I hope the Senator will not object. I have received a letter from Norfolk, calling attention to the case of a colored person there, an inhabitant for more than twenty-five years, but unable to obtain naturalization because of the words of color in our naturalization laws. It is only reasonable that we should put an end to that grievance. In short, I would punch the word “white” out of the statute-book, wherever it appears. If the Senator from Vermont is disposed to keep it in, then I can understand that he would object to the bill.

Mr. Sumner. I did not suppose the Senator was.

THE PRESIDENT MUST BE WATCHED BY CONGRESS, OR REMOVED.

On that question I have a word to say, and I must speak frankly. I cannot help it. How Congress, after listening to the message of to-day,[237] which is only the logical consequence of other messages, can quietly vote to go home and leave this post of duty until next winter, passes my understanding. To me it is incomprehensible. The message, from beginning to end, is a menace. Needless to quote its precise language. Its defiant tone fills this Chamber, and will soon fill the whole country. Listening to this appeal, so well calculated to revive the dying Rebellion, I felt that one of two things was needed,—the removal of its author from the Executive chair, or Congress in permanent session to watch and counteract him. Such is the alternative. One failing, the other must be.

Now, Sir, when thus insisting, let it be understood that I am not unmindful of any of my responsibilities in this Chamber. Other duties may devolve upon me hereafter. For the present I speak as a Senator, bound, in the discharge of official duty, to do what he can for the public good. As a Senator, I must be plain; nor can I be constrained by the possibility that hereafter I may be called to judge the President. I am called to judge him now. The proposition that Congress should go home compels me to judge him.

Unquestionably it is for the other House to initiate the proceedings which shall bring the President to your bar. But until then it is the right and duty of every Senator to express himself freely with regard to his conduct; nor can there be any limit to this latitude. It is as broad as human thought. No future duty can be a strait-jacket now. Because the President may be impeached, the Senate is not obliged to be silent with regard to him. The National Constitution is guilty of no such absurdity. Until a Senator is sworn on the trial of impeachment, according to the requirement of the National Constitution, he is a Senator, free to criticize any public functionary, from the President to the humblest officer; and if either has so acted as to deserve removal, there is no reason why he should not say so. This is only according to the National Constitution and common sense.

Now, since Andrew Johnson remains President and he is not yet at your bar, I cannot doubt that we ought to stay in our seats to encounter the evil proceeding from him. We must meet him constantly, and not leave the field unoccupied.

For this reason, simply and briefly stated, I object to the motion of the Senator from Ohio. If I had powers of persuasion, I would use them all to induce you to remain as a guard to the National Constitution and a constabulary force for the Rebel States. Possibly you may not like the office. But I doubt if any of us can be better employed anywhere than in contributing to the success of Reconstruction, and in preserving peace throughout that distressed region of country. Sitting in our seats here, we are a mighty police, ready at the call of general or citizen, and also a terror to the evil-doer.

Senators wish to leave. So do I. Nobody can wish to leave more than myself. I suffer much from these heats. I long to be at home. But I feel that it is my duty to be here. All that I have felt before is now intensified by the menace of this message. Hereafter no Senator can say that he did not know what to expect. He will not be taken by surprise. Here is distinct and open notice that the President will do all in his power to thwart your legislation and to arrest a just Reconstruction. There he stands, a constant impediment to peace, and an ally to the Rebellion. And yet, knowing these things, it is proposed to go home and leave him undisturbed master till winter.

Mr. President,—There is just the point. The Senator says the question is not here,—in other words, that this is not the time to discuss the President. He is mistaken; this is the very time. The question is here at the instance of the Senator from Ohio, who gravely moves that we leave our seats, and from this time forward till December abdicate our constitutional guardianship of the public interests. To such a proposition there is but one natural and logical reply. It is, that we must not abdicate, so long as Andrew Johnson is in the Executive chair. If he continues President, we must remain at our posts, precisely as Grant remained before Richmond.

