.

Of one feature of Islam I am, perhaps, better fitted to judge than you, with your limited circle of female acquaintance: that is, the effect it produces on the character and condition of woman. As a rule, where the provisions of the law are strictly carried out, only your wife, mother, sister, and daughter can speak with you freely and with unveiled faces. You are not permitted to see the countenances of even cousins and relatives by marriage; all conversation or association with them is watched and guarded with suspicious espionage. You have not concealed from me your very unfavorable estimate of your countrywomen, even while you acknowledged them capable of better things. But you have never lived in a Christian land, and you must pardon me for saying your ideal of womanhood cannot be so high as if you had seen it developed under the influence of light, liberty, and equal legal and moral rights. Remembering how often we are shocked beyond expression by the unintentional coarseness and unconscious vulgarity, the low standard of thought and morals betrayed by your best, most amiable, cultured, religious ladies in even a short, ceremonious call; remembering howling mobs of ragged village women, wild with curiosity, steeped in ignorance, shameless of speech and manner, and contrasting them with the same classes in Christian lands, we are forced to ask, Whence this difference? Forgive me if these criticisms seem harsh, though these women speak of themselves more severely than I should venture to do. “We are beasts, we are donkeys, what do we know? what can we do?” Their husbands seem generally to regard them as a necessary evil, something to be ashamed of, and kept in the background as much as possible. Seeing this, our sisters, many of them so beautiful, talented, attractive, gifted by nature with every requisite of a graceful and virtuous womanhood, we are filled with indignation at their imprisoned and degraded condition, treated as if unworthy of honor or confidence, perpetuating their own ignorance and superstition not only in their daughters, but in their sons. But such is the condition of woman, and even worse in non Christian lands. Jesus alone has brought her into a life of light, liberty, and usefulness. We have learned to love and pity many of these women, and have entered into the shadow where they dwell under a habitual consciousness of inferiority and contempt. We have seen their bitter tears and vain struggles on the entrance of a rival in their homes, we have heard their complaints of their prophet and their attempts to console themselves with the thought that the Christian woman, if happier here, is doomed to the flames of hell, while their sorrows will earn for them the joys of Paradise. We know the insecurity of their position, liable to divorce at the pleasure of their masters, thus taught to separate their interests from those of the husband, according to the proverb, “Bring a wife, bring an enemy.” How often jealousy, deceit, intrigue, and the worst passions of the human heart poison and destroy the happiness which God intended to spring from the family institution! It is not always thus: there are homes where the wife is loved and respected, the husband honored and obeyed, where there is no fear of rivalry or desertion, no strife between the children of different mothers. But such rare examples exist in spite of your religion, and only testify that home happiness is inseparable from permanence and sacredness in the marriage relation. A family fully governed by Christian principle must needs be pure and peaceful; one ruled by the precepts and permissions of the Quran must be like that of Muhammad himself, vexed with jealousy, dissension, suspicion, discontent, and scandal; without any convenient Gabriel to lend a hand in its management. No race can expect to seclude, suppress, and keep in ignorance half of its number without paying a fearful penalty. If a young Muslim is educated, enlightened, where can he find a home companion to understand, to sympathize with him, to prove herself a true helpmeet? Blindfolded, you stretch your hand into the darkness to grasp that of an unknown wife, with whom, as a rule, you have never exchanged a word, or even seen her face; of whose tastes, qualities, and temper you are perfectly ignorant, and who may cause you untold misery. The saddest part is that the harem, the curtain, the veil, the ignorance of women, are essential if society is not to become worse. No greater misfortune could befall Muslim women in their present state than to be put in possession of the privileges enjoyed by their Christian sisters. What causes this difference between the two? Why can one woman be trusted to make no improper use of her freedom, while, as the whole fabric of Muslim society seems to testify, the other cannot? I remember a Muslim gentleman, truly attached to his beautiful wife, an educated woman, by the standard of this land, and a true companion to him. He said once: “I would gladly see my wife free as the Christian ladies are. The veil and the harem curtain are no pleasure to me, I can trust her; but the state of society is such, it would, not be safe, I should be killed for her sake.”

 

William Penn founder of Pennsylvania concerning Christianity [Click to enlarge]

Fundamental Teaching of Christianity.

But let us come to that which fundamentally distinguishes true Christianity from all other religions. We say, true Christianity, because much that goes by that name is counterfeit, a baptized heathenism, often possessing much in common with Islam and idolatry. The unique doctrine of the Bible is that of the new birth. By this we understand that a lost and ruined sinner, totally unable to help himself, may be made over, have another chance, begin again. Nay, more, that by God’s free grace, he may attain a higher condition than if Adam had not sinned, becoming “an heir of God,” ” a partaker of the divine nature,” dead to sin for evermore, alive to righteousness. Jesus brought us this blessed hope, and, by the gift of his indwelling Spirit, makes this new life a matter of personal consciousness to myriads of men, women and children, who know and can witness that they have received and enjoy it.

Under the influence of Christ, the drunkard becomes abstinent, the libertine chaste, the murderer loving, the thief honest, the liar truthful. As the Muslim says of the good he cannot attain, “Satan will not let me,” the Christian says of the evil from which he is withheld, “Jesus will not let me.”

Our Lord, constantly working these spiritual miracles, lives on the earth to-day as a personal force of infinite power, a real and present personality to his obedient subjects.

Does the Quran offer us any substitute for this doctrine, or does it even recognize its necessity? Search its contents from beginning to end, and you will see guilty man practically left to be his own savior.

Benjamin Franklin regarding those who quarrel about Christianity [Click to enlarge]

Christianity Judaism Developed.

Till Christ appeared, this transcendent mercy of God to the sinner was conserved, lying dormant, as it were, concealed within the ceremonial law and the rigid observances of Judaism, as the germ within the seed, the bird in the egg. His magic touch evoked the light and beauty of Christianity, the flower and crown, the full development of what was first entrusted to the guardian care of Israel, then thrown open to all the world. The types and shadows then vanished; the ceremonial law was no longer needed. Men learned “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”—Rom. xiv. 17. They understood “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of man but of God. “Hebrews ix. 8-12:” the first tabernacle was as yet standing, which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience: which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them till the time of reformation. But Christ being come, a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!”

The ceremonial law, we must not forget, was given only to the Jews, and none were bound to regard or observe it, or could do so acceptably, except born Jews by birth and proselytes. We are taught it was given to meet a temporary want: to show man his need of a Saviour; and to prefigure an atoning sacrifice yet to be offered.

John Quincy Adams regarding the Christian Faith [Click to enlarge]

Salvation by Faith Taught from the Beginning.

Yet, from the beginning, God left not unrevealed to man the true way of salvation, nor allowed him to suppose it could be attained by his own efforts. These were aptly typified by the frail, withering fig leaves with which Adam and Eve labored to hide their nakedness after the fall. A pitying God clothed them with the warm and durable skins of innocent animals, whose blood flowed before the gift could be made. Have you never wondered that of all animals, man alone is compelled to use artificial coverings? Is there here no hint of a spiritual truth, that he has no merit of his own, and must receive his robe of righteousness, imputed and imparted from God as a free and undeserved gift, if he would not suffer eternal shame?

Salvation by faith: not the intellectual assent to dogma, but the loving and obedient trust of the soul, tried and found to control the life, linking the frail finite creature with the Holy and Infinite Most High by a living bond—this is the very warp and woof of Old and New Testaments. Four times their pages repeat, “The just shall live by faith.”

Four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the Mosaic law, it was said of Abraham, Gen. xv. 6: “And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness.” Christianity returns to Abraham, but Muhammad’s search for truth never brings him to the land of Canaan and the promised possession of Mount Zion. Like Ishmael, he wanders in the desert of Arabia, and coming to Mount Sinai, hearing only the law given to Moses, and that imperfectly, accepts it superficially, apprehended as the best God has for man. He hears the ready response of the people to Jehovah’s awful demand for perfection, and answers with them in their hasty ignorance, “All that the Lord hath said, we will do and be obedient.” He is ready to join them, or rather to make an independent promise of his own, taking the place in God’s house of a sinner saved by his own works and a vague confidence in what he calls the mercy of God. He fails to remark that after their rash promise, Moses sprinkled them with “the blood of the covenant,” a significant intimation of the only road to acceptable obedience.

The Christian is a son, twice born, once of the flesh, again of the Spirit. He has his place in the house, not as a hireling, but by birth. Long ago, for those who could see, this was enacted in parable when Ishmael and his mother were sent portionless away from the tents of Abraham, as told in the twenty-first chapter of Genesis, and explained Gal. iv. 22-26, 29-31: “For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman by promise.”

“Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants: the one from the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.”

John Quincy Adams regarding the Glory of the Revolution [Click to enlarge]

“What Shall I Do to be Saved?”

The one question our race is ever laboring to answer is, “How shall man be just with God?” Turning to Islam with this query, we are referred first to dead works of the flesh, already thoroughly tried and found inadequate to meet the case. As well return the radiant flower to the discarded husk which protected its germination, or compress the soaring, singing bird in the narrow confines of its outgrown shell! Failing the obedience required, man is to trust to a vague hope of the mercy of God, earned by repentance, not necessarily a forsaking of sin, but a sense of regret, evinced by tears and other outward demonstrations. But, alas! who knows when he has repented enough? If God is merciful, he is also just; the sentence has never been repealed, “The soul that sinneth, he shall die.” This means the eternal cutting off the sinner from the source of true life, and finds its ready illustration in the dry and lifeless branches we use for fuel.

Has Muhammad shown his worthiness to displace Jesus, and Islam to supersede Christianity? If it be God’s last word to man, it should as far surpass our religion and its Founder as he excelled Moses and his dispensation. Equality is not sufficient; the inference of superiority cannot be tolerated for a moment.

John Milton regarding Jesus and Christianity [Click to enlarge]

True and False Religions.

To my mind, all religions fall into two classes. In the first, God saves his ruined creatures by free grace, by the merits and death of his incarnate Son, “imputed to us and received by faith alone.” A heart renewed and transformed by so great love ascribes the glory to him alone. In the other, man is glorified as his own savior, his own righteousness, or that of other mere creatures, laying God under obligation to save and grant him eternal felicity. Salvation is not a gift, or only partly so; it becomes a debt owed by the Creator to the possessors of accumulated merit, which, they fondly believe, outweighs their actual transgressions. These views, held under a great variety of outward forms, are characterized by a low estimate of sin. They ignore the hereditary taint and corruption of our nature, wherein lie boundless possibilites of disobedience to God and disorder to his creation. They overlook the fact that not only does the law require us to refrain from its violation, it expects of us perfect obedience to its commands, and conformity to its spirit. To the helpless penitent, trusting the authenticated Saviour provided by divine love and wisdom, full forgiveness is granted; of him who prefers to be saved by his own righteousness, or that of unauthorized mediators, or by his own sufferings in purgatorial flames, the debt will be exacted to the very last farthing. We shall not be measured by the low standard of not having been as bad as we could, but by the higher one of the law’s demand for absolute moral perfection. He who failed of being what his Maker meant him to be will be rejected, and his good qualities and deeds may be likened to the two or three grains of silver found in a counterfeit coin, which do not persuade any one to accept it as genuine.

The only man who has ever fully met all the requirements of the divine law of perfection is the Lord Jesus Christ; only as identified with him can we hope for safety.

You have sometimes expressed the hope that both our religions may finally prove to be true— yours for you, mine for me; that all men, if only sincere and obedient to their respective faiths, may, by diverse roads, meet at the same goal. One or two doubtful passages in the Quran may seem to encourage this idea, in the case of Jews and Christians, but the Bible does not countenance it for a moment. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”—John xiv. 6. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”—Acts iv. 12. These are but two of many unequivocal utterances which have made Christianity the most fervently hated religion in the world. It must be all or nothing: it “brooks no rival on the throne.” As you know, Islam occupies exactly the same position, but carries it to the extent of declaring herself divinely commissioned to destroy those who reject her claims. Instead of the “foolishness of preaching,” or rather perhaps to reinforce it, she uses the logic of the sword. This is no empty threat, or unapplied theory. In large tracts of the fairest portions of Europe, Asia, and Africa it has been enforced in tears and blood and fire; the shrieks of the captive and clanking chain of the prisoner have echoed back its war cry, and emphasized its intolerance of all faith but its own. No, my friend, our religions are enemies to the death, and must so remain to the end: no uncertain one; for Christianity, though by her nature and laws debarred from contending with an arm of flesh, has her own peculiar weapons with which she must finally conquer. Your kindness of heart would fain hope a better fate for those whom you esteem and love, and who obstinately reject your religion. But that faith itself offers them nothing but eternal hell-fire.

I beg you to be assured this letter is written with none but the kindest feelings to your country and its people: a race possessing many fine qualities, and ability to be a blessing to the world, a country dear to me as my own, the home of my deliberate choice. Nor is there any thought of boasting, or fancied superiority. When the Anglo-Saxon recalls his savage and debased heathen ancestry, he has no cause for pride, only for deep humility and thankfulness. And should he not be among the foremost to communicate the blessings he has received to every nation, at any cost, even to the sacrifice of life itself?

How deeply should I regret to have learned so much of the unrest and hopelessness of your life, were there no remedy to offer! Knowing of such a remedy, having tried it myself, I cannot but urge it upon you. It may, it is true, cost you all your earthly possessions; you may, as others have done, literally lay down all, but Jesus is worth it!

The heart is the citadel of our life, the controller of the springs of thought and action. The head may assent to overpowering evidence, but the heart only yields to personal experience. You are not invited to a religion, an intellectual persuasion, a human society, but to a personal relation with a personal and ever-present Friend, found of all who seek him with the whole heart.

The whole world is well lost to him who has discovered the love of God in Christ, the priceless pearl, the hidden treasure, our joy, our life, our crown, and our eternal portion. May you seek and be found of him, and find in him the Good Shepherd of the wandering sheep!

End of excerpt from letter

Muslim Fanaticism

Mohammedans have earned for themselves throughout the world the title of ” fanatics,” as a consequence of their wild words and actions in connection with the Faith, once delivered to them by Mohammed. The feeling amongst Moslems has been and is, that they are the chosen of Allah, that they are the appointed instruments of God to bring all men, even by the power of the sword, to the knowledge of the only true faith. Consequently woe be to the individuals, communities, or nations, that will not listen to the call to accept Islamism with all its forms and ceremonies!

It is true that at the present time the power of Mohammedanism, is a conquering religion, or the desire to conquer still remains, and the old feeling of intolerance and fanaticism is probably everywhere almost as strong as ever it was.

In my researches into the history of Mohammedanism I have met with many instances of fanaticism, some of which I would now mention, as they will help us to understand what Islamism really is in the intensity of its wild faith and zeal. Fanaticism in war may well come first. Mohammed, though in the early days of his career a man of peace, and an advocate of mild measures in the propagation of truth, eventually developed into a man of war, and a stern and enthusiastic propagator of Allah’s religion by the sword.

The later books of the Koran teem with passages which counsel strong measures to be taken with infidels. It is written: “Fight against those who believe not in God until they pay tribute by right of subjection, and are reduced low.” And again: “When ye meet the infidels, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them.” And then it is added: “As for those who fight or fall in defence of God’s true religion, He will not suffer their deeds to die. Verily, God loveth those who fight for His religion.” “Paradise,” it was declared, “is under the shadow of swords.” “The sword,” it was asserted, “is a surer argument than books.”

Is it to be wondered at that a people thus taught should have grown to love war as the very breath of their nostrils, and to revel in it with a fanaticism that was cruel as the grave? Even before the Prophet died his terrible injunctions began to bear fruit, and after his death the fighting spirit raged throughout Arabia, and the Moslems went forth conquering and to conquer. From the Caliph to the meanest servant or slave in Islam the fanatical creed was accepted, that “the sword was the Key of Heaven and Hell, that a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, were of more avail than months of fasting and prayer.”

Fanaticism in war showed itself not merely in the determination to overcome an enemy, but in the ardent wish, if Allah willed it, to die on the field of battle, as thus to be “martyred “in the cause of God was believed to be the most certain way of obtaining the highest joys of eternal life in the world beyond the grave.

Listen, for example, to the words of an Arabian youth, whom a fond mother and sister vainly sought to persuade from adopting the profession of arms. His parting speech to those who loved him was: “Hold me not back, nor grieve that I leave you! It is not the delicacies of Syria or the fading delights of this world that have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But I seek the favour of God and His Apostle: and I have heard from one of the companions of the Prophet that the spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall taste the fruits and drink of the rivers of Paradise. Farewell! We shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided for His elect.”

I have read of another case of a warrior who on the field of battle fought with reckless fury, raving, as he slashed right and left with his sword, about the joys of Paradise promised to all true believers who fell in the wars of the Faith. “Methinks!” he cried aloud, so as to be heard above the din of arms, “Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all mankind would die for love of. And I see in the hand of another a handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of precious stones, and she beckons me and calls out: ‘Come hither quickly, for I love thee !'” Scarcely had the fanatic thus spoken when a javelin pierced his heart and despatched him to his vaunted elysium. And these two instances are but types of countless thousands in Islam whose fanaticism has exceeded all bounds in the race for martyrdom in a jihad, or holy war.

Besides the joy of fighting for the Faith, and the incentive of the pleasures of Paradise for the valiant, the fanaticism of Mohammedans has been deepened and strengthened by the doctrine of predestination, as taught by the Prophet, or at any rate as believed by the Faithful. The ‘Koran says in one place: “The fate of every man have we bound about his neck;” and in another, “No soul. can die unless by the permission of God, according to what is written in the book containing the determination of things.”

Mohammed inserted these passages after the temporary defeat of his followers at Ohod, to inspire them with fresh courage. He represented to the Faithful that the time of every man’s death is decreed and determined by Allah, and that those who had fallen in the battle could not have avoided their fate had they stopped at home, so there was no reason to grieve unduly, or to be discouraged and disheartened.

Thus did the Prophet instil into the minds of his soldiers a belief in Fate, and under this persuasion did Moslems engage in battle without anxiety or fear, believing that what would be must be, that no one could die before his time, and that no human sagacity or foresight could evade the hand of death if the moment had been preordained. We can see how such a doctrine of predestination spurred the Faithful on to deeds of recklessness, and made the early soldiers of the Crescent men to be dreaded beyond the ordinary run of adversaries, for they were fanatics.

One of the most remarkable of these warrior-fanatics was Kaled, who was employed by Abu Bekr and Omar in the wars in Syria. He was a man who added superstition to his belief in fate, for he was wont to declare that a special providence watched over him, and that as long as he wore a certain cap which had been blessed by Mohammed he was invulnerable to all the darts of the enemies of Islam. And truly it seemed as if he bore a charmed life, for though in every battle he rushed into the thickest of the fight, and was ever surrounded by dangers, he always marvellously escaped, and in a good old age died in his bed.

The exploits of this fanatic in the siege of Damascus are almost beyond belief. He rushed madly at every antagonist, generally singling out the strongest and the bravest, and he was always conqueror. On one occasion, after a desperate struggle with a bold Christian General, which left him exhausted, a fresh adversary spurred his charger to attack him. A companion in arms, the gallant Derar, seeing the exhaustion of Kaled, called out to him: “O Kaled, repose yourself for a moment, and permit me to supply your place,” but the reply he got was: “Not so, good Derar; if I needs must rest, it will be in Paradise. He that labours to-day will rest to-morrow.” At the word he sprang upon his foe, and hurled him lifeless to the ground. Kaled by such deeds earned for himself the title of “The Sword of God.”

But the doctrine of predestination can influence in two ways: It can make fanatical cowards as well as fanatical braves. And in these latter days it seems in Moslem countries to be producing a weak and degenerate race. The belief in fate is as strong as ever, but it now takes the form of lazy, instead of active, fanaticism, and it is striking at the root of all enterprise and progress. As one writer has said: “Many Moslems positively refuse to exert themselves, while they excuse their natural indolence by declaring: ‘Everything is determined: what is to be will be: if God intends that we should become rich we shall become so without any personal exertion : if He intends that we shall be poor, poor we shall have to remain, despite our labour.'” Thus the doctrine of predestination as held by Mohammedans is baneful, whether in war or peace, for when exercised in the sphere of the former it produces a hard and cruel race of warriors, and when in the sphere of the latter, a race of weak and helpless citizens.

Fanaticism has shown itself very markedly in the department of teaching, and especially in the teaching of the truths of the Koran. The verbal inspiration of the Scriptures has ever been part of the orthodox creed of Islamism. Some of the Faithful at various times have questioned the doctrine, and have even striven to show that the Koran contains passages that contradict each other, and therefore cannot be infallible: but such liberal views are far from common.

In every age Moslems, as a whole, have been most dogmatic in their teaching, and perfectly fanatical in their enforcement upon others of what they have conceived to be truth. Take for example the time of the Abbasides of Bagdad. The author of “Islam under the Caliphs of Bagdad,” says, “Every one who either in act or word questioned a single syllable of the Koran was regarded as an infidel, and was in peril of being torn in pieces by the devout.”

Then to look at an earlier period. Omar, the second Commander of the Faithful, delighted in teaching the law, and would brook no interference from doubters or cavillers. There is a characteristic story told of him when he was on his famous journey from Medina to Jerusalem, when the latter city was subjected by the Moslem arms. The Caliph often stopped by the way as he passed through Arabia and Syria to administer justice and expound the Sacred Koran. Usually a crowd gathered round him to see and hear the grand old man. On one occasion he took for his text a few words from the Koran which assert that those whom God shall lead in the right way are secure from all harm, but that those whom He shall lead in the way of error are doomed to punishment. As Omar enforced these pregnant lessons a grey-headed man in the audience disturbed the flow of the preacher’s utterance by remarking aloud, “Tush! God leads no man into error!” The stern, fanatical Caliph deigned no direct reply, but turning to his body-guard, he said: “Strike off that old man’s head if he repeats his words!” The preacher met with no further opposition.

One of the most fanatical acts on record is associated with the name of Omar—I refer to the destruction of the Alexandrian Library. I know that the story has been gravely questioned of late years. Gibbon and others have made light of it, but still the tale was believed for centuries, and it has not yet been proved false, and it is certainly just such a deed as a fanatical Moslem prince like Omar might have committed.

“The Alexandrian Library was formed by Ptolemy Soter, and placed in a building called the Bruchion. It was augmented in successive reigns to 400,000 volumes, and an additional 300,000 volumes were placed in a temple called the Serapeon. The Bruchion, with the books it contained, was burned in the war of Caesar, but the Serapeon was preserved. Cleopatra, it is said, added to it the library of Pergamus, given to her by Marc Antony, consisting of 200,000 volumes. It sustained repeated injuries during various subsequent revolutions, but was always restored to its ancient splendour, and numerous additions made to it. Such was its state at the capture of Alexandria by the Moslems.” The famous library was, in fact, the finest in the world.

The story goes that Amr, the Conqueror of Egypt, and the leader of the Moslem armies, had his attention drawn to the Library by the learned Greek known as John the Grammarian, to whom Amr had granted many favours. John asked that the books might be given to himself, as the Moslems would probably have no use for them. The General was inclined to gratify the wish of the Grammarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate anything without the permission of the Commander of the Faithful, to whom he at once wrote. The answer which Omar is generally believed to have sent was inspired by the ignorance and zeal of a fanatic. It ran: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the blessed Koran, the Book of Allah, they are useless, and therefore need not be preserved; if they disagree, then they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.”

Washington Irving, commenting on this extraordinary message, says: “Amr, as a man of genius and intelligence, may have grieved at the order of the Caliph, while as a loyal subject and faithful soldier, he felt bound to obey it.” Consequently the command went forth to seize and to destroy, and the valuable manuscripts and books were distributed as fuel among the five thousand baths of the city of Alexandria, and, it is said, so numerous were they, that it took six months to consume them. Thus perished by a deed of Moslem fanaticism much of the learning, the arts, and the genius of antiquity.

Fanaticism in Moslem lands is not confined to men, but is as strong or stronger amongst women. Notwithstanding the disabilities and hardships under which women labour in Islam, they cleave with blind enthusiasm to the teaching of the Prophet of God, hugging to their breasts the Book which has made their degradation an article of faith and binding throughout the ages.

And little children too are veritable fanatics. Lane, in his “Modern Egyptians,” tells us that from their earliest days Moslem boys and girls are taught to hate “infidels” with a perfect hatred. It must be remembered that in the eyes of Mohammedans all are infidels who are not of the true Faith—that is, Islam. Let me quote a prayer that is now in use amongst the children of Moslems. Lane translates it thus: “O God, destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of Islam! O God, make their offspring orphans, defile their abodes, cause their feet to slip, and give them and their families, and their children, and their possessions and their race, and their wealth, and their land, as booty to the Moslems.” What an awful prayer to put into the mouths of boys and girls! Little wonder that the rising generation, like all preceding generations in Islam, regards the world with eyes of anger and hate!

A little incident that happened in my own experience may not be unworthy of notice. I was travelling at the time in Palestine, and was drawing near the ancient city of Hebron, once so famous in Jewish history, but now in the possession of Moslems. The day was hot, and I had ridden far, and was suffering from thirst. Suddenly I espied by the wayside a maiden, perchance of seven years of age, tripping gaily along with a waterpot poised on her head in Eastern fashion. I hailed her and made signs for a drink of water. That she understood me perfectly was clear, but to my surprise she was not prepared to grant my request. Now, usually in the East, if the traveller can get nothing else, he can get a drink of water from the people he sees, for it is considered churlish indeed to refuse such a necessary of life.

However, the heart of the little maiden at Hebron was closed against all not of her own Faith. And so insulted and enraged was she that I should have even presumed to ask anything from her, that she put her hands up to her head, and in a tempest of indignation dashed the unoffending waterpot to the ground. Then pointing to the spilt water, she declared, with oaths and curses, so my Dragoman told me, that she hoped that thus would my blood ere many days be spilt and sink into the ground. For the time being the maiden was a little fury, and I was convinced that the fanaticism of the people of Islam was, even amongst the juvenile members of society, something to be carefully watched by travellers, or dangerous results might follow. The inhabitants of Hebron or, as it is now called, El-Khalid, are notorious for their fanaticism, and by their conduct they belie both the ancient and the modern name of their city, which names, being interpreted, mean, “the Friend.”

Sometimes the evil results of the fanaticism of Mohammedans have not been confined to strangers, but have made themselves felt within their own borders; as, for instance, in those sad cases of regicide which have been so common in Moslem countries. As we have seen in the course of these Studies, Omar, Othman, and Ali, three of the Commanders of the Faithful, fell victims to the mad zeal of some of their own followers, who conceived that they were doing God and Islam service by despatching the Caliphs with their daggers.

The truth is fanaticism is an uncertain instrument to use: it is a two-edged tool which it is dangerous to handle. The leaders of Mohammedanism in all generations have found that they have not always been able to control the fierce spirit they have called up, and they have been taught by a terrible experience the truth of that saying: “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”

I wonder sometimes whether Mohammedans will ever learn that their best interests lie in realizing the great truth of the Brotherhood of Humanity. There can be no peace, no prosperity, and no real happiness in Islam, until the feelings of cruel religious fanaticism nurtured by the Koran have been replaced by feelings of brotherly sympathy and love for all nations and peoples.

Sources: “Islam and Christianity or the Quran and the Bible: A letter to a Muslim friend,, by a Missionary” by G. Halliday published 1901
Studies in Mohammedanism, historical and doctrinal by John J. Pool; published 1892
Picture quotes taken from various writings of the Founding Fathers of the United States

Copyright © 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Explain Why Muslims Turn to Terrorism

Thomas Jefferson concerning the advantages of Jesus’ mission  [Click to enlarge]

Background

The first countries to declare war on the newly formed United States were the Muslim Barbary States of North Africa….From 1783, until the Presidency of George Washington in 1789, the newborn Republic had no strong central authority, and that is when the Barbary pirates struck.

In 1784 Congress voted to send Thomas Jefferson to Europe in order to join John Adams and Benjamin Franklin who were already there.  These three Ministers Plenipotentiary [Ministers Plenipotentiary: a person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.] were tasked with negotiating various treaties with other nations / states that would benefit the United States of America in her infancy. These treaties needed to be negotiated due to the colonies breaking away from the mother countries and gaining independence from Britain in the American Revolutionary War of Independence.

These treaties allowed for transactions of commerce with other nations, and in the context of the Barbary States were negotiated to stop the attacks on American merchant ships, the capturing, ransoming, and enslaving of American sailors by the Musselmen or Barbary pirates {i.e. Muslims] who believed it their god-given right to “tax”, kill or sell into slavery non-believers as the Ambassador of Tripoli told Thomas Jefferson, when Jefferson asked him on what grounds the Barbary state Muslims felt they had a right to attack unprovoked the ships, sailors and merchants from other nations. [See letter from Jefferson & Adams to John Jay dated March 28, 1786, relating their conversation below; According to the appeasers in the democrat party and Obama, Muslim Terrorists have been misinterpreting the Qu’ran for centuries. The Barbary states started attacking vessels of Christian nations and the nations themselves almost since they killed, enslaved and conquered the Roman Catholics and other christian governments in the Muslim Conquests of North Africa]

Before I go further: In the last year I have heard two different ex-jihadi Islamic terrorists refer to what the Islamists taught them. Not only were they taught by the mosques that they would go to paradise and have 72 virgins. They were also taught that if they died while killing the infidel, [non-Muslims] not only would they go to heaven “without judgement” so would all of their family. Now that’s a pretty strong teaching , if you were already of such loose morals, you could kill those who were doing nothing to harm you, it would be a strong draw. For the White House to suggest the Muslim terrorists commit atrocities because of they have no jobs, or they come from poor neighborhoods etc., is just ignoring the facts. The Muslim who beheaded the woman in Moore Okla., had a job, the Ft. Hood shooter had a career. the 19 hijackers that flew the planes into the World Trade Towers were mainly from rich or well-to-do families. So we can brush that aside, as an excuse for their behavior.  They are motivated by a religion that promotes ungodliness, selfishness and that reflects the basest thoughts and feelings of humanity. They are not motivated by economics, unless those economics help them in their jihadist cause.

If we analyze why this would be a draw to the Muslim terrorists, who without conscience commit the brutal acts they do in the name of their god. It is because they are selfish individuals to begin with, they also are susceptible to their basest lusts. Inspired because of the 72 virgins they will receive after death shows their basic lusts. Never mind all of the women and little girls they have been raping or forcing into marriage, the 72 virgins should be enough to convince people that these Muslim terrorists are motivated by their fleshy. carnal nature. The fact they are drawn by the teaching they will go to heaven “without judgement” shows how they are motivated by selfishness, which is also a part of mans carnal nature.  As I have said elsewhere, the Islamic terrorists are following in the footsteps of Mohammed who was the original and first Islamic terrorist.

The story of Mohammed’s aggression has been documented in detail by his biographers, – surprise raids on trade caravans and tribal settlements, the use of plunder thus obtained for recruiting an ever growing army of greedy desperadoes, assassinations of opponents, blackmail. He ordered the expulsion and massacre of the Jews of Medina, attack and enslavement of the Jews of Khayber, rape of women and children, sale of these victims after rape, trickery, treachery and bribery employed to their fullest extent to grow the numbers of his religion  He organized no less than 86 expeditions, 26 of which he led himself.

At the Battle of Badr, Mohammed after gaining the victory ordered those slain, who he considered “infidels” to be buried in a well in the area of Badr, as his Muslim followers were dumping the dead bodies of those they had killed, Mohammed is said to have stood at the mouth of the well and naming the dead one by one, demanded of them if they had found the promises of God true, as he had done. “You were a bad kindred to your prophet,” said he; “others declared me true, but you called me a liar and drove me from my native place, while strangers gave me protection.” The Muslim followers interrupted him by asking if he addressed the dead. “They hear me as well as you do”, he replied, “although they cannot answer, and they now find true what I formerly declared to them.” This shows Mohammed was also motivated by self-aggrandizement, which is also a base trait of the carnal man.

I’ve heard various Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and others talk about how there needs to be a reformation of, or in Islam like there was in Judaism or in Christianity. One thing about the reformation in Christianity. Christian reformation happened to 1. get the sacred scriptures into hands of the people, and 2, to get back to the simplicity of Christ’ teaching and to follow his example and words. How can a reformation of Islam do the same as the Christian reformation, if people continue to follow example of Mohammed and the Quran? It would seem to me, if you want a true religion of peace, with a man of peace to follow, real reform of Islam would be Christianity! If you have reform of Islam and get rid of all the teachings of fundamental Mohammedeans you would have to discard the Quran, or else you take the risk in the future of young men reading the Quran & once again following the example set forth by founder. The founder of Islam being Mohammed, just how do you reform Islam into a religion of peace when its founder was a man of war? The growth and spread of Islam has always been accompanied by the sword. It is a teaching that appeals to what is base & corrupt in man.

Extract from the Secret Journal of Foreign Affairs, May 7th, 1784

“Mr. John Jay was elected Secretary for Foreign Affairs, having been previously nominated by Mr. Gerry. On motion of Mr. Hardy, seconded by Mr. Gerry,

Resolved, That a Minister Plenipotentiary be appointed in addition to Mr. John Adams and Mr. Benjamin Franklin, for the purpose of negotiating treaties of commerce.

Congress proceeded to the election, and the ballots being taken; Mr. Thomas Jefferson was elected, having been previously nominated by Mr. Hardy.

Instructions [were sent] to the Ministers of the United States for making peace with Great Britain, dated May 30th, 1783.

Instructions [were sent] to the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, empowered to negotiate a peace, &c, dated the 29th of October, 1783, May 7th, 1784, and May 11th, 1784.

On the report of the Committee, to whom was recommitted the report on sundry letters from the Ministers of the United States in Europe, Congress came to the following resolutions:

Whereas, instructions bearing date the 29th day of October, 1783 were sent to the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, empowered to negotiate a peace, or to any one or more of them, for concerting drafts or proposition for treaties of amity and commerce with the commercial powers of Europe:

Resolved, That it will be advantageous to these United States to conclude such treaties with Russia, the Court of Vienna, Prussia Denmark, Saxony, Hamburg, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Venice, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Porte.

The attitude of Muslim terrorists has scarcely changed since the time of Mohammed. Again, according to the appeasers in the democrat party and Obama, Muslim Terrorists have been misinterpreting the Qu’ran for centuries.

LETTER FROM THE COMMISSIONERS [Jefferson & Adams] TO JOHN JAY.

Grosvenor Square, March 28, 1786.

Sir,

Soon after the arrival of Mr. Jefferson in London, we had a conference with the Ambassador of Tripoli at his house.

The amount of all the information we can obtain from him was, that a perpetual peace was in all respects the most advisable, because a temporary treaty would leave room for increasing demands upon every renewal of it, and a stipulation for annual payments would be liable to failures of performance, which would renew the war, repeat the negotiations, and continually augment the claims of his nation; and the difference of expense would by no means be adequate to the inconvenience, since 12,500 guineas to his constituents, with ten per cent. upon that sum for himself, must be paid if the treaty was made for only one year.

That 30,000 guineas for his employers, and £3,000 for himself, was the lowest terms upon which a perpetual peace could be made; and that this must be paid in cash on the delivery of the treaty, signed by his Sovereign; that no kind of merchandizes could be accepted.

That Tunis would treat upon the same terms, but he could not answer for Algiers or Morocco.

We [Adams & Jefferson] took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.  [Note they clarify “nations who have done them [i.e. Muslim Barbary States] no injury”]

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their prophet [i.e. Mohammed]; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman [Muslims] who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

That it was a law that the first who boarded an enemy’s vessel should have one slave more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate valor and enterprize; that it was the practice of their corsairs to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand and another in his mouth, and leap on board, which so terrified their enemies that very few ever stood against them; that he verily believed the devil assisted his countrymen, for they were almost always successful. We took time to consider, and promised an answer; but we can give him no other than that the demands exceed our expectation and that of Congress so much that we can proceed no further without fresh instructions.

There is but one possible way that we know of to procure the money, if Congress should authorize us to go to the necessary expense; and that is to borrow it in Holland. We are not certain it can be had there, but if Congress should order us to make the best terms we can with Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco, and to procure this money wherever we can find it, upon terms like those of the last loan in Holland, our best endeavor shall be used to remove this formidable obstacle out of the way of the prosperity of the United States.

