English & American Literature, Studies in Literary Criticism, Interpretation & History, Including Complete Masterpieces, in 10 Vol, Volume 3

Front Cover
Smith & Reeve, 1902

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 260 - ... directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest -wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Page 215 - The question with me is not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
Page 181 - Straits — while we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold — that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry.
Page 94 - Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts — she needs none. There she is — behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history: the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — and there they will remain forever.
Page 181 - Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis' Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold; that they are at the antipodes,- and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South.
Page 177 - Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable as he is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in vision that when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation which (by the happy issue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son...
Page 44 - Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public lands...
Page 94 - ... when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; or if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the south, and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, — may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth...
Page 127 - He would answer, of course, Treason. No lawyer could give any other answer. John Fries, he would tell them, had learned that, some years ago. How, then, they would ask, do you propose to defend us ? We are not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way of taking people off that we do not much relish. How do you propose to defend us ? " Look at my floating banner...
Page 120 - This, sir, was the first great step. By this the supremacy of the constitution and laws of the United States is declared. The people so...

Bibliographic information