Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1857-05-06
Caleb Cushiuy,s Great speech.

Caleb Cushins's Great Speech.
The Hon. Caleb Gushing, the occasion of his
return to Newburypor, Mass, was honored by a
public reception by his fellow citizens without
spect to party; and in reply to the welcome thus
given him he delivered strikingly able and impress
sive speech. We make the following extracts:
"Is not that manifest destiny? Is not that pro-
videntlai mission? Is not that one of the steps in
the march, march, march of the Union which,
when suggested by me, former occasion, what
the Union had perforce to do, was taken 10 be the
persomtion of some awful monster, shaking forth
pestIlence and death from its horrid hair! Aye, in
this pioneer colony of Massachusetts, doubled with
Plymouth, on the very rock of Plymouth itself,
where free compact Of self government first found
a footstand on earth, ard from which point togc,h
er with the coeval starting point of Jamestown,
there moved the two parallel columns of emigration
which commenced Americas march, that very
place, good and honored friend of mine felt called
upon to protest against my suggestion of the
ward march, march, march" of the advancing
hosts OF civilization liberty and power which follow
the westward flight of the eagle Of the Union. l
stand to my thought. reiserate it. l stick to the
purpose which brought my forefather, John Cush-
ing, from bingham in Eng land to Hingha in Mas
sachusetts. say that every ship-load of cooniSts
which came in the beginning to Virginia and TO Mas
sachuSetts, and each of their descendants,
who are but moving on with an acccleration Of the
original impetus which they gave us, and every ship
load OF eolonsts tQm, 11id Gsrmany> sll and
appointed TO occupy, to cultivate, and to civii;ze
America 1t is oppression seeking to be fl feedom
1t is want demanding to be want no longer. 1t is
the strong man without air and without room, and
determined to have them die calamity in the
struggle for them. 1t is the irrepressbc expansion
of the ovcr-compressed human energies. 1t is the
exodus of the nations. 1t is the outpouring of the
too-full blood of the Old World into the all capaci-
veins of the New World. IL is the foundation
an America Of Republican empires to o~tc"unt an
Il
Europe Isar tint is the ooork appointedT God
for to do, dnd soith tie blessing Of God upon as,
that aoork eU do. II rivers across our path,
we will bridge them; if mountains rise up 10 stop
US, will tunnel them if deserts appear we will
reclaim and cultivate them; if oceans intervene, we
will navigate them to which last end so long as
there is oak left upon the earth gallant ships
shall continue to be launched into the waters of this
our Merrimac. No material obstacle can arrest our
progress We WOO fair nature which lies before us,
and we WOO it as its conGueier, like the vikings Of
the old time winning their brides of the in open
combat.
| say this in the same confidence Of conviction
who seeing the set forth from the portals of
the East NAV speak of its onward course to the
| West. For time when the United States were
but weak little Colonies of England scattered along
the sea-shore Then they over-fowed the Aleghan-
les into the Valley of the Mississippi. Next they
! absorbed the vast domain of France from Lake Su-
! peror all around to the Gulf of Mexico, and west
ward to Oregon. Next they possessed themselves
| Of the :wo Flordas and then of Texas. And finally
| they have marched on through New Mexico into
mote California. But in our conquest of nature with
our sta'wart arms and with our dauntess hearts to
back them, happens that men, nations races, may,
must, WILL perish before as. That is ineritdbte
There can be change for the better at the ex
pense of That which is one generation gives place
to another. Out of decay springs fresh life. The
tribes of Indians who hunted over the land without
occupying it, retire before like the hunted deer
and buffalo themselveS,-deeper and deeper into the
inncrmost recesses nf the Continent. And the HIS
pano MeXicans. wasting away by apparent incapacity
OF self government, are suffer ing province after
another Of theirs to reaps into pristine desoation,
and thus to become prepared to receive the people
and the laws of the United States. All that is now
history. Yet, wise long before that so it
to be- From the present they inferred the future,
and spoke of it with the positiveness and precision
OF inspired prophecy.
| pray you not to misunderstood me. | repro
BATE not ITSELF but all irregular enterprises OF
war. | hold that the great issues of peace belong
to the sovereign power of the Union and should not
be wantonly usurpcd by individual rashness glory
in the acts which it has fallen to perform, to-
wards the repression of all such undertakings in
the United States. whether on the part Of presump-
tuous British Minister, recruiting troops aoithn our
Jurisdiction for tie purpose of acaJare an the CTin'ed,
or Of reckless american adrenturer, recruiting
them for the purpose Of plunder and bioodshed an
Nicaragua. No. let not the small man, Walker, be
honored for this, account of which the great man.
Burr, was damned.
Non tall auxio, nee deensoribus istis,
Tempus eget.
The United States require such instruments to
help them forward to the consummation of their de-
stnies in America. On the contrary they impede
us, Just Walker, without capacity power o
possible good in himself has only served to ohstruc
national purposes in Mexico in Nicaragua, in all Span
ish America. And such things tend to discrcdit us
Also Thus far if there be, in all the annals of time
a of a mighty nation speedily advancing to it
zenith in the shining light of untarnished honor it il
these United States. So mote it be-nobLess O5tige
independence of England with our limits Of origna
dominion intact we achieved bravelv the field o
battle, in righteous war, with Bunker Hill at the be
ginning of the contest and at the close of it Saratog
and Yorktown. Our succeeding great step wa
Louisiana, and that came to us by the spontaneous
ofour oldest-and may she cease to be onr con
slant ally and friend generous and glorious France
Followed by the Floridas-not extorted by us from
Spain hut cedcd to us by her, as JOINT Quincy Adam
once, with his forcible eloQuence. explained in m,
hearing to US in fair exchange for our OWL
province of Texas. That again returned to Of it
; own free will, after having been raised through tn
galantry of her sons with Houston and Rusk at thei
head, to independence Of Mexico, by the same ider
teal right that Mexico independent of Spain.-
And now California is ours, which we acquired i
just var, and might have kept by the just right
war; but distained to do so, choosing rather to ho
it by the tenure of cession and of contract with
tribution of ample indemnity therefor to Mexico
say, all that is a record of which any nation might
with good cause, be proud and may it be contir
ued on hereafter in the same bright line Of glory an