Enclosed is a copy of a letter from Paul R. Randall, Esq., at Barcelona. The last from Mr. Barclay was dated Bayonne. It is hoped we shall soon have news from Algiers and Morocco, and we wish it may not be made more disagreeable than this from Tunis and Tripoli.

JOHN ADAMS, THOS. JEFFERSON.

Overview of actions by Thomas Jefferson, the first President to declare war on Muslim Terrorists

Muslims who kept attacking the people of the United States for no other reason than the teachings of their false prophet Mohammed told them too. The Islamic Terrorist Muslims didn’t need the excuses the democrat party, Obama and the liberal leftists in the United States now give them, Muslim terrorists need no further provocation than the fact the United States of America exists, the people in the U.S.A. are not followers of Islam, the U.S.A. is founded on Christian principles, we are infidels and therefore are to be subjugated, enslaved, or put to the sword. It is really that simple, we exist, therefore we are their enemies.

Begin overview:

Before the United States obtained its independence in the American Revolution, 1775-83, American merchant ships and sailors had been protected from the ravages of the North African pirates by the naval and diplomatic power of Great Britain. British naval power and the tribute or subsidies Britain paid to the piratical states protected American vessels and crews. During the Revolution, the ships of the United States were protected by the 1778 alliance with France, which required the French nation to protect “American vessels and effects against all violence, insults, attacks, or depredations, on the part of the said Princes and States of Barbary or their subjects.” After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000. Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute, as he later testified in words that have a particular resonance today. In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully “endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation.” Jefferson argued that “The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace.” Jefferson prepared a detailed plan for the interested states. “Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association,” Jefferson remembered, but there were “apprehensions” that England and France would follow their own paths, “and so it fell through.” Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America’s minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, “I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro’ the medium of war.” Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: “The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both.” “From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money,” Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, “it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them.” Jefferson’s plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war. The United States’s relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts. Even though Secretary of State Jefferson declared to Thomas Barclay, American consul to Morocco, in a May 13, 1791, letter of instructions for a new treaty with Morocco that it is “lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever,” the United States continued to negotiate for cash settlements. In 1795 alone the United States was forced to pay nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from the dey of Algiers. Annual gifts were settled by treaty on Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli. When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli’s demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: “To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . .” The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war. The aggressive action of Commodore Edward Preble (1803-4) forced Morocco out of the fight and his five bombardments of Tripoli restored some order to the Mediterranean. However, it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli’s pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities. Negotiated by Tobias Lear, former secretary to President Washington and now consul general in Algiers, the treaty of 1805 still required the United States to pay a ransom of $60,000 for each of the sailors held by the dey of Algiers, and so it went without Senatorial consent until April 1806. Nevertheless, Jefferson was able to report in his sixth annual message to Congress in December 1806 that in addition to the successful completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, “The states on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present to respect our peace and friendship.” In fact, it was not until the second war with Algiers, in 1815, that naval victories by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments by the United States. European nations continued annual payments until the 1830s. However, international piracy in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters declined during this time under pressure from the Euro-American nations, who no longer viewed pirate states as mere annoyances during peacetime and potential allies during war.

WAR WITH BARBARY COAST ALGERINE PIRATES

The cowardice of the Muslims were exhibited back then, just as it is today. The Jihadists attack only those who are ill equipped to defend themselves or attack only by subterfuge, then they hide behind women, children and civilians. Until very recently the so called moderates had not stood against the Jihadis with the rest of the world. 

Overview of War with the Barbary Muslim States

Congress declared war on Tripoli during the first Presidential term of Thomas Jefferson who as shown above was completely against paying tribute to the Muslims to keep them from attacking American interests. Jefferson wanted to annihilate them. See Thomas Jefferson First Annual Message as President December 1801

While we were thus broadening our territories at home, we were having trouble abroad with no less formidable enemies than Algerine pirates who infested the Mediterranean Sea, and all the coasts of southern Europe. The Barbary States, you know, comprise the countries of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli, and are formed of a narrow strip of land in northeastern Africa. They are inhabited by Moors, Turks, Arabs, and a sprinkling of Jews. The principal religion is that of Mohammed, and they were sworn enemies to all Christian nations. For years the pirates of the Barbary States, or, as they were generally called, ” Algerine pirates,” had been a terror to every merchant vessel who came to trade with the countries near the Mediterranean. Any unlucky, ship, which found itself near the Atlantic coast of Africa, might see at any moment an odd-looking boat with long lateen sails, swooping down upon her from some sheltered inlet or harbor, where she had lain at watch for her prey. In a twinkling she would sail alongside the merchantman, grapple her, drop her long sails over the vessel’s side, and a host of swarthy, turbaned Moors, with bare, sharp sabres held between their teeth, belts stuck thick with knives and pistols, would come swarming over from sails and rigging, boarding their prize from all sides at once. The merchantman, with a crew untrained to fighting, would surrender. Every man on board would be made prisoner, and carried to Algiers or Tripoli to be held for the payment of a large ransom. If this sum were not paid they were sold as slaves in the public marketplaces.

It is wonderful [amazing], when we read of this thing, to see the terror in which these miserable, half clad pirates held half a dozen European nations. Italy feared them as a mouse fears a cat; Holland and Sweden trembled at the name of Algiers; Denmark paid them yearly a large tribute; the only nation of whom they stood in awe was England. For her, they had some respect, as one of their proverbs, “as hard-headed as an Englishman,” testifies.

When the pirates found America had become an independent nation, they immediately made demands on the government to pay them tribute. The Emperor of Morocco, Dey of Algiers, Bey of Tunis, and Bashaw of Tripoli (such were the high sounding titles of these squalid potentates) all thought they had found a new nation weak enough to submit to their piratical demands. And at first the United States did submit in the most astonishing manner. They sent consuls to the Barbary States to arrange on the amount of money or presents to be given these rulers to buy their favor and exempt our ships from their plunder. General Eaton, an officer who had served in the Revolutionary War, was one of these consuls, and very indignant he wiis at the manner in which his government submitted to the demands of these barbarians. When he called to see the Bey of Tunis, he was ordered to take off his shoes in the anteroom, and enter In his stocking feet. When he approached the bey in the stifling little den only eight by twelve, which served for grand audience chamber, he was ordered to “kiss his majesty’s hand.” “Having performed this ceremony,” says the bluff old soldier, “we were allowed to take our shoes and other property and depart, without any other injury than the humiliation of being obliged in this way to violate one of God’s commandments and offend common decency.”

These potentates of Barbary were constantly begging. They asked for ships, gunpowder, arms, cloth, and jewels from our consuls. General Eaton says, while he lived in the consulate at Tunis, not only the bey, but his minister and half a dozen officers of his court, sent for their coffee, spices, sugar, and other groceries, to the American house, demanding it as tribute. Once the bey saw there a handsome looking-glass, for which he sent next day, and the American consul could do no better than pack it off to him. If he refused to comply with any demand, the bey threatened to let his pirates loose on the American trading vessels. Here is a specimen of the letters sent by this prince of pirates to the Danish consul.

“On account of the long friendship subsisting between us we take the liberty to give you a commission for sundry articles, naval and military, which I find indispensable. I give you six months to answer this letter, and one year to forward the goods. And remember, if we do not hear from you we know what steps to take.”

As demand followed demand, and our consuls found it was like filling a bottomless tub with water to satisfy these fellows, they began to demur.

“When will these demands end?” asked United States Consul Cathcart of the Bashaw of Tripoli. “Never! They will never be at an end,” answered the bashaw, coolly. “Then I will declare war on my own responsibility,” said the consul. And so finally war was declared.

In 1804 the American squadron, under Commodore Preble, was sent into the Mediterranean, and bombarded the city of Tripoli. they arrived shortly after the pirates had captured the American ship Philadelphia. The officers and crew of the captured vessel were taken to Tripoli and a ransom of five hundred dollars a head placed on each man. The Philadelphia was anchored in the harbor in plain sight of the town.

One of the officers on Preble’s ship, young Stephen Decatur, begged to be allowed to destroy the Philadelphia, in order that the pirates might not be able to use her in their war against the United States. Permission was given him, and Decatur took a party of picked men and started on his adventure. He first captured a boat belonging to the pirates which was loaded with a cargo of women slaves they were sending to the markets of Constantinople. This vessel he fitted up and new baptized The Intrepid. She sailed into the harbor of Tripoli one midnight with all her crew, Lieutenant Decatur, except the man at the helm, lying flat on their faces on the deck. The ship was hailed, but her captain gave plausible answers till they reached the side of the Philadelphia. In a moment Decatur and his crew had boarded her, and throwing over the deck pitch, tarred cloth, and all sorts of combustibles, set fire to her. Before the enemy had recovered from their surprise, the Intrepid with all sails spread was outside the harbor, which was lighted up as brightly as noonday by the burning ship. Decatur lost not one man, while the Tripolitans lost twenty, or nearly that number, who were surprised on the ship, and part of whom were drowned from leaping off the burning vessel.

Decatur burning the Philadelphia

In the mean time General Eaton Eaton forms a convention with Hamet, the expelled bashaw of Tripoli, for the subjugation of that government: an army is raised in Egypt, and Eaton appointed general under Hamet: from Egypt they cross a desert 1000 miles in extent, to Derne, a Tripolitan city on the Mediterranean, which they attack and carry, in which Eaton is wounded, another battle is fought, and Eaton again victorious, June 10, 1805: the bashaw offers terms of peace, which are, acceded to, and 200 prisoners were given up.

Lieutenant Decatur

The American valor in this war had the good effect of convincing the pirates that the United States was not a country to be trifled with. They said we were too much like the English, and for the present no more demands were made for either ships or jewels as presents, by these autocrats of the seas.

  On the breaking out of the war between the United States and England in 1812, the Algerines and their associates seized all the American ships that came in their way. On the conclusion of peace, in 1815, the United States’ government determined to put an end to the disgraceful system of piracy by the Muslim Barbary States. An American squadron under Commodore Decatur was dispatched to the Mediterranean. Two Algerian ships of war were taken by Decatur, immediately after passing the Straits of Gibraltar. He then suddenly made his appearance before Algiers.

  The Dey, terrified by these unexpected movements, was glad to make peace on any terms, and a treaty was dictated by the American commodore. The Dey was compelled to make indemnity for the spoliations committed on American commerce, to renounce all claim of tribute from the United States, and give up all the Christian prisoners without ransom. The other Barbary powers were struck with a panic at the fate of Algiers, and agreed to the same terms. Thus the United States of America was the first Christian nation that threw off the disgraceful servitude of paying tribute to the pirates of the Mediterranean.

 The European nations were ashamed any longer to submit to the yoke, and the Congress of Vienna resolved to put an end to Christian slavery in Barbary. In pursuance of this determination, a British fleet, under Lord Exmouth, bombarded Algiers in 1816, and compelled the Dey to submit, as he had done to the Americans.

 The Barbary states after this remained quiet; but in 1827 the French became involved in a quarrel with the Algerines, and in 1830 a powerful armament was sent from France, which took possession of Algiers. The Dey was deprived of his authority, and allowed to go into exile’ in foreign parts. The French established themselves permanently in the city.

A note from the Ancient Historian John Foxe;

It is amazing when reading Foxe’s accounts, after 13 1/2 centuries the Muslims have done little to change their tactics and techniques, both “moderate” and extremists.

PERSECUTIONS IN THE STATES OF BARBARA. [i.e. Barbary States]

In no part of the globe are Christians so hated, or treated with such severity, as at Algiers. The conduct of the Algerines towards them is marked with perfidy and cruelty. By paying a most exorbitant fine, some Christians are allowed the title of Free Christians; these are permitted to dress in the fashion of their respective countries, but the Christian slaves are obliged to wear a coarse grey suit, and a seaman’s cap.

The following are the various punishments exercised towards them: 1. If they join any of the natives in open rebellion, they are strangled with a bow-string, or hanged on an iron hook. 2. If they speak against Mahomet, they must become Mahometans, or be impaled alive. 3. If they profess Christianity again, after having changed to the Mahometan persuasion, they are roasted alive, or thrown from the city walls, and caught upon large sharp hooks, on which they hang till they expire. 4. If they kill a Turk they are burnt. 5. If they attempt to escape, and are retaken, they suffer death in the following manner: they are hung naked on a high gallows by two hooks, the one fastened quite through the palm of one hand, and the other through the sole of the opposite foot, where they are left till death relieves them. Other punishments for crimes committed by the Christians are left to the discretion of the judges, who usually decree the most barbarous tortures.

At Tunis, if a Christian is caught in attempting to escape, his limbs are all broken; and if he slay his master, he is fastened to the tail of a horse, and dragged about the streets till he expires.

Fez and Morocco conjointly form an empire, and are the most considerable of the Barbary states. The Christian slaves are treated with the greatest rigour: the rich have exorbitant ransoms fixed upon them; the poor are hard worked and half starved, and sometimes, by the emperor, or their brutal masters, they are murdered.

Sources: The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America from the signing of the Definitive Treaty of Peace, dated September 10, 1783; to the Adoption of the Constitution, March 4, 1789. Published under the direction of the Secretary of State, from the original Manuscript in the Department of State, conformably to an Act of Congress, approved May 6,1832.

America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe by Gerard W. Gawalt, Library of Congress online.

Islam vs the United States by Niall Kilkenny, 2009

A History of Africa by Samuel Griswold Goodrich; 1850

The History of Our Country from Its Discovery by Columbus to the Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. by Abby Sage Richardson; 1875

Copyright © 2010 – 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

Cold Winters in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and area, previous to 1790

Snow at Glansevern, Wales

More evidence of the myth and fallacy of the religious faith called man made or man caused Global Warning and Climate Change.

Cold Winters in Philadelphia, &c, previous to 1790.

The winter of 1789 was very mild until the middle of February, when the weather became exceedingly cold to the close of the month. The whole spring was so cold that fires [used to heat homes] were comfortable until June. The summer months were excessively hot, the mercury frequently rising to 96 in the shade.

The whole winter of 1788 was intensely cold. The Delaware was closed from the 26th of December to the 10th of March due to ice.

The winters of 1786 and 1787 were tolerably mild. There were some cold days of course.

The winters of 1784 and 1785 were tolerably mild, notwithstanding much snow fell.

The winter of 1783 was long and severe. The Delaware closed as early as the 28th of November, and continued ice-bound until the 18th of March. The mercury was several times below zero.

The winter of 1782 was also very cold. The Delaware froze over in one night opposite the city.

The winter of 1781 was very mild, but the spring was cold and backward.

The whole winter of 1780 was intensely cold. The Delaware was closed from the 1st of December to the 14th of March. The ice was from two to three feet thick. During the month of January the mercury was several times from 10 to 15 below zero, and only once during the month did it rise to 32. Long Island Sound and the Chesapeake were so completely ice-bound as to be passable with horses and sleighs.

The winter of 1779 was very mild, particularly the month of February, when trees were in blossom.

January 9, 1773, the mercury was 9 degrees below 0, and there was much snow and cold weather until the 10th of March.

During the winter of 1772, the Delaware was covered with ice for three months.

The winter of 1765 was intensely cold. On the 19th of February, a whole ox was roasted on the Delaware.

On the 31st of December, 1764, the Delaware was frozen completely over in one night, and the weather continued cold until the 28th of March, with snow two and a half feet deep.

The winter of 1760 was alternately very cold and very mild. In the month of March there was the heaviest fall of snow ever remembered so late in the season.

The winter of 1756 was very mild; the first snow storm was as late as the 18th of March.

The winter of 1750 was very open and mild, but all the spring months were cold and stormy. As late in the season as the 30th of May, snow lay on the ground.

The next record we find is 1742, which says, “One of the coldest winters since the settlement of the country; a gentleman drove himself with a horse and sleigh through Long Island Sound (on the ice,) to Cape Cod!”

The winter of 1741 was intensely cold. The Delaware was closed from the 19th of December to the 13th of March. Many creatures died from hunger and cold. As late in the season as the 19th of April, snow fell to the depth of three feet, after which the weather became very warm, and the whole summer was intensely hot.

The winter of 1740 was very cold and stormy. The Delaware continued closed until the 14th of March.

The winters of 1736 and 1737 were both intensely cold, and many persons perished.

In both the winters of 1727 and 1728, the Delaware was closed for three months.

The whole winter of 1725 was mild, but the spring very cold. In March snow fell to the depth of two feet in one night.

The winter of 1717 was long and severe, and there were the deepest snows remembered by the oldest inhabitants. Their depth is not recorded.

The winter of 1714 was very mild after the 15th of January; trees and shrubbery were in bloom the first week in February, and the spring was unusually mild. After this we could find no record of the weather, or even a word respecting it, until the winter of 1704, which was long and severe, with many deep snows.

The 14th of December, 1708, is recorded by a New England writer, as being the coldest day ever known there up to that time! But he forgot to say how cold it was! At this time thermometers had been in use eighty-eight years. They were invented in 1620.

The winter of 1697 was intensely cold. Boston harbour was frozen as far down as Nantucket.

After this the only record we can find respecting the weather in America is, “on the 11th of December, 1681, the Delaware river froze over in one night, so as to be passable on the ice.”

The severest drought ever experienced in America was in the summer of 1762. Scarcely a sprinkle of rain fell for nearly four months, viz. from May to September. Vegetables of every description perished.

Copyright © 2010 – 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

Cold and Stormy Winters in Europe From A.D. 202 – 1841

More evidence of the myth of man-made Climate Change; which is actually akin to a faith and religion, in that those who believe in man caused global climate change, and the climate models are just as wrong as the weather models, and forecasters who made predictions about historic and record snow fall in NYC and the Northeast United States in the last week. Which shows without doubt belief in man made Climate Change is a religious faith, there is no perceivable evidence to back up the claims of the proponents or ministers of man made climate change.  The “blizzard” and snow storm of 2015 was anything but historic or record breaking in New England.

COLD AND STORMY WINTERS,
In Europe, &c.

Christian Era [A.D.; Anno Domini: In The Year of Our Lord] 202 A.D., &c. The winters of A.D. 202, 250, and 291, were intensely cold for four months. The Thames was frozen for nine weeks.

In the winter of 301 A.D. the Black Sea was frozen entirely over.

In the winter of 401 A.D. the Pontus Sea [Southern Black Sea] was frozen over, also the Sea between Constantinople and Scutari [Skoutari a bay on the east coast of the Mani Peninsula, Greece.]

In 462 A.D. the Danube was frozen over. In A.D. 508 and 558 the Danube was again frozen over, also all the rivers in Europe were more or less frozen.

In the winter of 695 A.D., the Thames was frozen so hard, that many booths were built thereon.

In the winter of 762 A.D., the Dardanelles and Black Sea were frozen over, and snow drifted to the astonishing depth of 50 feet!

During the winters of A.D. 859 and 860, most of the rivers in Europe were frozen for two months.

In the winter of 923 A.D., the river Thames was frozen for nine weeks; and in the winter of 987 A.D. it was frozen 120 days.

In A.D. 1063, 1067, and 1076, the winters in Europe were long and intensely cold, and many persons perished by cold and hunger.

In the year 1214 A.D., the Thames was so low between the tower and bridges, that men, women and children waded over it, the water being only four inches deep. And again in A.D. 1803 and 1836, the water all ran out, and many persons passed and repassed.

In 1235 A.D., the water rose so high in the Thames as to extend up round Westminster Hall, to such a depth, that the judges and lawyers were taken from the Hall in boats.

In the winters of A.D. 1234, 1294, and 1296, the sea between Norway and Denmark, and from Sweden to Gothland, and the Rhine and Baltic, were all frozen, and snow fell to a frightful depth.

In the winter of 1133 A.D., the cold was so intense in Italy, that the Po [river] was frozen from Cremona to the Sea. The wine froze and burst the casks, and the trees split with a great noise.

The winters of A.D. 1216 and 1234, were very similar to the last mentioned.

In the winter of 1282 A.D., the houses in Austria were completely buried in snow, and many persons perished with hunger and cold.

The winters of A.D. 1323, 1349, 1402, 1408, 1423, 1426 and 1459, were all intensely cold, and the Baltic was so firmly covered with ice, from Mecklenburg to Denmark, that merchandise was conveyed over it with horses and wagons.

In the winter of 1384 A.D., the Rhine and Scheldt, and the Sea of Venice, were frozen.

In the winters of A.D. 1434 and 1683, the Thames was frozen below Gravesend. Also, in 1709, 1760, 1763, and 1784.

In the winter of 1620 A.D., the sea between Constantinople and Iskodar [town in north-west Tajikistan] was again frozen.

The winters of A.D. 1670 and 1681, were intensely cold. The Little and Great Belts [Denmark] were frozen, and many persons perished.

The winter of 1692 A.D. was awfully severe in Russia and Germany, and many persons froze to death, and many cattle perished in their stalls.

The winters of A.D. 1709, ’16, ’39, ’47, ’54, ’63, ’76, ’84, ’88 and ’89, are all recorded as having been intensely cold throughout Europe.

On the 11th October, 1741 A.D., there was the most awful and destructive storm in India which was ever experienced. It was computed that three hundred thousand persons perished on the land and water. The water rose 40 feet higher than ever before known. It was also computed that more than a thousand vessels were lost, and among them eight English East India ships, with all their crews.

On the 7th March, 1751 A.D., there was a terrible storm at Nantz, which destroyed 66 square-rigged vessels, and 800 seamen perished. On the 8th of December, of the same year, a still more destructive storm occurred at Cadiz, in which 100 vessels were lost, and three thousand sailors perished.

A London paper of January 29, 1762, says, “the Thames had been frozen so firmly since Christmas, that horses and carriages were driven thereon. Also, that booths were erected, and fairs held thereon.”

A German paper of December 17, 1788, says, the cold was so intense, as to sink the mercury 27 degrees below zero.

On the 13th July, 1783, at St. Germain, in France, hail fell as large as pint-bottles, and did immense damage. All the trees from Vallance [Valence, France] to Lisle [ L’Isle, Switzerland], were destroyed. [A distance of 300 +/- Km or 186.4 miles]

On the 10th Jan. 1812, the fog was so dense in London, that every house was lighted with candles or lamps; and it was so dark in the streets at mid-day, that a person could scarcely be discerned at a distance of eight or ten feet. On the 27th December, 1813, a similar fog occurred in England, which continued for four days, and several persons missed their way and fell into canals and rivers.

In December 1840, the weather was so severe in Sweden, that it was computed that three thousand persons perished. A London paper of February 3d, 1841, says, “The weather is awfully severe and boisterous, and numerous disasters have occurred to the shipping, &c. The Thames steamboat, from Ireland, was wrecked, and out of sixty-five passengers, only four were saved.

Source; A Meteorological Account of the Weather in Philadelphia: From January 1, 1790 – January 1, 1847: By Charles Peirce; Including 57 years with Appendix Containing numerous accounts of historic weather events.

Copyright © 2010 – 2015 TeaPartyEdu http://teapartyedu.net Foundation Truths http://captainjamesdavis.net The Patriot Brotherhood @CaptainJDavis ™

United States The “Real” Blizzard of 1888 #blizzardof2015 #Snowmageddon2015

Photo courtesy of @JosephMRyan1

CLIMATE CHANGE: UNITED STATES NOTICES OF REMARKABLY COLD WINTERS

Climate Change hysterics and fear-mongers spent the 20th century warning of the “coming ice age”. I expect they’ll spend the 21st century frothing & fretting about global warming.

Weird Weather in the United States evidence of Climate Change?

Thomas Paine explains the push for Climate Change regulations, taxes, etc. (Click to enlarge)

 

THE GREAT BLIZZARD OF 1888

From the Hartford Courant, March 13, 1888

“March 12, 1888, will be memorable during the present generation as the beginning of one of the most remarkable storms of this remarkable century. In its almost unprecedented severity,—in the wide extent of country affected,— in the total demoralization of railroad and telegraphic facilities, and the complete blocking of local travel and business of almost every kind, it has no rival in the record of storms since railroads and telegraphs were invented. It is certain that many persons caught in the storm in the country must have perished, for even in the cities there would have been many deaths had not friendly hands been near to give relief and shelter.” To show that this storm was not local: “New Haven, March 12, 1888.—The storm here is the most horrible ever known. The streets are impassable for teams, and drifts are piled from ten to forty feet high on the sidewalks.”

“Providence, March 12.—A hurricane of wind and rain followed the storm of snow and sleet, and has brought business to a standstill. At Newport the breakers are the largest ever seen.”

“Springfield, Mass, March 12.—The storm is simply unprecedented. By noon business began to be suspended. The schools then closed for the day, and many children were lost in the blinding sleet and awful drifts, but no fatalities are known. The street railway company abandoned cars along its lines and there they stand stalled. No hacks or other conveyances could be hired to leave the stables, for most of the streets were impassable. The depot is filled with trains which came in early in the day, and all attempts to start trains out were futile.”

“New York, March 13.—The mercury in New York this noon was down to zero. All railroads are utterly demoralized. President Depew of the New York Central says there never was such a state of affairs on the road before. No street cars are running in New York city or Brooklyn.

Elevated roads are only partially in operation. The East river is frozen over, and thousands of people are crossing over on the ice. No ferry boats are running. Trains with two engines are being run every 15 minutes across the bridge, but the roadway of the bridge is closed. Immense drifts block up streets. The western side of Broadway has the appearance of a backwoods path. There are thirty trains stalled between Grand Central depot and Spuyten Duyvil.”

From the Courant, March 16th, 1888:

“And now they tell us it wasn’t much of a storm. It began down by Alexandria, Virginia; was not felt west of Pittsburg and Buffalo; did not go further north than Saratoga, and was not felt much east of Boston. This is the Western Union’s outline, and as that company’s feelers are out all over the country, it ought to be accurate. It was within 300 or 350 miles of the seacoast all the time, and it only swept over about 350 miles of territory lengthwise, if a bee line is taken from Alexandria to Boston. It managed to paralyze the Pennsylvania and the New York Central roads, and all the roads that centre in New York, as well as in New England. Its like was never seen before.”

The following “Letter of Condolence” is of interest:

(To) Robbins Battell, 74 Wall Street, New York.
“Des Moines, Iowa, March 12, 1888.

‘”I‘o New York, Pennsylvania and New England Friends:

“In this, your hour of affliction, we deem it fitting to assure you of our heartfelt sympathy. We know we cannot realize the fullness of your suffering, for the terrible blizzards recently visited upon you have surpassed anything we have ever known in Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas. So far as possible, however, our hearts go out to you, and when we offer you, in behalf of our happy, prosperous people, such financial aid as may be needed. we beg you to accept it in the spirit it is offered.

Kindly preserve our little card as a reminder of the date of your latest dire calamity, remembering also that at the same date the sturdy farmers of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa are out in the beautiful sunshine, preparing the soil to receive the seed which will spring forth into a magnificent harvest. with which to supply your physical wants.”

Very sincerely yours,

“CENTRAL LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY.”

But some Norfolk descendant “out west” may say, “Why don’t he tell us whether it stormed in Norfolk or not?”

A good old man was once reading to his wife an account of a railroad catastrophe, which said, “John Smith was struck by a locomotive at a surface crossing; the entire train passed over him, severing his head from his body, and he was literally cut into pieces.” His good wife said, “Does the paper say whether he was killed or not?” The good old man read the account again and remarked, “It don’t say that it killed him, but I ruther reckon it must “Iv.”

Yes, gentle reader, it snowed in Norfolk, and it also blowed, as can still be proven by eye-witnesses, and there were some drifts. From a “Journal of the great snowstorm,” kept by a resident of the town, and copied for Miss Cynthia Foskett’s Scrap-book, some extracts follow: “Monday, March 12, 1888.—Snow began to fall Sunday afternoon, but not in any great quantity until Sunday night. This morning there was nearly three feet of snow on the ground, and still falling with great rapidity. This afternoon the storm turned into a veritable blizzard, the wind blowing a gale, the air thick with the finest particles of snow I ever saw. But very few people ventured out; the cold and wind were so intense that hands, ears and noses were quickly frozen.

Tuesday, 13th. Snow still falling steadily. When I reached the office there was no office, not a foot of the building being in sight,——only an immense bank of snow, the top of the chimney being covered by at least two feet. Snow continued to fall during the entire day. The wind is subsiding.

Wednesday, 14. At exactly ten o’clock the snow ceased falling. This makes an unbroken record of falling snow

from Sunday afternoon, March 11, to Wednesday morning, March 14. It is hard to tell the exact depth of the snow on a level; various estimates place the depth from four to six feet. The drifts are 12, 15 and 18 feet high by measurement. The snow is up even with the roof of the church sheds. The Post-mistress is blockaded in the Postoffice, and has not been to her boarding place for two days. There are no trains and no telegraphic communication. The railroad track is an unbroken mass of drifts. The wind has been north-west from the beginning of the storm.

Thursday, 15. The railroad has been opened from Winsted to Hartford. Some of the largest drifts have been photographed by the local photographer. It was agreed to turn out in force tomorrow and assist the railroad company.

Friday, 16. The weather is warm and pleasant. By nine o’clock fifty men were at work trying to find the lost Railroad track, and this force was soon swelled to sixty-two. Miss Anna Battell ordered a dinner from Mr. Stevens, the hotel keeper, for the entire party of sixty-two, which was served in the old Spaulding farm-house at one o’clock, in camp-fashion. A large number joined the force in the afternoon; three engines fastened together and well braced in front with timbers came up from Winsted in the afternoon, followed by a gang of laborers. The entire force now numbered one hundred and fifty, and with the help of the engines the work proceeded rapidly. At 4.30 o’clock the road was clear from Winsted to Norfolk At seven o’clock a fourth engine arrived and brought last Monday’s mail.

Saturday, 17. The engines with the regular force of laborers and some volunteers started, and at 9.30 reached Canaan. We received a telegraphic dispatch from Mr. Battell, in New York. The first dispatch received in Norfolk from New York since last Monday. The first passenger train arrived at noon and brought the first New York mail. Thursday afternoon a Hartford paper reached Winsted, and was read to Norfolk people by telephone; one man receiving the news at this end, and shouting it out as it came.

Sunday, 18. Beyond Twin Lakes the drifts are reported to be twenty feet in height and more. Work will be continued today.

Monday, March 19. Several hundred laborers worked on the track yesterday, and by tonight Millerton will probably be reached. The road has been closed now exactly one week. Finis.”

The severe winter of 1856 and 7 is mentioned in the foregoing. Then the State elections were held annually on the first Monday in April. The election in the spring of 1857 was one of unusual interest in Norfolk, as the candidates for election to the State Senate in the old Seventeenth Senatorial District were both prominent citizens of the town, Mr. Nathaniel B. Stevens being the candidate of the Democratic party, and Mr. Samuel D. Northway that of the recently formed Republican party, and naturally each was anxious to get out his full vote in his own town. The snow in the roads in all the out parts of the town over which teams had driven all winter was at that time just melting, and was then as high as the top of the fences a large part of the way; and where the large drifts were it was ten feet deep and up, thus making all roads simply impassable until they were shovelled out. The turnpike, (from Winsted to Canaan), had been opened up before election day, but the only team oif from that line of road that came to the election was one that Mr. Northway started at sunrise with a light-footed horse, to bring Dea. Noah Miner and Daniel Cady, who were too old and lame to walk from their home in the south part of the town. Dea.. Miner staid and visited with friends a day or two, and in the course of the week made his way home on foot, stopping over night with friends on the way.

The following letter concerning Norfolk winters and other matters, is of interest. It was addressed to Mrs. Mary Oakley Beach, a well known native and resident of this town, recently deceased, by Mr. Kneeland J. Munson, a son of Mr. Joshua Munson, who was a life long resident and an extensive and successful farmer, his farm being on Canaan Mountain a mile or more south of “Canaan Mountain Pond,” as it was called in his day; now, Lake Wangum. Mr. Kneeland Munson was president of the 01d Norfolk Bank for several years, and was well known in this town.

Millerton, N. Y., November 16, 1894. Mrs. Mary Oakley Beach:

“Your letter of the 15th received. I hardly understand it, particularly about the sheep business. In the fall of 1826 my father bought about 150 shoats (young hogs) and turned them into what was called Norfolk woods, east of his place, to grow fat on beach nuts. 0n the 30th of December commenced a snow-storm which lasted four days, snowing steadily and heavily for the whole time, leaving over four feet of solid snow on the ground. When the storm abated, my father, with what help he could get, spent several days wallowing in the snow, trying to find the hogs. They finally succeeded in finding and getting home about 100; the other 50 were left to their fate. The snow was expected to make a great flood when it went off, but it lay on all winter and went 0!! gradually by the sun the last of March and April, without any flood at all. In the fore part of April, 1827, two or three of these hogs found their way out to a collier’s hut, and he gave my father notice of it. They then made another rally and search, and found quite a number, perhaps 20 or 25, but they were as wild animals. Some of them jumped out of a high pen after they got them home, and made their escape. For several years there was quite a crop of wild hogs in that region, until they became so troublesome that they had to be hunted down and destroyed.”

Respectfully yours,
K. J. MUNSON.”

From a thoroughly reliable source the writer has been informed, that at a certain point on the east side of Chestnut hill, or Gaylord hill as it has been sometimes called, where the snow drives over from the north-west and drifts in at the foot of av ledge, many years ago at the end of a snowy winter a man out a notch at the surface of the drift in the top of a tree that was mostly buried by the snow. When the snow was all gone he cut down this tree, and by actual measurement found that the snow at that point was seventy feet deep.

0n the first Monday of May, 1840 or ’41, Mr. Hiram Wheeler with another young man started from his home in North Norfolk to attend training down town, that being training day. Seven or eight inches of snow had fallen the night previous. They crossed a pasture into which Mr. Anson Gaylord had turned a flock of sheep, and discovered that the sheep had taken shelter from the wind upon the south side of a stone wall, and that the snow had drifted to the top of the wall and completely buried many of the sheep, from which imprisonment the young men liberated them.

 THE GREAT ICE STORM.

People who were living in Norfolk and vicinity at the time, will not soon forget the ice-storm of February 20 to 22, 1898. The effects of that storm are still plainly seen in the broken shade-trees, fruit-trees, and forests, in this entire region; many tall young forest trees which were then bent to the ground by their load have never raised their heads since, and never will.

The local papers said, “An ice-storm, the severest in the memory of the oldest inhabitants, visited Northwestern Connecticut, entailing thousands of dollars loss. Trees that are old landmarks, and others, are spoiled for years to come, and a great deal of the storm’s damage is irreparable.”

“Twigs an eighth of an inch in diameter had an overcoat of ice an inch and a quarter thick.”

“An ice coated twig weighing one and a half pounds, minus the ice weighed two ounces.”

“The big elms and fruit trees suffered most. One of the big elms split in the middle, one half falling on to the town hall.”

ACCOUNTS OF OTHER COLD & SNOWY WINTERS IN NEW ENGLAND

“The records of hard winters in Connecticut during the past two centuries, which stand out conspicuously, will be looked back to with considerable interest. During the winter of 1872-3, there were thirty-six zero mornings, and 102 days of sleighing in Hartford. The winter of 1856-7 was very severe. The winter of 1837-8 was noted for deep snows. The winter of 1815-16 was also noted for its terrible snow storms. In February, 1791, a snow fall of four days duration occurred, the snow falling six feet on a level. The winter of 1761-2 was very cold, with deep snows. The winter of 1741-2 was famous throughout New England for deep snows and intense cold weather. The first deep snow fell on the 13th of November, giving good sleighing which lasted until the 20th of April, making 158 successive days of good sleighing in Connecticut. In February, 1717, occurred the greatest snow storm ever known in this country. It commenced on the 17th and lasted until the 24th, the snow falling from ten to twelve feet on the level. This snow made a remarkable era in New England, and the people in relating an event would say it happened so many years before or after the great snow. In February, 1691, a terrible storm occurred. In February, 1662, the snow fell so deep that a great number of deer came from the woods for food and were killed by the wolves. It will be noticed that all of our great snow storms have occurred in February.”

1641—50 days crossing Connecticut river on ice.

1664—Large comet seen in New England.

1669—In February, deep snow storms.

1691—Terrible snow storms.

1717—Snow 11 feet deep; one storm commenced 17th lasting until 24th.

1740—Sleighing Nov. 13 to April 20.

1761—Very cold; deep snows.

1773—Very severe winter.

1774—Largest snow storm known.

1780—May 19, the dark day in Northern states; winter very severe; Long Island sound frozen over.

1784,1786,1788,1792, 1796 and 1799, severe winters.

1791—One snow storm of four days; snow 6 feet deep.