Sir, if another person wielded the Executive powers of the nation, if there was anybody in that high office mindful of the National Constitution as interpreted by the Declaration of Independence, and disposed to carry forward the Acts of Congress adopted by such triumphant majorities, then I could vote with Senators to go home. Unhappily, it is not so. Anything but this. Our President is a public enemy, successor in spirit and opinion of Jefferson Davis, through whom the Rebellion is once more on its legs. Does any Senator, accustomed to vote with the Union party and to sustain the Union cause, question this simple statement of fact? Does he believe it overdrawn? Let him answer, if he does. Let him say where my language goes by a hair’s breadth beyond the exact truth.

Because we have the successor of Jefferson Davis in the Presidential chair, therefore Congress must stay. That is my argument. A volume or oration could not add to the force of this simple statement.

The more I think of this duty, the more commanding it seems. The President is the Executive; we are the Legislative. His influence is great; but ours is greater. If we choose to say so, we can be masters. We can apply the corrective to his mischief. Surely here is a motive. Ten States are now exposed to his malign influence, all of which may be arrested by our presence here. Let it be known that we are to continue in our seats, and every Union man throughout the Rebel States will feel stronger. He will be conscious at once of a panoply, which the President, and the Rebel tail, of which he is the head, cannot penetrate.

There are the generals, also, who, as soon as we are gone, may be his victims. The telegraph may flash to us, in the comfort of home, that the gallant Sheridan, as true in government as he was skilful in war, has been driven from his post by an enemy with whom he could not contend. It may flash the removal of Pope, who has shown such talent and thoroughness in the organization of his district, and also the displacement of Sickles, who has carried into his new duties such varied experience and patriotic purposes. All this may occur; for the President is vindictive in his assault upon the upholders of Human Rights. Is it not worth our care to provide against such calamity? But you propose to go home and leave all, whether citizen or general, a prey to the President. I protest against it.

SYMPATHY WITH CRETE, AND AN APPEAL TO THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT.

Joint Resolution appealing to the Turkish Government in behalf of the people of Crete.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the people of the United States renew the expression of their sympathy with the suffering people of Crete, to whom they are bound by the ties of a common religion, and by the gratitude due to the Greek race, of which the Cretans are a part; that they rejoice to believe that the sufferings of this interesting people may be happily terminated by a policy of forbearance on the part of the Turkish Government; and they hereby declare their earnest hope that the Turkish Government will listen kindly to this representation, and will speedily adopt such generous steps as will secure to Crete the much-desired blessings of peace, and the advantage of autonomic government.

Sec. 2. And be it further resolved, That religion, civilization, and humanity require that the existing contest in Crete should be brought to a close; and to accomplish this result, the civilized powers of the world should unite in friendly influence with the Government of Turkey.

Sec. 3. And be it further resolved, That it shall be the duty of the President to instruct the minister of the United States at Constantinople to coöperate with the ministers of other powers in all good offices to terminate the sufferings of the people of Crete; and that it shall be the further duty of the President to communicate a copy of this resolution to the Government of Turkey.

PRIVILEGES OF DEBATE IN THE SENATE ON OFFICERS LIABLE TO IMPEACHMENT.

Resolved, That the Constitution, in providing for the impeachment of “all civil officers” of the National Government, embracing the President, members of the Cabinet, diplomatic representatives, and other civil functionaries, did not intend to limit debate in the Senate on the conduct of any civil officer, so far as the same may arise in legislative proceedings; that any other interpretation is inconsistent with the privileges of the Senate, and tends directly to shield misconduct in civil office.

Resolved, That the Constitution expressly declares, that, when sitting to try an impeachment, the Senate “shall be on oath or affirmation,” thus superadding a judicial oath to that already taken as Senator; that from the taking of this oath the judicial character of the Senate begins, and until then each Senator is free to express himself openly on the conduct of any civil officer, and thereupon to invite the judgment of the Senate and the country; that at times this may be a duty, and is always a sacred right, which cannot be renounced or abridged.[240]

PROPHETIC VOICES CONCERNING AMERICA.
A MONOGRAPH.

MONOGRAPH.

