READINGS IN LITERATURE GOD GIVE US MEN ! BY JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND GOD give us men! A time like this demands Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue, And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in private thinking: For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds, FROM THE SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN I AM filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Dec laration of Independence. Abridged. A DEFENSE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN THE ENGLISH HOUSE OF LORDS, NOVEMBER 18, 1777 BY WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM THIS, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now avail- cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors. This, my Lords, is our duty. The Crown declares an unalterable determination to pursue measures and what measures, my Lords? The measures that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us; the measures that have brought ruin to our doors. Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! I "But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: now none so poor to do her reverence." use the words of a poet; but, though it be poetry, it is no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not only the power and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned glories, her true honor, and substantial dignity are sacrificed. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your armies in the last war effected everything that could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My Lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss of the Northern force, the best appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired from the American lines. He was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and with great delay and danger to adopt a new and distant plan of operations. We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is |