1793—Feb. 4, 34° below zero.

1800—Snow 3 feet deep, three months.

1803—May 8, snow fell over a foot in depth—freezing for two nights.

1807—Cold so intense Feb. 7, that forest trees cracked like reports from guns firing.

1816—Jan. 15-17,snow four feet deep; cold summer; frost every month in the year.

1818—May 17, snow lasted five days.

1821—Intense cold so long and continuous that Long Island sound was frozen over.

1823—Nov. 6, first snow; sleighing for 151 days. .

1827—Oct. 17, snow fell fifteen inches deep, and in all New England; a few miles above Hartford it did not go off until spring opened. Thousands of bushels of potatoes remained undug until spring, when they were found in good condition.

1835—Cold winter of this century; February, from 1′ to 28° below zero, with deep snows.

1837—Was noted for deep snows.

1841—Oct. 3, snow fell one foot deep.

1856—Below zero 47 times, and crossing the ice on Conn, river, to near the sound, was continuous until the the 1st day of April, 1866, inclusive, and the next day steamboats steamed up to Hartford.

1867—Jan. 22-24, for 42 consecutive hours it was 18° to 30° below zero.

1859—Jan. 9-12, from 2° to 27° below zero. July 4 mercury was 36°, and a slight frost in several towns.

1861—Jan. 13 and Feb. 8, 18o below zero.

1866—.Tan. 8, 18° below zero.

1871—Feb. 6, 12° below zero.

1873—Jan. 80, 32° below zero; 86 zero mornings this winter, and 102 days sleighing.

1874—April 25, 28-30, snow storms.

1875—Jan. 10, 10° below zero.

1878—Jan. 9, 18° below zero. May 11, snow in several states; frost in Conn, for three successive nights.

1879—Jan. 10,10° below zero.

1880—35 snow storms and 43 inches snow fell. Several times below zero.

1881—Jan. 1—12° below zero.

1882—Jan. 24, 16° below zero. Feb. 4th, a severe snow storm that drifted so as to universally stop all traveling—many churches were not opened for service.

1883—Dec. 22, 18° below zero.

May 29, 30,1884, there were severe frosts throughout all New England and western states. Ice formed from $ to 1 inch in thickness, killing early beans, potatoes, corn, etc. Thermometer 24° in this city. A snow storm in Litchfield county. The frosts extended southerly to Virginia. It was’ a huge polar wave that made a “Black Friday” for the farmers.

June 15,1884, another severe frost, killing all tender vegetables, throughout the most of New England and the West, Aug. 25, another frost; but September fol lowing was intensely hot.

1885—Last of January and month of February, Intensely cold weather, from zero to 20° below.

1886—January 10-13, 10 to 20° below zero.

The Historic Winter of1716-1717.

IN December, 1716, snow fell to the depth of five feet, rendering travelling very difficult, and almost impossible except on snow shoes. The temperature throughout the winter was moderate, but the amount of snow that fell that season has never been equalled in New England during the three centuries of her history.

Snow fell in considerable quantities several times during the month of January, and on February 6 it lay in drifts in some places twenty-five feet deep, and in the woods a yard or more on the level. Cotton Mather said that the people were overwhelmed with snow.

The great storm began on February 18, and continued piling its flakes upon the already covered earth until the 22nd; being repeated on the 24th so violently that all communication between houses and farms ceased. Down came the flakes of feathery lightness, until

“the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse,”

within whose walls,

“. . all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

Whittier, in his “Snow Bound,” has pleasingly described the coming of the snow in the country. The east wind brought to the settlers the roar of the ocean rolling up on its frozen shore ; as night came on, the chilly air and darkened sky gave signs of the coming storm; and soon the blinding snow filled the air.

“Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,—
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent,
And down his querulous challenge sent.

“Unwarmed by any sunset light,
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the winged snow;
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

“So all night long the storm roared on;
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
In starry flake and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,—
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvellous shapes: strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridge post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;

The well-curb had a Chinese roof,
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell,
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.”

During the storm enough snow fell to bury the earth to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet on the level, and in some places for long distances it was twenty feet deep. The twenty-fourth was Sunday, and the storm was so fierce and the snow came in such quantities that no religious meetings were held throughout New England.

“No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary voiced elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-tops swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear .
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life had grown
To have an almost human tone.”

Indians, who were almost a hundred years old, said that they had never heard their fathers tell of any storm that equalled this.

Many cattle were buried in the snow, where they were smothered or starved to death. Some were found dead weeks after the snow had melted, yet standing and with all the appearance of life. The eyes of many were so glazed with ice that being near the sea they wandered into the water and were drowned. On the farms of one gentleman upwards of eleven hundred sheep were lost in the snow. Twentyeight days after the storm, while the search for them was still in progress, more than a hundred were found huddled together, apparently having found a sheltered place on the lee side of a drift, where they were slowly buried as the storm raged on, being covered with snow until they liy sixteen feet beneath the surface. Two of the sheep were alive, having subsisted during the four weeks of their entombment by feeding on the wool of their companions. When rescued they shed their fleeces, but the wool grew again and they were brought back to a good degree of flesh. An instance of a similar nature occurred the present winter (1890-91) in Pennsylvania, where during a snow storm three sheep were buried in a hollow twenty feet under a drift. After twelve days had elapsed, they were discovered, and shoveled out, all being alive. They had not a particle of wool on them, hunger having driven them to eat it entirely off each others’ backs. With proper care they were restored to their usual condition.

Other animals also lived during several weeks’ imprisonment under the snow. A couple of hogs were lost, and all hope of finding them alive was gone, when on the twenty-seventh day after the storm they worked their way out of the snow bank in which they had been buried, having subsisted on a little tansy, which they had found under the snow. Poultry also survived several days’ burial, hens being found alive after seven days, and turkeys from five to twenty. These were buried in the snow some distance above the ground, so that they could obtain no food whatever.

The wild animals which were common in the forests of New England at this period were robbed of their means of subsistence, and they became desperate in their cravings of hunger. Browsing for deer was scarce, the succulent shrubs being buried beneath the snow, and when evening came on those in the forests near the sea-coast started for the shore, where instinct had taught them that they would be likely to find more food. Another, and a greater reason, perhaps, was, that there were other starving animals in the woods beside themselves of which they were afraid. Bears and wolves were numerous then, and as soon as night fell, in their ravenous state they followed the deer in droves into the clearings, at length pouncing upon them. In this way vast numbers of these valuable animals were killed, torn in pieces, and devoured by their fierce enemies. It was estimated that nineteen out of every twenty deer were thus destroyed. They were so scarce after this time that officers called deer-reeves were chosen in each town to attend to their preservation. These officers were annually elected until the country had become so densely populated that the deer had disappeared and there was nothing for them to do.

Bears, wolves and foxes were nightly visitors to the sheep pens of the farmers. Cotton Mather states that many ewes, which were about to give birth to young, were so frightened at the assaults of these animals that most of the lambs born the next spring were of the color of foxes, the dams being either white or black. Vast multitudes of sparrows also came into the settlements after the storm was over, but remained only a short time, returning to the woods as soon as they were able to find food there.

The sea was greatly disturbed, and the marine animal life was in a state of considerable excitement. After the storm ceased, vast quantities of small sea shells were washed on shore in places where they had never been found before; and in the harbors great numbers of porpoises were seen playing together in the water.

The carriers of the mails, who were in that period called “post boys,” were greatly hindered in the performance of their duties by the deep snow. Leading out from Boston there were three post roads, and as late as March 4 there was no travelling, the ways being still impassable, and the mail was not expected, though it was then a week late. March 25 the “post” was travelling on snow shoes, the carrier between Salem, Mass., and Portsmouth, N. H., being nine days in making his trip to Portsmouth and eight days in returning, the two towns being about forty miles apart. In the woods he found the snow five feet deep, and in places it measured from six to fourteen feet.

Much damage was done to orchards, the snow being above the tops of many of the trees, and when it froze forming a crust around the boughs, it broke most of them to pieces. The crust was so hard and strong that cattle walked hither and thither upon it, and browsed the tender twigs of the trees, injuring them severely.

Many a one-story house was entirely covered by the snow, and even the chimneys in some instances could not be seen. Paths were dug under the snow from house to barn, to enable the farmers to care for their animals, and tunnels also led from house to house among the neighbors if not too far apart. Snow shoes were of course brought into requisition, and many trips were made by their aid. Stepping out of a chamber window some of the people ventured over the hills of snow. “Love laughs at locksmiths,” and of course, says Coffin, in his History of Newbury, Mass., will disregard a snow-drift. A young man of that town by the name of Abraham Adams was paying his attention to Miss Abigail Pierce, a young lady of the same place, who lived three miles away. A week had elapsed since the storm, and the swain concluded that he must visit his lady. Mounting his snowshoes he made his way out of the house through a chamber window, and proceeded on his trip over the deep, snow-packed valley and huge drifts among the hills beyond. He reached her residence, and entered it, as he had left his own, byway of a chamber window. Besides its own members, he was the first person the family had seen since the storm, and his visit was certainly much appreciated.

In the thinly settled portions of the country great privation and distress were caused by the imprisonment of many families, and the discontinuance of their communication with their neighbors. Among the inhabitants of Medford, Mass., was a widow, with several children, who lived in a one-story house on the road to Charlestown. Her house was so deeply buried that it could not be found for several days. At length smoke was seen issuing from a snow-bank, and by that means its location was ascertained. The neighbors came with shovels, and made a passage to a window, through which they could gain admission. They entered and found that the widow’s small stock of fuel was exhausted, and that she had burned some of the furniture to keep her little ones from suffering with the cold. This was but one of many incidents that occurred of a similar character.

The Historic Winter of 1740-41.

THE summer of 1740 was cool and wet. An early frost injured much of the corn crop, and the long season of rain which followed hindered its ripening. One-third of it was cut when green, and the rest was so wet that it very soon molded. There was, therefore, very little seed corn in New England for the next spring’s planting, and the amount of dry corn for the winter’s consumption was also small. The rain of the summer and fall flooded the lowlands of the country everywhere.

The rivers of Salem, Mass., were frozen over as early as October, and November 4th the weather became very cold. In that year the thirteenth of November was observed as Thanksgiving day. It was then severely cold, and all that day snow fell, continuing until the fifteenth, when in Essex County, Mass., it measured a foot in depth.

The weather remained cold until about the twenty-second, when its rigor relaxed, and a thaw, accompanied by rain, came on. The rain continued to fall for nearly three weeks, during the day only, the stars shining brightly each evening, but the morning following, rain would be falling again as energetically as ever. The snow melted, and a freshet occurred in the Merrimac river, nothing like it having been experienced there for seventy years. At Haverhill, the stream rose fifteen feet, and many houses were floated off. In that part ot Newbury, which was afterwards incorporated as West Newbury, was a piece of lowland at Turkey hill, known as Rawson’s meadow, which was covered with water to the depth of twelve feet. In another part of Newbury between the mill and the residence of a Mr. Emery, a sloop could have sailed. The freshet carried away great quantities ot wood, which was piled along the banks of the river, and from the shipyards located in that part of Newbury now included in the city 01 Newburyport considerable timber that was lying ready to be formed into vessels was also floated down the harbor, much of both wood and timber being lost. To save as much of it as possible, the dwellers on the shores of the river turned out, and for fourteen days worked from the banks and in boats, securing large piles which were scattered for miles on both sides of the river and the harbor. It was estimated that two thousand cords of wood were also saved at Plum Island.

The freshet was also very disastrous at Falmouth. On the twentyfirst of the month the Rev. Thomas Smith of that town says, in his diary, that he rode to Saco, where he lodged with his father. He was there forced out of his lodgings “by vast quantities of ice, which jambed and raised the water eighteen inches higher” than his bedstead.

Plum Island river was frozen over on December twelfth, and remained so until the end of March. The Merrimac river was also closed by the extreme cold, which continued so severe that the ice very soon became thick enough to support teams, and before the end of the month the river became a great thoroughfare. Loaded sleds drawn by two, three or four yoke of oxen came from the towns up the river, and landed below the upper long wharf near where the ferry was then located in Newbury. From twenty to forty such teams passed down the river daily from Amesbury and Haverhill, and people travelled down the harbor as far as half-tide rock. On February 28, for the purpose of ascertaining the thickness of the ice in the Merrimac, Wells Chase cut a hole through it at Deer Island where the current ran swiftest and found it to measure thirty inches, although people had constantly sledded over it for two months. No one then living had ever heard of the river freezing so hard before.

As far south as New York, the harbors were so frozen that vessels could not come into them, and those already in were compelled to remain until a thaw should come to their release. The sea was also very much frozen, and people travelled out long distances. In Boston harbor, a beaten road through the snow was kept open on the ice as far out as Castle William. Over this course horses and sleighs, and people on foot continually passed up and down, and on the way two tents for the sale of refreshments stood invitingly open. Loads of hay on sleds were drawn nearly straight from Spectacle Island to the town.

The ice formed so solidly around some mills that they could not be operated, as at Byfield parish in Newbury, where Pearson’s mill was stopped from February 3 to March 31, and the people of Newbury had to go to Salisbury to get their meagre grists of corn ground.

The reign of cold seemed to be broken on January 10, when the weather moderated and a thaw began; but it continued only three days, and the low temperature was resumed.

Not only was the winter severe in temperature, but great snows came until, in the estimation of the people then living, taking it as a whole, it was the most rigorous season that had been experienced here since the first settlement. There were twenty-seven snow storms in all, most of them of good size. February 3, nearly a foot of snow fell, and about a week later there were two more storms, which filled the roads in Newbury, Mass., and vicinity to the tops of the fences, and in some places the snow lay to the depth of from eight to ten feet. On April 4, the fences were still covered, and three days later another foot of snow fell. In the woods it was then four feet deep on the level; and there were drifts on the islands off Dorchester, Mass., not quite melted on May 3. The snow remained so long that the spring was very backward; and when the ground was ready for planting, the farmers were almost discouraged, thinking of the failure of the corn crop the year before.

The Historic Winter of 1747-48.

THE old people of to-day think that we do not have as severe winters as they had when they were in their youth, and they certainly have good reasons for such conclusions. The winter of 1747-48 was one of the memorable winters that used to be talked about by our grandfathers when the snow whirled above deep drifts around their half-buried houses. There were about thirty snow storms, and they came storm after storm until the snow lay four or five feet deep on the level, making travelling exceedingly difficult. On the twenty-second of February, snow in the woods measured four and onehalf feet; and on the twenty-ninth there was no getting about except on snow shoes.

There seems to have been more snow in Essex County, Mass., than in other parts of New England, and it came there very early in the season. On December 14, it had become so deep, and the wind blew it so fiercely that John Bowles was smothered to death on the Neck at Salem.

There is an incident connected with this winter’s weather which will fix it in the minds of readers. In the west parish of Newbury, on majestic Crane Neck hill, lived a family by the name of Dole, their little son, but six years old, lay sick with a fever as the storms of December raged, and on the twenty-second of the month he died.

“Their kindred slept a mile or two away,
The snow lay deep in drifts upon the ground,
The roads unbroken no one could discern,
Twas hill and vale of deep untrodden snow.
‘Where should the little boy belaid to rest?’
Was asked by anxious hearts. ‘He must lie there,
Where generations gone beneath the sod
Repose in peace, beneath the hallowed ground,’
Was answered by the father.

“Across the fields And pastures, down through the vale they started The saddest Christmas morn they yet had known. They soon stopped, the horses wallowing deep Were fastened in the snow. Now on again They move, but in a moment more they stop, They start and stop, and start and stop again, And fail to gain upon their funeral way. Discouraged in his vain attempts to reach The sacred burial-place so far away, The father said, ‘We cannot further go; Let us bury our dead here where we are.’ And there beneath the deep snow they laid him Alone upon the valley’s broad expanse, Then turned their faces back to their lone home, From which the light had gone, no more to shine At least on earth.

“Around the little grave others laid their dead, till in that lowland scores lay buried. To-day it is a place where antiquarians love to wander; And hunting round for the oldest gravestone they find this one of Micah Dole’s, whose date is seventeen hundred forty-seven, And looking farther down they read that he was first of all to lie upon that lea.”

The Historic Snow Storms of December, 1786.

THE winter of 1786-87 set in very early. At Warren, in Maine, on the fourteenth of November the St. George’s river was frozen so hard and thick that the ice bore horses and sleighs as far down as Watson’s Point, and on the following day to the mouth of the stream. It did not break up until the latter part of the following March. The sloop Warren, lying at the wharf in Thomaston and loading with a cargo for the West Indies, was frozen in and compelled to remain there all through the winter. By the twentieth of November, the harbor of Salem, Mass., was frozen over as far out as Naugus Head; and the Connecticut river was congealed so quickly that, at Middletown in that state, within twenty-four hours after boats passed over it the ice had become strong enough to bear heavy weights and people were driving on it with their horses and sleighs. Frozen into the river were between thirty and forty vessels that had been prepared for their voyages, the masters expecting to sail before the river was closed by ice. The month of December was unusually severe, and snow storms came frequently and terrifically, great quantities of snow covering the earth to a depth that impeded travel in all portions of the country. The remainder of the winter was also severe, and in the vicinity of Rockland, Me., snow remained on the ground as late as April 10, so deep and hard-crusted that teams passed over the fences in every direction without obstruction.

The first storm in the month of December began about noon on Monday, the fourth. The weather was very cold, and during the forenoon a piercing northeast wind blew. About noon snow-flakes began to fall, and they increased in number so fast that soon a blinding snow storm was raging in all its fury. The strong wind brought in the tide, until it became one of the highest that was ever experienced on our coast. On the salt marshes, stacks of hay were lifted from the staddles and floated away, most of them never being recovered, while much that was saved was so wet that it was worthless as fodder. On the marshes of Rowley, Mass., hundreds of tons of hay were floated across the river and marshes to the lee shore of Ipswich, most of it being lost. The storm continued all Monday night, through the next day and until another evening, without intermission, so much snow falling that it lay six feet deep in Boston. The newspapers of that time said that it was as severe a snow storm as had been experienced for several years.

The tide was so high on Tuesday that at Boston the water overflowed the “pier” to the depth of several inches and entered the stores on the lower part of it, greatly damaging the sugar, salt and other articles that were in them. The wharves generally were overflowed, and from them quantities of wood and lumber were floated away.

Several vessels were expected to arrive in Boston at the time of the storm, and their owners and the families of the crews were very anxious concerning them. They all, however, afterward came safely into port, with the exception of two or three that were wrecked. One of these was the brig Lucretia, Captain Powell, master, owned by Messrs. Boiling and Sharp of New Haven. She had come from St. Croix, had weathered the storm during Monday night and reached the entrance to Boston harbor when, about nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, in the violent wind and blinding storm she ran on Point Shirley. There were eleven persons on board When the vessel struck, Mr. Kilby the mate, two of the crew, a Mr. Sharp, who was a merchant, and a negro jumped into the foam, at the risk of losing their lives in the terrible surf, and succeeded in reaching the shore. They travelled through the deep snow and endeavored to find one of the houses on the point; but being exhausted by their terrible struggle with the waves they were not able to battle with the storm, and they perished in the snow. Captain Powell and the five men who remained on the brig continued there until the storm abated, when they made their way to the shore in safety. The vessel was so strained and racked that it was bilged, but the cargo was saved. Mr. Sharp’s body was brought to Boston, and his funeral was held at the American Coffee House, on State street, at four o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday of the following week, it being attended by a large number of the merchants of Boston and other people.

On Monday night, the sloop Thomas, from Baltimore, which was commanded by Jonathan Smith, was wrecked on Marshfield beach, and the captain and mate were frozen to death before assistance could come to them. The cargo was saved, but the vessel was cracked so much that it was bilged.

A day or two before the storm a sloop, owned by Jacob Curtis, sailed from Arundel, on the coast of Maine, for Salem; and on Tuesday, in the violent snow storm, was driven on Plum Island and wrecked. There were only three persons on board, and two of them, Mr. Curtis and Benjamin Jeffries, died from the effects of the cold. Mr. Curtis left a wife and eight children who deeply felt the loss of the husband and father of whom they were in so much need. Mr. Jeffries was about twenty-two years of age and unmarried. The survivor of the crew was severely frozen, but after good treatment and months of suffering he recovered. On the next day, the bodies of the lost mariners were found under a stack of hay and brought to Newburyport, where a jury held an inquest. The remains were properly interred on the following Friday afternoon.

Among the several incidents of this storm is one that is curious and interesting. Where the river which flows down through the marshes of Rowley, Mass., empties into Plum Island sound, is a tract of upland known as Hog Island, on which at the time of this storm was a hut belonging to Samuel Pulsifer and Samuel Elwell, both of Rowley. They had gone down the river on Monday morning with the intention of spending the night there, a practice which has ever since been common among the people of the towns bordering on the marshes. Fresh, succulent clams constitute the principal food of such excursionists and these men had been digging their supply on the flats of the sound off the island during the forenoon. After obtaining the quantity they desired they returned to the house. The snow storm had already begun, and it increased so rapidly that they concluded to give up the idea of staying there in such a storm as appeared to be beginning and return to their homes. The tide was now low, and they started across the marshes and creeks, but soon lost their way in the blinding storm. Finding no landmarks to direct them across the level marshes that stretched away for miles, they wandered about for some time, bewildered and tired. At length they found a stack of dry hay in which they dug a hole, and concluded to encamp therein until the storm should be over in the morning. They passed the night as well as the circumstances and severe cold would permit. At length morning came, but the storm had not abated. It still raged as fiercely as when darkness closed in upon the marshes the night before. To their astonishment, the men found the tide had risen so high that it wet the hay around the place in the stack where they had spent the night, and they were obliged to go to the top of the stack to keep above the water. They began to consider the new dangers of their situation, which had become truly alarming. How much higher would the water rise, and would their weight be sufficient to keep the stack upon the staddles if the water rose much higher, were questions which arose in their minds, and they had but slight expectations that the result would be in their favor. The questions were soon answered. A huge cake of ice struck the stack, jarring it off the staddles, and it floated away with its human freight through the sea that was raging around them. The snow was falling so thickly and the clouds were so heavy and dark that they could see nothing but the water that covered the marshes. The points of the compass were entirely unascertainable, and they could not tell the course in which they were being driven. Around them only the turbulent waters could be seen. Sometimes they went directly forward, and at intervals the stack whirled around, threatening every time to go to pieces or throw them from it into the freezing waters where they would become benumbed and quickly perish by drowning. At length, with horror, they felt the stack suddenly disintegrate beneath them. But their hopelessness was turned to joy as another stack of hay, large and solid, came along so near to them that they leaped upon it. They were driven along on this new stack, exposed to the extreme cold, snow and wind, and the water which continually dashed upon them, for two hours longer. During their inactivity they became almost stupefied with the cold, and began to feel sleepy. In this semi-conscious condition they chanced to look about them and saw land only about four rods away. Toward this the wind had driven them. Between them and the land were cakes of ice, which hindered the stack from approaching nearer the shore. The place was Smith’s cove, so-called, at Little Neck, in Ipswich, situated between three and four miles from the place where the men were set adrift on the first stack. They made no exertion to get ashore, but lay there a considerable time. After a while, they discovered that they were being carried out to sea by the wind and tide. This brought them to their sense of self-preservation. Mr. Pulsifer immediately threw himself upon the ice and advised his companion to do the same. Mr. Elwell was so stupefied with the cold that it seemed impossible for him to ever reach the land; but after considerable endeavor he managed to get on a floating cake and reached the shore in safety. Mr. Pulsifer succeeded in getting near enough to the shore to touch the bottom with his feet; but his legs were so benumbed by the cold that he could not step. For a while it seemed that he must die though only a rod from the shore; but before it was too late he conceived the idea of moving his legs ahead one at a time by his hands, as if they had been sticks. By this means he reached the land safely. Now they felt themselves saved, and the thought of their preservation invigorated their faculties. They ran a few rods to get warm and recover the full use of their limbs. But where were they? They had not given a thought to the location of the land where they were. The fact that it was the solid earth was enough to satisfy them for the first few moments they were upon it. Probably they had but a faint conception of the distance and direction they had been driven while on the stacks of hay. On looking about they found that they were on an uninhabited island, and though the mainland was not far away it was impossible to reach it. They must either freeze or starve to death if they remained where they were. They found a stack of dry hay and into that they crept for warmth. At length, they came out and went upon the highest part of the island and with what strength of voice they had they shouted for help, that being the only thing they could do. After a while a man was seen on the mainland by Mr. Pulsifer, and feeling that by him was a way of escape from their dangerous situation they made a vigorous demonstration; but in vain, the man unheeding passed out of sight. They now became utterly discouraged, and death seemed to be their inevitable lot. They had had nothing to eat for about two days, and the pangs of hunger intensified their hopelessness. Their hopes again revived, however, when three quarters of an hour later Maj. Charles Smith of Ipswich, with his two sons, came within sight of the island in search of some stray sheep. One of the men stood upon the stack of hay, waved his hat, and hallooed for assistance. One of Major Smith’s sons saw him and the father, who knew of a causeway leading to the island which was then covered with water about a yard deep, waded through it to the place where the men were. They were assisted to Major Smith’s house, which was some little distance away, and he provided them with everything necessary to their comfort. On Thursday they returned to their homes, thankful that their lives which had several times seemed lost were preserved.

 On the night of Friday of the same week another terrible snow storm with a furious northeast wind began. It continued through the next day, increasing as night came on, and abated Sunday morning. The snow was already very deep, and this storm so increased its depth that it was estimated at this time there was more snow on the ground than there was in the winter of the great snow, seventy years before. Travelling was extremely difficult and in many places it was totally stopped. In Boston, on the day following that on which the storm had cleared off, a number of people were employed in “levelling” the snow in the streets, and the next day the Massachusetts Gazette of the time said, “It is hoped they and many others will turn out this day for the same laudable and necessary purpose.” Up to this period the roads and streets were not cleared of snow, except in a few unimportant instances, and they remained in the condition in which the storm left them, whether the snow came on a level or in drifts. And it would seem that even in Boston it was unusual for the people to remove, level or path the snow. The roads were completely filled from wall to wall throughout New England. The people could not get to the churches on Sunday on account of the great drifts, and so of course no religious services were held.

This was one of the most difficult storms to withstand that was ever experienced. Several persons who were out in it became lost and were smothered to death in the snow, or, becoming exhausted, sank down and perished with the cold. A man living near Portland, Me., left that place for his home and was never again heard from, it being supposed that he died on the way.

On Saturday evening, Thomas Hooper and Valentine Tidder, jr., of Marblehead, Mass., who had been in Salem during the afternoon, started in the storm on the return home about dark. They did not come, and it was supposed by their families and friends that they had forborne risking their lives in the cold and snow, remaining at Salem over night and that when the storm abated and travelling became practicable they would return in safety. But before the storm had cleared, news came that the men had been seen in the evening on their way to Marblehead. Then their families knew that there was but little chance of their being alive, for if they had reached Marblehead they would have come home. A searching party, consisting of a large number of their townsmen, was formed and during Monday they searched the snow in the road over which the men would be most likely to travel on their way home; but night came, and they had not been found. The search was renewed on the following morning, and this time it was successful, the bodies being found in the fields at some distance from the road and apart, as if the men had become separated and wandered from each other. The funeral of one of them took place on Thursday and of the other on the Friday following. Mr. Hooper left a wife and a large number of children, and Mr. Tidder, who was considerably younger than Mr. Hooper, left parents and a wife and child. The bereaved were very deeply affected by the sad and sudden deaths.

A sadder case than the foregoing occurred on the same evening at Litchfield, Conn. The storm was very severe there, the snow came in great quantities, and the wind blew a gale. A man by the name of Elisha Birge lived in a house which was so old and decayed that his wife Mary, who was naturally timid, thought it could not withstand the tempest. She was afraid to remain in it through the night, and on this Saturday evening, in spite of her husband’s persuasions, started out to go to a neighbor’s to spend the night. She soon lost her way in the blinding storm and wandered about in the cold and whirling snow, floundering in the great drifts until she knew not where she was. She had not been gone long when her husband repented letting her go off on her hazardous journey alone and started after her. He soon overtook her, and together they tried to find the house she sought. But after wandering about for some time in their fruitless search, she sat down by the trunk of an ancient tree to rest. Mr. Birge suggested that they had mistaken the road and urged her to return. She made no reply, and looking at her he discovered that she had fallen asleep, cold and exhaustion having taken away her senses. He tried to arouse her from her stupor, but it was too late, and she expired in his arms.

The storm was very severe along the coast. In Long Island sound, many vessels went ashore, and some were entirely lost. All the vessels at Stonington, Conn., were driven ashore, except a small schooner which was forced out to sea and never heard from. At Newport, R. I., ten or twelve ships, brigs and other vessels of the larger build were driven from the wharves and forced on shore at Brenton’s Neck, and a considerable number of small craft were dashed to pieces. A small schooner bound from Freetown to Newport foundered, and several people that were on board were drowned. Two sloops went ashore at Nantasket beach, and a small schooner was cast away at or near Cape Ann, its crew perishing.

A sloop, engaged in coasting between Damariscotta and Boston, Capt. John Askins, master, was driven on Lovell’s island in Boston harbor. There were thirteen [A later report said that there were fifteen, and that thirteen of them were lost, but failed to give the names of the other two] persons on board, twelve men and one woman, all of whom perished. Their bodies were found, and on the Thursday following brought up to town. Besides the captain, the persons lost were John Adams (or Adamson) of Medfield, two young men by the name of Cowell, a Mr. Grout of Sherburne, Samuel Ham of Durham, N. H., Miss Sylvia Knapp of Mansfield, Henry Read of Boothbay, Joseph Robeshaw of Wrentham, two men by the name of Rockwood, Capt. Oliver Rouse and a sailor belonging in Nova Scotia, whose name is unknown. All the bodies were soon found except those of Captain Rouse and John Adams, which were not discovered until the second day of January, more than three weeks after the disaster, when they were dug out of the snow and brought up to the town. Adams was buried the same day, under the direction of the coroner. Captain Rouse had been an officer in the American army in the revolution, and his body was conveyed to the house of his friend John McLane, on Newbury street, whence the interment took place on the evening of Sunday, the next day. The next year the Massachusetts Humane Society erected on this island a small house for the relief of shipwrecked mariners. It stood on the northwest side of the island, about sixty rods from the shore.

On Cape Cod, a schooner, belonging to Boston, Captain Godfrey, master, while on a trip from the eastward, was driven ashore, and all on board perished. On Sunday morning, the schooner Nancy of Salem, Mass., Captain Fairfield, master, bound from Port-au-Prince to her home port, was also cast ashore there, about three miles from Province town. The storm was so terrific that the waves washed over the deck and filled the cabin and hold, and the men were obliged to leave the wreck at ten o’clock in the evening. In the deep snow they travelled all night in search of shelter, but in vain. Eastick Cook of Salem perished in the search with the cold, and the limbs of the rest were much frozen. In the morning the other men returned to the place of the wreck, and found several persons there, they having observed the vessel and come down to it to render what assistance they could to the needy mariners, if they were still alive. They treated them very humanely and furnished them with clothes from their own backs, affording them every assistance in their power. The vessel was wholly lost, but the cargo was saved.

A coasting sloop, Capt. Samuel Robbins, master, bound to Plymouth, sailed from Long wharf, Boston harbor, between one and two o’clock on Saturday morning, it being deemed that the impending storm would not be very severe. There were several passengers, who with the crew made the number on board sixteen, among whom was Rev. Mr. Robbins of Plymouth. When they started the wind was blowing from the northeast, but after they had sailed about six miles beyond the harbor light it veered to the east-northeast, the heavens suddenly grew dark, and a squall of snow set in. They concluded to return to the harbor, and endeavored to do so, but the compass being out of order they could not find the harbor light again in the blinding snow. After sailing in what they supposed to be the right direction for about half an hour it was thought to be very hazardous to proceed further toward land, and the sloop was again headed in the opposite direction. The storm increased until the wind blew with great violence, splitting the mainsail, and with extreme difficulty they kept off the shore until morning. They hoped that daylight would bring some one to their rescue, but such a hope had no fruition. They could not discover land. It seemed that the only probable means of saving any of their lives was to run the vessel ashore, and at about eight o’clock in the morning it was solemnly agreed to do so, though they knew not where they were. The reader can, perhaps, imagine the thoughts that now came into their minds. There was but slight hope of being saved, and death seemed to be certain. As one of them afterward said, “Heaven appeared for us!” The order was given to run ashore, and a solemn and awful interval of ten minutes elapsed before the vessel struck. Each one gave himself up for lost. They had reached the border line of time and must immediately appear before their Maker. They saw the terrible breakers on shore, and the faint-hearted among them grew pale and weak as they gazed at them,— ” dread harbingers of their approaching destiny.” A shudder ran through their already chilled bodies and hearts when the helmsman (though mistaken) cried out, ” Nothing but rocks! The Lord have mercy on us, not a single life to be saved.” A minute later the sloop struck upon a sand-bar and was carried over to a point within two hundred feet of the shore. When the vessel stopped, her boom suddenly broke and fell upon the deck among the people, but fortunately only one person was injured, and that one but slightly. Thinking that the sloop would beat to pieces in a very short time, the boat belonging to it was immediately gotten out and by means of a long warp, one end fastened to the boat and the other to the vessel, the people reached the boat in safety. By making three trips, every person safely reached the shore. The success of the undertaking, considering its dangerous nature, the surf being heavy and the undertow exceedingly powerful, was almost wonderful. They found themselves on the beach at the northern end of the Gurnet peninsula, several miles from any human settlement. Though wet and cold, they travelled about to keep from freezing, being perfectly ignorant of the locality. The storm became more severe, and the cold seemed to be driven through their very vitals by the piercing wind. After all but two of them had been travelling about a mile in a northerly direction, as they thought, at about eleven o’clock in the forenoon they found a small hut that had been erected by some gunners as a temporary residence. In it they discovered a loaded gun, by means of which they made a fire ; and but for this some of them at least must have perished. The others of the shipwrecked company upon landing took an opposite course in quest of shelter, and at length arrived at the Gurnet lighthouse. One of the assistants there was despatched to seek the other members of the company. He came to the hut, found them and told them where they were, offering to conduct them to the house. All but five, who spent the succeeding night in the hut, seeking rest before travelling so far, set out with him. They travelled in the whole a distance of nearly seven miles, in the violent snow storm, for five hours on the desolate beach, suffering from inexpressible fatigue and being wet, cold and hungry, some of them having eaten nothing for more than twenty hours. They all, finally, arrived at the friendly house of Mr. Burgiss on the Gurnet, where they received every attention and kindness that compassion and generous hospitality could afford, until means were obtained for their safe return home.

The Historic Long Storm of November, 1798.

THE long and severe winter of 1798-99 began on the morning of Saturday, the seventeenth of November, 1798, with one of the severest snow storms that has ever been known in New England. On Sunday it became quite moderate, and for a time appeared to be clearing off, but when night came on the snow began to fall fast again, and the wind blew from the northeast with the force of a gale. The storm continued all day Monday and Tuesday and until the night of Wednesday, when the weather cleared, the wind ceased to blow and the snow to fall.

The great quantity of snow that fell was unprecedented so early in the winter, and in but few instances had the settlers experienced such a snow storm during any part of the year. The mail carriers, or postboys, as they were called, were obliged to ride through fields for miles at a time, the roads being impassable in all parts of the country. The snow was so deep that in some places where the highways had been shovelled out the banks of snow on both sides of the road were so high that men on horseback could not look over them. Many houses were so deeply buried in the snow that the families which lived in them found it very difficult to make an egress without tunnelling through the drifts.

The snow fell so densely, and the wind blew so terrifically, that great damage was done to the vessels along our coast. One of them that sailed from one of the northern ports for the West Indies a few days before the storm began was commanded by Captain Hammond. He was in the height of the storm off Cape Cod, and though his was one of the vessels that weathered the gale he was nearly driven on shore, all but one of about forty horses that formed part of the cargo perishing on the deck. As soon as it was possible the vessel returned to the port from which it had sailed.

