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Col. Robert Green Ingersoll >> Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll Latest
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I just want you to know what this dreadful infidel thought of home. I
just wanted you to know what Thomas Paine thought of home. Then here is
another letter that Thomas Paine wrote to congress on the 21st day of
January, 1808, and I wanted you to know those two.
It is only a short one:
"To the Honorable Senate of the United States: The purport of this
address is to state a claim I feel myself entitled to make on the United
States, leaving it to their representatives in congress to decide on its
worth and its merits. The case is as follows:
"Toward the latter end of the year 1780 the continental money had become
depreciated--the paper dollar being then not more than a cent--that it
seemed next to impossible to continue the war. As the United States was
then in alliance with France it became necessary to make France
acquainted with our real situation. I therefore drew up a letter to the
Count De Vergennes, stating undisguisedly the whole case, and concluding
with a request whether France could not, either as a subsidy of a loan,
supply the United States with a million pounds sterling, and continue
that supply, annually, during the war. "I showed this letter to Mr.
Morbois, secretary of the French minister. His remark upon it was that
a million sent out of the nation exhausted it more than ten millions
spent in it. I then showed it to Mr. Ralph Izard, member of congress
from South Carolina. He borrowed the letter of me and said: 'We will
endeavor to do something about it in congress.' Accordingly, congress
then appointed John A. Laurens to go to France and make representation
for the purpose of obtaining assistance. Col. Laurens wished to decline
the mission, and asked that congress would appoint Col. Hamilton, who
did not choose to do it. Col. Laurens then came and stated the case to
me, and said that he was well enough acquainted with the military
difficulties of the army, but he was not acquainted with political
affairs, or with the resources of the country, to undertake such a
mission. Said he, 'If you will go with me I will accept the mission.'
This I agreed to do, and did do. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance
frigate February, 1781, and arrived in France in the beginning of March.
The aid obtained from France was six millions of liyres, as at present,
and ten millions as a loan, borrowed in Holland on the security of
France. We sailed from Brest in the French frigate Resolue the 1st of
June, and arrived at Boston on the 25th of August, bringing with us two
millions and a half in silver, and conveying a chip and a brig laden
with clothing and military stores.
"The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National bank at
Philadelphia, which enabled our army to move to Yorktown to attack in
conjunction with the French army under Rochambeau, the British army
under Cornwallis.
"As I never had a single cent for these services, I felt myself
entitled, as the country is now in a state of prosperity, to state the
case to congress.
"As to my political works, beginning with the pamphlet 'Common Sense,'
published the beginning of January 1776, which awakened America to a
declaration of independence as the president and vice-president both
know, as they were works done from principle I can not dishonor that
principle by ever asking any reward for them. The country has been
benefited by them, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of that
benefit. It is, however, proper for me to add that the mere
independence of America, were it to have been followed by a system of
government modeled after the corrupt system of the English government,
would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. It was to
bring forward and establish a representative system of government. As
the work itself will show, that was the leading principle with me in
writing that work, and all my other works during the progress of the
revolution, and I followed the same principle in writing in English the
'Rights of Man.'
"After the failure of the 5 percent duty recommended by congress to pay
the interest of the loan to be borrowed in Holland, I wrote to
Chancellor Livingston, then minister for foreign affairs, and Robert
Morris, minister of finance, and proposed a method for getting over the
difficulty at once, which was by adding a continental legislature which
should be empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of
recommending them. So the method proposed met with their future
probation. I held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a direct
occasion occurred.
"In a conversation afterward with Gov. Clinton, of New York, now vice-
president, it was judged that for the purpose of my going fully into the
subject, and to prevent any misconstruction of my motive or object, it
would be best that I received nothing from congress, but to leave it to
the states individually to make the what acknowledgement they pleased.
The State of New York presented me with a farm which since my return to
America, I have found it necessary to sell, and the State of
Pennsylvania voted me L500 of their currency, but none of the states to
the east of New York, or the south of Pennsylvania, have made me the
least acknowledgment. They had received benefits from me which they
accepted, and there the matter ended. This story will not tell well in
history. All the civilized world knows I have been of great service to
the United States, and have generously given away that which would
easily have made me a fortune. I much question if an instance is to be
found in ancient or modern times of a man who had no personal interest
in the case to take up that of the establishment of a representative
government and who sought neither place nor office after it was
established; that pursued the same undeviating principles that I had
for more than thirty years, and that in spite of dangers, difficulties,
and inconveniences of which I have had my share.--Thomas Paine"
An old man in Pennsylvania told me once that his father hired a old
revolutionary soldier by the name of Thomas Martin to work for him.
