Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1861-11-16

We copy rom the .. Z Ala Oh OcI
26th, the annexed brilliant passages
from public addresses of that master
mind-Col. Baker. The Alta says:
MANY passages Of his eloquence will
long be cherished - models Of reason
penetrated and made red hot BY pas
sion.' Unfortunately he almost always
spoke extemporansously, and never
wrote out his orations; 20 that almost
all his eloquence have been lost, save
as a remembrance Of the general effect
on the minds of those who heard him.
The few orations, however, which have
been reported, are sufficient to give
him a high place." The following is
from a speech made in the American
Theatre, San Francisco, in October,
1860, when he was on his way to Wash
ington as U. s. Senator from Oregon
1--WE are city set upon bill. Our
light cannot be hid. As for me dare
not, l will not be false to freedom.
Where the feet Of my youth were plant
ed, there, by freedom, my feet shall
ever stand. I will walk beneath her
banner, I will glory in her strength.
l have watched her, in history, struck
down on an hundred chosen fields of
battle. 1 have seen her friends fly
from her; her foes gather around her.
l have seen her bound to the stake /;
1 have seen them give her ashes to the
winds. But when they turned to exult
I have seen her again meet them face
to face, resplendent in complete steel,
brandishing in her right hand fam
ing sword, red with insufferable light.
1 take courage. The people gather
around her. The Genius Of America
will at last lead her sons to freedom"
There is not more eloquent apos-
trophe to Liberty than that in all the
poetry that ever was written, or in all
the orations that ever were spoken.
The career and death of its author gives
it an additional significance, and it
should be carved upon his tombstone as
the principle by which he was guided
through life.
The next quotation is from the ora
ton which he delivered on occasion Of
the Gable celebration in San Francisco,
on the 28th September, 1858:
"We have accomplished q great
work; we have diminished space to a
point; we have travcrsed one.twelfth
of the circumference Of our globe with
a chain of thought pulsating with intel
ligencc and spirtual:zing matter. But,
even while we assemble to mark the
deed and rejoice at its completion. the
Almighty, as if to impress us with a
becoming sense of our weakness when
compared with hispower, has set a new
signal of His reign in heaven.
eff tonight, fellow citizens, you
look out from the glare Of your flu
minated city to the northwestern hea-
vens. you will perceive, low down on
the edge of the horizon, a bright stran-
ger, 1.-THE comet of 1858, then supposed
to be the comet Of Charles vi purs1-
ing his path across the sky. Amid the
starry hosts that kept their watch, it
shines, attended by brighter pomp
and followed by broader train. No
living man has gazed upon its splen-
dors before; no watchful votary Of sci
ence has traced its course for nearly
ten generations. It is more than three
hundred years since its approach was
visible from our planet; when last it
came it startled an Emperor on his
throne, and while the superstition Of
his ago taught him to perceive in its
presence herald and doom, his pride
saw in it's flaming course and fiery
train the announcement that his own
light was about to be extinguished. In
common with the lowest of his subjects,
he read omens Of destruction in the
baleful heavens, aud prepared himself
for fate which alike awaits the nigh
ticst and the meanest
Thanks to the present couditiea Of
scientific knowledge, We read the hsav.
ems with far clearer perception. We
scc in the predicted return Of the rush-
ing, blazing comet through the sky,
the march Of . heavenly messenger
along it, appointed way, and around its
predestiued orbit. For three hundred
vean he has travelled amid the regions |
of infinite space. Lone wandsring. |
but not lost, be bas left behind him |
'hining suns, blazing stan and gissm-
ng considerations, now nearer to the |
Eternal Throne, and again On the con-
ines Of the univsrss. He rsturuS with
'isage radiant and benign; hs returns,
Nth unimpedsd march and uuobstruct-
vay; he returns, the majestic, swif,
.leetric telegraph Of the Almighty,
,saring upon his flaming front the i'd
ngs that throughout the universe there
. still peace and order; that amid the