The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-01-09
Henry Ward Beeciier on New Eng.
land.

At festival Of the Sons of New Eng
land, resident of New York, held at the
Astor House, on the 22d, the fifth regular
toast
5. Our Couhy-FOunded on the principles
of our Pilgrim Fathers, like the Rock on which
they landed-it shall stand mistaken, and be
forever the home of all races-the common in
heritance of all mankind.
Was responded to by Rev. HENRY WARD
BEECHER:
He had lately heard something which led
him to believe that not few men in the
country were becoming ashamed of New
England. ["Never,''l If any man was
ashamed of New England, he might be
sure that New England had first occasion
to be ashamed of him 1t would be i'm
pertinent in him to ask the Yankees whom
he saw before him, whether the time had
come when New Highlander should hide
his head with shame at the mention of his
country, and the principles which, working
themselves out in that country, had made
her what she now is No man could be
ashamed of New England.
Men might hate her, as the devil hates
Heaven; but no one could despise her.
He would cOncede that the real Yankee
was an inquisitive and somewhat medle-
some person; but he attributed this to an
super-charge of brain. Understanding
that the whole world was his legitimate
field of operation, the Yankee inquired
about and intertered with every thing in it,
feeling all the time that he was only
heading to his own business He was
very troublesome when a man wanted qui-
ct. lie was super-active, prying, stimu-
lating creature. He was the born radical
of modern civilization. There were two
sorts of Observation-Disclosures of the pas
sions, baslar radcalisln, which was fero-
cious, desperate and damnable; and radi-
calism of the sent:ments-a radicalisln
which insisted that that which was right
should be made to appear right, that truth
should reign, that the pure should take
precedence of the impure, that the good
should yield to the better, and that the
best should be set above all. Every man
who, in the Old World Or the New, had
taken part in the promotion of the prOtes-
tant, contestant, Puritan idea-every man
who had any thing to do with fashioning
the ideas upon which New England policy
and character were based-was radical
of the latter kind.
1t had been said New Englanders were
men of one idea-restless, disturbing men;
and it was partly true. But was New
England like weaZen-faced shrew, always
talking of virtue, but making all who saw
her dread it? Where in the world did
men live more as men should live than in
New England? And yet, to any one who
saw New England before the landing of
the Pilgrims, it would have appeared the
last place where men would choose to
settle themselves to work out a new and
advanced civilization. 1t seemed as if God
had determined to settle the vexed ques-
ton whether liberty or despotism was
better for man, and had said: civil place
liberty in the poorest part of the world,
where there shall be only ice in winter and
rocks in summer; and despotism in the
richest and most highly-favOred portion of
the earth, leaving each to work out it's own
civilization Each had worked out it's
own civilization before the eyes of the
world, which would judge between them.
New England, labOring under great natu-
raj disabilities, had become intelligent and
rich, while the South, with all natural ad-
vantages, had failed to become either.
There were men who talked of forming
a new Union, from which New England
should be excluded New England could
not be kept out. She was the pick-lock of
the world Her strength lay in her ideas,
and they could not be hemmed in or shut
out by any geographical line.