The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is the greatest event of secular history. Besides the potato, the turkey, and maize, which it introduced at once for the nourishment and comfort of the Old World,[241] and also tobacco, which only blind passion for the weed could place in the beneficent group, this discovery opened the door to influences infinite in extent and beneficence. Measure them, describe them, picture them, you cannot. While yet unknown, imagination invested this continent with proverbial magnificence. It was the Orient, and the land of Cathay. When afterwards it took a place in geography, imagination found another field in trying to portray its future history. If the Golden Age is before, and not behind, as is now happily the prevailing faith, then indeed must America share, at least, if it does not monopolize, the promised good.

Before the voyage of Columbus in 1492, nothing of America was really known. Scanty scraps from antiquity, vague rumors from the resounding ocean, and the hesitating speculations of science were all that the inspired navigator found to guide him. Foremost among these were the well-known verses of Seneca, so interesting from ethical genius and a tragical death, in the chorus of his “Medea,” which for generations had been the finger-point to an undiscovered world:—

These verses are vague and lofty rather than specific; but Bacon, after setting them forth, says of them, “A prophecy of the discovery of America”; and this they may well be, if we adopt the translation of Archbishop Whately, in his notes to the Essay on Prophecies: “There shall come a time in later ages, when Ocean shall relax his chains and a vast continent appear, and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule shall be no more earth’s bound.”[243] Fox, turning from statesmanship to scholarship, wrote to Wakefield: “The prophecy in Seneca’s ‘Medea’ is very curious indeed.”[244] Irving says of it: “Wonderfully apposite, and shows, at least, how nearly the warm imagination of a poet may approach to prophecy. The predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal.”[245] These verses were adopted by Irving as a motto on the title-page of the revised edition of his “Life of Columbus.”

Two copies are extant in the undoubted handwriting of Columbus,—precious autographs to tempt collectors,—both of them in his book on the Prophecies.[246] By these the great admiral sailed.

Humboldt gives the verses in the following form:—

This sympathetic and authoritative commentator, who has illustrated the enterprise with all that classical or mediæval literature affords, declares his conviction that the discovery of a new continent was more completely foreshadowed in the simple geographical statement of the Greek Strabo,[248] who, after a long life of travel, sat down in his old age, during the reign of Augustus, to write the geography of the world, including its cosmography. In this work, where are gathered the results of ancient study and experience, the venerable author, after alluding to the possibility of passing direct from Spain to India, and explaining that the inhabited world is that which we inhabit and know, thus lifts the curtain: “There may be in the same temperate zone two and indeed more inhabited lands, especially near the parallel of Thinæ or Athens, prolonged into the Atlantic Ocean.”[249] This was the voice of ancient Science.

Before the voyage of Columbus two Italian poets seem to have beheld the unknown world. The first was Petrarca; nor was it unnatural that his exquisite genius should reach behind the veil of Time, as where he pictures

The other was Pulci, who, in his “Morgante Maggiore,” sometimes called the last of the romances and the earliest of Italian epics, reveals an undiscovered world beyond the Pillars of Hercules:—

This translation is by our own eminent historian, Prescott, who first called attention to the testimony,[252] which is not mentioned even by Humboldt. Leigh Hunt referred to it at a later day.[253] Pulci was born in 1431, and died about 1487, five years before Columbus sailed; so that he was not aided by any rumor of the discovery he so distinctly predicts.

Passing from the great event which gave a new world not only to Spain, but to civilized man, it may not be uninteresting to collect some of the prophetic voices concerning the future of America and the vast unfolding of our continent. They will have a lesson also. Seeing what has been fulfilled, we may better judge what to expect. I shall set them forth in the order of time, prefacing each prediction with an account of the author sufficient to explain its origin and character. If some are already familiar, others are little known. Brought together in one body, on the principle of our National Union, E pluribus unum, they must give new confidence in the destinies of the Republic.