Many vessels were wrecked on the Cape, and seven of them went to pieces, all the people on board being lost. The bodies of twentyfive of the men who lost their lives here in this storm washed ashore, were found and buried. One of the ill-fated vessels was the schooner Rachel, of one hundred tons burden, nearly new, and commanded by Capt. John Simpson of Frenchman’s bay, Sullivan, Maine, who was then about thirty-five years of age. He was the sole owner of the craft. With a cargo of lumber he sailed from Sullivan for Salem, Mass., about the middle of the month, his crew consisting of William Abbot, mate, Zachariah Hodgkins, Stephen Merchant, and James Springer. There was also on board a passenger, Paul D. Sargent, a young son of Paul D. Sargent of Sullivan, who was on his way to attend a school in Salem during the winter. As far as Herring-gut harbor, St. George, Maine, they kept company with another schooner, which bore the name of Diana, whose commander was a brother of Captain Simpson. The weather had then become quite threatening, and the wind began to blow very strongly from the northeast. The two schooners were so near each other at this time that their captains discussed the situation. They were of diverse opinions, and the result was that the Diana made a harbor, while the Rachel kept on its way before the wind, its captain believing that the strong breeze would enable him to reach his destined port before the storm should come upon them. His calculations proved to be erroneous, for he had accomplished but a small part of the distance when

“The black clouds the face of heaven defined,
The whistling wind soon ripened to a storm,
The waves tremendous roared, and billows rolled.”

Snow began to fall, and blasts from the northeast swept the craft on through the blinding storm. Fearing the wind would drive them ashore they steered away from the land as far as possible, and though the general line of the Massachusetts coast was cleared they did not escape the sandy peninsula of Cape Cod, that great arm of the Commonwealth that is thrust out into the sea as if to grasp the vessels as they pass. With many others the schooner was driven upon the beach a short distance below where the Highland lighthouse at Truro stands, between the second and third sand hills. Every person on board was lost, all their bodies being found, some on the wreck and the rest on the beach. That of the captain was easily recognized by his clothing and the articles found in his pockets. The young passenger was identified by his apparel, which was better than that of the crew. Many little things belonging to the captain were found, carefully preserved and forwarded to his family. There were among them a small trunk covered with sealskin, also a pearl-handled pocket-knife and a small handkerchief, the latter having been put into his pocket by his five year-old daughter the day he sailed from home. The bodies of the drowned were all tenderly interred in the old cemetery at North Truro, where there has been erected to their memory a tablet of fine Italian marble set in a base of granite, quarried near Captain Simpson’s home in Sullivan.

The brig Hope, commanded by Capt. James Hooper, sailing from Demerara, British Guiana, South America, was off the coast when the storm commenced. A harbor could not be made, and at length the gale came on so terrifically that they were in the utmost danger. They cut away their mainmast and dropped both their anchors, but were still driven before the blast. Fearful that they would run upon some rocky shore and be dashed to pieces, the captain and his crew left the vessel and embarked in an open boat, hoping that it would live among the furious billows. They were then about six miles from the nearest lighthouse in the direction of which they sailed, and finally reached a harbor in safety. After they left the brig it parted both cables, and at last was driven upon the beach at Hampton, N. H. The seamen remained at the place where they were until the storm was over and they had learned the fate of their vessel, when the captain with the owners went to Hampton, where the brig was found high on the beach in an upright position. Its hull had suffered but very little damage, and the cargo, consisting of rum, coffee and sugar, was but slightly injured.

The Great Snow Storm of February, 1802.

THE winter of 1801-02 was very mild, the month of January being so warm that on the twenty-fourth, the ice on the Merrimac river began to move down the stream, and on the twenty-eighth, at Salem, Mass., the thermometer indicated sixty degrees above zero. It was the warmest January that the people remembered. There had been but little snow, and they congratulated themselves upon the pleasant winter and the prospect of an early spring.

On Sunday, the twenty-first of February, the aspect of the weather wholly changed. The first part of the day was remarkably pleasant, but the wind soon changed to the northeast, and a fierce snow storm came on. The storm continued for nearly a week, covering the earth with snow and sleet to the depth of several feet. Intense cold prevailed, which produced much suffering among all classes, and caused the sleet to freeze upon the snow, forming a crust so hard and thick that the people, not distinguishing the location of the roads, drove in their sleighs across lots over fences and walls. Hon. Bailey Bartlett, Ichabod Tucker and several others of Haverhill, Mass., drove from that place to Ipswich, a distance of sixteen miles, in a large double sleigh upon the crust of snow across fields and pastures. The mail carriers were also greatly interrupted in the performance of their duties.

This was one of the winters to which the old folks of two generations ago were wont to refer, when no roads were broken out, and the farmers dragged their grists of corn on hand sleds upon the crust of the snow across fields, through woods and over fences and walls to the mills to get it ground.

The storm proved very disastrous to the vessels along the coast of Massachusetts. A schooner came ashore at Plum island, and a brig and a sloop were cast away at Cape Ann. On Chelsea beach a ship and a schooner were wrecked. The brig Eliza, commanded by Captain Ricker and owned in Berwick, Maine, while on its trip from Demerara to Boston, by way of the Vineyard, was driven on shore near the place of its destination on Monday, the twenty-second. Two schooners were also cast ashore at the same time and place, one of them being from Havana and bound to Salem, and the other belonging in Marblehead. Fortunately, no lives were lost from either vessel. Two pilot boats belonging to Messrs. Cole and Knox were driven ashore in the bay at Braintree, and a schooner, bound from Halifax to Boston, was wrecked on Cohasset rocks, one or more of the crew perishing. At Marshfield, the ship Florenzo, commanded by Captain Ham, bound from St. Ubes to Portsmouth, N. H., by the way of New York, was driven on shore, a pilot, whose services they had secured at the Vineyard, and three of the crew being lost. Cape Cod, however, was the scene of the principal shipwrecks, among them being that of a schooner from Martinico, which was driven ashore at Sandwich, her crew and cargo of molasses being saved.

Fifty years ago, the storm was best remembered by the people living on Cape Cod, on account of the wrecks there of three East-Indiamen, from the port of Salem, Mass. They were all full-rigged ships, and were named Ulysses, Brutus and Volusia, being commanded by Captains James Cook, William Brown and Samuel Cook, respectively. The first two were owned by G. Crowninshield and sons, and the other by Israel Williams and others of Salem. On that lovely Sunday morning, the three vessels proudly passed down the harbor of Salem, the Brutus and Ulysses being bound to Bordeaux, in France, and the Volusia to a port in the Mediterranean. A few hours after their departure, snow began to fall, the temperature descended very quickly, and before the next morning dawned, the wind blew a gale.

The storm came on so suddenly and was so furious that the people in Salem, to many of whose families the officers and crews belonged, were anxious to learn something from the vessels, and their owners also were interested as the ships and their cargoes were valuable. The first information that was received indicated that all the vessels and their crews were lost. Gloom rested upon the faces of the people as they conversed about the probable accuracy of the report.

“There is waiting, anxious waiting, for the tidings of the missing— And tearful eyes are looking in sadness to the shore;
And the mother’s heart is aching as the child she’s fondly kissing
Whispers softly from its cradle,’ Will papa come no more?'”

They were kept in suspense several days, and not till the fourth of March did they begin to learn the particulars of the great disaster that had come to the vessels and their crews. The story has been told thousands of times around the hearth-fires of a past generation, always being listened to with great interest. A warm summer-like day in February would bring the tale to the minds of those who remembered how lovely that quiet Sunday was, and what a terrible storm of snow, sleet and wind immediately followed.

At sunset on that beautiful day, the ships were about ten miles south-southeasterly from the Thatcher-island lighthouse at Cape Ann, the wind was blowing lightly from the southeast, and all three vessels were sailing together toward the east northeast. Snow began to fall soon after, and a storm seemed to have begun. During the latter part of the evening the captains spoke each other, and discussed the situation. Had they better return and wait until suitable weather came, or push out to sea as fast as possible? They finally concluded to continue on the voyage, and turning their prows toward the east added to their sail. They made but very little progress, however, as the breeze was so light it had but slight effect upon the canvas, and at times seemed to leave them entirely. They continued together until midnight, when the snow fell faster and the wind grew strong, having suddenly changed to the northeast. The weather had now become so threatening that the captain of the Volusia regretted that he had consented to continue on the voyage, and at half past two in the morning, concluding to risk the trip no farther, he put about on his return to Salem. The other vessels were so far from him that he could not see them, and he therefore started back without informing them of his change of mind and course.

Before the Volusia could reach Cape Ann, the snow fell so thickly, and the wind blew so hard that it was found impossible to enter the harbor. Thwarted in their design they were now under the disheartening necessity of running before the wind, and endeavoring to keep the ship away from the dangerous coast. With reefed top-sails they managed to do this through the early morning hours and most of the forenoon, though the wind was blowing a gale from the east-northeast. At eleven o’clock they saw land to the leeward, which was immediately recognized as Cape Cod, whose perilous shores they knew full well. They saw that it was almost impossible to weather the cape, and that the only thing they could do would be to tack and try to run into the cape harbor. Just then the wind parted the fore-top-sail sheet and tore the sail into shreds, at the same time carrying away the slings of the fore-yard, which brought the yard down on deck, and rendered the head sails useless. Their hope of reaching the harbor was now utterly gone. They could do nothing but let the vessel drive on shore, and if they succeeded in reaching it all would be well; but how little hope any of the men had that they would survive the terrible breakers and the powerful undertow. They had spent their lives on the ocean and knew how slight their chance of preservation was. They thought of Salem, of their homes, their wives and children, that they would probably never see again, and they seemed to love them all then with an affection that was a thousand-fold stronger than they had ever felt before. Kindred thoughts filled their minds during the ten minutes that elapsed before the ship struck the bar, about a mile from the shore, off Truro near the Peaked hills. The crew had already cut away the mizzen-mast, and now the main lanyards were severed, and the main-mast fell over the side of the ship. After a short time the vessel beat over the bar, and was driven quite near the shore. Hope came to them again. They knew at what time of the day low-tide would occur, and so they patiently waited until the afternoon when the tide was at the lowest point. Many of the inhabitants of the cape had gathered on the beach, and with their assistance the land was successfully reached by the entire crew. The vessel and part of the cargo were also saved, although much damaged.

Let us now return to the Brutus and the Ulysses that the Volusia left in the night, plowing their way oceanward in the storm. The Volusia had left them at half-past two in the midnight darkness of the early morning, they not being aware of what had become of her. An hour later the captains of the two vessels spoke each other, and now agreed that the safest plan would be to tack to the north-northwest till daylight came, and then endeavor to run out of the south channel. They accordingly changed their course, and continued in the proposed direction until six o’clock. The Brutus then turned to the southeast, but the Ulysses headed for Cape Ann as the Volusia had done earlier in the morning. Captain Cook of the Ulysses kept his course until eight o’clock, then brought the ship round and stood out of the bay, under as much canvas as she could possibly carry. The gale increased, and they were obliged to reduce the amount of sail in the afternoon. At five o’clock they sighted the highlands of Cape Cod, and immediately tacked to the westward. The sky was dark and gloomy, the snow was falling thickly and the wind blew with so great fury that the only canvas the ship could carry were her foresail and mizzen-top sails. They did not dare to expect that they would weather the shoals, and thought they must strike immediately. The waves dashed over the deck carrying away from the bows one of the anchors, and more than an hour was spent in heaving it into place again. At ten o’clock in the evening the ship struck on the bar at the northern pitch of Cape Cod. The bowsprit and foremast were soon carried away by the wind and waves, and the main-mast, the mizzen-mast, the boats and everything on the deck followed a few moments later. The hull only remained, and the crew fled to the cabin for protection. The ship lay thumping upon the bar but a few minutes, when some gigantic waves lifted it over, and carried it toward the beach. There they remained all night in almost utter hopelessness. The ship had bilged, and the men watched it fill with water until the floor of the cabin was covered. Their situation was now most serious, as the vessel was filling with water and they were far from shore. Before morning dawned, the tide had reached its extreme ebb, and the ship was happily left on the beach, near the water’s edge, only about a mile from the wreck of the Volusia. The crew easily reached the shore, and received assistance from some of the people of Provincetown. A part of the cargo was saved, though it was much damaged, but the vessel finally went to pieces.

When the Brutus separated from the Ulysses at six o’clock on Monday morning, it changed its course to the southeast, carrying all the sail it possibly could. It weathered the gale all through that day, but was constantly driven shoreward. During the day Andrew Herron, who belonged in Salem, while engaged in reefing the foresail was blown from the yard, and fell, being instantly killed. He was a foreigner by birth, and a prudent and industrious young man, who by hard labor had accumulated considerable property. He was engaged to be married to a worthy lady of Salem, who was greatly affected by his death. About eight o’clock in the evening, the^hip struck on the bar, two miles from the lighthouse and near the place where the Volusia and Ulysses came ashore. She remained on the bar some time,

and at length was lightened by throwing overboard a large part of the cargo. The waves then carried her over, and she ran upon the beach. The mizzen-mast was now cut away, and a few moments later the main-mast also. Hardly had this been done, when the crew were horrified to discover that the ship was parting in the middle. They must get on shore immediately, or perish in the waves. But how could they reach the land? Fortunately, the main-mast had fallen toward the beach, and on that they crawled as far as they could, Captain Brown bravely leading the way. He was the first man to get on shore. The two mates followed, and then came the seamen. All but one man, George Pierce of Marblehead, reached the beach in safety. He was overcome by the terrible waves, and drowned. The men were wet and cold and exhausted, and it seemed to be as fatal to remain on the beach as to have staid on the vessel. Something must be done for their preservation immediately. They determined to keep in a body, and if possible to cross the neck of land and seek a place of shelter. This was the coldest night of the winter, the temperature being below zero, and the strong northeast wind pierced them through and through. Captain Brown was very thinly clothed, having lost his thickest garment as he left the ship. He soon succumbed to the intense cold and the fatiguing march through the deep snow, which was too exhausting for his weak limbs to continue further. Mr. Ruee, the first mate, and the other seamen tenderly assisted him as well as they could, but they could not rally his waning strength and will. When they had reached the western side of the bay, about a mile from Provincetown, between that town and Truro, the captain gave up entirely, and soon after expired. It was now nearly midnight. One by one the men began to give out, Jacob Ayers of Manchester, the second mate, a worthy and promising young man, being one of the first to perish in the snow. Soon after, several others of the crew, becoming exhausted, dropped into the drifts, and froze to death. The survivors travelled about, not knowing whither they went, till about four o’clock in the morning (Tuesday), when they discovered a lighthouse. The party was now reduced to five persons only. They had wandered about, back and forth, in the course of the night, more than twenty miles. With limbs stiffened by cold and fatigue, they were just able to drag themselves to a small house situated in the vicinity of the lighthouse. They made their presence known to the people within, who opened wide their doors, and assisted the wretched mariners to enter. Here the sufferers received the most humane treatment. Search was immediately begun for those who had fallen in the snow during the night, but not one of them was saved. Had the wrecked seamen varied their course either to the right or left, they would have seen either the town of Truro or Provincetown, and probably fewer of them would have been lost. One of the men, Benjamin Ober, who belonged in Manchester, was found buried in the sand and snow, after having been there for thirty-six hours, being all that time in his full senses, and perceiving people continually passing near him, but powerless to move his body or make the party of rescuers hear his feeble voice. At length he held up his hand through the snow, and a boy saw it. Willing and strong arms immediately bore him to a warm room, but it was too late to revive his feeble life, which soon ebbed away.

The following is a list of the names of the crew of the Brutus. Those that perished were William Brown of Salem, captain; Jacob Ayers of Manchester, second mate ; and Benjamin Ober of Manchester, Andrew Herron of Salem, Samuel Flagg of Andover, George Pierce of Marblehead, and three negroes belonging in Salem, named Benjamin Birch, John Lancaster and John Tucker, seamen. The five men who survived were Thomas Ruee of Salem, first mate ; and Joseph Phippen, jr., Robert Martin and William Rowell, all of Salem, and Daniel Potter of Marblehead, seamen. The bodies of those that perished were found the next day, and properly interred. Captain Brown, being found near Provincetown, was buried there, but the rest of the men having perished near Truro, were there given their last resting place. Captain Brown’s death was sincerely mourned by a large number of people, as he had been a most valuable member of society.

During an easterly storm in 1880, the waves washed away a portion of the bank where the wreck of the Brutus had lain, and under it was found the skeleton of a man, who was supposed to have been an officer of that ship. With his bones were found some silver coin, and a watch that had stopped at two o’clock, which was shortly after the hour that the wreck occurred. The author of the History of Truro adds, “The wheels of the watch and the wheels of life stood still, and had been wrapped in their sandy winding-sheet for seventy-eight years.”

Historic Storm of October, 1804.

AT about nine o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, October 9 r1 1804, the temperature fell very suddenly, and a storm of rain J and snow, accompanied by thunder and lightning, began. In the southern part of New England it rained, and in the northern portion the storm began with snow. The wind blew from the southeast until one o’clock in the afternoon, when it changed to the north-northeast, and before sunset became so powerful that it blew down houses, barns, chimneys and trees. The wind reached its height in the evening, and at midnight began to blow less violently, abating considerably before morning, though the storm of rain and snow continued until Thursday morning. People sat up all that night, fearing to retire lest their houses would blow down. Wednesday morning revealed the streets in towns encumbered with sections of fence, whole or parts of trees, and many other things that the wind could carry away ; and the country roads were everywhere obstructed with fallen trees.

In the southern portion of New England the rain fell in extraordinary quantities until the wind grew less violent, when snow began to fall, continuing all day Wednesday, that night and until the storm ended the next morning. In Vermont, the snow fell till Wednesday morning only, covering the earth to the depth of four or five inches, though along the higher lands the wind blew it into such large drifts that the roads were blocked, thus giving it the effect of a much greater storm. At Concord, N. H., the snow was nearly two feet deep, and in Massachusetts from five to fourteen inches. In the southern portion of New England it melted in a few days, but in the northern states it remained in places until the next spring.

It was the earliest snow storm that the people of eastern Massachusetts had experienced for fifty years ; and “the oldest inhabitant” did not remember so violent a storm occurring there before. It did not reach far either north or south, but was felt inland beyond the limits of New England.

The effect of the storm on apples and potatoes was very disastrous. The fruit was blown from the trees, and in the northern sections large quantities of potatoes that remained undug were frozen into the ground, where they were left until the next spring, being harvested after the frost was out. The storm also caused the death of large numbers of cattle and sheep, and fowls of all kinds, especially around Walpole, and at Newbury and Topsfield, Mass. At Newbury nearly a hundred cattle were killed, thirty being found dead in one section of the town. The snow also greatly damaged the fruit, shade, and ornamental trees, being so damp that it clung to the boughs and broke them down by its weight. The noise of breaking limbs of trees was continually heard in the woods.

The gale was very injurious to the pine and oak timber trees of the forests, destroying the larger portion of the best oaks that were useful in ship-building. It has been said that so many of the great oaks were destroyed that the building of vessels declined in Massachusetts, and that the great gale of 1815 brought about its entire abandonment in several places. At Thomaston, Me., a sixty-acre timber lot was almost entirely blown down. Such great sections of the woods were levelled that new landscapes and prospects were brought into view to the surprise of many people. Houses and other buildings and hills that could not be seen before from certain places were now plainly visible. The change was so great in some localities that the surroundings seemed to have become entirely different, and people felt as if they were in a strange place.

Buildings and chimneys were blown down or greatly damaged by the wind. At Danvers, Mass., the South church (now included in that part of the town which was afterward incorporated as Peabody), and also the Baptist church at the port were unroofed, the latter having one of its sides blown in and the pews torn to pieces. At the brick-yard in that town belonging to Jeremiah Page, thirty or forty thousand unburned bricks were ruined by the rain, the wind blowing so violently that no covering could be kept over them. At Beverly, the spire of the lower meeting house, as it was then called, was broken off. At Salem, the dome and belfry on the Tabernacle church were torn to pieces; and a barn belonging to a Mr. French was blown down, killing one of his truck horses. Several sheds were also blown down. Many chimneys could not withstand the blasts, and fell. The three chimneys on the ancient court house that stood in front of the Tabernacle church in the middle of Washington street, being observed to be broken near the roof and tottering as if about to fall, were pushed over before they had caused injury to any one. Among the other chimneys blown down were three on William Gray’s house in Essex street, and two on Captain Mason’s house in Vine street, one of the latter falling upon the roof of Asa Pierce’s house, which it broke through. No one in Salem suffered personal injury, fortunately. At Charlestown, the roof of the Baptist church was blown off, the spire on Rev. Dr. Morse’s church was much bent, and two large dwelling houses were demolished. A brick building in the navy yard that had recently been erected was very much injured and had to be taken down. The brick-yards there were also much damaged, many bricks being destroyed. The wharves in Boston were somewhat injured, particularly May’s, and the damage to buildings was considerable. Several new buildings were badly shaken and twisted, being so much injured that they had to be taken down and built anew. At the western part of the city, the wind blew the battlements from a new building upon the roof of an adjoining house, which was occupied by Ebenezer Eaton. Shortly before, a neighbor noticed that the battlements were giving away, and directed the attention of Mr. Eaton to it. He accordingly took his wife and children, and went to a safer place. A few minutes later the battlements fell and demolished the house, burying in its ruins the four persons who remained in it. These were a servant woman, named Bennett, who was killed, and another woman, a man and a boy, who were seriously injured. The roof was torn from the tower of King’s Chapel, and conveyed two hundred feet. The beautiful steeple on the North church fell, and demolished a house, the family that lived in it fortunately being away on a visit. While the wind was blowing very violently, a stage was upset at the bridge at the west-end, some of the passengers being considerably hurt. Houses were also damaged at Newport and Providence, R. I. The shipping was also very much injured by the wind all along the coast from Rye, N. H., to Newport, R. I. Many vessels in the harbors dragged their anchors or broke their cables, and dashed against each other or the wharves, or were driven upon lee-shores and wrecked. The lives of many seamen were lost. In Vineyard sound a sloop was upset, and all hands perished, and on the back of Cape Cod the schooner John Harris of Salem was lost with all on board. Five miles south of Cape Cod lighthouse, the ship Protector, of about five hundred tons burden, while on a trip from Boston to Lima, ran on the outer bar, about two hundred yards from the beach. This was a large vessel for those times, and was quite attractive, having yellow sides and a white figure-head. She went ashore stern first. Her bowsprit remained for some time, but the quarter deck, a part of the stern and the anchor on the larboard bow, with the boat, sails and rigging were soon washed away, some of the wreckage coming ashore. Of her cargo, which was worth a hundred thousand dollars, a considerable part was saved. One man was lost. Several vessels were driven ashore at Plymouth, and the dead body of a mariner was found on the beach and those of two others in a wreck. Vessels were driven out to sea from Marblehead, Manchester and other places and lost.

The brig Thomas of Portland was returning from a voyage to the West Indies, when she went ashore on Scituate beach. The cargo of sugar and molasses was safely landed, and the vessel was gotten off without much damage being done to it.

The sloops Hannah of North Yarmouth, Capt. Joshua Gardner, master, and Mary of New Bedford, which was commanded by Captain Sanson, drifted together out of the harbor at Cape Ann, and were driven on shore at Cohasset at about the same time. The Hannah struck on a ledge some distance from the shore on Wednesday noon at twelve o’clock, and the first sea that swept the deck carried off the master, who was drowned. Two of the men lashed themselves to the boom, and remained on deck about two hours, until the vessel went to pieces, when the boom with the men still lashed to it washed ashore. Several of the citizens of Cohasset saw the men plunging in the surf, and came to their assistance, saving them when they were nearly exhausted. The people on board the Mary were all saved, and the vessel was afterward gotten off. Three other vessels came ashore at Cohasset, and were wrecked.

At Boston, many vessels in the harbor were damaged by being forced by the wind violently against the wharves. The Laura, belonging in Gloucester and commanded by Captain Griffin, was nearly beaten to pieces at Long wharf, and her cargo was very much damaged. Many of the small craft were so blown about and strained that they bilged and sank, several of them being staved to pieces. Some of the larger vessels also bilged, and several had bowsprits, sterns and other sections broken. Cargoes were also damaged. Several men were drowned there during the gale, two being cast into the water from a boat that upset at May’s wharf, and drowned before they could be rescued. A lad was endeavoring to keep a sloop free of water near Four Point channel, but his efforts proved unsuccessful. When the vessel was sinking he clasped a plank, but was soon washed off and drowned.

The vessels in the harbor at Salem also drifted about, their anchors failing to hold them. Very few were injured, however, except two schooners, one of which drifted in from Gloucester, and the other, the Success, commanded by Captain Robbins and laden with fish, oil and lumber, put in here while on a trip from Passamaquoddy to Boston. They were both cast ashore, and damaged more than any of the others. The Success lost her anchors and her main and jib booms, and finally bilged.

Near Fresh Water cove in Gloucester, a sloop belonging in Kennebunk, laden with rum, was lost. The master and crew were saved, but a lady passenger perished. A schooner, belonging in Connecticut, with a cargo of corn, also went to pieces there, the people on board being rescued. Several other vessels were wrecked on different parts of the cape; and six large crafts there had to cut away their masts, among them being an English ship from Newfoundland. Four or five vessels were driven out of the harbor, some of them being lost, with their crews. A fleet of fishing vessels were off the northern part of the cape, and for a while the people were much concerned for their safety.

The schooner Dove, of Kittery, was wrecked on Ipswich bar, and all of the seven persons on board perished. An eastern vessel was lost on Rye beach, in New Hampshire, and a woman, who was a passenger in it, was found dead on the sand, with an infant clasped in her arms. Near Rye was also wrecked the schooner Amity, from Philadelphia, commanded by Captain Trefethern. All the people on board were saved, except a passenger named Charles Schrceder, of Philadelphia, who was drowned.

“Cold Friday” 1810.

“JANUARY 19, 1810, is the date of the famous day known in the © I annals of New England as “Cold Friday.” It was said to have been the severest day experienced here from the first settlement of the country to that time.

To this date the winter had been unusually moderate. December had been quite warm, even milder than November. Very little snow had fallen and the ground was bare in southern New England, but in New Hampshire and other northern states there was good sleighing. The preceding day and evening had been mild for the season, with a warm south wind, but at about four o’clock in the afternoon there was a squall of snow, the wind sprang up, and immediately changed to the north-northwest, increasing in force until it blew with great violence. The temperature was then forty-five degrees above zero at Salem, Mass., and it suddenly began to descend. The next morning, only eighteen hours later, it was five degrees below zero, having fallen fifty degrees. At Amherst, N. H., it was fourteen degrees below zero, and in other places thirteen, having fallen as many degrees as it had at Salem. At Weare, N. H., the temperature fell fifty-five degrees in twenty-four hours, from Thursday morning to Friday morning. The strong piercing wind enhanced the cold to a great degree, and penetrated the thickest clothing, driving the cold air into all parts of dwelling-houses, and making the day almost insufferable in common houses and terrible out of doors. Few people ventured out, and those that did had their hands, noses, ears or feet almost instantly frost-bitten. Many people were frozen to death while travelling along the highways. At times and places the wind was so strong that it was difficult to keep on one’s feet. The gale continued all day, and houses, barns, and vast numbers of timber trees were blown down, or broken to pieces in such a way as to render them unfit for timber, being left to decay where they fell.

At Chester, N. H., the wind lifted a house, letting one corner of it fall to the bottom of the cellar. At Sanbornton, the three children of Jeremiah Ellsworth perished with the cold on this morning under very sad circumstances. As Mr. Ellsworth and his wife were uncomfortable in bed, they rose about an hour before sunrise. Shortly after, a part of the house was blown in, and it was thought that the whole structure would be demolished. Leaving the two elder children in bed, because their clothes had been blown away, Mrs. Ellsworth dressed the youngest child and went into the cellar for safety, while her husband started for assistance to the house of the nearest neighbor in a northerly direction, which was a mile distant. He found it to be too hazardous to face the wind and so changed his course toward the house of David Brown, which was the nearest in another direction, being only a quarter of a mile away. He reached it as the sun rose, his feet being considerably frozen, and his whole person so benumbed by the cold that he could not return with Mr. Brown to bring his wife and children in a sleigh. Having arrived at the house, Mr. Brown put a bed in the sleigh and placed the children upon it, covering them with the bed clothes. Mrs. Ellsworth also got into the sleigh; but they had gone only six or eight rods when it was blown over, and all the persons and every thing were lodged in the snow. Mrs. Ellsworth held the horse while he reloaded the sleigh. She decided to walk, and started off ahead, but before Mr. Brown’s house was reached was so overcome by the cold that she thought she could not go farther, and sank into the snow. She thought that she must perish, but at length she made another effort and crawled along on her hands and knees until she met her husband, who was searching for them. She was so changed by her experiences that he did not at first recognize her. By his help she reached the house. Mr. Brown had not yet come. After Mrs. Ellsworth left him, he again started, but had gone but a few rods when the sleigh was torn to pieces by the wind, and the children thrown to some distance. He collected them once more, laid them on the bed and covered them over. He then hallooed for assistance, but no one answered. He knew that the children would soon perish in that situation, and as their cries of distress pierced his heart, he wrapped them all in a coverlet, and attempted to carry them on his shoulders.

But the wind blew them all into a heap in the snow. Finding it impossible to carry all three of the children, he left the child that was dressed by the side of a large log, and took the other two upon his shoulders. But again he failed to carry them against the strong wind. He then took a child under each arm, they having on no other clothing than their shirts, and in this way, though blown down every few rods, he finally reached the house, having been about two hours on the way. The two children, though frozen stiff, were alive, but died a few minutes after reaching the house. Mr. Brown’s hands and feet were badly frozen, and he was severely chilled and exhausted. The body of the child was found before night. Mr. Brown lived many years after this experience, but never recovered from its effects, becoming blind in consequence.

The cold continued to be extreme until the forenoon of the following Monday, when the wind changed to the southwest, and the temperature began to rise.

At Springfield, Mass., on the cold morning, a heavy fog seemed to be passing down the river. The cold air congealed it into fine snow, which rose as high as forty feet above the water. It continued through the day, but was most conspicuous about two o’clock in the afternoon. A similar phenomenon was seen at the same time in Salem. It there had a smoky appearance, being so dense that it was opaque, but rose only a few feet above the surface of the water.

Historic Winter of 1833-36.

THE summer of 1835 was dry and remarkably pleasant, but the winter following was one of the severest seasons ever known in New England. It had many exceedingly cold days, and all the harbors from New York to Nova Scotia were thickly frozen over. Massachusetts bay was covered by the ice for a long distance from the shore. The first snow fell November 23, and from that time to the end of March snow storms came frequently, covering the earth to a great depth, and making excellent sleighing, which continued for twenty weeks.

December 6, Sunday, was a bitter, cold day, with a high wind from the northwest. The harbor of Salem, Mass., was then frozen over as far as Naugus head. An incident of that day was the loss of the crew of a small craft bearing the name Bianca, in sight of their own homes at Pond hollow in Truro, on Cape Cod. There were five of them, and they had been to Provincetown to ship their fish to Boston, for they were fishermen, and had started home this Sunday morning against the advice of older and wiser men. The sea was heavy, and the boat was capsized on the bar, all the men being drowned.

Wednesday, December 16, was the coldest day that had been experienced for many years, and taking the whole of the day it was the severest on record, being colder than either of the “Cold Fridays.” The sun shone brightly, and a boisterous piercing wind prevailed throughout the day, rendering exposure to the open air scarcely endurable. At Salem, Mass., the temperature at six o’clock in the morning was eight degrees below zero. By nine o’clock it had risen three degrees, but immediately began to descend. At noon it was eight below, and two hours later twelve. During the next hour it rose about two degrees, but again descended, being at eight o’clock in the evening eighteen below. At Greenfield, Mass., at noon on that day it was fifteen below. The next morning it was seven below, and by noon at Salem it had risen to seven degrees above zero. Many fingers, noses and ears were frozen. An instance is recorded of a judge, who, upon entering the court-room immediately after returning from his morning ride on horseback, found that his ears were frozen. The drivers of the stages on the eastern route suffered much from frozen extremities. During the night many buildings were burned, probably on account of the great fires that were made to enable the people to keep warm, and there was such a demand for fuel that the price advanced to an extreme limit.

Through November and December there was that rare affliction, a winter drought. The streams were so low that a considerable number of the manufacturing establishments were obliged to suspend operations, and many poor people were thus thrown out of employment in the middle of a hard winter. All wells were very low, and many dry. Water for domestic purposes was brought from a distance by teams. On Christmas night a slight thaw began, and fog and rain set in, which cleared the ice out of many harbors. The rain fell quite copiously in central Massachusetts, carrying off most of the snow which was on the ground. The springs were not much affected by it, however, the ground being too much frozen to permit the water to go through it.

The month of January was as severe as the preceding month had been. Many disasters to vessels on our coast occurred, and a number of lives were lost. Among the wrecks was that of the brig Regulator, bound from Smyrna to Boston, which ran on an island in Boston harbor. The foremast went by the deck, and the main top-mast followed, taking with it the head of the main-mast close to the rigging and the tops. It was low tide, and the sea broke over the decks, filling her with water. As the tide rose she beat over the island. Some of the crew were lost, but Captain Phelps and several others climbed into the rigging, and there remained until rescued by the crew of the brig Cervantes, after they had struggled five hours in the waves trying to reach the wreck. The survivors were all more or less frozen. The rescue was very opportune as the vessel was already submerged only the bowsprit and a few other projections being above water.

On February 21, the three months’ run of cold weather in eastern Massachusetts was broken and another thaw set in. The snow was deep everywhere, in the woods and fields and highways. In most of the streets of Boston the snow and ice had accumulated to from three to four feet in depth, and in many of the narrow streets was even deeper. The roofs of buildings were heavily burdened with it, and they leaked like sieves. As the thaw came on, people were afraid their roofs would break with the weight of snow, and they hurried to relieve them. Cellars were inundated, sidewalks and streets were generally overflowed and impassable. The scene there was interesting. Axes, hatchets, spades, shovels and brooms were called into use to counteract the effects and avoid the inconvenience of a freshet. Young and old, large and small, black and white, rich and poor, people of all conditions and both sexes, with their various implements, from the ponderous pickaxe to the broom, were industriously delving and digging to open passages for the water in directions away from their own premises.

April 1, snow was four feet deep in the New Hampshire woods, and not a speck of bare ground was to be seen there on hill or in dale. The weather was still very cold.

The Storms of December, 1839.

DURING the first two weeks of December, 1839, the weather was uncommonly pleasant, and without the least intimation of the terrible storms that were about to ravage the New England coast. Saturday, the fourteenth, was very mild, with a perfectly clear sky, and many vessels on our northeastern coast left their havens bound for Boston, New York and other southern ports. Soon after midnight snow began to fall and the wind to blow from the northeast, and they were driven down the coast, with the mist that ever exists in the Bay of Fundy, which shielded the breakers and bars from sight. The warning rays of the lights along the shore struggled to penetrate the heavy fog that shrouded the turbulent billows.

The wind suddenly changed to the southeast, and during the night and the next forenoon many of the vessels that had left the ports of Maine and New Hampshire the day before were run into the nearest port for refuge. At noon the wind had greatly increased in violence, and in the afternoon it blew a gale in many places. The ocean has rarely been seen in such violent agitation, and possessed of such terrible power. Accompanied with mingled rain and snow, the storm continued all day; and all along the coast the harbor scenes consisted of the vessels tossing on the darkened stormy waters, and blown by the wind and thrown about by the waves, being watched with intense interest and anxiety by the dwellers along the coast, who saw the fate of the hapless mariners in the awful breakers on the lee shore. Many people with willing hands and noble, stout hearts hastened to afford assistance if chance should offer, or it could avail. One after another the vessels were seen to drift, and apparently hurry on to destruction, while many silent, earnest prayers ascended from the throngs on the beaches in behalf of the impotent mariners. Some of the crafts turned over and went down at their anchors bottom up, with the crews, who were seen no more. The fearful end of many vessels, however, was checked by cutting away the masts. Others were steered for sandy beaches, upon which the wind drove them, and with assistance from the people on shore, the lives of most of the sailors were saved. Several of them were dashed upon rocks and shivered to atoms in a moment, in some instances the crews being saved in various ways by the strong arms of mariners who had battled with the waves and storms for years. As night came on the storm seemed rather to increase than diminish and the wind blew more violently than it had before during the storm, darkness with all its gloom settling down over the scene that was never to be effaced from the memory of those that witnessed it. The wind blew with mighty power and the sea raged all through the long night. Many persons remained on the beach during those dreadful hours to render aid, but they were rarely able to do so for the fury of the storm. About two o’clock in the morning the wind veered to the northeast, and the gale somewhat abated. It continued to storm and the sea to rage, however, until late Monday night, but most disaster was caused Sunday night. The exact loss of life was never known, but it must have been great. The whole shore of Massachusetts was strewn with wrecks and dead bodies, and the harbors of Newburyport, Salem, Marblehead, Boston, Cohasset, Plymouth and Cape Cod were almost literally filled with disabled vessels. But on the shores of Maine and Connecticut the storm was less severe. On the land the force of the wind was terrific, many buildings being blown down and hundreds of chimneys overturned. The tide rose higher than many of the highest water-marks then known. Inland as far as northwestern Massachusetts the snow fell in great quantities, and its depth rendered travelling almost impossible, the deep embankments in many places extending to the second story 01 houses. This was the first snow storm of the season.

