William the Silent: An Address Delivered in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 8, 1869
WILLIAM THE SILENT: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN
CINCINNATI, OHIO, ON 8 FEBRUARY 1869
Cincinnati Commercial, 9 February 1869.
On the evening of 8 February 1869, Douglass lectured to a “crowded house”
at Mozart Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio. Peter Humphries Clark, a black teacher
from the city who had briefly worked as an assistant editor of the Frederick
Douglass’ Paper in 1856, introduced him. According to the Cincinnati Com-mercial report, Douglass “shook hands and exchanged hearty greetings” with
many members of the audience following the end of his talk. The topic of
Douglass’s address was the life of “William the Silent,” the sixteenth-century
leader of the Dutch revolt against Spanish suzerainty. In preparing the written
text for this lecture, Douglass had relied heavily upon the multivolume Histo-ry of the Dutch Republic (New York, 1856) by John Lothrop Motley. That
work applauded William and the Dutch people for their courageous uprising
against foreign domination and religious persecution and viewed them as the
direct precursors of George Washington and the American revolutionaries of
two centuries hence. In the years 1868 and 1869, Douglass delivered his
“William the Silent” address frequently, and both then and in later years,
evaluations of the lecture varied enormously. In 1885, when Douglass resur-
rected the lecture for a short time, a reporter spoke of it as his “great address”
on William the Silent. Yet, in 1875, Douglass had justified his choice of a
lecture topic that year based on personal observation of his lack of success
with the “William the Silent” address. In 1871, Douglass confided to James
Redpath, the lecture circuit impresario, his worry that he would never “get
beyond Fredk. Douglass the self educated fugitive slave” whom people came
as much to see as to hear. In 1868 and 1869, newspapers recorded widely
disparate audience reactions and described Douglass’s manner of delivery in
sharply contrasting ways: he could be characterized as unanimated or engross-
ing; audiences were merely polite and turnout very low, or audience size and
financial returns were unprecedentedly large for a given location or lecture
series. At least one delivery provoked controversy, when an Ohio priest
accused Douglass of taunting Catholics in the audience about the alleged role
of Pope Gregory XIII in the assassination of William. (See Appendix C.) On
another occasion, Douglass apologized to his listeners for his “lack of anima-
tion,” stating that since “the death of slavery,” he had nobody and nothing to
“pitch into.” He added that he “read up” on such lecture subjects as “William
the Silent” only because the public “insisted on hearing him.” See Appendix
A, text 4, for précis of alternate texts. New York Tribune, 16, 18 January
1869; Newburgh (N.Y.) Daily Journal, 20 January 1869; New York Indepen-
dent, 21 January 1869; Rochester Union and Advertiser, 29 January 1869; San
Francisco Elevator, 29 January 1869; Danville (Ill.) Times, 20 February 1869;
Cleveland Gazette, 21 March 1885; S. Bower to the Editor, Fremont (Ohio)
Journal, 30 April 1869; John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
5 vols. (1856; New York, 1900), 1: xxv-xxviii; Douglass to James Redpath,
29 July 1871, Alfred W. Anthony Papers, NN; Holland, Frederick Douglass,
339.
I am here to speak to you to-night of a great historical character, and in
order to make that character intelligible, I will speak to you of a great
people and of a great war—of a great people, because only a great people
can produce and support great men, and of a great war because war is a
school and develops great characters, great deeds, great qualities. Deplore
it as we may and must, the Red Sea lies ever between the pilgrim and the
promised land.1Douglass alludes to the journey of the Jewish people from Egypt to Palestine as recounted in the Book of Exodus. War, stern and terrible war, seems to be the inexorable
condition exacted for every considerable addition made to the liberties of
mankind. The world moves—let us be thankful for it—but it moves only
by fighting every inch of its disputed way. Right and wrong seem alike
endowed with fighting qualities—if one does not prevail, the other will and
must. Nonresistance is no part of the creed of Christian nations; but a very
small part of the creed of Christian individuals, and no part whatever of the
creed of nature, as at present interpreted. Liberty is valued, not merely for
what it is, but for what it costs. A nation that tamely submits to oppression
and wrong will always find other nations sufficiently mean to inflict
wrong. A nation that has obtained its liberties without any agency of its
own, has had that given to it without agency of its own, can never wear that
liberty as securely and grandly as that nation can which has snatched it or
wrenched it from the iron hand of a reluctant tyrant. They are whipped
oftenest always who are whipped easiest. The liberties of mankind may be
written in ink, but they will gain but little respect until they are written also
in blood. It seems that human liberties have been so long entrenched upon,
so long trampled upon, that unless the lines of our liberties are marked in
blood, tyrants will never cease to overstep them.