Martin was then quite an old man; and there was an old Presbyterian
preacher used to come there, by the name of Crawford, and he sat down by
the fire and he got to talking one night, among other things about
Thomas Paine--what a wretched, infamous dog he was; and while he was in
the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from the fireplace,
and he walked over to the preacher, and he said to him "Did you ever see
Thomas Paine?" "No." "Well," he says, "I have; I saw him at Valley
Forge. I heard read at the head of every regiment and company the
letters of Thomas Paine. I heard them read the 'Crisis,' and I saw
Thomas Paine writing on the head of a drum, sitting at the bivouac fire,
those simple words that inspired every patriot's bosom, and I want to
tell you Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did more for liberty than any
priest that ever lived in this world."
"And yet they say he was afraid to die! Afraid of what? Is there any
God in heaven that hates a patriot? If there is Thomas Paine ought to
be afraid to die. Is there any God that would damn a man for helping to
free three millions of people? If Thomas Paine was in hell tonight, and
could get God's attention long enough to point him to the old banner of
the stars floating over America, God would have to let him out. What
would he be afraid of? Had he ever burned anybody? No. Had he ever
put anybody in the inquisition? No. Ever put the thumb-screw on
anybody? No. Ever put anybody in prison so that some poor wife and
mother would come and hold her little babe up at the grated window that
the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse of his blue-eyed babe?
Did he ever do that?"
"Did he ever light a fagot? Did he ever tear human flesh? Why, what
had he to be afraid of? He had helped to make the world free. He had
helped create the only republic then on the earth. What was he afraid
of? Was God a tory? It won't do."
One would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have
charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted, that
there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. Even
with my ideas of the average honor of the believers in superstition, the
average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, I did not believe that
all those infamies rested solely upon poorly-attested falsehoods. I had
charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done by Thomas
Paine capable of being tortured into a foundation of all these
calumnies. What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he should have
feared to die? The only answer you can give is that he denied the
inspiration of the scriptures. If that is crime, the civilized world is
filled with criminals. The pioneers of human thought, the intellectual
leaders of this world, the foremost men in every science, the kings of
literature and art, those who stand in the front of investigation, the
men who are civilizing and elevating and refining mankind, are all
unbelievers in the ignorant dogma of inspiration.
Why should we think Thomas Paine was afraid to die? and why should the
American people malign the memory of that great man? He was the first to
advocate the separation from the mother country. He was the first to
write these words: "The United States of America." Think of maligning
that man! He was the first to lift his voice against human slavery, and
while hundreds and thousands of ministers all over the United States not
only believed in slavery, but bought and sold women and babes in the
name of Jesus Christ, this infidel, this wretch who is now burning in
the flames of hell, lifted his voice against human slavery and said:
"It is robbery, and a slaveholder is a thief; the whipper of women is a
barbarian; the seller of a child is a savage." No wonder that the
thieving hypocrite of his day hated him! I have no love for any man who
ever pretended to own a human being. I have no love for a man that
would sell a babe from the mother's throbbing, heaving, agonized breast.
I have no respect for a man who considered a lash on the naked back as a
legal tender for labor performed. So write it down, Thomas Paine was
the first great abolitionist of America.
Now let me tell you another thing. He was the first man to raise his
voice for the abolition of the death penalty in the French convention.
What more did he do? He was the first to suggest a federal constitution
for the United States. He saw that the old articles of confederation
were nothing; that they were ropes of water and chains of mist, and he
said, "We want a federal constitution so that when you pass a law
raising 5 percent you can make the states pay it." Let us give him his
due. What were all these preachers doing at that time?
He hated superstition; he loved the truth. He hated tyranny; he loved
liberty. He was the friend of the human race. He lived a brave and
thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man, and "he died
as he lived." Like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded
banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless
ocean of eternal peace. I love him; I love every man who gave me, or
helped to give me the liberty I enjoy tonight; I love every man who
helped me put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his
voice in any age for liberty, for a chainless body and a fetterless
brain. I love everyman who has given to every other human being every
right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who has thought
more of principle than he has of position. I love the men who have
trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for
mankind, and for that reason I love Thomas Paine.
I thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, every one--every one, for the
attention you have given me this evening.
Ingersoll's Lecture on Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
Ladies and Gentlemen: In my judgment slavery is the child of ignorance.
