say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with, till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.

Now I have done.

LETTERS WRITTEN FROM JAIL IN THE WEEK BEFORE HIS EXECUTION.

TO HIS KINSMAN, THE REV. HEMAN HUMPHREY, SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE.

I

DISCOVER that you labor under a mistaken impression as to some important facts, which my peculiar circumstances will in all probability prevent the possibility of my removing, and I do not propose to take up any argument to prove that any motion or act of my life is right. But I will here state, that I know it to be wholly my own fault as a leader, that caused our disaster. Of this you have no proper means of judging, not being on the ground, or a practical soldier. I will only add, that it was in yielding to my feelings of humanity (if I ever exercise such a feeling), in leaving my proper place, and mingling with my prisoners to quiet their fears, that occasioned our being caught. I firmly believe that God reigns, and that He overrules all things in the best possible manner, and in that view of the subject I try to be in some degree reconciled to my own weaknesses and follies even. If you were here on the spot and could be with me, by day and by night, and know the facts and how my time is spent here, I think you would find much to reconcile your own mind to the ignominious death I am about to suffer, and to mitigate your sorrow. I am to say the least quite cheerful. "He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." This was said of a poor erring servant many years ago, and for many years I have felt a strong impression that God had given me powers and faculties, unworthy as I was, that He intended to use for a similar purpose. This most unmerited honor He has seen fit to bestow, and whether like the same poor frail man to whom I allude my death may not be of vastly more value than my life is, I think, quite beyond all human foresight. I really have strong hopes that notwithstanding all my many sins I, too, may yet die "in faith." If you do not believe I had a murderous intention (while I know I had not) why grieve so terribly on my account? The scaffold has but few terrors for me. God has often covered my head in the day of battle, and granted me many times deliverances, that were almost so miraculous, that I can scarce realize their truth, and now

when it seems quite certain that He intends to use me in a different way, shall I not most cheerfully go? I may be deceived, but I humbly trust that He will not forsake me "till I have showed His favor to this generation and His strength to every one that is to come." Your letter is most faithfully and kindly written, and I mean to profit by it. I am certainly quite grateful for it. I feel that a great responsibility rests. upon me, as regards the lives of those who have fallen, and may yet fall. I must in that view cast myself on the care of Him, "whose mercy endureth forever." If the cause in which I engaged, in any possible degree approximated to be "infinitely better" than the one in which Saul of Tarsus undertook, I have no reason to be ashamed of it, and indeed I cannot now, after more than a month for reflection, find in my heart (before God in whose presence I expect to stand within another week) any cause for shame.

Charlestown, Jefferson Co., Va., 25 November, 1859.

TO THE HON. D. R. TILDEN.

THE HE great bulk of mankind estimate each other's actions and motives by the measure of success or otherwise that attends them through life. By that rule, I have been one of the worst and one of the best of men. I do not claim to have been one of the latter, and I leave it to an impartial tribunal to decide whether the world has been the worse or the better for my living or dying in it. My present great anxiety is to get as near in readiness for a different field of action as I well can, since being in a good measure relieved from the fear that my poor broken-hearted wife and children would come to immediate want. May God reward a thousandfold all the kind efforts made in their behalf! I have enjoyed remarkable cheerfulness and composure of mind ever since my confinement; and it is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a cause,—not merely to pay the debt of nature, as all must. I feel myself to be most unworthy of so great distinction. The particular manner of dying assigned to me gives me but very little uneasiness. I wish I had the time and the ability to give you, my dear friend, some little idea of what is daily, and I might almost say hourly, passing within my prison walls; and could my friends but witness only a few of these scenes, just as they occur, I think they would feel very well reconciled to my being here, just what I am, and just as I am. My whole life before had not afforded me one half the opportunity to plead for the right. In this, also, I find much to reconcile me to both my

present condition and my immediate prospect. I may be very insane; and I am so, if insane at all. But if that be so, insanity is like a very pleasant dream to me. I am not in the least degree conscious of my ravings, of my fears, or of any terrible visions whatever; but fancy myself entirely composed, and that my sleep, in particular, is as sweet as that of a healthy, joyous little infant. I pray God that He will grant me a continuance of the same calm but delightful dream, until I come to know of those realities which eyes have not seen and which ears have not heard. I have scarce realized that I am in prison or in irons at all. I certainly think I was never more cheerful in my life. CHARLESTOWN, 28 November, 1859.

Thomas Francis Marshall.

BORN in Frankfort, Ky., 1801. DIED near Versailles, Ky., 1864.

THE TEMPERANCE PLEDGE.

[From an Address before the Congressional Total-Abstinence Society.-Speeches and Writings of Hon. Thomas F. Marshall. 1858.]