Among the great wars of nations and parts of nations, waged to obtain a
larger measure of liberty, or to maintain or defend liberties already ac-
quired, there is, perhaps, no one in history more important—certainly not
one more remarkable and thrilling in its details—than that of which the
Netherlands were the dreary and dismal scene. during the last half of the
sixteenth century.2The revolt of the Netherlands was less continuous, less unified, and less self-contained than Douglass, adhering to both Dutch tradition and the historical writings of John Lothrop Motley, assumes it was. Many sixteenth-century observers recognized that there were three distinct “revolts” during the decade beginning 1566. Philip II of Spain, who held the title duke of Burgundy, hereditary ruler ofthe Low Countries, precipitated the first revolt when he attempted to impose Spanish political practices and Catholic orthodoxy on the seventeen provinces that constituted the dukedom. Provincial nobles formally protested this interference with their local powers and privileges to the Spanish government. Soon rioting spread through the south, aided by the willingness of large numbers of poor townspeople to join in the disorders for pay. The Spanish suppressed this rioting by heavy force and established the Council of Trouble to prevent a recurrence. The second phase of resistance occurred in 1572 in response to a new Spanish tax, the “tenth penny," levied to finance the council. Concentrated in the northern provinces, it featured highly successful sea raids upon Spanish commerce. The third uprising began in 1576 in solidly Catholic towns and territories in the south for the purpose of ending the depredations of an unpaid and mutinous Spanish army. Soon the resistance spread across the entire Netherlands. In the face of the intention of the predominantly Calvinist north to repudiate Spanish rule, however, the southern provinces withdrew from the tentative union. The Dutch in the remaining seven provinces, sometimes aided by foreign powers, fought the Spanish episodically through the rest of the century. The revolt was in effect concluded in 1609 when Spain recognized Dutch independence; the Treaty of Westphalia ratified their independence in 1648. Geoffrey Parker, (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), 13-17, 68-78, 118-23, 172-73, 189-98; Pieter Geyl, (1932; London, 1966), 71-72, 78, 108-14, 145-48, 254.
Within the narrow limits of that ocean-menaced and dyke-defended
country, merely a dot on the map of Europe, apparently by natural condi-
tions fitter for the habitation of amphibious creatures than for men; yet now
a noble country, abounding in splendid cities, in fertile fields; distin-
guished for its commerce, for its wealth, for its learning, its literature, its
science and its art—a country won from the waves of tribulation by the
heroic perseverance and industry of the Dutch people—in this country a
war was undertaken and carried on for eighty long years, which, when we
consider its bearing on civilization, upon the progress of the race, was a
war, not for that country alone. but for mankind; not for that century alone,
but for all time.
I make no apology for calling attention to this tremendous war, though
separated from us by the lapse of three centuries, and though it occurred
long before our grand republican experiment was dreamed of as a pos-
sibility. The American people have special reasons for often recurring to
this war, and contemplating it with peculiar interest, for we are in larger
measure than all other nations, or any other nation on the globe, the
fortunate heirs and possessors of its beneficent results; and history finds it
quite easy to trace a clear and logical connection between the war of the
Dutch for civil and religious liberty and that other great war—ours—the
American war for independence and the right of self-government. These
two grand events stand in relation to each other somewhat in the order of
cause and effect. The elder was necessary to the younger, and prepared the
way for its success. Before setting sail on their perilous voyage in pursuit of
that religious liberty so sternly denied at home, the pilgrim fathers suffered
at least eleven years in the Netherlands,3The Separatists who left their native Nottinghamshire, England, to seek refuge in Leyden followed a path that other dissenters from Anglicanism had taken and would continue to take until the outbreak of the English Civil War. Some of the most radical sects of the Reformation were indigenous to the Netherlands, and when James I of England made clear his intention to uphold the High Church Episcopal system and to exact conformity to it, the Separatists had reason to anticipate a more congenial home in the Low Countries. Their attempt to live by the light of Scripture alone, however, was thwarted by the formal movement to orthodoxy by continental Calvinists who met at the Synod of Don in 1618-19. Once again the Separatists decided on change and set sail on the Mayflower in 1620. Owen Chadwick, (Hamiondsworth, Eng. 1964), 203-08, 220-21; Harold J. Grimm, , 1500-1650 (New York, 1954), 545-47. undoubtedly learning there many
lessons of political and social wisdom, which they have since transmitted
to us, organized into laws.
