Autobiography of Seventy Years | Page 3

that the justice and manhood of the
South will surely make their way.
"Ah, Fellow Citizens, amid the sorrow and the mourning and the tears,
amid the horror and the disappointment and the baffled hope, there
comes to us from the open grave of William McKinley a voice of good
omen! What pride and love must we feel for the republic that calls such
men to her high places? What hope and confidence in the future of a
people, where all men and all women of all parties and sections, of all
faiths and creeds, of all classes and conditions, are ready to respond as
ours have responded to the emotion of a mighty love.
"You and I are Republicans. You and I are men of the North. Most of
us are Protestants in religion. We are men of native birth. Yet if every
Republican were to-day to fall in his place, as William McKinley has
fallen, I believe our countrymen of the other party, in spite of what we
deem their errors, would take the Republic and bear on the flag to
liberty and glory. I believe if every Protestant were to be stricken down
by a lightning-stroke, that our brethren of the Catholic faith would still
carry on the Republic in the spirit of a true and liberal freedom. I
believe if every man of native birth within our borders were to die this
day, the men of foreign birth, who have come here to seek homes and
liberty under the shadow of the Republic, would carry it on in God's
appointed way. I believe if every man of the North were to die, the new
and chastened South, with the virtues it has cherished from the
beginning, with its courage and its constancy, would take the country
and bear it on to the achievement of its lofty destiny. The Anarchist

must slay 75,000,000 Americans before he can slay the Republic.
"Of course there would be mistakes. Of course there would be
disappointments and grievous errors. Of course there would be many
things for which the lovers of liberty would mourn. But America would
survive them all, and the nation our fathers planted would endure in
perennial life.
"William McKinley has fallen in high place. The spirit of Anarchy,
always the servant of the spirit of Despotism, aimed its shaft at him,
and his life for this world is over. But there comes from his fresh grave
a voice of lofty triumph: 'Be of good cheer. It is God's way.'"
I account it my supreme good fortune that my public life has been spent
in the service of Massachusetts. No man can know better than I do how
unworthy I have been of a place in the great line of public men who
have adorned her history for nearly three hundred years. What a
succession it has been. What royal house, what empire or monarchy,
can show a catalogue like that of the men whom in every generation
she has called to high places--Bradford, and Winthrop, and Sir Henry
Vane, Leverett, and Sam Adams and John Adams and his illustrious
son, and Cabot and Dexter, Webster and Everett and Sumner and
Andrew. Nothing better can be said in praise of either than that they
have been worthy of her, and she has been worthy of them. They have
given her always brave and honest service, brave and honest counsel.
She has never asked of them obsequiousness, or flattery, or even
obedience to her will, unless it had the approval of their own judgment
and conscience. That relation has been alike most honorable and most
advantageous to both sides. They have never been afraid to trust the
people and they have never been afraid to withstand the people. They
knew well the great secret of all statesmanship, that he that withstands
the people on fit occasions is commonly the man who trusts them most
and always in the end the man they trust most.
CHAPTER II
ROGER SHERMAN AND HIS FAMILY

My mother, who died in 1866, at the age of eighty-three, was the
daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Her father died when she
was ten years old. She lived in her mother's house, opposite the College
in New Haven, until her marriage in 1812. New Haven was one of the
capital cities of New England. Its society had the special attraction
which belonged to the seat of a famous college. Her mother's house
was visited by the survivors of the great period of the Revolution and
the framing of the Constitution, whom her father had known during an
eminent public service of nearly forty years.
My mother was the most perfect democrat, in the best sense of the
word, that I ever knew. It was a democracy which was