Only what has been said sincerely by those whose words are important deserves place in such a collection. Oracles had ceased before our history began; so that we meet no responses paltering in a double sense, like the deceptive replies to Crœsus and to Pyrrhus, nor any sayings which, according to the quaint language of Sir Thomas Browne, “seem quodlibetically constituted, and, like a Delphian blade, will cut on both sides.”[254] In Bacon’s Essay on Prophecies there is a latitude not to be followed. Not fable or romance, but history, is the true authority; and here experience and genius are the lights by which our prophets have walked. Doubtless there is a difference in human faculties. Men who have lived much and felt strongly see further than others. Their vision penetrates the future. Second-sight is little more than clearness of sight. Milton tells us that

Sometimes this strain is attained even in youth. But here Genius with divine power lifts the curtain and sweeps the scene.

The elder Disraeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” has a chapter on “Prediction,” giving curious instances, among which is that of Rousseau, toward the end of the third book of “Émile,” where he says, “We approach a condition of crisis and the age of revolutions.”[255] Our own Revolution was then at hand, soon followed by that of France. The settlement of America was not without auguries even at the beginning.

A PROPHETIC GROUP.

Before passing to the more serious examples, I bring into group a few marking at least a poet’s appreciation of the newly discovered country, if not a prophetic spirit. The Muse was not silent at the various reports. As early as 1595, Chapman, famous as the translator of Homer, in a poem on Guiana, thus celebrates and commends the unknown land:—

In similar strain, Drayton, who flourished under James the First, says of Virginia:—

Daniel, poet-laureate and contemporary, seemed to foresee the spread of our English speech, anticipating our own John Adams:—

The emigration prompted by conscience and for the sake of religious liberty inspired the pious and poetical Herbert to famous verses:—

The poet died in 1632, twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and only two years after the larger movement of the Massachusetts Company, which began the settlement of Boston. The verses saw the light with difficulty, being refused the necessary license; but the functionary at last yielded, calling the author “a divine poet,” and expressing the hope that “the world will not take him to be an inspired prophet.”[260] Fuller, writing a little later, was perhaps moved by Herbert, when he said: “I am confident that America, though the youngest sister of the four, is now grown marriageable, and daily hopes to get Christ to her husband by the preaching of the Gospel.”[261] In a different vein, a contemporary poet, the favorite of Charles the First, Thomas Carew, in a masque performed by the monarch and his courtiers at Whitehall, February 18, 1633, made sport of New England, saying that it had “purged more virulent humors from the politic body than guaiacum and all the West Indian drugs have from the natural bodies of this kingdom.”[262] But these words uttered at the English Court were praise.

Then came answering voices from the Colonies. Rev. William Morrell, of the Established Church, a settler of 1623, said of New England, in a Latin poem translated by himself:—

“The Simple Cobbler of Agawam,” another name for Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, Mass., at the close of his witty book, first published in 1647, and having four different editions in this single year, sends an invitation to those at home:—

Another witness we meet in the writings of Franklin. It is George Webb, who, decamping from Oxford and the temptations of scholarship, indented himself according to the usage of the times, and became what Franklin calls “a bought servant” on our shores, where his genius flowered in the prophetic couplet, written in 1727:—

Another, Gulian Verplanck, of New York, in verses written in England in 1773, foretells the repetition of British wealth, power, and glory in the New World:—

And yet another, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, born in Scotland, and a graduate of our Princeton College in 1771, in a Commencement poem on “The Rising Glory of America,” pictured the future of the continent, adopting as a motto the verses of Seneca twice quoted by Columbus:—

To these add Voltaire, who, in his easy verse, written in 1751, represents God as putting fever in European climates, “and the remedy in America.”[267]

From this chorus, with only one discordant voice, I pass to a long line of voices so distinct and full as to be recognized separately.

JOHN MILTON, 1641.

The list opens with John Milton, whose lofty words are like an overture to the great drama of emigration, with its multitudes in successive generations. If not a prophet, he has yet struck a mighty key-note in our history.

The author of “Paradise Lost,” of “Comus,” and the heroic Sonnets, needs no special mention beyond the two great dates of birth and death. He was born 9th December, 1608, and died 8th November, 1674. The treatise from which I quote was written in 1641.