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

[317] Union which he catalogues! No; I do him injustice He does ask, trembling, in case of disunion, “Where, O where, will be the flag of the United States?” Well, I think the Historical Society had better take it for their Museum. [Laughter and applause.] Mr. O'Connor, too, who gave the key-note to the New York meeting. The only argument he has for the Union is his assurance that, if we dissolve, there'll be no more “marble store fronts” on Broadway, and no brown-stone palaces in the Fifth Avenue! Believe me, this is literally all he named, except one which Mr. Everett must have been under the influence of an anodyne to have forgotten, but which, perhaps, it is better, on the whole, for Mr. O'Connor, being an Irishman, to recollect. It is this: in case of dissolving, we shall no longer own the grave of Washington, which, Mr. Everett having paid for, the New York peddling orator finds it hard to lose t And so it strikes me!

But I must confess, those pictures of the mere industrial value of the Union made me profoundly sad. I look, as, beneath the skilful pencil, trait after trait leaps to glowing life, and ask at last, Is this all? Where are the nobler elements of national purpose and life? Is this the whole fruit of ages of toil, sacrifice, and thought,--those cunning fingers, the overflowing lap, labor vocal on every hillside, and commerce whitening every sea,--all the dower of one haughty, overbearing race? The zeal of the Puritan, the faith of the Quaker, a century of Colonial health, and then this large civilization, does it result only in a workshop,--fops melted in baths and perfumes, and men grim with toil? Raze out, then, the Eagle from our banner, and paint instead Niagara used as a cotton-mill! O no I! not such the picture my glad heart sees when I look forward. Once plant deep in the nation's heart the love of right, let there grow out of it the firm purpose of