Liberty is born of intelligence. Only a few years ago there was a great
awakening in the human mind. Men began to inquire, By what right does a
crowned robber make me work for him? The man who asked this question
was called a traitor. Others said, by what right does a robed priest rob
me? That man was called an infidel. And whenever he asked a question
of that kind, the clergy protested. When they found that the earth was
round, the clergy protested; when they found that the stars were not
made out of the scraps that were left over on the sixth day of creation,
but were really great, shining, wheeling worlds, the clergy protested
and said: "When is this spirit of investigation to stop?" They said
then, and they say now, that it is dangerous for the mind of man to be
free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room for every
sail. In the intellectual air, there is space enough for every wing.
And the man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and does not do
his duty to his fellow men. For one, I expect to do my own thinking.
And I will take my own oath this minute that I will express what
thoughts I have, honestly and sincerely. I am the slave of no man and
of no organization. I stand under the blue sky and the stars, under the
infinite flag of nature, the peer of every human being. Standing as I
do in the presence of the Unknown, I have the same right to guess as
though I had been through five theological seminary. I have as much
interest in the great absorbing questions of origin and destiny as
though I had D.D., L. L. D. at the end of my name.
All I claim, all I plead is simple liberty of thought. That is all. I
do not pretend to tell what is true and all the truth. I do not claim
that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have
descended to the depths of things; I simply claim that what idea I have
I have a right to express, and any man that denies it to me is an
intellectual thief and robber. That is all. I say, take those chains
off from the human soul; I say, break these orthodox fetters, and if
there are wings to the spirit let them be spread. That is all I say.
And I ask you if I have not the same right to think that any other human
has? If I have no right to think, why have I such a thing as a thinker.
Why have I a brain? And if I have no right to think, who has? If I
have lost my right, Mr. Smith, where did you find yours? If I have no
right, have three or four men or 300 or 400, who get together and sign a
card and build a house and put a steeple on it with a bell in it--have
they any more right to think than they had before? That is the
question. And I am sick of the whip and lash in the region of mind and
intellect. And I say to these men, "Let us alone. Do your own
thinking; express your own thoughts." And I want to say tonight that I
claim no right that I am not willing to give to every other human being
beneath the stars--none whatever. And I will fight tonight for the
right of those who disagree with me to express their thoughts just as
soon as I will fight for my own right to express mine.
In the good old times, our fathers had an idea that they could make
people believe to suit them. Our ancestors in the ages that are gone
really believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot
change the conclusion of the brain by force, but I will tell you what
you can do by force, and what you have done by force. You can make
hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed
his mind, but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all
over him; crush his feet in iron boots; lash him to the stock; burn
him if you please, but his ashes are of the same opinion still. I say
our fathers, in the good old times--and the best thing I can say about
them is, they are dead--they had an idea they could force men to think
their way, and do you know that idea is still prevalent even in this
country? Do you know they think they can make a man think their way if
they say, "We will not trade with that man; we won't vote for that man;
we won't hire him, if he is a lawyer; we will die before we take his
medicine, if he is a doctor, we won't invite him; we will socially
ostracize him; he must come to our church; he must think our way or he
is not a gentleman." There is much of that even in this blessed country
--not excepting the city of Albany itself.
Now in the old times of which I have spoken, they said, "We can make all
men think alike." All the mechanical ingenuity of this earth cannot
make two clocks run alike, and how are you going to make millions of
people of different quantities and qualities and amount of brain, clad
in this living robe of passionate flesh--how are you going to make
millions of them think alike? If the infinite God, if there is one, who
made us, wished us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains
to one man, and a bushel to another? Why is it that we have all degrees
of humanity, from the idiot to the genius, if it was intended that all
should think alike? I say our fathers concluded they would do this by
force, and I used to read in books how they persecuted mankind, and do
you know I never appreciated it; I did not. I read it, but it did not
burn itself, as it were, into my very soul what infamies had been
committed in the name of religion, and I never fully appreciated it
until a little while ago I saw the iron arguments our fathers used to
use. I tell you the reason we are through that, is because we have
better brains than our fathers had. Since that day we have become
intellectually developed, and there is more real brain and real good
sense in the world today than in any other period of its history, and
that is the reason we have more liberty, that is the reason we have more
kindness. But I say I saw these iron arguments our fathers used to use.
I saw here the thumb-screw--two little innocent looking pieces of iron,
armed on the inner surface with protuberances to prevent their slipping
--and when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or maybe said, "I do
not believe that the whale ever swallowed a man to keep him from
drowning," then they put these pieces of iron upon his thumb, and there
was a screw at each end, and then, in the name of love and forgiveness,
they began screwing these pieces of iron together. A great many men,
when they commenced, would say, "I recant." I expect I would have been
one of them. I would have said, "Now you just stop that; I will admit
anything on earth that you want. I will admit there is one god or a
million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves, but stop that." But I
want to say, the thumbscrew having got out of the way, I am going to
have my say.