IT

T does appear to me that, if the loftiest among the lofty spirits which move and act from day to day in this hall-the proudest, the most gifted, the most fastidious here-could hear the tales I have heard, and see the men I have seen, restored, by the influence of a thing so simple as this temperance pledge, from a state of the most abject outcast wretchedness, to industry, health, comfort, and, in their own emphatic language, to "peace," he could not withhold his countenance and support from a cause fraught with such actual blessings to mankind. I have heard unlettered men trace their own history on this subject through all its stages, describe the progress of their ruin and its consequences, paint without the least disguise the utmost extent of degradation and suffering, and the power of appetite, by facts which astonished me an appetite which triumphed over every human principle, affection and motive, yet yielded instantly and forever before the simple charm of this temperance pledge. It is a thing of interest to see and to hear a free, bold, strong-armed, hard-fisted mechanic relate, in his own nervous and natural language, the history of his fall and his recovery; and I have heard him relate how the young man was brought up to labor, and expecting by patient toil to support himself and a rising family, had taken to his bosom in his youth the woman whom he loved-how he was tempted to quit her side, and forsake her society for the dram-shop, the frolic, the

midnight brawl-how he had resolved and broken his resolutions, till his business forsook him, his friends deserted him, his furniture seized for debt, his clothing pawned for drink, his wife broken-hearted, his children starving, his home a desert, and his heart a hell. And then, in Tanguage true to nature, they will exultingly recount the wonders wrought in their condition by this same pledge: "My friends have come back-I have good clothes on-I am at work again-I am giving food and providing comforts for my children-I am free, I am a man, I am at peace here. My children no longer shrink cowering and huddling together in corners, or under the bed, for protection from the face of their own father. When I return at night they bound into my arms and nestle in my bosom. My wife no longer with a throbbing heart and agonized ear counts my steps before she sees me, to discover whether I am drunk or sober-I find her now singing and at work." What a simple but exquisite illustration of a woman's love, anxiety, and suffering! The fine instinct of a wife's ear detecting, from the intervals of his footfall before he had yet reached his door, whether it was the drunken or the sober step, whether she was to receive her husband or an infuriated monster in his likeness. I say, sir, these things have an interest, a mighty interest for me; and I deem them not entirely beneath the regard of the proudest statesman here. On my conscience, sir, I speak the truth when I say that, member of Congress as I am-(and no man is prouder of his commission)-member of Congress as I am, if, by taking this pledge, it were even probable that it would bring back one human being to happiness and virtue, no matter what his rank or condition, recall the smile of hope, and trust, and love, to the cheek of one wife, as she again pillowed it in safety, peace, and confidence upon the ransomed bosom of her reclaimed and natural protector, send one rosy child bounding to the arms of a parent whence drunkenness had exiled it long, I would dare all the ridicule of all the ridiculous people in the world, and thank God that I had not lived in vain. And, sir, I have had that pleasure.

Think not, sir, think not that I feel myself in a ridiculous situation, and, like the fox in the fable, wish to divide it with others, by converting deformity into fashion. Not so; by my honor as a gentleman not So. I was not what I was represented to be. I had, and I have shown that I had, full power over myself. But the pledge I have taken renders me secure forever from a fate inevitably following habits like mine— a fate more terrible than death. That pledge, though confined to myself alone, and with reference to its only effect upon me, my mind, my heart, my body, I would not exchange for all earth holds of brightest and of best. No, no, sir: let the banner of this temperance cause go forward or go backward-let the world be rescued from its degrading and ruin

ous bondage to alcohol or not-I for one shall never, never repent what I have done. I have often said this, and I feel it every moment of my existence, waking or sleeping. Sir, I would not exchange the physical sensations the mere sense of animal being which belongs to a man who totally refrains from all that can intoxicate his brain or derange his nervous structure-the elasticity with which he bounds from his couch in the morning-the sweet repose it yields him at night-the feeling with which he drinks in, through his clear eyes, the beauty and the grandeur of surrounding nature;—I say, sir, I would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly temperate man-the sense of renovated youth—the glad play with which my pulses now beat healthful music— the bounding vivacity with which the life-blood courses its exulting way through every fibre of my frame-the communion high which my healthful ear and eye now hold with all the gorgeous universe of God—the splendors of the morning, the softness of the evening sky-the bloom, the beauty, the verdure of earth, the music of the air and the waterswith all the grand associations of external nature, reopened to the fine avenues of sense;-no, sir, though poverty dogged me-though scorn pointed its slow finger at me as I passed-though want and destitution, and every element of earthly misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day to day;-not for the brightest and the noblest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's brow-not, if some angel commissioned by heaven, or some demon rather, sent fresh from hell, to test the resisting strength of virtuous resolution, should tempt me back, with all the wealth and all the honors which a world can bestow; not for all that time and all that earth can give, would I cast from me this precious pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the dangers and the horrors which once beset my path :-so help me heaven, sir, as I would spurn beneath my very feet all the gifts the universe could offer, and live and die as I am, poor, but sober.

William Henry Seward.

BORN in Florida, Orange Co., N. Y., 1801. DIED at Auburn, N. Y., 1872.

THE HIGHER LAW.

[Speech on the Admission of California. U. S. Senate, 11 March, 1850.]

THERE

HERE is another aspect of the principle of compromise which deserves consideration. It assumes that slavery, if not the only insti