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Closing, he used these hopeful and prophetic words:--
“With such a cause and such candidates, let no man be disheartened.
The tempest may blow; but ours is a life-boat, which cannot be harmed by wind or wave.
The genius of Liberty sits at the helm.
I hear her voice of cheer saying, ‘Whoso sails with me comes to shore.’
”
He sat down amidst prolonged shouts of applause; and the people of this industrial city still speak with admiration of the splendor of his eloquence on that occasion.
In a brief speech in the Senate Feb. 23, 1853, in favor of appointing civil instead of military superintendence of our armories, he closed, contrary to his usual custom, with a humorous quotation which gave much point to his fine argument.
“The manufacture of arms,” said he, “is a mechanical pursuit; and for myself, I can see no reason why it should not be placed in charge of one bred to the business.
Among the intelligent mechanics of Massachusetts, there are many fully fit to be at the head of the arsenal at Springfield; but all these by the existing law are austerely excluded from any such trust.
The idea which has fallen from so many senators, that the superintendent of an armory ought to be a military man, that a military man only is ”
B. B. Russell, 1874.
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