At Boston, the tide rose higher than the old water-marks, and swept completely across the Neck, the force of the wind being so great that at the south part of the city on Sunday there was no apparent fall 01 the water for three hours. Many chimneys, signs and blinds were blown down. A corner of the roof of the Maverick house and a part of the roof of the car-house at East Boston were blown away. Several vessels in the harbor had their masts carried away, and many were badly chafed. A ship and a brig were sunk at their wharves. Many vessels dragged their anchors, causing collisions, which sank small crafts and greatly damaged large ones. The schooner Hesperus, which belonged in Gardiner, Maine, broke her anchor chain, and was driven by the wind against a dock, carrying away her bowsprit and staving the end of her jib-boom through the upper window of a four-story building.

On the rocky shores of Nahant, at about four o’clock Sunday afternoon, the schooner Catherine Nichols, commanded by Captain Woodward, and bound from Philadelphia to Charlestown with a cargo of coal, was literally dashed to pieces. They had run in under the lee-shore, but the wind veered and drove them out. Thirty minutes later they had parted their cables and were driven on the peninsula. With great difficulty and the assistance of the people of the town, the captain and three of the crew reached the shore in safety. One of these, John Whiton of New Bedford, as they brought him from the water exclaimed “Oh! dear,” and upon reaching the shore he motioned to them to put him down, which was done, and he immediately died. Levi Hatch, another of the crew, was drowned, or died from the effects of bruises before he came to land. He belonged in North Yarmouth, where he left a wife and two children. The mate staid by the vessel to the last, and died amidst the roaring surf, his body being found jammed in among the rocks almost entirely naked. John Lindsay of Philadelphia, another of the crew, was last seen clinging to the rigging, which with the foremast, the last one to fall, drifted out to sea, and he was never heard of again. The bodies of Whiton and Hatch were taken to Lynn, and buried on Tuesday from the First Methodist church, the pastor Rev. Mr. Cook, preaching a sermon, after which the citizens followed the remains to the cemetery.

In the harbor of Marblehead several vessels were injured, the masts of some were cut away, and quite a number of schooners were driven on shore. The schooner PaulJones was forced high upon the rocks, where she became bilged. Another schooner named Sea Flower was driven on the beach and wholly lost, together with part of her cargo which consisted of four hundred bushels of corn and one hundred and twenty barrels of flour.

At Salem, the wind did not blow very strongly, and little damage was done in the harbor. A few vessels were slightly injured by chafing against the wharves, and a small schooner was driven up Forest river near the bridge. Several chimneys and two barns in the vicinity of Bridge street were blown down.

The scene in Gloucester harbor during this storm has never been equalled in any other New England port. Many vessels sought this haven of refuge from the tempest, and in all as many as sixty were there during the gale. Between three and four o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, they began to drift, dragging their anchors or breaking the cables that bound them. Upon the beach were many willing fishermen to assist the mariners if it were possible. Within plain sight of them lay a schooner to whose shrouds were lashed three men. On all the coast of New England at that time, it is said, there was not a single life-boat, and no other small craft could live between the wreck and the shore. With full knowledge of this, the shipwrecked mariners bore their sufferings in silence, until finally as the rigging swayed to and fro by the motion of the waves, they were submerged and drowned. As another vessel approached the breakers, two men tried to escape death in their boat; but had scarcely loosed from the vessel when a merciless sea swept them into eternity. Such scenes constantly occurred before the eyes of the kind-hearted Cape Ann fishermen, and they were nerved to exert themselves in the face of the great dangers of the storm. With ropes tied to their bodies, they repeatedly leaped from the rocks and saved many lives.

On Monday morning only a single mast was left standing in the harbor. Twenty-one vessels were driven ashore, three schooners sank, and seventeen were so thoroughly dashed to pieces that in some cases no fragment larger than a plank was left. Twenty vessels still rode in the harbor, all butone without masts, they having been cut away. From each vessel a slender pole stood to bear aloft a signal of distress. They were tossing like egg-shells upon the still raging sea, liable at any moment to part their cables and be driven to sea with all on board. The pieces of twenty-two wrecks were scattered along the shore, scarcely any one of which being larger than a horse could draw. The crowd had staid on the beach all night to give assistance if it were possible. On the following afternoon as soon as it was considered safe to do so, a brave volunteer crew under the direction of Capt. William Carter procured the custom-house boat, and pulled out to the vessels that still floated, taking the weary and suffering seamen to the shore. The shipwrecked men were obliged to jump from their decks into the boat, as the sea was still too violent to enable the gallant little craft to approach nearer. One of the vessels, just after her crew were taken off, drifted out of the harbor and was never again heard from. But that night the calm, low voice of the Unseen was heard by the elements, “Peace, be still,”—the tempest went down, the wind was taken away, and the mighty waves ceased their madness, sinking into a repose as quiet as that of a child after a hard day’s play. The next morning’s sun revealed the fragments of the many wrecks strewn along the beach, mixed with spars and rigging. But this was not all, for the articles of the varied cargoes, the personal effects of the seamen,

“And the corpses lay on the shining sand—

On the shining sand when the tide went down.”

To the shipwrecked mariners was extended every relief and comfort that humanity could devise, and on that evening a public meeting of the citizens was held in the town to adopt means for their assistance. The exact loss of life was never ascertained. About forty lives were believed to have been lost, including the persons who perished by the wreck of a schooner near Pigeon cove, and twenty were known to have died, though only twelve bodies were recovered. The remains were tenderly cared for. One of the bodies was taken away by friends, and the funeral of the other deceased mariners was held at the Unitarian church on the following Sunday afternoon. All the other churches in the town were closed, the clergymen attending and taking part in this service. The pastor of the church, Rev. Josiah K. Waite, preached a sermon from the words, “Thou did’st blow with thy wind, the sea covered them : they sank as lead in the mighty waters.” [Exodus xv: 10.]  The people of the town were so deeply in sympathy with the occasion that between two and three thousand persons listened to the exercises. In the church the eleven coffins were arranged in front, and at the close of the services were placed in carriages prepared for their conveyance, being appropriately shrouded in national flags. The vast congregation formed in a procession, which was nearly a mile in length, and followed the remains of the mariners to the public tomb. The dead were Capt. Amos Eaton, Peter Gott and Alpheus Gott, all of Mount Desert, Maine, William Hoofses and William Wallace, both of Bremen, Maine, Reuben Rider of Bucksport, Maine, Joshua Nickerson, Isaac Dacker, Philip Galley, a Mrs. Hilton, and two other persons whose names are unknown. The remains of Mrs. Hilton were taken to Boston before the funeral by friends in that city, and later in the season the bodies of Nickerson and Dacker were removed by water to their homes.

At Ipswich, another sad shipwreck was added to the list, which is already much too long. The storm was as violent in Ipswich bay as at Gloucester, and the schooner Deposit from Belfast, Maine, commanded by Captain Cotterell, was hurried before it through the foaming breakers on the sandy beach near the light-house at midnight on Sunday. Although the vessel was on the beach the heavy surf in which no boat could exist was between it and safety. The waves washed over the wreck continually from midnight till dawn, and the seven persons in the rigging and elsewhere about the wreck managed to prevent themselves from being swept off by the wind and waves, in several instances, however, only to survive that they might die from the cold and exposure. Before daylight came, the strength of a boy had failed, and he was lying in the scuppers dead, and a negro, becoming exhausted, had lain down and died. At daybreak, only five were alive. The storm was still raging with unabated fury, and threatened every moment to dash the remaining persons from their hold. Their feelings cannot be described. Was there no one on the shore to aid them? They screamed for help;

“And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
Upon the hard sea-sand.”

A man named Marshall was at the beach on that Monday morning, and discovered the wreck. He gave an alarm, and then he and Mr. Greenwood, the keeper of the light-house, went as near as they possibly could to the vessel. It was apparent that no boat could pass in safety through the surf. But the piteous cries for help from the sufferers, among whom was the captain’s wife, nerved them to desperate action. Mr. Greenwood dashed into the water, and after an almost overpowering struggle with the waves arrived at the vessel. With a rope he hauled Mr. Marshall and a boat to the wreck. The captain who was completely exhausted and almost senseless, was first lowered into the boat which Marshall was keeping close to the vessel. But a wave instantly upset it, and threw them both into the surging water. Marshall went under the wreck, but on rising to the surface caught hold of a rope and saved himself, but the captain was so exhausted that he was drowned. His wife saw him as he was buried beneath the billows and her shrieks rose high above the thunders of the storm. Two of the crew were helped to the shore, one of them by floating on a boom. Mrs. Cotterell, wife of the captain, was lowered from the stern of the vessel by ropes, and the two rescuers standing in the surf received her in their arms as she came down to the surface of the water. They then waited until a mighty wave came, which they allowed to carry them all on shore. On the beach was a farm-house, then owned and occupied by Humphrey Lakeman, a retired sea-captain, to which the three survivors were conveyed, and medical aid procured. The two men that were saved were George Emery and Chandler Mahoney. The bodies of the lost were taken to the village and properly buried on the Wednesday following. The funeral was held at the South church, and was attended by a great number of people, who followed the remains to the cemetery. Sixteen sea-captains acted as pall bearers. The people of Ipswich had never before been so affected by any incident. The sadness of the wreck, the dead, the saved, and the actions of the two noble-hearted self-sacrificing men touched sympathetic chords in every breast. The crew were all young, and that fact added to the general sorrow. The expression upon the faces of the deceased, and especially that of one named Dunham, was peculiarly sweet, as if they were enjoying a most refreshing and peaceful sleep of the body rather than that from which they would never again awake. The survivors remained in the town until they were sufficiently restored to travel, receiving every comfort and attention.

At Newburyport, the tide overflowed the wharves on the river side, and large quantities of wood and lumber were floated away. Some fifteen or twenty fishing schooners that were lying at the wharves suffered more or less damage by chafing, and a large number of other vessels that were anchored in the harbor were more or less injured.

The second severe snow storm of this month began on Sunday, the twenty-second, and the next morning the wind was fiercely blowing from the northeast. The storm continued all through the day, and snow fell in such quantities that railroads in Massachusetts were blocked, and great damage was done on both land and sea, many vessels being driven ashore and more or less damaged. The storm reached as far south as Baltimore, where snow began to fall as early as Saturday.

The northern portion of Plum island was so flooded that the keeper of the light-house could not get to it. The water flowed quite across the island, in a number of places, making deep ravines, and causing many acres of grass land to be covered with sand. The hotel, which was then conducted by Capt. N. Brown, was entirely surrounded by water and the turnpike road and the bridge were flooded. Sand-hills twenty feet high were carried off and others equally large were formed. The whole eastern shore of the island was washed away several rods in width.

The storm was indelibly impressed upon the minds of the people of Newburyport by the wreck at Plum island of the brig Pocahontas, Capt. James G. Cook, master, bound from Cadiz to Newburyport, it having sailed from Cadiz in the latter part of October. She had set sail first in September, but, being run into by a Spanish ship, was so much damaged that she had to return for repairs. The crew consisted of the officers and nine hands before the mast. The brig measured two hundred and seventy-one tons, and had been built in 1830. Her masts had been carried away by the terrible wind, and she had probably been anchored in the evening, but in the darkness and the blinding snow, the mariners did not know that they were so near the sandy beach. The anchor dragged, and stern first she was driven on the reef, where she thumped until the stern was stove in, the noble vessel at length being torn to pieces. It had been driven upon a reef about one hundred and fifty yards from the beach, at a point half a mile east from the hotel, which was the most dangerous place on the island. Soon after daylight on Monday morning, Captain Brown, the keeper of the hotel, discovered the vessel, and news of the disaster was quickly conveyed to Newburyport. A few minutes later amidst the roar of the storm the cry rang through the streets that a wreck was on Plum island. A number of humane men from the lower part of the town donned their thickest and heaviest boots, and quickly hastened over the marshes to the sandy island, which was trembling under the tremendous roll of the maddened waves.

The deck of the brig was slippery, the ropes stiff and glazed, and the cries and shrieks of its human burden were drowned by the cruel winds and the roar of the ocean. Tons of water were rushing down the hatchways. When the vessel was first noticed, three men were seen upon it, one of them being lashed to the taffrail, and nearly or quite naked, apparently dead, and two were clinging to the bowsprit. In a short time and before the intelligence of the wreck had reached the town, only one man, who was clinging to the bowsprit, remained, and mountainous waves were rolling over him. Still he clung with a desperate grip. To his rescue, a number of hardy young men, veritable sons of Neptune, insisted upon going through the tremendous sea with Captain Brown’s little skiff, the vessel being too far away to throw a life-saving line to it, and even if it had not been the man was evidently too much exhausted to avail himself of such means of escape. They hauled the boat over the beach for three-fourths of a mile, but finding it impossible for any common boat to live one moment in that terrible surf, they very reluctantly abandoned their plan. The ill-fated man maintained his position on the vessel for several hours, growing so weak that at one time he lost his hold, but luckily regained it. Still the unpitying storm beat on. The men could only look at each other through the falling snow, from land to sea, from sea to land, and each realized how impotent they all were. Just before noon, the mariner was a second time swept by the heavy sea from the bowsprit, which also immediately followed him, and this time he was -seen no more. A few minutes later the wreck was washed in and cast upon the beach. A man was found lashed to the vessel and he was still breathing, but so exhausted that he simply drew a few breaths, and then all was over. The sea had beaten over him so fiercely and continually that his clothes were almost washed off from him. Whether the majority of the crew perished by the cold and exposure or were washed from the vessel by the waves will never be known, as not one of the thirteen souls on board survived to tell the tale. The people were deeply affected at knowing that young Captain Cook, toilworn as he was, after beating about on a stormy coast for several days, should be wrecked, and perish within sight of the smoke ascending from his own hearthfire. The bodies of several of the unfortunate men washed ashore and were taken up on the beach at some distance from the wreck, the small boat belonging to the brig lying near them indieating that they had attempted to reach the shore in it, probably about daylight. In all, there were recovered the bodies of the captain, first mate, who was Albert Cook, also of Newburyport, and seven others of the crew, who were strangers. Captain Cook’s funeral was on Saturday, and after several days had passed, it having become almost certain that no more bodies would be found, the other eight corpses, with the American flag thrown over each of them, were borne into the broad aisle of the South church in Newburyport, while the bells were being tolled. Amid a concourse of twenty-five hundred persons, a solemn prayer was offered over the remains of these human waifs, untimely thrown upon our shores, and then they were borne at the head of a procession numbering several hundred persons, to the cemetery, while the bells were again solemnly tolled, and flags hung at half-mast from the vessels in the harbor.

At Nantasket beach, on Monday, at about noon, the bark Lloyd of Portland, Maine, bound from Havana to Boston, and commanded by Captain Mountfort, with masts gone, went on shore. The weather was still very thick, and a heavy sea was running, the surf being so high that no boat could put out to its assistance. Four of the crew lashed themselves to the rigging. The six other persons on thevessel succeeded in getting out and launching the long boat, into which they got, but the mighty waves upset it, and they were drowned. Finally the vessel was dashed to pieces, and all on board perished, with the exception of George Scott, an Englishman, who floated on an oar within reach of the people on the beach, and they pulled him out of the water when he was nearly exhausted. Captain Mountfort, who had lashed himself to the rigging, was brought ashore in a boat belonging to a vessel that was lying near, which also suffered from the storm, after three perilous efforts had been made to reach him, and was immediately taken into one of the huts of the Humane Society, every effort to resuscitate his insensible body being made, but in vain. He was the oldest shipmaster that then sailed out of Portland, and was much respected.

During the middle of the week, the weather was unusually fine for the season, but just before noon on Friday, another terrible storm began, this time of rain, which fell in small quantities, however. It was more tempestuous than either of the other storms had been, and the wind came from the east-southeast, increasing during the night to a violent gale, and reaching its height toward morning. It continued thirty hours in all, and brought in the tide to a great height, overflowing the wharves, and doing more or less damage to nearly all of them.

At Portland, Maine, the storm was very violent, and a number of vessels were injured. The tide rose so high that the sea swept over Tukey’s bridge, and the Eastern stage was not able to pass that way.

At Newburyport, Mass., the tide overflowed the wharves, and floated off and destroyed a large amount of property. The damage done to the shipping in the harbor was much greater than had occurred in the other storms. Forty-one of the one hundred and thirty vessels there were more or less severely injured by chafing, collisions and sinking.

In Gloucester, the storm was severer than it was on the fifteenth, the wind being extremely fierce. At times it seemed as if everything would be swept before it. Houses almost tottered upon their foundations, and it was a fearful as well as a sleepless night to the people of the town. The tempest was at its height from four to six in the morning, but all night long the roar of the wind and sea was frightful. Few vessels were in the harbor, and several of those were lost. One of the wrecks was that of the brig Richmond Packet belonging in Deer Isle, Captain Toothaker, commander, and bound from Richmond to Newburyport with a cargo of corn and flour. It was driven ashore on a point of rocks and went entirely to pieces. Beside the crew, the captain’s wife was on board. When the vessel struck, the captain jumped overboard with a rope and succeeded in getting safely upon the rocks, where he made the rope fast. By its means he endeavored to rescue his wife, but just as he was ready to do so, the brig gave a sudden lurch, and the rope snapped. Later Mrs. Toothaker was let down upon a spar into the water, hoping that upon that timber she would float ashore, but she had hardly reached the waves when a heavy sea swept her from the support. With a loud cry, she went down, and was seen no more until her lifeless body was discovered on the rocks. The crew were all saved.

At Salem, all the wharves suffered more or less, and everything was swept off them. Several vessels were forced from their moorings, there were some collisions, and a few ships and schooners were driven on shore. It was necessary to cut away a large number of masts. A small old house in the lower part of the town was blown down, the roofs of several sheds were torn off, and a number of chimneys injured. At several places on the railroad, the road-bed was washed away for a distance of one or two hundred feet each, preventing the progress of trains through the forenoon of Saturday. The mails from Boston were brought over the road in stages.

In Boston, more damage was done than in the storm of the fifteenth. The injuries to shipping were very extensive, wharves were overflowed, and lumber, wood, coal, etc., were swept away. The Front street dike, as it was called, was broken down, and water covered nearly all the low land between Front and Washington streets, from the Neck to Northampton street. It also came into Water street, and damaged dry goods in cellars to a large amount. The causeway leading to Dorchester, and the lower streets of the city were submerged, so much damage being done that crowds from the surrounding towns came to see it.

The large, beautiful ship Columbiana, of six hundred and thirty tons burden, one of A. C. Lombard and company’s line of New Orleans packets, parted her cables at about four o’clock in the morning at Swett’s wharf in Charlestown, where she was loading with ice. The wind took her on the flow of the tide, and drove her completely through the Charlestown bridge, carrying away two piers, as though there had been no obstruction there. The vessel then struck Warren bridge on its side, the mate having succeeded in bringing her into that position. The bridge was considerably injured, but it withstood the shock. The stern then quickly swung around, and struck the wharf which was built out from the draw with such violence that it demolished a dwelling-house one and a half stories in height, that was standing on the bridge, being occupied by the draw-tender. In the house were nine persons, who were in bed at the time, and they escaped without injury. One of them was thrown into the river when the concussion occurred, but was rescued by his companions. The ship was uninjured, in spite of her violent freak.

The storm was so severe at Provincetown, on Cape Cod, that the damage done to the shipping and the property on the wharves amounted to fifty thousand dollars, and many of them were entirely carried away, several persons being injured. Cellars of houses were inundated and a considerable number of the inhabitants were obliged to seek shelter elsewhere. Ten or eleven stores were knocked down by the vessels, two salt-mills were blown down, and many salt works were carried away.

The snows of this winter of 1839-40 were deeper and more severe than those that the old people of that time remembered. In the valleys in the western part of Massachusetts, snow was two feet deep through the winter, and on the Berkshire hills four feet. Many roads remained unbroken on account of it, and people travelled about on snow shoes. In many places the snow was fifteen feet deep, and travellers passed over the diifts in well-trodden paths. In Chesterfield a man died, and the snow was so deep that for four days the family could not get to a neighbor’s house for assistance. But the sea-shore witnessed the greater suffering. The month of December, 1839, was indelibly fixed in the minds of multitudes as one of the most awful seasons that they had ever known. If all the disasters that occurred along our coast were known and written out an immense volume would be the result. We do not put it too strongly when we say that upwards of three hundred vessels were wrecked, a million dollars’ worth of property was destroyed, and more than a hundred and fifty lives were lost in these three storms. How many widows and orphans afterward sat at the windows of their cottages at Mount Desert and many other places looking for the sails that they knew so well, yet not daring to hope that they would see them again!

“Looking out over the sea,
From a granite rim of shore,
Looking out longingly,wearily,
Over a turbulent, pitiless sea,
For the sails that come no more.
Waiting and watching with tear-wet eyes
Till the last faint hope in the bosom dies;
While the waves crawl up o’er the chill white sand,
Those watchers long for a clasping hand,
And turn away with a thrill of pain,
But often pause to look again
From the rough dark rocks of the sea-beat shore,
For the gleam of snowy sails once more;
Sadly, longingly, wearily,
Looking out over the sea.”

Severe Cold Winter 0f 1856-57.

THE winter of 1856-57 was one of the severest winters ever known in this climate, and is the last very rigorous season that has occurred in New England. It began much earlier than usual, and continued far into the spring. There were thirty-two snow storms in all, three more than the average number for a score of years, and the snow fell to the depth of six feet and two inches, the average depth for twenty years having been but four feet and four inches in eastern Massachusetts.

The preceding summer had been hot, and the weather was pleasant nearly all the time to the middle of December, though considerable snow had fallen and there had been some sleighing. Extreme cold weather, however, began on the night of the seventeenth of the month, when the thermometer fell in Massachusetts to twelve degrees below zero, and in Maine to sixteen below. The next day the temperature was scarcely above zero anywhere in New England, it being the coldest day that had been experienced since December 16, 1835. During the remainder of the month the weather was very inclement for the season, with strong and boisterous winds. On the night of the twenty-third there was a violent snow storm, which extended over a large tract of country, and during which snow fell to the depth of four or five inches on the level, making good sleighing. During the storm, the strong wind caused several wrecks on the coast. ,

January opened with a snow storm on the third, accompanied by a violent southeast wind. Snow was now twelve inches deep on the level, and sleighing was good. The railroad companies were more or less hindered by the snow which blocked their tracks and prevented the cars from running. The temperature became colder and colder, being from the sixth to the eighth below zero and almost unbearable because of the strong piercing wind which prevailed and which penetrated the thickest clothing. The whole country was afflicted by the rigor of the season, the west especially suffering terribly from it. The roads were still drifted, and mails and trains from the south and east were greatly delayed. In New Hampshire, on the twelfth, the thermometer indicated nineteen degrees below zero, and there was a very severe snow storm prevailing, accompanied by a gale that caused damage to the shipping along the coast.

“O the long and dreary winter!
O the cold and cruel winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o’er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.”

Provisions were sold at extremely high prices, and poor people suffered much for want of good and necessary food. Contributions for their benefit were taken in many of the churches in the cities.

On the night of Saturday, January 17, and also the next day, the cold was severer than it had been during the winter. At Salem, Mass., the temperature was twenty below zero on Saturday night, and five below on Sunday noon. At Lowell, Mass., on Sunday morning it was twenty below, and at noon six. By evening, however, it had risen to twelve above zero, and snow had begun to fall. The wind was strong and from the northeast, and as the night advanced the storm increased until it became one of the severest and most violent that had been known for very many years. For several hours after sunrise the next morning the wind continued to be very cutting, and it was hard to face. The violence of the storm ceased before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, but snow continued to fall in flurries all through the day. Snow fell to a great depth, drifts on the northern side of Essex street in Salem, Mass., being from eight to twelve feet deep. Business was necessarily almost entirely suspended everywhere, and the streets were so blocked that no draught animal made an appearance during the day, milkmen, bakers and butchers making no attempt to distribute their supplies in the ordinary manner. A Sabbath stillness prevailed in the city as well as in the country. No cars could be run, no mails came or went during the day, and scarcely any one travelled about the streets. The snow was too deep to be pathed in the old-fashioned ways by oxen, either with a log or with the Swedish heater. Not quite as much snow fell in Maine during this storm as in Massachusetts, but in the south it came in remarkable quantities, being at Washington, D. C, two feet deep. The wind forced the snow into every crevice and cranny, and large drifts were deposited in barns and other buildings that were apparently water-tight. The streets in Boston were piled full of snow, and three days afterward many of them had not been broken out. Several people were nearly smothered or frozen to death, the cold during the storm being most intense, and the wind drove the snow into the faces of those that were travelling. Snow shoes were found to be necessary to pedestrianism, and many of the old ones were hunted up and brought into use again.

The violent wind which prevailed during this storm wrought many disasters on both sea and land. The steeple of the church in the village of Campello, [A part of Brockton] Mass., blew down, crashing through the body of the church into the cellar. The steeples of the Episcopal and the Second Congregational churches in Waterbury, Conn., met with the same fate, as also did the spire on the Congregational church in Fairhaven, Mass., which was one of the tallest in the state. A house in New Bedford, Mass., was also completely demolished by the wind. The gale was unusually severe on the ocean, being very disastrous to the shipping; many vessels were driven ashore and several lives lost. At Provincetown, on Cape Cod, it was one of the worst storms ever experienced in that vicinity, the wind blowing a hurricane from ten o’clock Sunday evening until twelve o’clock Monday night. Seventeen of the twenty vessels in the harbor were driven ashore. Another vessel, the schooner Bonita of Eastport, Me., which had sailed from her home port before the storm, had anchored at Cape Ann on account of the wind. She parted her cables and, drifting across Massachusetts bay in the thick snow storm, was finally driven on shore at Provincetown, about half a mile east of Race point, on the night of the nineteenth. After striking, the sea made a complete breach over the vessel, washing overboard a man, who was drowned before he could be rescued. Another man perished on board, being buried under the floating rubbish of the cabin. By the strenuous and noble efforts of the people of Provincetown, four of the crew were saved. In the steerage the water had risen above their waists, and the captain had lashed himself to the bit heads, while others of the crew clung about the gaff and mainmast. The mate succeeded after great exposure and suffering in floating some yarn through the surf to the beach, where it was secured by the inhabitants, who attached to it a small rope and to that a small hawser which were successively pulled on board the wreck by the mate. To the hawser he fastened the captain, who was very much benumbed, and threw him overboard. The other two of the crew that remained alive were then fastened on and thrown overboard. He then tied the rope around himself, and all four were successfully hauled through the surf, a distance of more than a hundred feet. The captain was severely frozen and nearly exhausted before he was cast into the water, but by the excellent nursing of the rescuers he, with the rest of the men, was finally restored to health and strength.

During and immediately following this storm, the temperature descended to an extremely low point, and remained there for a whole week. Sunday and Monday, the eighteenth and nineteenth of the month, are supposed to have been the two coldest days known in New England during this century. The “Cold Friday” of 1810 was more blustering, but the temperature was not so low. At sunrise on the morning of the nineteenth the mercury congealed at Franconia, N. H., and at Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, Vt., it was fifty degrees below zero, the coldest ever known there. The following are some of the degrees below zero that the thermometer indicated at the same time in the different places named. In Maine, at Portland, twenty-nine ; Bangor, forty-four; and at Bath, fifty-two. In New Hampshire, at Keene, twenty-four; Nashua, twenty-eight; Dover, thirty- one; and at Manchester, thirty-five. In Vermont, at Northfield, forty. In Massachusetts, at Boston, sixteen; New Bedford, twenty; Fall River, twenty-six; Worcester, twenty-six; Salem, twenty six; Lowell, thirty; Maiden, thirty; Taunton, thirty; and at Springfield, thirty-three. In Rhode Island, at Providence, twenty-six; and at Woonsocket, thirty-five. In Connecticut, at New Haven, twenty-seven ; Hartford, thirty-two; and at Coventry, thirty-two. The temperature continued to be as low as it was on the nineteenth until the twenty sixth. At Auburn, Me., on the twenty-third it was twenty-two below zero, and at Weare, N. H., forty below, and although the temperature was lower than it was on “Cold Friday” the day was much more bearable as there was no wind. This was not true in all parts of New England, however, as in some sections a brisk northwest wind prevailed throughout the day, causing the thermometer to descend at Lawrence, Mass., to thirty-two degrees below zero; at Amherst, N. H., to thirty-five; at Northfield, Vt., to forty; at White River junction to forty-three; and at Bangor, Me., to forty-four. Long Island sound was frozen the whole width for the first time as far as known. The twenty-fourth was thought to have been the severest day ever experienced in New Hampshire, the thermometer at Amherst descending to thirty-seven degrees below zero. The air was very thin and peculiarly transparent and light, and the sky therefore remarkably clear. A strong northwest wind blew all day. At Franconia, N. H., the temperature was forty-nine degrees below zero, and it was the severest day ever known there. At Auburn, Me., it was forty below, and at Manchester, Mass., it was thirty-seven. On the twenty-fifth, the weather had moderated a little, being then at Auburn, Me., only six degrees below zero, and at the same place on the next day two below. This was the coldest week ever known in New England, and the severest January there had been at least for ten years. During this spell the harbor of Portsmouth, N. H., was frozen over, a thing that was never known to have occurred before. In fact the reign of this rigorous weather continued from December 20 to January 27, and during all that time snow did not melt on the roofs of buildings in the greater portion of New England.

On the twenty-seventh of the month, it began to thaw, and rain fell. Two heavy rain storms followed, one immediately succeeding the beginning of the thaw and the other after the lapse of a week. The rain fell in the greatest quantity on Sunday, February 8, when a vast amount of snow was carried away, causing freshets on the ninth and tenth in all parts of the country. At Norwich, Conn., the destruction of property on the Shetucket river was very great; and the heavy timber from Lord’s and Lathrop’s bridges (which were carried away) was driven down the stream with fearful power. East Chelsea was submerged in 1807, but at this time the water front of Norwich was swept over by the raging flood. Below the city the river was blocked by ice, which caused the water to be thrown back upon the wharves and buildings of Water street, suddenly deluging the territory.

The freshet was followed by fine weather, though the temperature was often below zero. The snow was still very deep in Vermont, and sleighing was good throughout New England. One of the most powerful and destructive slides of snow that ever took place in New England occurred on February 22, on the side of a hill at Castleton, Vt., completely demolishing the barn and wagon shed of Merlin Clark. His residence was also in its course, being a few rods farther down the hill, and that also would have been destroyed had not the barn and shed lessened the force of the avalanche. As it was, the doors and windows of the house were broken, and the rooms almost filled with snow, ice and water. A child that was lying in a cradle in one of the apartments was completely buried by the snow, but was rescued without injury.

During the latter part of February the weather was mild, and on the first of March, bluebirds, blackbirds and robins appeared in Massachusetts, three weeks earlier than usual; but on that afternoon snow began to fall again, and the mercury descended to a point below freezing. The wind also rose, and before midnight was blowing most violently.

The weather during the spring was very changeable. March 31 and April 1 were mild and genial days, the temperature being as high as sixty degrees above zero; but at eleven o’clock in the evening of April 1 a change rapidly occurred. A blustering snow storm set in, which continued through the remainder of the night. The next morning the thermometer had fallen to seven degrees above zero. On the third of the month three inches of snow fell during a piercing gale of wind; but the sixth was very warm, the temperature being fifty-four degrees above zero, the wind south, and the weather dull and foggy.

On April 20 and 21, there was a severe rain storm, which flooded cellars, and carried away every bridge in Bartlett, N. H. Vessels chafed at wharves along the coast, and many were driven ashore. At Salem, Mass., snow fell for several hours, and at Deerfield, in the same commonwealth, there was still good sleighing.

This was one of the coldest winters ever known in the south as well as in the north and west, and it is said that the first snow storm known to have occurred in the city of Mexico was experienced this winter, on the night of January 31.

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JAMES MADISON CONCERNING IMMIGRATION AND IMMIGRANTS TO USA

James Madison Concerning Immigration & Immigrants (Click to enlarge)

The criminal influence of the alien with its steady increase can be traced back in our history for the last 60-100 years. So surely and yet so gradually has it grown upon us that we have now become thoroughly accustomed to a condition of things which would have been extremely shocking to our ancestors. The belief and confidence in the cheap labor of the immigrant has been very strong among certain segments (i.e. GOP, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wealthy Democrats, the Mainstream Media, et. al.) of our society, against the better judgement of the voting public at large. American citizens have been blinded by those afore mentioned segments of the country or they would never have been willing to go on with the system in the face of the shocking revelations of crime and corruption which has become more and more apparent.

Washington, in writing on the subject of immigration, said:

“My opinion with respect to emigration is that, except of useful mechanics and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement; while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a hody (I mean the settling of them in a hody) may be much questioned.”

On another occasion he wrote:

“It is not the policy of this country to employ aliens where it can well be avoided, either in the civil or military walks of life.”

Jefferson, though belonging to the party opposed to Washington, had very much the same opinion:

“They will bring with them the principles of the government they leave, imbibed in their early youth, or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience during the present contest for a verification of these conjectures. But if they be not certain in event are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven years and three months longer for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our Government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose twenty millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship, but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations.”

The prophesy in the above passage has most certainly come true; and the last two sentences are also worth considering. “I mean not,” he says, “that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations.” This will at once be recognized as agreeing exactly with Washington’s words where he says, “that except of useful mechanics and some particular descriptions of men or professions there is no need of encouragement.” Washington, though strongly opposed to the admission of foreign officers in the army, had made exceptions in the case of certain artillerists and engineers, who he said were needed to teach us some of the fine points of gunnery and construction, and in his objection to immigration in general he made exceptions in favor of certain kinds of skilled labor.

The fathers of the Republic were entirely opposed to promiscuous, wholesale immigration, and they undoubtedly represented the opinions of a large number of our people at that time. Even Madison, who favored immigration more than any of the other fathers of the Republic, and who introduced in Congress the first bill intended to encourage it, always insisted that he intended to bring over only the “worthy part of mankind,” and in a letter written in 1813 he expresses almost the same opinion as Adams, Washington and Jefferson. Neither Madison nor any of the others had any conception of modern immigration. and apparently never realized that their moderate and, as they supposed, well-regulated encouragement would bring it about.

JAMES MADISON TO MORRIS BIRKBECK; 1813

Sir,—I have received your letter of September 18, though at a much later day than that at which it was due. The letter inclosed in it from Mr. Coles would have been received with additional pleasure from your own hand, if you had found it convenient to take Montpelier in your Westwardly route. He was a few days ago with me, and confirmed verbally the esteem and the friendly interest he takes in your behalf.

I cannot but commend the benevolent solicitude you express for your emigrating countrymen; and I sincerely wish that all who are attached to our Country by its natural and political advantages might be as little disappointed or embarrassed on their arrival as possible. I am obliged, at the same time, to say, as you will doubtless learn from others, that it is not either the provision of our laws or the practice of the Government to give any encouragement to emigrants, unless it be in cases where they may bring with them some special addition to our stock of arts or articles of culture. You will perceive, therefore, that it is not in the power of the Executive to dispose of the public land in a mode different from the ordinary one; and I should not be justified in encouraging any reliance on the success of a resort to the National Legislature.

Should your future movements bring you at any time within reach of my residence, I shall be happy in an opportunity of proving, by a cordial welcome, the sincerity of my respect and good wishes.