There was now and then some man who wouldn't turn Judas Iscariot to his
own soul; there was now and then a man willing to die for his
conviction, and if it were not for such men we would be savages tonight.
Had it not been for a few brave and heroic souls in every age, we would
have been naked savages this moment, with pictures of wild beasts
tattooed upon our naked breasts, dancing around a dried snake fetish;
and I tonight thank every good and noble man who stood up in the face of
opposition, and hatred, and death for what he believed to be right. And
then they screwed this thumbscrew down as far as they could and threw
him into some dungeon, where, in throbbing misery and the darkness of
night, he dreams of the damned; but that was done in the name of
universal love.
I saw there at the same time what they called the "collar of torture."
Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside of that more than a hundred
points as sharp as needles. This being fastened upon the throat, the
sufferer could not sit down, he could not walk, he could not stir
without being punctured by those needles, and in a little while the
throat would begin to swell, and finally suffocation would end the
agonies of that man, when may be the only crime he had committed was to
say, with tears upon his sublime cheeks, "I do not believe that God, the
father of us all, will damn to eternal punishment any of the children of
men." Think of it! And I saw there at the same time another
instrument, called "the scavenger's daughter," which resembles a pair of
shears, with handles where handles ought to be, but at the points as
well. And just above the pivot that fastens the blades, a circle of
iron through which the hands would be placed, into the lower circles the
feet, and into the center circle the head would be pushed, and in that
position he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and kept there until
the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity and death
would end his pain. And that was done in the name of "Whosoever smiteth
thee upon one cheek, turn him the other also." Think of it!
And I saw also the rack, with the windlass and chains, upon which the
sufferer was laid. About his ankles were fastened chains, and about his
wrists also, and then priests began turning this windlass, and they kept
turning until the ankles, the shoulders and the wrists were all
dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they
had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his
life? Yes. What for? In mercy? No. Simply that they might preserve
his life, that they might rack him once again. And this was done--
recollect it--it was done in the name of civilization, it was done in
the name of law and order, it was done in the name of morality, it was
done in the name of religion, it was done in the name of God.
Sometimes when I get to reading about it, and when I get to thinking
about it, it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself,
as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with a tear-
filled eye toward home and native land; as though my nails had been
torn from my hands, and into my throat the sharp needles had been
thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I
had been chained in the cells of the Inquisition, and had watched and
waited in the interminable darkness to hear the words of release; as
though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, and
taken to the public square, chained, and fagots had been piled around
me; as though the flames had played around my limbs, and scorched the
sight from my eyes; as though my ashes had been scattered to the four
winds by the hands of hatred; as though I had stood upon the scaffold
and felt the glittering ax fall upon me. And while I feel and see all
this, I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to augment
the liberty of man, woman and child.
My friends, it is all a question of sense; it is all a question of
honesty. If there is a man in this house who is not willing to give to
everybody else what he claims for himself he is just so much nearer to
the barbarian than I am. It is a simple question of honesty; and the
man who is not willing to give to every other human being the same
intellectual rights he claims himself is a rascal, and you know it. It
is a simple question, I say, of intellectual development and of honesty.
And I want to say it now, so you will see it. You show me the narrow,
contracted man; you show me the man who claims everything for himself
and leaves nothing for others, and that man has got a distorted and
deformed brain. That is the matter with him. He has no sense; not a
bit. Let me show you.
A little while ago I saw models of everything man has made for his use
and for his convenience. I saw all the models of all the watercraft,
from the dug-out, in which floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors
--a naked savage, with teeth two inches long, with a spoonful of brains
in the back of his head; I saw the watercraft of the world, from that
dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns and miles of
canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow
from the port of New York through 3,000 miles of billows, with a compass
like a conscience, that does not miss throb or beat of its mighty iron
heart from one shore to the other. I saw at the same time the weapons
that man has made, from a rude club, such as was grasped by that savage
when he crawled from his den, from his hole in the ground, and hunted a
snake for his dinner--from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to
the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock,
to the needle-gun, up to the cannon cast by Krupp, capable of hurling a
ball of 2,000 pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw,
too, the armor from the turtle-shell that our ancestor lashed upon his
skin when he went out to fight for his country, to the skin of the
porcupine, with the quills all bristling, which he pulled over his
orthodox head to defend himself from his enemies--I mean, of course, the
orthodox head of that day--up to the shirts of mail that were worn in
the middle ages, capable of resisting the edge of the sword and the
point of the spear; up to the iron-clad, to the monitor completely clad
in steel, capable only a few years ago of defying the navies of the
globe.
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