I assume to begin with, ladies and gentlemen, that you are in some
measure familiar with the history of this great struggle and the causes by
which it was produced. My story, therefore, at this point, will be brief. If
we take our stand in the Netherlands three centuries ago, we shall find
ourselves in a part of the Spanish Empire with Charles the Fifth on the
throne;4Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (1500-58), grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and of Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, inherited the Spanish crown (as King Charles I) in 1516 and was elected Holy Roman Emperor upon Maximilian's death in 1519. In 1556, the year before he abdicated to retire to a small villa adjoining the monastery of San Jeronimo de Yuste, he ruled a vast but disintegrating empire. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) had established both the right of Lutherans to practice their faith and the principle of territorial independence. The Netherlands region became a Spanish Hapsburg possession as part of Charles's Burgundian inheritance. Although the region, which was a crossroads for advocates of religious freedom and refugees from persecution, was relatively autonomous, Charles established a Court of Inquisition for the Netherlands in 1522. The Netherlands, however, was his birthplace and the Dutch considered him benevolent, crediting him with the commercial prosperity they enjoyed in the decades before his abdication. Karl Brandi, , trans. Cicely Veronica Wedgwood (1939; London, 1963); John Huxtable Elliott, (New York, 1963), 154; Royall Tyler, (London, 1956); Grimm, , 23, 261-64, 360; Parker, , 36. if we stay a little we shall see this once great, powerful and warlike
monarch worn out and broken down, abdicating in favor of his son Philip
II,5Upon his abdication in 1557, Charles divided the lands he had brought together between his brother Ferdinand, who became emperor of the original Hapsburg lands, and his son Philip (1527-98), who became ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, and the Spanish possessions in the New World and in Italy. Philip's decision to reside permanently in his native Spain was as much a matter of necessity as of choice. The crown he inherited in 1556 was bankrupt and he had to suspend payments of the royal debt in 1557. He also had to continue Charles’s costly embroilment in dynastic politics throughout his reign. In order to offset the threat of a French-English alliance, Charles had arranged his son's marriage, in 1554, to Mary Tudor; after her death in 1558, Philip married Elizabeth of Valois. Elliott, , 202; Grimm, , 419-20; Parker, , 37-42. with much show of piety toward God and affection toward the “dear
people.” Besides this there was in the Netherlands a body of ancient
renown, known as the States General.6In the 1420s the dukes of Burgundy began convening joint meetings of delegates from the representative assemblies of the provinces they ruled. After 1549 all the Hapsburg provinces in the Netherlands sent delegates to meetings of the irregularly convened States General. To coordinate defense and negotiate peace with the Spanish in the revolt beginning in 1576, the States General met at the call of various provincial assemblies and assumed the functions of legislating. raising an army, and even negotiating with foreign powers. Although the southern Catholic provinces eventually defected, the States General acted as the governing body of the seven provinces remaining in revolt and of the Dutch Republic after independence was secured. Geyl, , 31, 146-49; Parker, , 31-34, 175-80, 241-53.