Sources: Writing of James Madison 1794-1815 By James Madison
Public Opinion, Volume 21

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THOMAS JEFFERSON CONCERNING IMMIGRATION and IMMIGRANTS

 

Thomas Jefferson Concerning Immigration Policy

John Quincy Adams Concerning Immigration and Immigrants

George Washington Concerning Immigration and Immigrants

MAKING THE FOREIGN-BORN FAMILIAR WITH THE AMERICAN SPIRIT By George S. Tilroe

I have taken the term of four million and a half of inhabitants for example’s sake only. Yet I am persuaded it is a greater number than the country spoken of, considering how much inarable land it contains, can clothe and feed without a material change in the quality of their diet. But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners?

It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants.

They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth ; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogenous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable ? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?

Suppose twenty millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship ; but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expense in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something we do not know.

It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely ; it is from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labor being abundant; here it is to make the most of our labor, land being abundant.

Reference: Notes on Virginia: Query VIII by Thomas Jefferson

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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS CONCERNING IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S.A.

John Q. Adams Concerning Immigration to America (Click to enlarge)

See also what George Washington had to say about what our policy should be towards immigrants and immigration to the United States.

LETTER FROM JOHN QUINCY ADAMS TO MORITZ VON FUERSTENWAERTHER.

(From Niles’ Register, April 29, 1820.)

(The letter, of which the following is a copy, appears to have been published in a German translation at Augsburg; whence, by a re-translation, it has appeared in some of the English gazettes, and from them been extracted into some of the newspapers in this country. In its double transformation it has suffered variations not supposed to be intentional, nor perhaps important, but which render the publication of it proper, as it was written. It has been incorrectly stated to be an answer in the name of the American government. It was indeed written by the Secretary of State, as it purports, in answer to an application from an individual and respectable foreigner, who had previously been employed by the baron de Gagern, to collect information concerning the German emigrants to the United States, and to endeavor to obtain encouragements and favors to them from his government. Upon that mission he had been particularly recommended to Mr. Adams, to whom a printed copy of his report to the Baron de Gagern had afterwards been transmitted. There are several allusions to the report, in this letter, which was an answer to one from Mr. Fürstenwärther, intimating a disposition to become himself an American citizen; but suggesting that he had offers of advantageous employment in his native country, and enquiring whether, in the event of his settling here, he could expect any official situation in the department of state, or any other under the government.)

“Department of State,
Washington, 4th June, 1819.

SIR :—I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 22d April, enclosing one from your kinsman, the Baron de Gagern, and a copy of your printed report, which I hope and have no doubt will be useful to those of your countrymen in Germany, who may have entertained erroneous ideas, with regard to the results of emigration from Europe to this country.

It was explicitly stated to you, and your report has taken just notice of the statement, that the government of the United States has never adopted any measure to encourage or invite emigrants from any part of Europe. It has never held out any incitements to induce the subjects of any other sovereign to abandon their own country, to become inhabitants of this. From motives of humanity it has occasionally furnished facilities to emigrants who, having arrived here with views of forming settlements, have specially needed such assistance to carry them into effect. Neither the general government of the union, nor those of the individual states, are ignorant or unobservant of the additional strength and wealth, which accrues to the nation, by the accession of a mass of healthy, industrious, and frugal laborers, nor are they in any manner insensible to the great benefits which this country has derived, and continues to derive, from the influx of such adoptive children from Germany. But there is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers.

This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights. Privileges are granted by European sovereigns to particular classes of individuals, for purposes of general policy; but the general impression here is that privileges granted to one denomination of people, can very seldom be discriminated from erosions of the rights of others. Emigrants from Germany, therefore, or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety;—if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families. They come to a life of independence, but to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accomodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, the Atlantic is always open to them, to return to the land of their nativity and their fathers. To one thing they must make up their minds, or, they will be disappointed in every expectation of happiness as Americans. They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity, rather than backward to their ancestors;— they must be sure that whatever their own feelings may be, those of their children will cling to the prejudices of this country, and will partake of that proud spirit, not unmingled with disdain, which you have observed is remarkable in the general character of this people, and as perhaps belonging peculiarly to those of German descent, born in this country.

That feeling of superiority over other nations which you have noticed, and which has been so offensive to other strangers, who have visited these shores, arises from the consciousness of every individual that, as a member of society, no man in the country is above him; and, exulting in this sentiment, he looks down upon those nations where the mass of the people feel themselves the inferiors of privileged classes, and where men are high or low, according to the accidents of their birth. But hence it is that no government in the world possesses so few means of bestowing favors, as the government of the United States. The governments are the servants of the people, and are so considered by the people, who place and displace them at their pleasure. They are chosen to manage for short periods the common concerns, and when they cease to give satisfaction, they cease to be employed. If the powers, however, of the government to do good are restricted, those of doing harm are still more limited. The dependence, in affairs of government, is the reverse of the practice in Europe; instead of the people depending upon their rulers, the rulers, as such, are always dependent upon the good will of the people.

We understand perfectly, that of the multitude of foreigners who yearly flock to our shores, to take up here their abode, none come from affection or regard to a land to which they are total strangers, and with the very language of which, those of them who are Germans are generally unacquainted. We know that they come with views, not to our benefit, but to their own—not to promote our welfare, but to better their own condition. We expect therefore very few, if any, transplanted countrymen from classes of people who enjoy happiness, ease, or even comfort, in their native climes. The happy and contented remain at home, and it requires an impulse, at least as keen as that of urgent want, to drive a man from the soil of his nativity and the land of his father’s sepulchres. Of the very few emigrants of more fortunate classes, who ever make the attempt of settling in this country, a principal proportion sicken at the strangeness of our manners, and after a residence, more or less protracted, return to the countries whence they came. There are, doubtless, exceptions, and among the most opulent and the most distinguished of our citizens, we are happy to number individuals who might have enjoyed or acquired wealth and consideration, without resorting to a new country and another hemisphere. We should take great satisfaction in finding you included in this number, if it should suit your own inclinations, and the prospects of your future life, upon your calculations of your own interests.

I regret that it is not in my power to add the inducement which you might perceive in the situation of an officer under the government. All the places in the department to which I belong, allowed by the laws, are filled, nor is there a prospect of an early vacancy in any of them. Whenever such vacancies occur, the applications from natives of the country to fill them, are far more numerous than the offices, and the recommendations in behalf of the candidates so strong and so earnest, that it would seldom be possible, if it would ever be just, to give a preference over them to foreigners. Although, therefore, it would give me a sincere pleasure to consider you as one of our future and permanent fellow citizens, I should not do either an act of kindness or of justice to you, in dissuading you from the offers of employment and of honorable services, to which you are called in your native country. With the sincerest wish that you may find them equal and superior to every expectation of advantage that you have formed, or can indulge, in looking to them,

I have the honor to be, sir, your very obedient and humble servant,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Reference: Deutsch-amerikanische Geschichtsblätter, Volume 17

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Samuel Adams Liberty and Freedom Require Virtue

 

Samuel Adams Regarding Our Liberties (Click to enlarge)

ARTICLE SIGNED “CANDIDUS” (Pseudonym of Samuel Adams)
[Boston Gazette, October 14, 1771.]

Messieurs Edes & Gill,

“Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear
A Master, nor had Virtue to be free.”
[From the poem “Liberty” (1734) by James Thomson, 1700-1748]

I Believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery, but when they deserved it. This may be called a severe censure upon by far the greatest part of the nations in the world who are involved in the misery of servitude: But however they may be thought by some to deserve commiseration, the censure is just. [Ulriucus] Zuinglius [A zealous reformer, born at Wildehausen, in Switzerland, 1487 who laid the foundation of a division from Rome in Switzerland at the time that Luther did the same in Saxony], one of the first reformers, in his friendly admonition to the republic of the Switzers, discourses much of his countrymen throwing off the yoke: He says, that they who lie under oppression deserve what they suffer, and a great deal more ; and he bids them perish with their oppressors. The truth is, All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. Is it possible that millions could be enslaved by a few, which is a notorious fact, if all possessed the independent spirit of Brutus, who to his immortal honor, expelled the proud Tyrant of Rome, and his “royal and rebellious race?” If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy. Had not Caesar seen that Rome was ready to stoop, he would not have dared to make himself the master of that once brave people. He was indeed, as a great writer observes, a smooth and subtle tyrant, who led them gently into slavery; “and on his brow, ‘ore daring vice deluding virtue smiled “. By pretending to be the peoples greatest friend, he gained the ascendency over them: By beguiling arts, hypocrisy and flattery, which are even more fatal than the sword, he obtained that supreme power which his ambitious soul had long thirsted for: The people were finally prevailed upon to consent to their own ruin: By the force of persuasion, or rather by cajoling arts and tricks always made use of by men who have ambitious views, they enacted their Lex Regia [Royal Law, A law by which it was claimed that the legislative power was transferred by the Roman people to the emperor]; whereby Quodplacuit principi legis habuit vigorem [Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to every man his due]; that is, the will and pleasure of the Prince had the force of law. His minions had taken infinite pains to paint to their imaginations the god-like virtues of Caesar: They first persuaded them to believe that he was a deity [Editors Note: reminds me how some thought Obama was a god and said as much], and then to sacrifice to him those Rights and Liberties which their ancestors had so long maintained, with unexampled bravery, and with blood & treasure. By this act they fixed a precedent fatal to all posterity: The Roman people afterwards, influenced no doubt by this pernicious example, renewed it to his successors, not at the end of every ten years, but for life. They transferred all their right and power to Charles the Great: In eum transtulit omne suum jus et potestatem [He transferred all his right and power to him.]. Thus, they voluntarily and ignominiously surrendered their own liberty, and exchanged a free constitution for a Tyranny!

Samuel Adams Regarding Our Duty in Elections (Click to enlarge)

It is not my design at present to form the comparison between the state of this country now, and that of the Roman Empire in those dregs of time; or between the disposition of Caesar, and that of:

The comparison, I confess, would not in all parts hold good: The Tyrant of Rome, to do him justice, had learning, courage, and great abilities. It behooves us however to awake and advert to the danger we are in. The Tragedy of American Freedom, it is to be feared is nearly completed: A Tyranny seems to be at the very door. It is to little purpose then to go about coolly to rehearse the gradual steps that have been taken, the means that have been used, and the instruments employed, to encompass the ruin of the public liberty: We know them and we detest them. But what will this avail, if we have not courage and resolution to prevent the completion of their system?

Our enemies would fain have us lie down on the bed of sloth and security, and persuade ourselves that there is no danger: They are daily administering the opiate with multiplied arts and delusions; and I am sorry to observe, that the gilded pill is so alluring to some who call themselves the friends of Liberty. But is there no danger when the very foundations of our civil constitution tremble?—When an attempt was first made to disturb the corner-stone of the fabric, we were universally and justly alarmed: And can we be cool spectators, when we see it already removed from its place? With what resentment and indignation did we first receive the intelligence of a design to make us tributary, not to natural enemies, but infinitely more humiliating, to fellow subjects?And yet with unparalleled insolence we are told to be quiet, when we see that very money which is torn from us by lawless force, made use of still further to oppress us—to feed and pamper a set of infamous wretches, who swarm like the locusts of Egypt; and some of them expect to revel in wealth and riot on the spoils of our country.—Is it a time for us to sleep when our free government is essentially changed, and a new one is forming upon a quite different system? A government without the least dependence upon the people: A government under the absolute control of a minister of state; upon whose sovereign dictates is to depend not only the time when, and the place where, the legislative assembly shall sit, but whether it shall sit at all: And if it is allowed to meet, it shall be liable immediately to be thrown out of existence, if in any one point it fails in obedience to his arbitrary mandates. Have we not already seen specimens of what we are to expect under such a government, in the instructions which Mr. Hutchinson has received, and which he has publicly avowed, and declared he is bound to obey?—By one, he is to refuse his assent to a tax-bill, unless the Commissioners of the Customs and other favorites are exempted: And if these may be freed from taxes by the order of a minister, may not all his tools and drudges, or any others who are subservient to his designs, expect the same indulgence? By another he is to forbid to pass a grant of the assembly to any agent, but one to whose election he has given his consent; which is in effect to put it out of our power to take the necessary and legal steps for the redress of those grievances which we suffer by the arts and machinations of ministers, and their minions here. What difference is there between the present state of this province, which in course will be the deplorable state of all America, and that of Rome, under the law before mentioned? The difference is only this, that they gave their formal consent to the change, which we have not yet done. But let us be upon our guard against even a negative submission ; for agreeable to the sentiments of a celebrated writer, who thoroughly understood his subject, if we are voluntarily silent, as the conspirators would have us to be, it will be considered as an approbation of the change. “By the fundamental laws of England, the two houses of parliament in concert with the King, exercise the legislative power: But if the two houses should be so infatuated, as to resolve to suppress their powers, and invest the King with the full and absolute government, certainly the nation would not suffer it.” And if a minister shall usurp the supreme and absolute government of America, and set up his instructions as laws in the colonies, and their Governors shall be so weak or so wicked, as for the sake of keeping their places, to be made the instruments in putting them in execution, who will presume to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensable duty to God and their Country, by all rational means in their power to Resist Them.

“Be firm, my friends, nor let Unmanly Sloth
Twine round your hearts indissoluble chains.
Ne’er yet by force was freedom overcome.
Unless Corruption first dejects the pride,
And guardian vigor of the free-born soul,
All crude attempts of violence are vain.

Determined, hold Your Independence;
for, that once destroyed,
Unfounded Freedom is a morning dream.”

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.—Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember, that “if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.” It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers in the event.

CANDIDUS

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Samuel Adams Concerning Big Government Loving Liberal Democrats

Samuel Adams concerning the Loss of Religious Liberty (Click to enlarge)

Words written September 16, 1771 by Samuel Adams; signed “Candidus”  Reworked by the editor to fit what is happening in the United States today. The same as it was in his time by enemies of the American people who with similar motives, worked against groups of Patriots then fighting to save the liberties of the people to pass onto their posterity.

When the Constitution of the United States was framed their were the Anti-Federalists (TeaParty), the Federalists (GOP) and the British Loyalists (Democrats).

“Let us ascribe Glory to God who has graciously vouchsafed to favor the Cause of America and of Mankind” ~ Samuel Adams to James Warren 1777

It has always been their [Big Government Loving Liberal Democrats] constant endeavor by all manner of arts to destroy [American Liberty]. Against this, they have discovered a unanimity, zeal and perseverance, worthy to be imitated by those who are embarked in the cause of American freedom.—It is by united councils, a steady zeal, and a manly fortitude, that the Citizens of the United States must expect to recover its violated rights and liberties. They have been actuated by a conscientious and a clear and determined sense of duty to God, their King, their country, and their latest posterity.

The evils which threaten this injured country, arise from the machinations of a few, very few discontented men false patriots who are sacrificing their country to the gratification of their own profit and ideology. It seems of late to have been the policy of these enemies of America to point their weapons against these groups only [Tea Party Patriots, Social Conservatives and Christians]; and artfully to draw off the attention of other citizens, and if possible to render those groups odious [extremely unpleasant; repulsive] to them, while it is suffering governmental vengeance for the sake of the common cause. But it is hoped that the citizens will be aware of this artifice [trickery, deceit].

At this juncture an attempt to subdue these groups to despotic power, is justly to be considered as an attempt to enslave the whole. The citizens “form one political body, of which each is a member.”—The liberties of the whole are invaded— It is therefore the interest of the whole to support each individual with all their weight and influence. Whoever seriously considers the matter, must perceive, that a dreadful stroke is aimed at the liberty of Americans: For the cause of one is the cause of all. If the IRS, EPA, DHS, HHS and other government agencies may lawfully deprive Christians, social conservatives and Tea Party Patriots of any of their Rights, it may deprive any or all the other citizens of their Rights; and nothing can so much encourage such attempts, as a mutual inattention to the interests of each other. To divide and thus to destroy, is the first political maxim in attacking those who are powerful by their association And when the slightest point touching the freedom of a single Citizen is agitated, I earnestly wish, that all the rest may with equal ardor support their brother or sister.

These are the generous sentiments of that celebrated writer, whom several have made feeble attempts to answer, but no one has yet done it.—May the American Citizens be upon their guard; and take care lest by a mutual inattention to the interest of each other, they at length become supine and careless of the grand cause of American Liberty, and finally fall a prey to the Merciless Hand Of Tyranny.

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Religion in Politics

Former First Lady Abigail Adams Regarding Patriots & Religion (Click to enlarge)

“So long as there is politics in religion, we will oppose it with religion in politics.”

Christian Register 1920

WILL YOU PLEASE TELL your readers why you deal with political subjects? I agree heartily with your policy, and I should like to have you define it.” We are pleased to reply to this inquiry. Of course, there is a reason for everything we do, and in this important case we are certain it is right and necessary. We put the whole thing in a sentence. It is a principle: So long as there is politics in religion, we will oppose it with religion in politics.

Thomas Jefferson concerning the 1st Amendment Religious Freedom (Click to enlarge)

We mean to apply a searching and unyielding test not so much to the politicians as to the members of our churches of every name who still live in the inconsistent and indefensible position where they consider the government of their country an unreligious and unmoral concern. They say it is politics, the place forbidden, where they shut out God, Church, conscience, and duty. In short, by making politics, or the affairs of state, unmoral and unreligious, they really are responsible for politics being immoral and irreligious. There can be no neutrality. These people do keep religion out .of their politics, but they do not keep politics out of their religion. That is what we mean by the abomination of politics in religion. It is doing more harm to the spiritual integrity and the moral rectitude of church members than any other factor in modern life; and that is certainly not to blink the other gross evils of our time.

We have a great mission to perform as a religious journal. We call men and women to repentance and conversion. They need it; we need it. The people of God treat the sanctities of their Nation with indifference and nonchalance; or they go their selfish and sheepish way as mere partisans, caught by the vicious sophistries of men the most corrupt and self-seeking in the land. How politicians laugh at church members! That is how far politics has got into religion. That is why we say the only salvation is in stirring deep the spirit of religion in politics. We are prophesying for the good time ‘when a man’s religion in his politics will be as 0bviously on the side of intelligent righteousness as, his religion now is on the side of faithfulness to his wife and family [or should be]; of honest and fair conduct in his business; of the spirit of fellowship among his c0churchmen in the sanctuary.

Thomas Jefferson Concerning Pure Morality & Religion of Jesus (Click to enlarge)

Why have we been so long a time under the sinful blight of politics in our religion? Why do we trim and deceive our minds with all sorts of devices to satisfy our politics? Why do we let vile men prostitute our bodies and souls? Why can we not be men and women approved of God, faithful to religion in our politics? The answer is plain. Politics in our religion has polluted our beings until we are stupid and indolent. There are in the churches of every faith in the land men and women of nobility and virtue in most things in life, who are guilty of a shameless taint in the high calling of their Christian citizenship. And some of them have the temerity to say to their ministers, with a gesture of monetary penalty if their ministers tell them the truth of God, that religion and politics must be kept apart! These saintly ones can see a city in the filthy hands of plunderers; a commonwealth playing to the fortunes of rotten financiers; a nation in danger of repudiating its promise of fellowship among the peoples of the world, and give it all no heed whatever, yet counting themselves good. They are so dumb to spiritual truth they cannot see as they ought to see with ethical rigor that the debasement of the moral factors, honesty, public service, and co-operation in public life, goes on because the power of politics in their religion for evil is greater than the power of religion in their politics for good. We shall not cease the imperial command of Almighty God until the end comes of politics in religion and the reign begins of religion in politics, especially in the lives of those who profess and call themselves Christians.

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GOD AND CAESAR Being a Good Citizen

Thomas Jefferson concerning the 1st Amendment Religious Freedom (Click to enlarge)

By religious freedom, or soul liberty, is meant the natural and inalienable right of every soul to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and to be unmolested in the exercise of that right, so long, at least, as he does not infringe upon the rights of others; that religion is, and must be, a voluntary service; that only such service is acceptable to God; and, hence, that no earthly power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, has any right to compel conformity to any creed or to any species of worship, or to tax a man for its support.

This principle gives to “Caesar” “the things that are Caesar’s,” but it denies to Caesar “the things, that are God’s.” It does not make it a matter of indifference what a man believes or how he acts, but it places all on the same footing before God, the only lord of the conscience, and makes us responsible to him alone for our faith and practice. This doctrine is now very generally accepted, not only in Virginia, but also throughout the United States. It has been incorporated into our National and State Constitutions, and it is the basis of our civil liberties. And yet at the date of the American Revolution it was not so. No government in the Old World had recognized this doctrine, and, unless Rhode Island be an exception, it did not find full and unequivocal recognition in any of the colonies of the New World. Virginia was the first to recognize it in her organic law, and this she did in Article XVI. of her Bill of Rights, which was adopted on the 12th day of June, 1776. From that time down to January 19, 1786, when Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” became the law of the State, the battle for soul liberty was on.

History proves how the Light of “True” Christianity had to advance out of the Dark Ages in order for Religious Liberty to advance, which then allowed civil society to advance in large degrees. ~ Editor

GOD AND CAESAR Duty of American Citizens

Our Lord’s saying, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” being rightly interpreted for us, means, “Render unto President and Congress, to governor and legislature, and to all courts and magistrates, all that is due to them according to the constitution and laws.” Our Lord set a limit to the civil power, and thus guarded religious liberty. The things of Caesar and the things of God are to be distinguished from each other, but they cannot be separated from each other. To be a good citizen and to be a good Christian are two quite distinct things, but they cannot be two separate things. A good Christian cannot knowingly neglect his duty to his country; a citizen cannot do his best for his country if he disregards his religious obligations. He who disregards the things that are Caesar’s therein disobeys God. He who is regardless of the things which are God’s is not helping to secure to his country the favor of God.

Thomas Jefferson Concerning the Rights of Conscience (Click to enlarge)

All duties of citizenship are really religious duties. The Christian can no more exclude religion from his politics than from the training of his family. He should adopt his political opinions as conscientiously as his religious opinions. He should defend the former with as scrupulous truthfulness as the latter. He should go to the polls and to the primary meeting with as serious reference to the will of God as to the prayer meeting. He should choose his party as conscientiously as he chooses his church, and should have no connection with any party unless he honestly thinks that he can thus best promote whatever is true and pure and right. He may no more allow his party than his church to control his conscience or constrain him to violate his principles.

Thomas Jefferson Concerning Christian and Religious Duty (Click to enlarge)

The obligation to “render unto God the things which are God’s” is as binding upon Caesar as upon his lowliest subject. Rulers have personally the same religious duties and needs as if they were not rulers; and there are obligations to God resting upon rulers as such, over and above those which rest upon them in common with other men. “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” This obligation rests upon every ruler, no matter in what way he has acquired his power—whether by birth, by conquest or by the choice of the people. It follows irresistibly that a free people ought always to elect rulers who are “just, fearing God.” Every Christian citizen ought to give his vote and use his political influence as wisely as he can to this end.

The government has no right to pursue a policy which prevents its subjects from rendering unto God the things that are God’s. So far as worship and the profession of religious belief are concerned, this is well settled in our country. The people are unanimous and the national constitution is explicit in denying to our rulers the right either to require or to forbid the adoption of any creed or the practice of any religious rites whatsoever. But it would be a false view of religion to regard it as consisting only in creed and worship. If religion is not a spiritual power pervading practical life, it is worthless.

Jefferson regarding Jesus’ Mission (Click to enlarge)

The government has no right either to forbid or to command us to pray or to keep the Sabbath religiously; but it ought to protect us all in our right to pray and to keep the Sabbath holy. It does repress and forbid noisy demonstrations and the public prosecution of trades and business, which would destroy the quietness that is necessary for religious Sabbath-keeping. Our government has always done this, at least so far as to commit it to the principle, yet it does not consistently carry out this principle. The principle requires cessation from labor in all departments of government service, and forbids the running of trains for postal or other service, on the Sabbath, as clearly as it requires foundries and mills and anvils to cease from their din and noise.

There is an application of this principle to our public education, which calls for more thorough investigation than it has yet received. It is strenuously asserted that no religious teaching can be given in schools supported by taxation without violating religious liberty, because, in the vast variety of religious belief and unbelief, no religious teaching can be given which will not be contrary to the religious belief or unbelief of some tax-payer. So Christians are told that they must teach religion at home and in the Sabbath-school, and let the state teach arithmetic and geography and grammar.

Jefferson Concerning the Necessity of Morality in Society (Click to enlarge)

If religion with us meant a creed or a catechism or a rite, this might do; but if religion means a spiritual power pervading and controlling practical life, it will not do. What would infidels say of a man who should propose to confine the religion of his family to Sunday and the daily half hour of family worship? They would call him a hypocrite. They would justly say, “If that man honestly believed what he teaches the children on Sunday and what he reads from his Bible and sings from his hymn-book and solemnly utters on his knees, it would go with him to the field and to the table and in all the various work and play and intercourse of the family He would do just as his Bible bids him, where it says, “And these words which I command thee shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” But is such a sincere Christian, being a father, willing to have religion excluded from the whole school-life of his children— to have their intellects formed and trained under a system which forbids their teachers to find moral principles in the Ten Commandments, or wisdom in the Proverbs, or history in the Pentateuch, or poetry in David and Isaiah, or God in chemistry and astronomy?

May the government rightly take for its treasury the money which such a father would use for the education of his children, and give him in return only an education which has all religion excluded from it? Must the government be so tender of the atheist’s conscience, at the expense of putting such a strain as that upon the Christian conscience? Is the conscience, whose supreme law is “Fear God, and keep his commandments,” so much less entitled to the respect of rulers than that which says, “There is no God, there is no immortality, there is no immutable moral right”?

Jefferson Regarding Religious Liberty (Click to enlarge)

The Synod of New York at its last meeting affirmed its conviction that our national vigor and permanence are guaranteed only by a religiously-grounded morality; that there should be in every school maintained by the state the inculcation of such principles of dependence upon God and obligation to him as are essential to sound learning, safe character and wholesome citizenship; that the synod should bring the entire weight of its influence to bear against whatever, by statement or suggestion, shall antagonize the claims of the God upon whom we depend and to whom we owe obligations. The synod instructed its ministers publicly to recognize the difficulties in which the case is involved, and to bring those difficulties to bear as an argument for more thorough, intelligent and faithful religious instruction on the part of the family, the Sunday-school and the church. Surely these are words of truth and soberness.

Sources: The Church at Home and Abroad, Volume 3 January, 1888
Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia by Charles Fenton James, 1899

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Prophetic Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison; Paris Dec 20, 1787

Thomas Jefferson concerning Separation of Powers

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, December 20, 1787.

Dear Sir,

My last to you was of October the 8th, by the Count de Moustier. Yours of July the 18th, September the 6th, and October the 25th, were successively received, yesterday, the day before, and three or four days before that. I have only had time to read the letters; the printed papers communicated with them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish my despatches for the packet, which despatches must go from hence the day after to-morrow. I have much to thank you for, first and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself. These little informations are very material towards forming my own decisions. I would be glad even to know when any individual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I know myself it would not excite ill blood in me, while it would assist to guide my conduct, perhaps, to justify it, and to keep me to my duty alert. I must thank you, too, for the information in Thomas Burk’s case; though you will have found, by a subsequent letter, that I have asked of you a further investigation of that matter. It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the convent wherein my daughters are, and who, by her attachment and attention to them, lays me under great obligations. I shall hope, therefore, still to receive from you the result of all the further inquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of rice, which you informed me had miscarried, accompanied my letter to the delegates of South Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the bearer of both, and both were delivered together into the hands of his relation here, who introduced him to me, and who, at a subsequent moment, undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This person was an engraver, particularly recommended to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the sale of western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb all the certificates of our domestic debt speedily, in the first place, and that then, offered for cash, they will do the same by our foreign ones.

The season admitting of operations in the Cabinet, and those being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a letter. I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few words on the constitution proposed by our Convention.

I like much the general idea of framing a Government which would go on of itself peaceably, without needing continual recurrence to the State Legislatures. I like the organization of the Government into legislative, judiciary, and executive. I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely, I approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly. For, though I think a house so chosen, will be very far inferior to the present Congress, will be very illy qualified to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations, &c, yet this evil does not weigh against the good of preserving inviolate the fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but by representatives chosen immediately by themselves. I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great and little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to proportional influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution of the method of voting by persons instead of that of voting by States; and I like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third of either House, though I should have liked it better had the judiciary been associated for that purpose, or invested separately with a similar power. There are other good things of less moment.

I will now tell you what I do not like: First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly and without the aid of sophism for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill of rights was not necessary, because all is reserved in the case of the General Government which is not given, while in the particular ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the audience to which it was addressed, but it is surely a gratis dictum, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from the omission of the clause of our present Confederation, which had made the reservation in express terms. It was hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity among the States as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in certain cases, therefore the more prudent States shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would have been much more just and wise to have concluded by the other way, that as most of the States had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of liberty, those which had wandered should be brought back to it; and to have established general right rather than general wrong. For I consider all the ill as established which may be established. I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury in all civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every Government on earth, general or particular, and which no just Government should refuse, or rest on inference. Roman Emperors, the Popes while they were of any importance, the German Emperors till they became hereditary in practice, the Kings of Poland, the Deys of the Ottoman dependencies. It may be said that if elections are to be attended with these disorders, the less frequently they are repeated the better. But experience says, that to free them from disorder they must be rendered less interesting by a necessity of change. No foreign Power, nor domestic party, will waste their blood and money to elect a person who must go out at the end of a short period. The power of removing every fourth year by the vote of the people is a power which they will not exercise, and if they were disposed to exercise it, they would not be permitted. The King of Poland is removable every day by the Diet, but they never remove him. Nor would Russia, the Emperor, Sic, permit them to do it. Smaller objections are, the appeals on matters of fact as well as law, and the binding all persons, legislative, executive, and judiciary, by oath to maintain that Constitution. I do not pretend to decide what would be the best method of procuring the establishment of the manifold good things in this Constitution, and of getting rid of the bad. Whether by adopting it in hopes of future amendments; or, after it shall have been only weighed and canvassed by the people, after seeing the parts they generally dislike and those they generally approve, to say to them: “We see now ‘what you wish. You are willing to give to your Federal Government such and such powers, but you wish at the same time to have ‘such and such fundamental rights secured to you, and certain sources ‘of convulsion taken away. Be it so. Send together your deputies ‘again. Let them establish your fundamental rights by a sacrosanct ‘declaration, and let them pass the parts of the Constitution you ‘have approved. These will give powers to your Federal Government sufficient for your happiness.”

The second feature I dislike, and strongly dislike, is the abandonment, in every instance, of the principle of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President. Reason and experience tell us that the first magistrate will always be reelected, if he may be reelected. He is then an officer for life. This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to certain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs, that they will interfere with money and with arms. A Galloman or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends. If once elected, and at a second or third election out-voted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of Government, be supported by the States voting for him, especially if they be the central ones, lying in a compact body themselves, and separating their opponents; and they will be aided by one nation in Europe, while the majority are aided by another. The election of a President of America, some years hence, will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a King of Poland was. Reflect on all the instances in history, ancient and modern, of the elective Monarchies, and say if they do not give foundation for my fears; the Roman Emperors, the Popes while they were of any importance, the German Emperors till they became hereditary in practice, the Kings of Poland, the Deys of the Ottoman dependencies. It may be said that if elections are to be attended with these disorders, the less frequently they are repeated the better. But experience says, that to free them from disorder, they must be rendered less interesting by a necessity of change. No foreign power, nor domestic party, will waste their blood and money to elect a person who must go out at the end of a short period. The power of removing every fourth year by the vote of the people, is a power which they will not exercise, and if the were disposed to exercise it, they would not be permitted. The king of Poland is removeable every day by the Diet, but they never remove him. Nor would Russia, the Emperor, &0. permit them to do it. Smaller objections are, the appeals on matters of fact as well as law; and the binding all persons, legislative, executive, and judiciary, by oath to maintain the constitution. I. do not pretend to decide what would be the best method of procuring the establishment of the manifold good things in this constitution, and of getting rid of the bad. Whether by adopting it in hopes of future amendments; or after it shall have been only weighed and canvassed by the people, after seeing the parts they generally dislike, and those . they generally approve, to say to them, ‘We see now what you wish. You are willing to give to your federal government such and such powers, but you wish, at the same time, to have such and such fundamental rights secured to you, and certain sources of convulsion taken away. Be it so. Send together your deputies again. Let them establish your fundamental rights by a sacro-sancl declaration, and let them pass the parts of the constitution you have approved. These will give powers to your federal government sufficient for your happiness.’

This is what might be said, and would probably produce a speedy, more perfect, and more permanent form of Government. At all events I hope you will not be discouraged from making other trials, if the present one should fail. We are never permitted to despair of the Commonwealth. I have thus told you freely which I like and what I dislike, merely as a matter of curiosity; for I know it is not in my power to offer matter of information to your judgment, which has been formed after hearing and weighing everything which the wisdom of man could offer on these subjects. I own I am not a friend to a very energetic Government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors, indeed, more at ease, at the expense of the people. The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States in the course of eleven years is but one for each State in a century and a half. No country should be as long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of Government prevent insurrection. In England, where the hand of power is heavier than with us, there are seldom half a dozen years without an insurrection. In France, where it is still heavier, but less despotic, as Montesquieu supposes, than in some other countries, and where there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood spilt. In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the events of every day. Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours; and say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the Government or information to the people. This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. After all, it is my principle that the will of the majority should prevail. If they approve the proposed Constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheerfully, in hopes they will amend it whenever they shall find it works wrong. This reliance cannot deceive us as long as we remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so as long as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case while there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there. I have tired you by this time with disquisitions which you have already heard repeated by others, a thousand and a thousand times, and therefore shall only add assurances of the esteem and attachment with which I have the honor to be, &c,

TH: JEFFERSON.

P. S. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it would be well to provide in our Constitution that there shall always be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a bill and passing it—that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word; and that if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both Houses instead of a bare majority.

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The Problems Associated with a Paternal Government

Does the following excerpt remind you of the way many in the U.S. government (Democrats mainly, but certain so-called Republicans) see the American citizenry today? i.e. In need of a Paternal Government 

Excerpt from “Kant’s Principles of Politics” by Immanuel Kant

The Liberty of every Member of the State As A Man, is the first Principle in the constitution of a rational Commonwealth. I would express this Principle in the following form:—’ No one has a right to compel me to be happy in the peculiar way in which he may think of the well-being of other men; but everyone is entitled to seek his own happiness in the way that seems to him best, if it does not infringe the liberty of others in striving after a similar end for themselves when their Liberty is capable of consisting with the Right of Liberty in all others according to possible universal laws.’—A Government founded upon the principle of Benevolence towards the people—after the analogy of a father to his children, and therefore called a paternal Government—would be one in which the [Citizens] would be regarded as children or minors unable to distinguish what-is beneficial or injurious to them. These [citizens] would be thus compelled to act in a merely passive way; and they would be trained to expect solely from the Judgment of the [Government] and just as [it] might will it, merely out of [its] goodness, all that ought to make them happy. Such a Government would be the greatest conceivable Despotism; for it would present a Constitution that would abolish all Liberty in the [Citizenry] and leave them no Rights. It is not a paternal Government, but only a patriotic Government that is adapted for men who are capable of Rights, and at the same time fitted to give scope to the good-will of the [government].

By ‘patriotic’ is meant that condition of mind in which everyone in the State—the Head of it not excepted—regards the Commonwealth as the maternal bosom, and the country as the paternal soil out of and on which he himself has sprung into being, and which he also must leave to others as a dear inheritance. Thus, and thus only, can he hold himself entitled to protect the Rights of his [countrymen] by laws of the common will, but not to subject it to an unconditional purpose of his own at pleasure.—This Right of Liberty thus belongs to him as a man, while he is a Member of the Commonwealth; or, in point of fact, so far as he is a being capable of rights generally.

source: Kant’s Principles of Politics and Perpetual Peace
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Daniel Webster: The Dignity and Importance of History; A Prophetic Warning

Daniel Webster: The Dignity and Importance of History; February 23, 1852

“if we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government and that political union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political associations, we may be sure of one thing… It will have no decline and fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written! Let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can ever know more than that it is lost, and lost forever!”

NOTE: This is long, I urge you to read the complete speech, however if you do not wish to, I would encourage you to scroll down to “In the history of the United States there are three epochs.” and read from there.

An address delivered before the New York Historical Society. Printed from the pamphlet report: New York: Press of the Historical Society, MDCCCLII. It contains the following Dedication:

“I dedicate this address to Hon. Luther Bradish, President of the New York Historical Society, as a proof of private friendship and public regard.”

