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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

By Noted Sayings, Part II

[Continued from Volume IV.]

From “The Creole Village.”

The Almighty Dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land.
Washington Irving. 1783–1859.

A Vow, in “The Liberator,” Vol. I., No. 1. 1831.

I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.
William Lloyd Garrison. 1805–79.

Væ Victis! U. S. Senate, January, 1832.

To the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.
William Learned Marcy. 1786–1857.

The Upper Ten.

The upper ten thousand of the city.
Nathaniel Parker Willis. 1806–67.

From a Speech in the U. S. Senate, 26 January, 1830.

The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.
Daniel Webster. 1782–1852.

Paraphrase on Webster. Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston, 1850.

The American idea,… a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.
Theodore Parker. 1810–60.

From a Letter to the (Worcester) Whig Convention, 1 October. 1855.

We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union.
Rufus Choate. 1799–1859.

Motto of a Compromise Ticket.

Peace at any price; peace and union.
The Fillmore Rallying Cry. 1856.

A Definition.

An Old-Line Whig is one who takes his whiskey regularly, and votes the Democratic ticket occasionally.
Edward Bates. 1793–1869.

From a Letter to the Maine Whig Committee. 1856.

The glittering and sounding generalities of natural right, which make up the Declaration of Independence.
Rufus Choate. 1799–1859.

A Famous Book-Title.

Cotton is King; or, Slavery in the Light of Political Economy. 1855.
David Christy. 1802–1868.

A Southern Utterance. U. S. Senate, March, 1858.

No, sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of England was king, but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton-crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered.

On Slaves and Mudsills. From the Same Speech.

In all social systems there must be a class to do the mean duties, to perform the drudgery of life; that is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, refinement, and civilization. It constitutes the very mudsills of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air as to build either the one or the other except on the mudsills. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand—a race inferior to herself, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for the purpose and call them slaves. We are old-fashioned at the South yet; it is a word discarded now by ears polite; but I will not characterize that class at the North with that term; but you have it; it is there; it is everywhere; it is eternal.
James Henry Hammond. 1807–64.

A Jest from Bohemia.

A self-made man? Yes,—and worships his creator.
Henry Clapp. 1814–75.

The “Autocrat’s” Credo. 1858.

Boston State-House is the hub of the Solar System.
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 1809–1894.

An Official Telegram. 29 January, 1861.

If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.
John Adams Dix. 1798–1879.

“Contrabands,” at Fortress Monroe, Va., 24 May, 1861.

To the Confederate Major Cary, who claimed the rendition of three fugitive slaves:

I retain these negroes as contraband of war, and have set them to work inside the fortress.

Benjamin Franklin Butler. 1818–1893.

At the Battle of Seven Pines, 31 May, 1862.

See, there is Jackson, standing like a stone wall!
Barnard Elliott Bee. 1824–61.

At the Battle of Seven Pines, 31 May, 1862.

Go in anywhere, Colonel! You’ll find lovely fighting along the whole line.
Philip Kearny. 1815–62.

From an Address on Boston Common in 1862.

A star for every State, and a State for every star.
Robert Charles Winthrop. 1809–1894

General and Statesman.
To Gen. S. B. Buckner, Fort Donelson, 16 February, 1862.

No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.

Despatch to Washington. Before Spottsylvania Court-House, 11 May, 1864.

I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.

Accepting a nomination for the Presidency, 29 May, 1868.

Let us have peace.

From the Inaugural Address, 4 March, 1869.

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effectual as their strict construction.
Ulysses Simpson Grant. 1822–85.

Jurist and Financier.

From the decision in Texas v. White, 7 Wallace, 725.

The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.

Letter to Horace Greeley, 17 May, 1866.

The way to resumption is to resume.
Salmon Portland Chase. 1806–73.

Accepting the Liberal Republican Nomination, 20 May, 1872.

I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen. North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.
Horace Greeley. 1811–72.