As to the
eloquence, that might be there or might not.
Mr. Emerson is a Massachusetts man, very well known in Boston, and
a great crowd was collected to hear him. I suppose there were some
three thousand persons in the room. I confess that when he took
his place before us my prejudices were against him. The matter in
hand required no philosophy. It required common sense, and the
very best of common sense. It demanded that he should be
impassioned, for of what interest can any address be on a matter of
public politics without passion? But it demanded that the passion
should be winnowed, and free from all rodomontade. I fancied what
might be said on such a subject as to that overlauded star-spangled
banner, and how the star-spangled flag would look when wrapped in a
mist of mystic Platonism.
But from the beginning to the end there was nothing mystic - no
Platonism; and, if I remember rightly, the star-spangled banner was
altogether omitted. To the national eagle he did allude. "Your
American eagle," he said, "is very well. Protect it here and
abroad. But beware of the American peacock." He gave an account
of the war from the beginning, showing how it had arisen, and how
it had been conducted; and he did so with admirable simplicity and
truth.