The object of your association, gentlemen, like that of others of similar character, is highly important Historical societies are auxiliary to historical compositions. They collect the materials from which the great narrative of events is, in due time, to be framed. The transactions of public bodies, local histories, memoirs of all kinds, statistics, laws, ordinances, public debates and discussions, works of periodical literature, and the public journals, whether of political events, of commerce, literature, or the arts, all find their places in the collections of historical societies. But these collections are not history; they are only elements of history. History is a higher name, and imports literary productions of the first order.

It is presumptuous in me, whose labors and studies have been so long devoted to other objects, to speak in the presence of those whom I see before me, of the dignity and importance of history, in its just sense; and yet I find pleasure in breaking in upon the course of daily pursuits, and indulging for a time in reflections upon topics of literature, and in the remembrance of the great examples of historic art.

Well written history must always be the result of genius and taste, as well as of research and study. It stands next to epic poetry, among the productions of the human mind. If it requires less of invention than that, it is not behind it in dignity and importance. The province of the epic is the poetical narrative of real or supposed events, and the representation of real, or at least natural, characters; and history, in its noblest examples, is an account of occurrences in which great events are commemorated, and distinguished men appear as agents and actors. Epic poetry and the drama are but narratives, the former partly, and the latter wholly, in the form of dialogue; but their characters and personages are usually, in part at least, the creations of the imagination.

Severe history sometimes assumes the dialogue, or dramatic form, and, without departing from truth, is embellished by supposed colloquies or speeches, as in the productions of that great master, Titus Livius, or that greater master still, Thucydides.

The drawing of characters, consistent with general truth and fidelity, is no violation of historical accuracy; it is only an illustration or an ornament.

When Livy ascribes an appropriate speech to one of his historical personages, it is only as if he had portrayed the same character in language professedly his own. Lord Clarendon’s presentation, in his own words, of the character of Lord Falkland, one of the highest and most successful efforts of personal description, is hardly different from what it would have been, if he had put into the mouth of Lord Falkland a speech exhibiting the same qualities of the mind and the heart, the same opinions, and the same attachments. Homer describes the actions of personages which, if not real, are so imagined as to be conformable to the general characteristics of men in the heroic ages. If his relation be not historically true, it is such, nevertheless, as, making due allowance for poetical embellishment, might have been true. And in Milton’s great epic, which is almost entirely made up of narratives and speeches, there is nothing repugnant to the general conception which we form of the characters of those whose sentiments and conduct he portrays.

But history, while it illustrates and adorns, confines itself to facts, and to the relation of actual events. It is not far from truth to say, that well written and classic history is the epic of real life. It places the actions of men in an attractive and interesting light. Rejecting what is improper and superfluous, it fills its picture with real, just, and well drawn images.

The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form. Classical history is not a memoir. It is not a crude collection of acts, occurrences, and dates. It adopts nothing that is not true; but it does not embrace all minor truths and all minor transactions. It is a composition, a production, which has unity of design, like a work of statuary or of painting, and keeps constantly in view one great end or result. Its parts, therefore, are to be properly adjusted and well proportioned. The historian is an artist, as true to fact as other artists are to nature, and, though he may sometimes embellish, he never misrepresents; he may occasionally, perhaps, color too highly, but the truth is still visible through the lights and shades. This unity of design seems essential to all great productions. With all the variety of the Iliad, Homer had the wrath of Achilles, and its consequences, always before him; when he sang of the exploits of other heroes, they were silently subordinated to those of the son of Thetis. Still more remarkable is the unity in variety of the Odyssey, the character of which is much more complicated; but all the parts are artfully adapted to each other, and they have a common centre of interest and action, the great end being the restoration of Ulysses to his native Ithaca. Virgil, in the Aeneid, sang of nothing but the man, and his deeds, who brought the Trojan gods to Italy, and laid the foundation of the walls of imperial Rome; and Milton of nothing, but

“Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woes.”

And the best historical productions of ancient and of modern times have been written with equal fidelity to one leading thought or purpose.

It has been said by Lord Bolingbroke, that “History is Philosophy teaching by example;” and, before Bolingbroke,
Shakspeare has said:

“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d;
The which observ’d, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie entreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,
King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness,
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
Are these things, then, necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities.”

And a wiser man than either Bolingbroke or Shakspeare, has declared:

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

These sayings are all just, and they proceed upon the idea that the essential characteristics of human nature are the same everywhere, and in all ages.

This, doubtless, is true; and so far as history presents the general qualities and propensities of human nature, it does teach by example. Bolingbroke adds, with remarkable power of expression, that ” the school of example is the world: and the masters of this school are history and experience.”

But the character of man varies so much, from age to age, both in his individual and collective capacity; there comes such a change of circumstances, so many new objects of desire and aversion, and so many new and powerful motives spring up in his mind, that the conduct of men, in one age, or under one state of circumstances, is no sure and precise indication of what will be their conduct, when times and circumstances alter; so that the example of the past, before it can become a useful instructor to the present, must be reduced to elementary principles in human nature, freed from the influence of conditions which were temporary and have changed, and applied to the same principles, under new relations, with a different degree of knowledge, and the impulses arising from the altered state of things. A savage has the passions of ambition, revenge, love, and glory; and ambition and love, revenge and the hope of renown, are also elements in the character of civilized life; but the development of these passions, in a state of barbarism, hardly instructs us as to the manner in which they will exhibit themselves in a cultivated period of society.

And so it is of religious sentiment and feeling. I believe man is everywhere, more or less, a religious being; that is to say, in all countries, and at all times, he feels a tie which connects him with an Invisible Power.

It is true indeed, and it is a remarkable fact in the history of mankind, that in the very lowest stage of human existence, and in the opposite extreme of high civilization, surrounded with everything luxurious in life, and with all the means of human knowledge, the idea of an unseen and supreme Governor of the Universe is most likely to be equally doubted or disregarded.

The lowest stage of human culture, that of mere savage existence, and the intellectual and refined atheism, exhibited in our own day, seem to be strangely coincident in this respect; though it is from opposite causes and influences that men, in these so different conditions, are led to doubt or deny the existence of a Supreme Power. But both these are exceptions to the general current of human thought and to the general conviction of our nature.

Man is naturally religious; but then his religion takes its character from his condition, his degree of knowledge, and his association; and thus it is true that the religious feeling, which operates in one state of society, and under one degree of light and knowledge, is not a safe example to prove its probable influence under circumstances essentially different. So that, when we regard history as our instructor, in the development of the perceptions and character of men, and in the motives which actuate them, there comes a concomitant rush of altered circumstances, which are all to be considered and regarded.

History, therefore, is an example which may teach us the general principles of human nature, but does not instruct us greatly in its various possible developments.

What Dr. Johnson said, in his comparison of Dryden and Pope, is not inapplicable to this topic, “Dryden,” said he, “knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners.” Dryden’s sentiments, therefore, are the exemplar of human nature in general, Pope’s of human nature as modified in particular relations and circumstances; and what is true of individual man, in this respect, is true, also, of society and government.

The love of liberty, for instance, is a passion or sentiment which existed in intense force in the Grecian Republics, and in the better ages of Rome. It exists now, chiefly, and first of all, on that portion of the Western Continent in which we live. Here, it burns with heat and with splendor beyond all Grecian and all Roman example. It is not a light in the temple of Minerva, it is not the vestal flame of Rome; it is the light of the sun, it is the illumination of all the constellations. Earth, air, and ocean, and all the heavens above us, are filled with its glorious shining; and, although the passion and the sentiment are the same, yet he who would reason from Grecian liberty, or from Roman freedom, to our intelligent American liberty, would be holding a farthing candle to the orb of day.

The magnificent funeral oration of Pericles, over those who fell in the Peloponnesian War, is one of the grandest productions of antiquity. It contains sentiments and excites emotions congenial to the minds of all lovers of liberty, in all regions and at all times. It exhibits a strong and ardent attachment to country, which true patriots always feel; an undaunted courage in its defence, and willingness to pledge and hazard all, for the maintenance of liberty. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting a few passages from that celebrated address, in a translation which I think much closer to the original Greek than that of Smith:

Mr. Webster here quoted at some length from the oration referred to, and then proceeded as follows:

How terse, how Doric, how well considered is the style of this unsurpassed oration! Gentlemen, does not every page, paragraph, and sentence of what I have read, go home to all our hearts, carrying a most gratified consciousness of its resemblance to what is near and dear to us in our own native land? Is it Athens, or America? Is Athens or America the theme of these immortal strains? Was Pericles speaking of his own country, as he saw it or knew it; or was he gazing upon a bright vision, then two thousand years before him, which we see in reality, as he saw it in prospect?

But the contests of Sparta  and Athens, what were they in lasting importance, and in their bearing on the destinies of the world, in comparison with that ever memorable struggle which separated the American colonies from the dominion of Europe? How different the result which betided Athens, from that which crowned the glorious efforts of our ancestors; and, therefore, this renowned oration of Pericles, what is it in comparison with an effort of historical eloquence which should justly set forth the merits of the heroes and the martyrs of the American Revolution?

The liberty of Athens, and of the other Grecian Republics, being founded in pure democracy, without any principle of representation, was fitted only for small states. The exercise of popular power in a purely democratic form cannot be spread over countries of large extent; because, in such countries, all cannot assemble in the same place to vote directly upon laws and ordinances, and other public questions. But the principle of representation is expansive; it may be enlarged, if not infinitely, yet indefinitely, to meet new occasions, and embrace new regions. While, therefore, the love of liberty was the same, and its general principle the same, in the Grecian Republics as with us, yet not only were the forms essentially different, but that also was wanting which we have been taught to consider as indispensable to its security: that is, a fixed, settled, definite, fundamental law, or constitution, imposing limitations and restraints equally on governors and governed. We may, therefore, inhale all the fulness and freshness of the Grecian spirit, but we necessarily give its development a different form, and subject it to new modifications.

But history is not only philosophy, teaching by example; its true purpose is, also, to illustrate the general progress of society in knowledge and the arts, and the changes of manners and pursuits of men.

There is an imperfection, both in ancient and modern histories, and those of the best masters, in this respect. While they recite public transactions, they omit, in a great degree, what belongs to the civil, social, and domestic progress of men and nations. There is not, so far as I know, a good civil history of Rome, nor is there an account of the manners and habits of social and domestic life, such as may inform us of the progress of her citizens, from the foundation of the city to the time of Livy and Sallust, in individual exhibitions of character.

We know, indeed, something of the private pursuits and private vices of the Roman people at the commencement of the Empire, but we obtain our knowledge of these chiefly from the severe and indignant rebukes of Sallust, and the inimitable satires of Juvenal. Wars, foreign and domestic, the achievements of arms, and national alliances fill up the recorded greatness of the Roman Empire.

It is very remarkable that, in this respect, Roman literature is far more deficient than that of Greece. Aristophanes, and other Grecian comic writers, have scenes richly filled with the delineation of the lives and manners of their own people. But the Roman imitators of the Grecian stage gave themselves up to the reproduction of foreign characters on their own stage, and presented in their dramas Grecian manners also, instead of Roman manners. How much wiser was Shakspeare, who enchained the attention of his audiences, and still enchains the attention of the whole Teutonic race, by the presentation of English manners and English history?

Falstaff, Justice Shallow, and Dogberry are not shrubs of foreign growth transplanted into the pages of Shakspeare, but genuine productions of the soil, the creations of his own homebred fancy.

Mr. Banks has written a civil history of Rome, but it seems not to have answered the great end which it proposed.

The labors of Niebuhr, Arnold, and Merivale have accomplished much towards furnishing the materials of such history, and Becker, in his Gallus, has drawn a picture, not uninteresting, of the private life of the Romans at the commencement of the Empire.

I know nothing of the fact, but I once had an intimation, that one of the most distinguished writers of our time and of our country has had his thoughts turned to this subject for several years. If this be so, and the work, said to be in contemplation, be perfected, it will be true, as I have no doubt, that the civil history of the great republic of antiquity will have been written, not only with thorough research, but also with elegance of style and chaste, classical illustration, by a citizen of the great republic of modern times. I trust that when this work shall appear, if it shall appear, we shall not only Bee the Roman consul and the Roman general, the Comitia and the Forum, but that we shall also see Roman hearths and altars, the Roman matron at the head of her household, Roman children in their schools of instruction, and the whole of Roman life fully presented to our view, so far as the materials, now existing in separate and special works, afford the means.

It is in our day only that the history and progress of the civil and social institutions and manners of England have become the subjects of particular attention.

Sharon Turner, Lingard, and, more than all, Mr. Hallam, have laid this age, and all following ages, under the heaviest obligations by their labors in this field of literary composition; nor would I separate from them the writings of a most learned and eloquent person, whose work on English history is now in progress, nor the author of the ” Pictorial History of England.” But there is still wanting a full, thorough, and domestic, social account of our English ancestors, that is, a history which shall trace the progress of social life in the intercourse of man with man; the advance of arts, the various changes in the habits and occupations of individuals; and those improvements in domestic life which have attended the condition and meliorated the circumstances of men in the lapse of ages. We still have not the means of learning, to any great extent, how our English ancestors, at their homes, and in their houses, were fed, and lodged, and clothed, and what were their daily employments. We want a history of firesides; we want to know when kings and queens exchanged beds of straw for beds of down, and ceased to breakfast on beef and beer. We wish to see more, and to know more, of the changes which took place, from age to age, in the homes of England, from the castle and the palace, down to the humblest cottage. Mr. Henry’s book, so far as it goes, is not without its utility, but it stops too soon, and, even in regard to the period which it embraces, it is not sufficiently full and satisfactory in its particulars.

The feudal ages were military and agricultural, but the splendor of arms, in the history of the times, monopolized the genius of writers; and perhaps materials are not now abundant for forming a knowledge of the essential industry of the country. He would be a public benefactor who should instruct us in the modes of cultivation and tillage prevailing in England, from the Conquest down, and in the advancement of manufactures, from their inception in the time of Henry IV., to the period of their considerable development, two centuries afterwards.

There are two sources of information on these subjects, which have never yet been fully explored, and which, nevertheless, are overflowing fountains of knowledge. I mean the statutes and the proceedings of the courts of law. At an early period of life, I recurred, with some degree of attention, to both these sources of information; not so much for professional purposes, as for the elucidation of the progress of society. I acquainted myself with the object and purposes and substance of every published statute in British legislation. These showed me what the legislature of the country was concerned in, from age to age, and from year to year. And I learned from the reports of controversies, in the courts of law, what were the pursuits and occupations of individuals, and what the objects which most earnestly engaged attention. I hardly know anything which more repays research, than studies of this kind. We learn from them what pursuits occupied men during the feudal ages. We see the efforts of society to throw off the chains of this feudal dominion. We see too, in a most interesting manner, the ingenious devices resorted to, to break the thraldom of personal slavery. We see the beginning of manufacturing interests, and at length bursts upon us the full splendor of the commercial age.

Littleton, Coke, Plowden, what are they? How their learning fades away and becomes obsolete, when Holt and Somers and Mansfield arise, catching themselves, and infusing all around them, the influences and the knowledge which commerce had shed upon the world!

Our great teachers and examples in the historical art are, doubtless, the eminent historians of the Greek and Roman ages. In their several ways, they are the masters to whom all succeeding times have looked for instruction and improvement. They are the models which have stood the test of time, and, like the glorious creations in marble of Grecian genius, have been always admired and never surpassed.

We have our favorites in literature, as well as in other things, and I confess that, among the Grecian writers, my estimate of Herodotus is great. His evident truthfulness, his singular simplicity of style, and his constant respect and veneration for sacred and divine things, win my regard. It is true that he sometimes appears credulous, which caused Aristotle to say of him, that he was a story-teller. But, in respect to this, two things are to be remarked; the one is, that he never avers as a fact that which rests on the accounts of others; the other, that all subsequent travels and discoveries have tended to confirm his fidelity. From his great qualities as a writer, as well as from the age in which he lived, he is justly denominated the “Father of History.” Herodotus was a conscientious narrator of what he saw and heard. In his manner there is much of the old epic style; indeed, his work may be considered as the connecting link between the epic legend and political history; truthful, on the one hand, since it was a genuine history; but, on the other, conceived and executed in the spirit of poetry, and not the profounder spirit of political philosophy. It breathes a reverential submission to the divine will, and recognizes distinctly the governing hand of Providence in the affairs of men. But, upon the whole, I am compelled to regard Thucydides as the greater writer.

Thucydides was equally truthful, but more conversant with the motives and character of men in their political relations. He took infinite pains to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the transactions that occurred in his own day, and which became the subject of his own narrative.

It is said, even, that persons were employed by him to obtain information from both the belligerent powers, for his use, while writing the history of the Peloponnesian War.

He was one of the most eminent citizens of the Athenian Republic, educated under the institutions of Solon, and trained in all the political wisdom which these institutions had developed in the two centuries since their establishment. A more profound intellect never applied itself to historical investigation; a more clear-sighted and impartial judge of human conduct never dealt with the fortunes and acts of political communities.

The work of Herodotus is graphic, fluent, dramatic, and ethical in the highest degree; but it is not the work of the citizen of a free republic, personally experienced in the conduct of its affairs. The history of the Peloponnesian War, on the other hand, could only have been produced by a man of large experience, and who added to vast genius deep personal insight into the workings of various public institutions. As Thucydides himself says, his history was written not for the entertainment of the moment, but to be “a possession forever.”

There can, it seems to me, be no reasonable doubt that the first works by which man expressed his thoughts and feelings in an orderly composition, were essentially poetical. In the earliest writings of which we know anything with distinctness, we have an union or mingling of poetry and fact, embodying the traditions and history of the people among which they arose.

Like other intellectual culture, this form of history appeared first in the East, and, from the days of Moses and Joshua down to our own times, it has there retained substantially the same character. I mean, it has been a remarkable mixture of the spirit of history and of epic poetry. In Greece, we may observe originally the same state of things; but the two forms of composition at length became separated, though the Greek historical art, when highest, never loses all its relations to the epic. The earliest Greek poets were religious and historical poets, dealing in the traditions and mythology of their country, and so continued down through Homer. Herodotus was by birth an Asiatic Greek, and was quite imbued with the oriental spirit. In his time, of public records there were none, or, at the most, there were only local registers of public events, and their dates, such, for instance, as those kept by the priesthood in the temples at Delphi and Argos, or the registers of particular families. He travelled, therefore, to collect the materials for his history. But he made of them one whole, and laid one idea at the bottom, with as much epic simplicity as Homer did in the Iliad. His subject was the contest of Greece with the Persians, and the triumph of Grecian liberty, or, more strictly, the great Grecian victory over the barbarians who had conquered the world, as then known. The relations between Herodotus and Homer are not to be mistaken; he not only has episodes, like the long one about Egypt, and formal speeches, which were common in historical works till the sixteenth century of our era, and have not been unknown since,[They are adopted, for instance, by Botta] but he has dialogues. One of his series of speeches, which partakes of the character of a dialogue, shows a remarkable advancement in political knowledge for that age; I mean that in which the conspirators against the Magi of Persia, previously to the elevation of Darius, discuss the different forms of government, almost in the spirit of Montesquieu. But all these things are kept in their proper places by Herodotus. He feels the connection of his subject all the way through; how one event proceeds from another, and how, in the spirit of epic unity, everything tends to the principal result, or contributes to it directly.

In Thucydides, the art of history is further advanced, though he lived very little later than Herodotus. He probably had read or heard his history, though that is doubted.

Thucydides did not, indeed, make one whole of his work, for he did not survive the war whose history he undertook to relate; but he is less credulous than Herodotus; he has no proper dialogue; he is more compact; he indulges very little in episodes; he draws characters, and his speeches are more like formal, stately discussions. And he says of them, they are such as he either heard himself, or received from those who did hear them, and he states that he gives them in their true substance.

There is nothing to create a doubt that personally he heard the oration of Pericles; and it is remarkable that, throughout the most flourishing period of Greek literature, both poetical and historical, productions were composed to be heard, rather than to be read; and the practice of listening to their rehearsals led the Greek people to attain great accuracy, as well as retentiveness, of memory.

In short, Herodotus’ work seems a natural, fresh production of the soil; that of Thucydides belongs to a more advanced state of culture. Quintilian says of the former, “In Herodoto omnia leniter fluunt;” of the latter, “Densus et brevis et semper instans sibi.”

Xenophon, in his Hellenica, continues Thucydides. He was a military leader, and familiar with the affairs of state, and though not so deep a thinker, was a more graceful and easy writer. Polybius, living in a much later period, is defective in style, but is a wise and sensible author. His object is not merely to show what has been, but to attempt the instruction of the future, making his work what he calls a demonstrative history, fitted ‘for the use of statesmen. He is the last of the really good Greek historians.

The Romans had the great Greek masters, in prose and poetry, all before them, and imitated them in everything, but approached their models nearly only in eloquence and history. Like the Greeks too, they had early poetical histories, historical legends, and songs. Ennius wrote a sort of epic history of Rome. Caesar, one of the most distinguished of all great men, wrote accounts of what he had done, or what related directly to himself. The clearness, purity, and precision of his style are as characteristic of him as any of his great achievemente.

Sallust followed more closely the Greek models. Each of his two remaining histories is an epic whole, — short, indeed, but complete, fashioned with the greatest exactness, and remarkable for a dignity and stateliness of style which Caesar did not seek, and which would not have been fitting for his personal memoirs.

Livy had another purpose; there is an epic completeness in his great work, though it has come down to us in a mutilated state. “Majestas populi Romani” was his subject, and he sacrifices much to it, even, not unfrequently, the rigor of truth. His style is rich and flowing. Quintilian speaks of “Livii lactea ubertas” the creamy richness of Livy. His descriptions are excellent; indeed, there is a nobleness and grandeur about the whole work well fitted to his magnificent purpose in writing it.

Tacitus comes later, when he could no longer feel so proud of his country as Livy had done. He had much of the spirit and the power of Thucydides. Both were great, upright men, dissatisfied with their times; the one, because of the ascendancy of demagogues among the people, the other, with the imperial vices and the growing demoralization of his age. Tacitus is, however, free from passion, and is a wise, statesmanlike, and profound writer, throughout. Of both his History and Annals considerable portions are lost. We cannot, therefore, tell how much of completeness and proportion there may have been in either. But the nature of the period he discusses in each, — a period, as he says, ” opimum casibus, atrox prceliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace scevum” not less than the severity of his own nature, forbade poetical ornament. In character-drawing, he is hardly excelled by any one. By a single dash of his pencil, he sometimes throws out a likeness, which all feel and acknowledge; and yet it has been thought that some degree of falling off in the purity and elegance of the Latin language is discernible in his pages.

Of the Roman historians my preference is strongly for Sallust. I admire his reach of thought, his clearness of style, as well as his accuracy of narration. He is sufficiently concise; he is sententious, without being meager or obscure, and his power of personal and individual description is remarkable. There are, indeed, in his style, some roughness belonging to the Roman tongue at an earlier age, but they seem to strengthen the structure of his sentences, without especially injuring their beauty. No character-drawing can well exceed his delineation of Catiline, his account of Jugurtha, or his parallel between Caesar and Cato. I have thought, sometimes, that I saw resemblances between his terse and powerful periods, and the remarks and sayings of Dr. Johnson, as they appear, not in his stately performances, but in the record of his conversations by Boswell.

In turning to peruse once more the pages of Sallust, to refresh myself . for the preparation of this address, I was struck by the coincidence of a transaction narrated by him, with one which we have seen very recently in our own country.

When Jugurtha had put to death Hiempsal, and expelled Adherbal from his rightful throne, the latter (who was born in Numidia, and not in Hungary) came to Rome to invoke what we should call, the intervention of the Roman people. His speech, delivered on that occasion, in the Senate, as Sallust has given it, is one of the most touching ever made by a man in misfortune and suffering from injury, to those having the power of granting relief or redress. His supplication to the Senate is founded on the broad and general idea that the Roman people were just themselves, and as they had the power, so it was their duty, to prevent or punish high-handed injustice, threatened or inflicted by others.

While I confess myself not competent to sit in judgment on the great masters of Roman story, still it has always struck me that in the style of Livy there is so much fulness, so much accumulation of circumstances, as occasionally tends to turgidity. I speak this, however, with the greatest diffidence. Livy seems to me like the rivers under the influence of copious spring floods, when not only is the main channel full, but all the tributary streams are also tending to overflow; while Sallust, I think, takes care only that there shall be one deep, clear, strong, and rapid current, to convey him and his thoughts to their destined end.

I do not mean to say that the skilful use of circumstance, either in the hand of a historian or a poet, is not a great power, — I think it is. What we call graphic description, is but the presentation of the principal idea, with a discreet accompaniment of interesting concomitants.

The introduction of a single auxiliary thought or expression sometimes gives a new glow to the historical or poetical picture. Particularity, well set forth, enchains attention. In our language, no writer has understood this better than Milton. His poetical images and descriptions are sure to omit nothing which can make those images and those descriptions striking, distinct, and certain, while all else is industriously repelled.

Witness the fall of Vulcan, which is stated with such beautiful detail, so much step by step, and terminated by such a phrase and comparison at the end, as greatly to enhance the idea, both of its length and its rapidity.

“Men call’d him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day; and with the setting sun
Dropp’d from the Zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos the Aegean isle.”

His description of vocal music in the “Allegro” is another instance of the same kind:

“And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
That Orpheus’ self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap’d Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain’d Eurydice.”

I hardly know anything which surpasses these exquisite lines, so poetical, and, at the same time, so thoroughly and absolutely English, and so free from all foreign idiom.

Several stanzas of Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard ” are also remarkable for the power and accuracy with which rural scenery is presented, by grouping together many interesting objects in one picture.

Another poetical instance of the same beauty is the ” Burial of Sir John Moore.”

There are remarkable instances of the same skill in writing in some of the English prose writers, and especially in the productions of Daniel De Foe. No boy doubts that everything told of Robinson Crusoe is exactly true, because all is so circumstantially told; I believe I was about ten years of age when I first read Robinson Crusoe, and I remember still the distress and perspiration which I was thrown into by his dangerous condition in his boat. “There was a current on both sides, a strong eddy under the shore. The sea was making a great breach upon that point. It was not safe to keep the shore, for the breach, nor leave it for the stream. He could do nothing with his paddles, and there was not a breath of wind. A great depth of water, running like the sluice of a mill, carried him farther and farther from the eddy, which was on the left hand, so that he could not keep his boat on the edge of it, and as the current on the north side and the current on the south side would both join at a few leagues distant, he thought himself irrecoverably gone.” And I thought so too. No man doubts, until he is informed of the contrary, that the historian of the plague of London actually saw all that he described, although De Foe was not born till a subsequent year.

It is a well known saying that the lie with circumstance is exceedingly calculated to deceive: and that is true, and it is equally true, not only that fictitious history gains credit and belief by the skilful use of circumstance, but that true history also may derive much additional interest from the same source.

In general, however, historical facts are to be related with rather a close and exclusive regard to such and such only as are important.

The art of historical composition owes its origin to the institutions of political freedom. Under the despotism of the Ganges and the Indus, poetry flourished with oriental luxuriance from the earliest times; but in the immense compass of that rich, primeval literature, there is no history, in the high sense of that term. The banks of the Nile were crowded with historical monuments and memorials, stretching back into the remotest antiquity; and recent researches have discovered historical records of the Pharaohs in the scrolls of papyrus, some of them as ancient as the books of Moses. But in all these, there is no history composed according to the principles of art. In Greece, the epic song, founded on traditionary legends, long preceded historical composition. I remember when I thought it the greatest wonder in the world that the poems of Homer should have been written at a period so remote that the earliest Grecian history should have given no probable account of their author. I did not then know, or had not then considered, that poetical writings, hymns, songs, accounts of personal adventures like those of Hercules and Jason, were, in the nature of things, earlier than regular historical narratives. Herodotus informs us that Homer lived four hundred years before his time. There is, nevertheless, something very wonderful in the poems of the old Ionian.

In general, it is true of the languages of nations that in their earlier ages they contain the substantial bone and sinew characteristic of their idiom, yet that they are rough, imperfect, and without polish. Thus Chaucer wrote English; but it is what we call old English, and, though always vigorous and often incomparably sweet, far remote from the smoothness and fluency belonging to the style of Pope and Addison. And Spenser wrote English, but, though rich, sonorous, and gorgeous, it has not the precision and accuracy of those later writers. It would seem that many books must be written and read, and a great many tongues and pens employed, before the language of a country reaches its highest polish and perfection. Now the wonder is, how a language should become so perfect, as was the Greek of Homer, at the time when that language could have been very little written. Doubtless, in succeeding ages, the compass of the Greek tongue was enlarged, as knowledge became more extended, and new things called for new words; but, within the sphere of Grecian knowledge, as it existed in the time of Homer, it can scarce be questioned that his style is quite as perfect and polished as that of any of his successors, and perhaps more picturesque. The cause of this apparent anomaly is, that the language had not only been spoken for many centuries, by a people of great ingenuity and extraordinary good taste, but had been carefully cultivated by the recitation of poetical compositions on a great variety of religious and festive occasions.

It was not until the legislation of Solon had laid the foundation of free political institutions, and these institutions had unfolded a free and powerful and active political life in the Athenian Republic; until the discussion of public affairs in the Senate and the popular Assembly had created deliberative eloquence, and the open administration of justice in the courts, and under the laws established by Solon, had applied to the transactions between the citizens all the resources of refined logic, and drawn into the sphere of civil rights and obligations the power of high forensic oratory: it was not until these results of the legislative wisdom of Solon had been attained, that the art of history rose and nourished in Greece. With the decline of Grecian liberty began the decline in the art of historical composition. Histories were written under the Grecian Kings of Egypt; and a long line of writers nourished under the Byzantine Emperors; but the high art of historical composition, as perfected in the master-works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, had perished in the death of political freedom.

The origin, progress and decline of history, as an art, were nearly the same in Rome. Sallust and Livy flourished at the close of the Republic and the commencement of the Empire. The great works of Tacitus himself are thought by many to betray the beginning of decline in the art, and later writers exhibit its fall.

The art of history again revived with the rise of the Italian Republics; and since the revival of literature, at the close of the middle ages, it will probably be found that three things naturally rise into importance together; that is to say, civil liberty, eloquence, and the art of historical writing.

Other foundation is not to be laid for authentic history than well authenticated facts; but, on this foundation, structures may be raised of different characteristics, historical, biographical, and philosophical. One writer may confine himself to exact and minute narration; another, true to the general story, may embellish that story with more or less of external ornament, or of eloquence in description; a third, with a deeper philosophical spirit, may look into the causes of events and transactions, trace them with more profound research to their sources in the elements of human nature, or consider and solve, with more or less success, the most important question, how far the character of individuals has produced public events, or how far on the other hand public events have produced and formed the character of individuals.

Therefore one history of the same period, in human affairs, no more renders another history of the same period useless, or unadvisable, than the structure of one temple forbids the erection of another, or one statue of Apollo, Hercules, or Pericles should suppress all other attempts to produce statues of the same persons.

But, gentlemen, I must not dwell upon these general topics. We are Americans. We have a country all our own; we are all linked to its fates and its fortunes; it is already not without renown; it has been the theatre of some of the most important human transactions, and it may well become us to reflect on the topics and the means furnished for historical composition in our own land. I have abstained, on this occasion, gentlemen, from much comment on histories composed by European writers of modern times; and, for obvious reasons, I abstain altogether from remarks upon the writers of our own country.

Works have been written upon the history of the United States, other works upon the same subject are in progress, and, no doubt, new works are contemplated, and will be accomplished.

It need not be doubted, that what has been achieved by the great men who have preceded our generation, will be properly recorded by their successors. A country in which highly interesting events occur, is not likely to be destitute of scholars and authors fit to transmit those events to posterity. For the present, I content myself with a few general remarks on the subject.

In the history of the United States there are three epochs. The first extends from the origin and settlement of the Colonies, respectively, to the year 1774. During this, much the longest period, the history of the country is the history of separate communities and governments, with different laws and institutions, though all were of a common origin; not identical indeed, yet having a strong family resemblance, and all more or less reference to the Constitution, and common law of the parent country.

In all these Governments the principle of popular representation more or less prevailed. It existed in the State Governments, in counties, in large districts, and in townships and parishes. And it is not irrelevant to remark, that, by the exercise of the rights enjoyed under these popular principles, the whole people came to be prepared, beyond the example of all others, for the observance of the same principles in the establishment of national institutions, and the administration of sovereign powers.

The second period extends from 1774, through the great event of the Declaration of Independence, in which the Colonies were called States, and, through the existence of the Confederation, down to the period of the adoption of the present Constitution. The third embraces the period from 1789 to the present time.

To avoid dealing with events too recent, it might be well to consider the third era, or epoch, as terminating with the close of President Washington’s administration, and going back into the second, so far as to trace the events and occurrences which showed the necessity of a general government, different from that framed by the Articles of Confederation, and which prepared the minds of the people for the adoption of the present Constitution. No doubt, the assembly of the first Continental Congress may be regarded as the era at which the union of these States commenced. This took place in Philadelphia, the city distinguished by the great civil events of our early history, on the 5th of September, 1774, on which day the first Continental Congress assembled. Delegates were present from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Let this day be ever remembered! It saw assembled from the several Colonies those great men whose names have come down to us, and will descend to all posterity. Their proceedings are remarkable for simplicity, dignity, and unequalled ability. At that day, probably, there could have been convened on no part of this globe an equal number of men, possessing greater talents and ability, or animated by a higher and more patriotic motive. They were men full of the spirit of the occasion, imbued deeply with the general sentiment of the country, of large comprehension, of long foresight, and of few words. They made no speeches for ostentation, they sat with closed doors, and their great maxim was “faire sans dire.” It is true, they only wrote; but the issuing of such writings, on authority, and at such a crisis, was action, high, decisive, national action. They knew the history of the past, they were alive to all the difficulties and all the duties of the present, and they acted from the first, as if the future were all open before them. Peyton Randolph was unanimously chosen President, and Charles Thomson was appointed Secretary. In such a constellation, it would be invidious to point out the bright particular stars. Let me only say, what none can consider injustice to others, that George Washington was one of the number.

The proceedings of the assembly were introduced by religious observances, and devout supplications to the Throne of Grace for the inspirations of wisdom and the spirit of good counsels.

On the second day of the session it was ordered that a committee should be appointed to state the rights of the Colonies, the instances in which those rights had been violated, and the means proper to be pursued for their restoration; and another committee to examine and report upon the several statutes of the English Parliament which had been passed, affecting the trade and manufactures of the Colonies. The members of these committees were chosen on the following day. Immediately afterwards Congress took up, as the foundation of their proceedings, certain resolutions adopted, just before the time of their assembling, by delegates from towns in the county of Suffolk, and especially the town of Boston.

Boston, the early victim of the infliction of wrong by the mother country, the early champion of American liberty; Boston, though in this vast country she may be now surpassed by other cities in numbers, in commerce and wealth, can never be surpassed in the renown of her revolutionary history. She will stand acknowledged, while the world doth stand, as the early promoter and champion of the rights of the Colonies. The English crown frowned upon her with severity and indignation; it only made her stand more erect and put on a face of greater boldness and defiance. The Parliament poured upon her all its indignation; it only held her up with greater illumination, and drew towards her a more enthusiastic attachment and veneration from the country. Boston, as she was in heart, in principle and conduct in 1774, so may she remain till her three hills shall sink into the sea and be no more remembered among men.

Gentlemen, these early proceedings of the citizens of Boston and other inhabitants of the county of Suffolk deserve to be written where all posterity may read them. They were carried to the representative of royalty by the first distinguished martyr in the cause of liberty, Joseph Warren. How fit that he who was not long afterwards to fall in the defence of this liberty, and to seal his love of country with his blood, full of its spirit and its principles, should be charged with its remonstrances to the throne of England! No encomium, no eulogy upon the State of which I have the honor to be a citizen, can exceed that which is expressed in the unanimous resolution of the first American Congress of the 8th of October, 1774, in these words:

“Resolved, That this Congress approve the opposition of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament; and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition.”

