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Mr. President and Gentlemen
of the Scotch-Irish Congress: A study of American history reveals the
honorable fact that Scotch-Irish blood has been the strongest single force
in its events. The fusion of Scotch strength with Irish fire, Scotch poise
with Irish dash, Scotch thought with Irish enthusiasm, and Scotch
statesmanship with Irish chivalry has made a power, regnant in every
crisis. Deathless love of liberty and invincible courage have been its
spirit, and the genius of free government its inspiration. Its part in
this heaven-born republic has been crucial, and all the supreme events of
our country have been framed by its mind and will.
In the birth of the
revolution, that vital act of human annals, one-third of the people were
Scotch-Irish, and its largest element. The majority of the movers of the
Mecklenburg declaration, the start of the struggle, were of Scotch-Irish
ancestry. The resistless orator who launched the storm, Patrick Henry,
came from Scotch-Irish stock. It was Thomas Jefferson, of Scotch-Irish
blood, who wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence, that decalogue
of freedom, and who lives in human fame as the undisputed apostle of
constitutional government. The hero of the war of 1812, the final Yankee
rebuke of the British lion, and the most iron-willed executive of the
nation, was the Scotch-Irishman, Andrew Jackson. The great spirit of the
Mexican War, Winfield Scott, sprang from Scotch-Irish loins.
Coming on down the tide of
focal eras in American history, we get to that vastest war of human
annals, the American civil revolution that wiped out human slavery and
tested the solid bond of the Union, proving the vitality of our
constitutional republic, in which Abraham Lincoln, a scion of the
Scotch-Irish, directed the Federal destinies to consummate success; and
another Scotch-Irish son, Ulysses S. Grant, had the genius of generalship
to close the colossal contest with final and magnanimous victory.
The list of Scotch-Irish
Americans gleams with leaders in every field of human achievement. Robert
Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, that immeasurable agent of commerce;
the phenomenal Morse, whose sovereign invention of the telegraph links all
parts of the globe in instantaneous touch, matching the divine mission of
thought and benefiting mankind forever; the farmers' invaluable
benefactor, practical McCormick, whose reaper adds a thousand fold to the
facility of farm labor; Hiram Powers, the chief of American sculptors;
Commodore Perry, the illustrious naval hero; John C. Calhoun, the greatest
of Southern statesmen; Stonewall Jackson, the marvel of Confederate
soldierhood; Horace Greeley, Henry W. Grady, and Robert Bonner, luminaries
of the American Journal; John Hall, a shining light of American
evangelism; and a glittering myriad of other blazing lights on every
theater of human aspiration and renown came from the potential and
unsurpassable Scotch-Irish lineage. I pay the magnificent breed unstinted
honor. |
