Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[235] yet got it, but we shall have it. It is all “secured,” for they planted so wisely, it will come. They planted their oak or pine tree in the broad lines of New England, and gave it room to grow. Their great care was, that it should grow, no matter at what cost. Goethe says, that, if you plant an oak in a flower-vase, either the oak must wither or the vase crack: some men go for saving the vase. Too many now-a-days have that anxiety: the Puritans would have let it crack. So say I. If there is anything that cannot bear free thought, let it crack. There is a class among us so conservative, that they are afraid the roof will come down if you sweep off the cobwebs. As Douglass Jerrold says, “They can never fully relish the new moon, out of respect for that venerable institution, the old one.” [Great merriment and applause.]

Why, Sir, the first constitution ever made was framed in the Mayflower. It was a very good constitution, parent of all that have been made since,--a goodly family, some bad and some good. The parent was laid aside on the shelf the moment the progress of things required it. I hope none of the children have grown so strong that they can prevent the same event befalling themselves when necessity requires. Hold on to that idea with true New England persistency,--the sacredness of individual man,--and everything else will evolve from it. The Phillipses, Mr. President, did not come from Plymouth; they made their longest stay at Andover. Let me tell you an Andover story. One day, a man went into a store there, and began telling about a fire. “There had never been such a fire,” he said, “in the county of Essex. A man going by Deacon Pettingill's barn saw an owl on the ridge-pole. He fired at the owl, and the wadding some how or other, getting into the shingles, set the hay on fire, and it was all destroyed,--ten tons of hay, six head of cattle, the finest horse in the country,” &c. The