Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XXX. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1902.
Shall Cromwell have a statue?
oration by Charles Francis Adams,
Before the Beta of Illinois Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the University of Chicago, Tuesday, June 17, 1902.The editor has peculiar pleasure in preserving in the Southern Historical Society Papers an address so chaste and noble as the following, which is alike worthy of the subject and its distinguished author, who continues in honored fidelity an historic lineage, impressed on our nation's progress as patriots, statesmen and scholars. The oration challenges universal admiration.
At about 3 o'clock of the afternoon of September 3, 1658, the day of Worcester and of Dunbar, and as a great tempest was wearing itself to rest, Oliver Cromwell died. He died in London, in the palace of Whitehall; the palace of the great banqueting hall through whose central window Charles I, a little less than ten years before, had walked forth to the scaffold. A few weeks later, ‘with a more than regal solemnity,’ the body of the great Lord Protector wasWhom doth the king delight to honour? that is the question of questions concerning the king's own honour. Show me the man you honour; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if you could.
Who is to have a statue? means, Whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men? Sacred; that all men may see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do you wish us to resemble? Him you set on a high column, that all men, looking on it, may be continually apprised of the duty you expect from them.Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets. 1850