Gentlemen, I will not believe that the ancient Commonwealth of Massachusetts can ever depart from her true character or cease to deserve this immortal honor; I think it impossible. But should she be left to such forgetfulness of herself and all that belongs to her, should she temporarily or permanently stray away from the paths of her ancient patriotism, should she, which Heaven avert, be willing to throw off her original and all-American mantle and to disrobe herself, in the presence of the world, of all her nationality of character, there are others who would eagerly seize that mantle, and who would show themselves capable of wearing it with grace, dignity, and power. I need not say here where those others are to be found. I am in the city in which Washington first took upon himself the administration of the Government, I am near the spot on which all hearts and all hopes were concentrated in 1789. I bring the whole scene, with all its deep interests, before me. I see the crowds that fill and throng the streets, I see the ten thousand faces anxious to look on him to whose wisdom, prudence, and patriotism the destinies of the country are now committed. I see the august form, I behold the serene face of Washington; I observe his reverent manner when he rises in the presence of countless multitudes, and, looking up with religious awe to heaven, solemnly swears before those multitudes and before Him that sitteth on the circle of those heavens, that he will support the Constitution of his country, so help him God!

And I can hear the shouts and acclamations that rend the air, I see outpouring tears of joy and hope, I see men clasping each other’s hands, and I hear them exclaim: “We have at last a country; we have a Union; and in that Union is strength. We have a government able to keep us together, and we have a chief magistrate, an object of confidence, attachment, and love to us all.”

Citizens of New York, men of this generation, is there anything which warms your hearts more than these recollections? Or can you contemplate the unparalleled growth of your city, in population and all human blessings, without feeling that the spot is hallowed and the hour consecrated, where and when your career of prosperity and happiness began?

But, gentlemen, my heart would sink within me, and voice and speech would depart from me, if I were compelled to believe that your fidelity to the Constitution of the country, signal and unquestioned as it is, could ever exceed that of the State whose soil was moistened by the blood of the first heroes in the cause of liberty, and whose history has been characterized from the beginning by zealous and uniform support of the principles of Washington.

This first Congress sat from the 5th day of September until the 26th of October, and it then dissolved. Its whole proceedings are embraced in forty-nine pages; but these few pages contain the substance and the original form and pressure of our American liberty, before a government of checks and balances and departments, with separate and well defined powers, was established. Its principal papers are: an address to the people of Great Britain, written by John Jay; a memorial to the inhabitants of the British colonies, written by Richard Henry Lee; a petition to the King and an address to the inhabitants of Quebec, written by John Dickinson. Note*

There is one resolution of the old Congress, adopted on the 14th of March, 1776, which has never received so much attention as it deserves.

It is in these words:

“Resolved, That it be recommended to the several assemblies, conventions, councils, or committees of safety, immediately to cause all persons to be disarmed within their respective Colonies, who are notoriously disaffected to the cause of America, or who have not associated and refuse to associate to defend by arms the United Colonies against the hostile attempts of the British fleets and armies.”

Extract from the minutes. Charles Thomson,

Secretary.

Note* In a copy of the printed journal of the proceedings of the Provincial Congress of 1774, which belonged to Caesar Rodney, and which contains interlineations, probably in his handwriting, the petition to the King is stated to have been written by John Adams, and corrected by John Dickinson. Its authorship is claimed also for Richard Henry Lee, by his biographer, probably on the ground that he was the chairman of the committee, and may have prepared the original draft of the petition which was recommitted, Mr. Dickinson being at the same time added to the committee; and it is included in the edition of Mr. Dickinson’s writings published at Wilmington during his lifetime, and superintended by himself. Mr. Rodney’s copy of the journal ascribes the memorial to the inhabitants of the British colonies, to William Livingston. But there is the best proof that it was written by Richard Henry Lee.

Several of the governors of the States, conventions, councils, or committees of safety took immediate measures for carrying this resolution into effect. The proceedings in consequence of it have been preserved, however, only in a few States. The fullest returns which can be found are believed to be from New Hampshire and New York. The form adopted was a recital of the resolution of Congress, and then the promise, or pledge, in the following words:

“In consequence of the above resolution of the Continental Congress, and to show our determination in joining our American brethren in defending the lives, liberties, and properties of the inhabitants of the United Colonies: We, the subscribers, do hereby solemnly engage and promise that we will, to the utmost of our power, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the British fleets and armies against the United American Colonies.”

In the mountainous State of New Hampshire and among the highest of its mountains, then containing only a few scattered settlements, was the township of Salisbury. The Merrimac River, forming its eastern boundary, now so pleasant in scenery, and with so much richness and industry on its banks, was then a roaring and foaming stream seeking its way, amidst immense forests on either side, from the White Mountains to the sea. The settlers in this township were collected, and the promise or pledge proposed by the Continental Congress, of life and fortune, presented to them. “All,” as the record says, “freely signed except two.”

In looking to this record, thus connected with the men of my own birthplace, I confess I was gratified to find who were the signers and who were the dissentients. Among the former was he from whom I am immediately descended, with all his brothers, and his whole kith and kin. This is sufficient emblazonry for my arms, enough of heraldry for me.

Are there young men before me who wish to learn and to imitate the spirit of their ancestors, who wish to live and breathe in that spirit, who desire that every pulsation of their hearts and every aspiration of their ambition shall be American and nothing but American? Let them master the contents of the immortal papers of the first Congress, and fully imbue themselves with their sentiments.

The great Lord Chatham spoke of this assembly in terms which have caused my heart to thrill, and my eyes to be moistened, whenever I recollect them, from my first reading of them to this present hour:

“When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow that in all my reading and observation, and it has been my favorite study (I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master-states of the world), that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your Lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must.”

This first Congress, for the ability which it manifested, the principles which it proclaimed, and the characters of those who composed it, makes an illustrious chapter in our American history. Its members should be regarded not only individually, but as in a group; they should be viewed as living pictures exhibiting young America as it then was, and when the seeds of its public destiny were beginning to start into life, well described by our early motto as being full of energy and prospered by Heaven:

“Non sine Dis, animosus infans.” [Not without God is the infant courageous]

Some of the members of this Congress have lived to my time, and I have had the honor of seeing and knowing them; and there are those in this assembly, doubtless, who have beheld the stately form of Washington, and looked upon the mild and intelligent face, and heard the voice of John Jay.

For myself, I love to travel back in imagination, to place myself in the midst of this assembly, this Union of greatness and patriotism, and to contemplate as if I had witnessed its profound deliberations and its masterly exhibitions, both of the rights and of the wrongs of the country.

I may not dwell longer on this animating and enchanting picture. Another grand event succeeds it, and that is, the convention which framed the Constitution, the spirited debates in the States by the ablest men of those States, upon its adoption, and finally the first Congress, filled by the gray-haired men of the Revolution, and younger and vigorous patriots and lovers of liberty, and Washington himself in the principal chair of state, surrounded by his heads of department, selected from those who enjoyed the greatest portion of his own regard, and stood highest in the esteem of their country.

Neither Thucydides nor Xenophon, neither Sallust nor Livy, presents any picture of an assembly of public men, or any scene of history which, in its proper grandeur, or its large and lasting influence upon the happiness of mankind, equals this.

Its importance, indeed, did not at the moment strike the minds of ordinary men. But Burke saw it with an intuition clear as the light of heaven. Charles Fox saw it; and sagacious and deep thinking minds over all Europe perceived it.

England, England, how would thy destinies have been altered if the advice of Chatham, Burke, and Fox had been followed!

Shall I say altered for the better ? — certainly not. England is stronger and richer at this moment than if she had listened to the unheeded words of her great statesmen. Neither nations nor individuals always foresee that which their own interest and happiness require.

Our greatest blessings often arise from the disappointment of our most anxious hopes and our most fervent wishes:

                               ————“Let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us,
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Bough hew them how we will.”

Instead of subject colonies, England now beholds on these shores a mighty rival, rich, powerful, intelligent like herself.

And may these countries be forever friendly rivals. May their power and greatness, sustaining themselves, be always directed to the promotion of the peace, the prosperity, the enlightenment, and the liberty of mankind; and if it be their united destiny, in the course of human events, that they be called upon, in the cause of humanity and in the cause of freedom, to stand against a world in arms, they are of a race and of a blood to meet that crisis without shrinking from danger and without quailing in the presence of earthly power.

Gentlemen, I must bring these desultory remarks to a close. I terminate them where perhaps I ought to have begun,— namely, with a few words on the present state and condition of our country, and the prospects which are before her.

Unborn ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul, the realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good pleasure of Almighty God, but, under His divine blessing, it will be dependent on the character and the virtues of ourselves and of our posterity.

If classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions and of popular eloquence, what a field is opening to us for another Herodotus, another Thucydides, and another Livy! And let me say, gentlemen, that if we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government and that political union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political associations, we may be sure of one thing, that while our country furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no decline and fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written! Let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can ever know more than that it is lost, and lost forever!

But, gentlemen, I will not take my leave of you in a tone of despondency. We may trust that Heaven will not forsake us, nor permit us to forsake ourselves. We must strengthen ourselves and gird up our loins with new resolution; we must counsel each other, and, determined to sustain each other in the support of the Constitution, prepare to meet manfully and united whatever of difficulty or of danger, whatever of effort or of sacrifice the Providence of God may call upon us to meet. Are we of this generation so derelict, have we so little of the blood of our revolutionary fathers coursing through our veins, that we cannot preserve what they achieved? The world will cry out ” shame” upon us if we show ourselves unworthy to be the descendants of those great and illustrious men who fought for their liberty and secured it to their posterity by the Constitution of the United States.

Gentlemen, exigencies arise in the history of nations when competition and rivalry, disputes and contentions are powerful. Exigencies arise in which good men of all parties and all shades of political sentiment are required to reconsider their opinions and differences, to readjust their positions, and to bring themselves together, if they can, in the spirit of harmony. Such a state of things, in my judgment, has happened in our day. An exigency has arisen, the duties and the dangers of which should sink deep within all our hearts. We have a great and wise Constitution. We have grown, flourished, and prospered under it with a degree of rapidity unequalled in the history of the world. Founded on the basis of equal civil rights, its provisions secure perfect equality and freedom; those who live under it are equal and enjoy the same privileges. It is to be presumed that all wise and good men of the nation have the same end in view, though they may take different means to obtain that great end, — the preservation and protection of the Constitution and Government. If, then, they have one and the same object, they must unite in the means and be willing each to surrender something to the opinions of others, to secure the harmony of the whole. Unity of purpose should produce harmony of action. This general object then, being the preservation of the Constitution, the only efficient means to accomplish this end is the union of all its friends. The Constitution has enemies, secret and professed, but they cannot disguise the fact that it secures us many benefits. These enemies are unlike in character, but they all act for the same purpose. Some of them are enthusiasts, self-sufficient and headstrong. They fancy that they can strike out for themselves a better path than that laid down for them, as the son of Apollo thought he could find a better course across the heavens for the sun.

“Thus Phaeton once, amidst the Ethereal plains,
Leaped on his father’s car, and seized the reins,
Far from his course impelled the glowing sun,
Till nature’s laws to wild disorder run.”

Heat, in the intellectual constitution of these enthusiasts, is distributed just exactly as it should not be; they have hot heads and cold hearts. They are rash, reckless, and fierce for change, and with no affection for the existing institutions of their country.

Other enemies there are, more cool and with more calculation. These have a deeper and more fixed and dangerous purpose; they formerly spoke of a forcible resistance to the provisions of the Constitution; they now speak of secession. Let me say, gentlemen, that secession from us is accession elsewhere. He who renounces the protection of the “stars and stripes,” will assuredly shelter himself under another flag; that will happen from inevitable necessity.

These malcontents find it not difficult to inflame men’s passions; they attribute all the misfortunes of individual men of different States, sections, and communities, all want of prosperity — to the Union. There is a strange co-operation of what are called antagonistic opinions. Extremes meet and act together.

There are those in the country who profess, in their own words, even to hate the Constitution because it tolerates in the Southern States the institutions existing therein; and there are others who profess to hate it, and do hate it, because it does not better sustain these institutions. These opposite classes meet and shake hands together, and say: “Let us see what we can do to accomplish our common end. Give us dissolution, revolution, secession, anarchy, and then let us have a general scramble for our separate objects.” Now the friends of the Constitution must rally and unite. They must forget the things which are behind, and act with immovable firmness, like a band of brothers, with moderation and conciliation, forgetting past disagreements and looking only to the great object set before them,—the preservation of the Constitution bequeathed to them by their ancestors. They must gird up their loins for the work. It is a duty which they owe to these ancestors and to the generations which are to succeed them.

Gentlemen, I give my confidence, my countenance, my heart and hand, my entire co-operation to all good men, without reference to the past, or pledge for the future, who are willing to stand by the Constitution.

I will quarrel with no man about past differences, I will reproach no one, but only say that we stand together here in a most interesting period of our history, with the same general love of country, the same veneration for ancestry, and the same regard for posterity; and let us act in that spirit of union which actuated our ancestors when they framed the institutions which it is ours to preserve. But I will not carry my toleration so far as to justify, in the slightest degree, any defection from that great and absolutely essential point, the preservation of the Union ; and I think every man should make his sentiments known on this point. For myself I have no hesitation, and cannot act with those who have. Other questions, questions of policy, are subordinate. This is paramount . Every man who is for the Union should come out boldly and say so, without condition or hypothesis, without ifs, ands and buts. What Cicero says on another occasion is fully applicable to this: “denique inscription sit, patres conscripti, in fronte unius cujusque civis, quod de republica sentia.” Let every man bear inscribed on his forehead what are his sentiments concerning the republic. There are persons weak enough, foolish enough, to think and to say that if the Constitution which holds these States together should be broken up, there would be found some other and some better chain of connection. This is rash! This is rash! I no more believe it possible that if this Union be dissolved, held together as it now is by the Constitution, especially as I look on these thirty-one States, with their various institutions, spreading over so vast a country, with such varieties of climate, — I say, I no more believe it possible that this Union, should it once be dissolved, could ever again be re-formed, and all the States re-associated, than I believe it possible that, if, by the fiat of Almighty power, the law of gravitation should be abolished, and the orbs which compose the Universe should rush into illimitable space, jostling against each other, they could be brought back and re-adjusted into harmony by any new principle of attraction. I hardly know whether the manner of our political death would be an aggravation, or an alleviation of our fate. We shall die no lingering death. We shall fall victims to neither war, pestilence, nor famine. An earthquake would shake the foundations of the globe, pull down the pillars of heaven, and bury us at once in endless darkness. Such may be the fate of this country and its institutions. May I never live to see that day! May I not survive to hear any apocalyptic angel crying through the heavens, with such a voice as announced the fall of Babylon, ‘Ἔπεσεν, ἔπεσεν, Αμερικη ἡ μεγάλη, καὶ ἐγένετο κατοικητήριον δαιμονίων, καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς πνεύματος ἀκαθάρτου.” [Translation; Greek: ‘Is fallen, is fallen, America the Great has become a habitation of demons and a hold for every unclean spirit.’]

Gentlemen, inspiring auspices, this day, surround us and cheer us. It is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. We should know this, even if we had lost our calendars, for we should be reminded of it by the shouts of joy and gladness. The whole atmosphere is redolent of his name; hills and forests, rocks and rivers, echo and re-echo his praises. All the good, whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel this day that there is one treasure common to them all, and that is the fame and character of Washington. They recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future. To the old and the young, to all born in the land, and to all whose love of liberty has brought them from foreign shores to make this the home of their adoption, the name of Washington is this day an exhilarating theme. Americans by birth are proud of his character, and exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, every where, all the world over, more an object of love and regard than on any day since his birth.

Gentlemen, on Washington’s principles, and under the guidance of his example, will we and our children uphold the Constitution. Under his military leadership, our fathers conquered; and under the outspread banner of his political and constitutional principles will we also conquer. To that standard, we shall adhere, and uphold it, through evil report and through good report. We will meet danger, we will meet death, if they come, in its protection; and we will struggle on, in daylight and in darkness, aye, in the thickest darkness, with all the storms which it may bring with it, till,

“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,
And the star of Peace return.”

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Founder Benjamin Rush: A Defence of the Use of the Bible as a School Book

Founding Father; Doctor Benjamin Rush: Public School Advocate, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Founder of the first American Bible Society, dedicated to spreading the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr. Rush was an outspoken Christian, statesman, and pioneering medical doctor. He was a prolific author, and wrote the first America chemistry textbook. In 1777, he was  appointed Surgeon General of the Continental Army, and complained to Washington about the condition of the hospitals In 1797, President John Adams appointed Rush as Treasurer of the U.S. Mint, a position he held until 1813. He was another of the early advocates for the abolition of slavery, free public schools, education for women. He helped found the first anti-slavery society in America. He urged Thomas Paine to write Common Sense, a tract promoting American independence, and supplied the title. Dr. Rush treated over 100 patients a day during the yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia, and his account of the epidemic of 1793 won him international recognition. At the time of his death in 1813, he was heralded as one of the three most notable figures of America, the other two being George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

RELIGIOUS VIEWS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON; source: The Jefferson Bible

GOD GOVERNS IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN Speech by Benjamin Franklin During the Constitutional Convention

A Defence of the Use of the Bible as a School Book: Addressed to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap of Boston, Mass. 1791 by Benjamin Rush

Dear Sir,

‘Tis now several months, since I promised to give you my reasons for preferring the bible as a school book, to all other compositions. I shall not trouble you with an apology for my delaying so long to comply with my promise, but shall proceed immediately to the subject of my letter.

Before I state my arguments in favour of teaching children to read by means of the bible, I shall assume the five following propositions.;

 I. That Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and that in proportion as mankind adopt its principles, and obey its precepts, they will be wife, and happy.

     II. That a better knowledge of this religion is to be acquired by reading the bible, than in any other way.

 III. That the bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state, than any other book in the world.

     IV. That knowledge is most durable, and religious instruction most useful, when imparted in early life,

V. That the bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life.

My arguments in favor of the use of the bible as a school book are founded, I. In the constitution of the human mind.

    1. The memory is the first faculty which opens in the minds of children. Of how much consequence, then, must it be, to impress it with the great truths of Christianity, before it is pre-occupied with less interesting subjects! As all the liquors, which are poured into a cup, generally taste of that which first filled it, so all the knowledge, which is added to that which is treasured up in the memory from the bible, generally receives an agreeable and useful tincture from it.

2. There is a peculiar aptitude in the minds of children for religious knowledge. I have constantly found them in the first fix or seven years of their lives, more inquisitive upon religious subjects, than upon any others: and an ingenious instructor of youth has informed me, that he has found young children more capable of receiving just ideas upon the most difficult tenets of religion, than upon the most simple branches of human knowledge. It would be strange if it were otherwise; for God creates all his means to suit all his ends. There must of course be a fitness between the human mind, and the truths which are essential to its happiness.

3. The influence of prejudice is derived from the impressions, which are made upon the mind in early life; prejudices are of two kinds, true and false. In a world where false prejudices do so much mischief, it would discover great weakness not to oppose them, by such as are true.

I grant that many men have rejected the prejudices derived from the bible: but I believe no man ever did so, without having been made wiser or better, by the early operation of these prejudices upon his mind. Every just principle that is to be found in the writings of Voltaire, is borrowed from the Bible: and the morality of the Deists, which has been so much admired and praised, is, I believe, in most cafes, the effect of habits, produced by early instruction in the principles of Christianity.

    4. We are subject, by a general law in our natures, to what is called habit. Now if the study of the scriptures be necessary to our happiness at any time of our . lives, the sooner we begin to read them, the more we shall be attached to them; for it is peculiar to all the acts of habit, to become easy, strong and agreeable by repetition.

5. It is a law in our natures, that we remember longest the knowledge we acquire by the greatest number of our senses. Now a knowledge of the contents of the bible, is acquired in school by the aid of the eyes and the ears; for children after getting their lessons, always say them to their masters in an audible voice j of course there is a presumption, that this knowledge will be retained much longer than if it had been acquired in any other way.

6. The interesting events and characters, recorded and described in the Old and New Testaments, are accommodated above all others to seize upon all the faculties of the minds of children. The understanding, the memory, the imagination, the passions, and the moral powers, are all occasionally addressed by the various incidents which are contained in those divine books, insomuch that not to be delighted with them, is to be devoid of every principle of pleasure that exists in a sound mind.

7. There is a native love of truth in the human mind. Lord Shaftesbury says, that “truth is so congenial to our minds, that we love even the shadow of it:” and Horace, in his rules for composing an epic poem, establishes the fame law in our natures, by advising the ” fictions in poetry to resemble truth.” Now the bible contains more truths than any other book in the world: so true is the testimony that it bears of God in his works of creation, providence, and redemption, that it is called truth itself, by way of preeminence above things that are only simply true. How forcibly are we struck with the evidences of truth, in the history of the Jews, above what we discover in the history of other nations? Where do we find a hero, or an historian record[s] his own faults or vices except in the Old Testament? Indeed, my friend, from some accounts which I have read of the American revolution, I begin to grow skeptical to all history except to that which is contained in the bible. Now if this book be known to contain nothing but what is materially true, the mind will naturally acquire a love for it from this circumstance: and from this affection for the truths of of the bible, it will acquire a discernment of truth in other books, and a preference of it in all the transactions of life. .

8. There is a wonderful property in the memory, which enables it in old age, to recover the knowledge it had acquired in early life, after it had been apparently forgotten for forty or fifty years. Of how much consequence, then, must it be, to fill the mind with that species of knowledge, in childhood and youth, which, when recalled in the decline of life, will support the soul under the infirmities of age, and smooth the avenues of approaching death? The bible is the only book which is capable of affording this support to old age; and it is for this reason that we find it resorted to with so much diligence and pleasure by such old people as have read it in early life. I can recollect many instances of this kind in persons who discovered no attachment to the bible, in the meridian of their lives, who have notwithstanding, spent the evening of them, in reading no other book. The late Sir John Pringle, Physician to the Queen of Great Britain, after passing a long life in camps and at court, closed it by studying the scriptures. So anxious was he to increase his knowledge in them, that he wrote to Dr. Michaelis, a learned professor of divinity in Germany, for an explanation of a difficult text of scripture, a short time before his death.

9. My second argument in favour of the use of the bible in schools, is founded upon an implied command of God, and upon the practice of several of the wisest nations of the world—In the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, we find the following words, which are directly to my purpose, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

It appears, moreover, from the history of the Jews, that they flourished as a nation, in proportion as they honoured and read the books of Moses, which contained, a written revelation of the will of God, to the children of men. The law was not only neglected, but lost during the general profligacy of manners which accompanied the long and wicked reign of Manasseh. Put the discovery of it, in the rubbish of the temple, by Josiah, and its subsequent general use, were followed by a return of national virtue and prosperity. We read further, of the wonderful effects which the reading of the law by Ezra, after his return from his captiviy in Babylon, had upon the Jews. They hung upon his lips with tears, and showed the sincerity of their repentance, by their general reformation.

The learning of the Jews, for many years consisted in nothing but a knowledge of the scriptures. These were the text books of all the instruction that was given in the schools of their prophets. It ‘was by means of this general knowledge of their law, that those Jews that wandered from Judea into our countries, carried with them and propagated certain ideas of the true God among all the civilized nations upon the face of the earth. And it was from the attachment they retained to the old Testament, that they procured a translation of it into the Greek language, after they lost the Hebrew tongue, by their long absence from their native country. The utility of this translation, commonly called the Septuagint, in facilitating the progress of the gospel, is well known to all who are acquainted with the history of the first age of the christian church.

But the benefits of an early and general acquaintance with the bible, were not confined only to the Jewish nations. They have appeared in many countries in Europe, since the reformation. The industry, and habits of order, which distinguish many of the German nations, are derived from their early instruction in the principles of Christianity, by means of the bible. The moral and enlightened character of the inhabitants of Scotland, and of the New England States, appears to be derived from the same cause. If we descend from nations to sects, we shall find them wise and prosperous in proportion as they become early acquainted with the scriptures. The bible is still used as a school book among the Quakers. The morality of this sect of christians is universally acknowledged. Nor is this all, their prudence in the management of their private affairs, is as much a mark of their society, as their sober manners,

I wish to be excused for repeating here, that if the bible did not convey a single direction for the attainment of future happiness, it should be read in our schools in preference to all other books, from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and publick temporal happiness.

We err not only in human affairs, but in religion likewise, only because ” we do not know the scriptures.” The opposite systems of the numerous sects of Christians. arise chiefly from their being more instructed in catechisms, creeds, and confessions of faith, than in the scriptures. Immense truths, I believe, are concealed in them. The time, I have no doubt, will come, when posterity will view and pity our ignorance of these truths, as much as we do the ignorance of the disciples of our Saviour, who knew nothing of the meaning of these plain passages in the old testament which were daily fulfilling before their eyes. Whenever that time shall arrive, those truths which have escaped our notice, or, if discovered, have been thought to be opposed to each other, or to be inconsistent with themselves, will then like the stones of Solomon’s temple, be found so exactly ‘o accord with each other, that they shall be cemented without noise or force, into one simple and sublime system of religion. 

But further, we err, not only in religion but in philosophy likewise, because we do not know or believe the scriptures. The sciences have been compared to a circle of which religion composes a part. To understand any one of them perfectly it is necessary to have some knowledge of them all. Bacon, Boyle, and Newton included the scriptures in the inquiries to which their universal geniuses disposed them, and their philosophy was aided by their knowledge in them. A striking agreement has been lately discovered between the history of certain events recorded in the bible and some of the operations and productions of nature, particularly those which are related in Whitehurst’s observations on the deluge- in Smith’s account of the origin of the variety of colour in the human species, and in Bruce’s travels. It remains yet to be shown how many other events, related in the bible, accord with some late important discoveries in the principles of medicine. The events, and the principles alluded to, mutually establish the truth of each other. From the discoveries of the christian philosophers, whose names have been last mentioned, I have been led to question whether most harm has been done to revelation, by those divines who have unduly multiplied the objects of faith, or by those deists who have unduly multiplied the objects of reason, in explaining the scriptures.

I shall now proceed to answer some of the objections which have been made to the use of the bible as a school book.

   I. We are told, that the familiar use of the bible in our schools, has a tendency to lessen a due reverence for it. This objection, by proving too much, proves nothing at all. If familiarity lessens respect for divine things, then all those precepts of our religion, which enjoin the daily or weekly worship of the Deity, are improper. The bible was not intended to represent a Jewish ark; and it is an antichristian idea, to suppose that it can be profaned, by being carried into a school house, or by being handled by children. But where will the bible be read by young people with more reverence than in a school? Not in most private families; for I believe there are few parents, who preserve so much order in their houses, as is kept up in our common English [free or public] schools.

II. We are told, that there are many passages in the old testament, that are improper to be read by children, and that the greatest part of it is no way interesting to mankind under the present dispensation of the gospel. There are I grant, several chapters, and many verse[s] in the old testament, which in their present unfortunate translation, should be passed over by children. But I deny that any of the books of the old testament are not interesting to mankind, under the gospel dispensation. Most of the characters, events, and ceremonies, mentioned in them, are personal, providential, or instituted types of the Messiah: All of which have been, or remain yet to be, fulfilled by him. It is from an ignorance or neglect of these types, that we have so many deists in Christendom; for so irrefragably [are impossible to refute] do they prove the truth of Christianity, that I am sure a young man who had been regularly instructed in their meaning, could never doubt afterwards of the truth of any of its principles. If any obscurity appears in these principles, it is only (to use the words of the poet) because they are dark, with excessive bright.

I know there is an objection among many People to teach children doctrines of any kind, because they are liable to be controverted. But where will this objection lead us ?— The being of a God, and the obligations of morality, have both been controverted [argued about]; and yet who has objected to our teaching these doctrines to our children?

The curiosity and capacities of young people for the mysteries of religion, awaken much sooner than is generally supposed. Of this we have two remarkable proofs in the old testament. The first is mentioned in the twelfth chapter of Exodus. “And it shall come when your children shall say unto you,” What mean you by this service ?” that ye shall say, ” It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.” A second proof of the desire of children to be instructed in the mysteries of religion, is to be found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. ” And when thy son asketh thee in the time to come saying,  What mean the testimonies—and the statutes—and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you?” Then thou shalt fay unto thy son, ” We were Pharoah’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord our God brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” These enquiries from the mouths of children are perfectly natural; for where is the parent who has not had similar questions proposed to him by his children upon their being being first conducted to a place of worship, or upon their beholding, for the first time, either of the sacraments of our religion.

Let us not not be wiser than our Maker. If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into our world, would have been unnecessary. He came to promulgate a system of doctrines, as well as a system of morals. The perfect morality of the gospel rests upon a doctrine, which, though often controverted, has never been refuted, I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God. This sublime and ineffable doctrine delivers us from the absurd hypotheses of modern philosophers, concerning the foundation of moral obligation, and fixes it upon the eternal and self moving principle of Love. It concentrates a whole system of ethics in a single text of Scripture. “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.” By witholding the knowledge of this doctrine from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds. We do more, we furnish an argument, for witholding from them a knowledge of the morality of the gospel likewise; for this, in many instances, is as supernatural, and therefore as liable to be controverted, as any of the doctrines or miracles which are mentioned in the new testament. The miraculous conception of the saviour of the world by a virgin, is not more opposed to the ordinary course of natural events, nor is the doctrine of the atonement more above human reason, than those moral precepts, which command us to love our enemies, or to die for our friends.

III. It has been said, that the division of the bible into chapters and verses, renders it more difficult to be read, by children than many other books.

By a little care in a master, this difficulty may be obviated, and even an advantage derived from it. It may serve to transfer the attention of the scholar to the sense of a subject; and no person will ever read well, who is guided by any thing else, in his stops, emphafis, or accents. The division of the bible into chapters and verses, is not a greater obstacle to its being read with ease, than the bad punctuation of most other books. I deliver this stricture upon other books, from the authority of Mr. Rice, the celebrated author of the art of speaking, whom I heard declare in a large company in London, that he had never seen a book properly pointed in the English Language. He exemplified, notwithstanding, by reading to the same company a passage from Milton, his perfect knowledge of the art of reading.

Some people, I know, have proposed to introduce extracts from the bible, into our schools, instead of the bible itself. Many excellent works of this kind, are in print, but if we admit any one of them, we shall have the same inundation of them that we have had of grammars, spelling books, and lessons for children, many of which are published for the benefit of the authors only, and all of them have tended greatly to increase the expence of education. Besides, these extracts or abridgements of the bible, often contain the tenets of particular sects or persons, and therefore, may be improper for schools composed of the children of different sects of Christians. The bible is a cheap book, and is to be had in every bookstore. It is, moreover, esteemed and prefered by all sects; because each finds its peculiar doctrines in it. It would therefore be used in preference to any abridgements of it, or histories extracted from it.

I have heard it proposed that a portion of the bible should be read every day by the master, as a means of instructing children in it: But this is a poor substitute for obliging children to read it as a school book; for by this means we insensibly engrave, as it were, its contents upon their minds: and it has been remarked that children, instructed in this way in the scriptures, seldom forget any part of them. They have the same advantage over those persons,who have only heard the scriptures read by a master, that a man who has worked with the tools of a mechanical employment for several years, has over the man who has only stood a few hours in a work shop, and seen the same business carried on by other people.

In this defence of the use of the bible as a school book, I beg you would not think that I suppose the Bible to contain the only revelation which God has made to man. I believe in an internal revelation, or a moral principle, which God has implanted in the heart of every man, as the precursor of his final dominion over the whole human race. How much this internal revelation accords with the external, remains yet to be explored by philosophers. I am disposed to believe, that most of the doctrines of Christianity revealed in the bible might be discovered by a close examination of all the principles of action in man: But who is equal to such an enquiry? It certainly does not suit the natural indolence, or laborious employments of a great majority of mankind. The internal revelation of the gospel may be compared to the straight line which is made through a wilderness by the assistance of a compass, to a distant country, which few are able to discover, while the bible resembles a public road to the same country, which is wide, plain, and easily found, “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.”

Neither let me in this place exclude the Revelation which God has made of himself to man in the works of creation. I am far from wishing to lessen the influence of this species of Revelation upon mankind. But the knowledge of God obtained from this source, is obscure and feeble in its operation, compared with that which is derived from the bible. The visible creation speaks of the Deity in hyeroglyphics, while the bible describes all his attributes and perfections in such plain and familiar language that “he who runs may read.”

How kindly has our maker dealt with his creatures, in providing three different cords to draw them to himself? But how weakly do some men act, who suspend their faith, and hopes upon only one of them! By laying hold of them all, they would approach more speedily and certainly to the centre of all happiness.

To the arguments I have mentioned in favour of the use of the bible as a school book, I shall add a few reflections.

The present fashionable practice of rejecting the bible from our schools, I suspect has originated with the deists. They discover great ingenuity in this new mode of attacking Christianity. If they proceed in it, they will do more in half a century, in extirpating our religion, than Bolingbroke or Voltaire could have effected in a thousand years. I am not writing to this class of people. I despair of changing the opinions of any of them. I wish only to alter the opinions and conduct of those lukewarm, or superstitious Christians, who have been milled [crushed or confused] by the deists upon this subject. On the ground of the good old custom, of using the bible as a school book, it becomes us to entrench our religion. It is the last bulwark the deists have left it; for they have rendered instruction in the principles of Christianity by the pulpit and the press, so unfashionable, that little good for many years seems to have been done by either of them.

The effects of the disuse of the bible, as a school book have appeared of late in the neglect and even contempt with which scripture names are treated by many people. It is because parents have not been early taught to know or respect the characters and exploits of the old and new testament worthies, that their names are exchanged for those of the modern kings of Europe, or of the principal characters in novels and romances. I conceive there may be some advantage in bearing scripture names. It may lead the persons who bear them, to study that part of the scriptures, in which their names are mentioned, with uncommon attention, and perhaps it may excite a desire in them to possess the talents or virtues of their ancient namesakes. This remark first occurred to me, upon hearing a pious woman whose name was Mary, say, that the first passages of the bible, which made a serious impression on her mind, were those interesting chapters and verses in which the name of Mary is mentioned in the New Testament.

It is a singular fact, that while the names of the kings and emperors of Rome, are now given chiefly to horses and dogs, scripture names have hitherto been confined only to the human species. Let the enemies and contemners [view with contempt; despise] of those names take care, lest the names of more modern kings be given hereafter only to the same animals, and lest the names of the modern heroines of romances be given to animals of an inferior species.

It is with great pleasure, that I have observed the bible to be the only book read in the Sunday schools in England. We have adopted the same practice in the Sunday schools [in America], lately established in this city. This will give our religion (humanly speaking) the chance of a longer life in our country [The United States]. We hear much of the persons educated in free schools in England, turning out well in the various walks of life. I have enquired into the cause of it, and have satisfied myself, that it is wholly to be ascribed to the general use of the bible in those schools, for it seems the children of poor people are of too little consequence to be guarded from the supposed evils of reading the scriptures in early life, or in an unconsecrated school house.

However great the benefits of reading the scriptures in schools have been, I cannot help remarking, that these benefits might be much greater, did schoolmasters take more pains to explain them to their scholars. Did they demonstrate the divine original of the bible from the purity, consistency, and benevolence of its doctrines and precepts—did they explain the meaning of the levitical institutions, and show their application to the numerous and successive gospel dispensations—did they inform their pupils that the gross and abominable vices of the Jews were recorded only as proofs of the depravity of human nature, and of the insufficiency of the law, to produce moral virtue and thereby to establish the necessity and perfection of the gospel system —and above all, did they often enforce the discourses of our Saviour, as the best rule of life, and the surest guide to happiness, how great would be the influence of our schools upon the order and prosperity of our country! Such a mode of instructing children in the Christian religion, would convey knowledge into their understandings, and would therefore be preferable to teaching them creeds, and catechisms, which too often convey, not knowledge, but words only, into their memories. I think I am not too sanguine in believing, that education, conducted in this manner, would, in the course of two generations, eradicate infidelity from among us, and render civil government scarcely necessary in our country.

In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament, that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity, by means of the bible; for this divine book, above all others, favours that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.

I have now only to apologize for having addressed this letter to you, after having been assured by you, that your opinion, respecting the use of the bible as a school book, coincided with mine. My excuse for what I have done is, that I knew you were qualified by your knowledge, and disposed by your zeal in the cause of truth, to correct all the errors you would discover in my letter. Perhaps a further apology may be necessary for my having presumed to write upon a subject so much above my ordinary studies. My excuse for it is, that I thought a single mite from a member of a profession, which has been frequently charged with skepticism in religion, might attract the notice of persons who had often overlooked the more ample contributions upon this subject, of gentlemen of other professions. With great respect, I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend.

BENJAMIN RUSH. Philadelphia, March 10, 1791.

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