You will discover that trouble is brewing, that the land is literally
tempest-tossed7, act 1, sc. 7, line 19. from end to end by a contest between two religions, the old
and the new; that the seeds of the Reformation have taken root in the
Netherlands, that the people are divided; that the King is on one side, the
people on the other.8The religious situation in the Netherlands was more complex and its role in the rebellion different than Douglass indicates. Lay movements, such as the Brethren of the Common Life, and Erasmian humanism constituted a background for considerable religious individualism, and Lutheranism was as proximate to and successful in the northern provinces as Calvinism was in the south. Calvinism, however, had a broader social appeal than the other new religions, and its inherent activism made it the dominant voice in Dutch Protestantism. For all that, Calvinists were never more than one-tenth of the population of the Low Countries. Parker, , 153-54; Geyl, , 50-59, 161-65.
The yoke has been heavy and grievous to be borne under Charles V, and
it has become intolerable under Philip II. The mind of this man seems to
have been absorbed between the idea of the absolute supremacy of the
Catholic religion and the utter extirpation of everything opposed to it. For
this purpose he knew no weapons better than the sword and the Inquisi-
tion;9The Inquisition in Spain combined civil and religious authority and had been an instrument for political as well as religious unification since 1473, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella obtained papal permission to establish such a court to rid Spain of residual heresy among its Christianized Jews and Moors. The Spanish Inquisition was unusually secretive and harsh, and Pope Pius V protested against its harshness to Philip II. Although the Spanish Inquisition utilized torture and mutilation in the Netherlands, it did not do so routinely: such treatment was reserved for the more blatant cases of heresy, however arbitrarily these were determined. Motley, , 5: 355; Grimm, , 22, 423; Parker, , 62. he employed death in every form that could terrify and affright the
souls of men. Before the Dutch people rebelled against the reign of this
kind, 113,000 Protestants had suffered death at the hands of the Inquisi-
tion.10The figure of 113,000 is much too high if Douglass means that all the victims of torture died. Motley. who describes the cruelties of the lnquisition at length and in great detail, refrains from offering a definite figure for deaths, though he cites an estimate of 100,000 by the seventeenth-century jurist Hugo Grotius and speculates that the number was no fewer than 50,000. Recent estimates place the number of deaths between 2,000 and 20,000. Douglass could have arrived at his figures by combining various estimates for deaths, tortures, and arrests in Motley. Gemhard Gtildner, (Liibeck, 1968), 33; Motley, , 1: 143. I have no words to describe to you the long suffering, the for-
bearance of the Dutch under this fierce, this terrible persecution by the
Catholics. No nation, perhaps, ever exhibited the virtues of patience and
forbearance on a grander scale than did the Dutch. The heartaches as we
wade through the history of these times. It was not until they saw one
chartered right after another trampled in the dust, utterly disregarded; not
until they saw the very mantle of the shadow of mental and moral death
being slowly wound about them by the steel-clad hand of Philip, and all
hope of relief by peaceful means destroyed, that they resorted to the desper-
ate alternative of war; but when they resorted to this alternative, when this
crisis was reached, they demonstrated as no nation, perhaps, has demon-
strated before, the great truth that a nation strong to suffer will, in the end,
prove strong to fight. (Applause) About the Dutch people there was none
of that fire-eating chivalry11The term refers to the radical proslavery southern politicians in the late antebellum period who adamantly favored states' rights as a means of protecting southem interests. Fighting against all compromise, the fire-eaters assumed the vanguard in the secessionist movement after Lincoln‘s election. , 434-35. that boasted of “dying in the last ditch.” Their
fortitude was equal to their fierceness and fire in battle. The whole na-
tion—the men, the women and children—arose as one man. The argument
that women ought not to be allowed to vote, always miserable, becomes
more miserable in the light of this Dutch example. (Applause) I do not
know whether it is because of my peculiar acquaintance with women, but I
have always had the impression that they could fight. (Laughter) I regard
fighting as among women’s latent powers. If she don’t fight, it is because
she is a philosopher. Philosophers never like to fight, unless there is a
reasonable probability of whipping somebody. (Renewed laughter.)
Many analogies might be traced between the Dutch rebellion and that
of our own against England. It was steady endurance against the impetuous
force of conscious power that gave victory in the case of both nations. They
were fighting for national independence as we were. They were fighting
against a foreign foe as we were, but they fought with better cause and with
broader ground of complaint. George12George III of England. demanded money; Philip de-
manded blood. George would impose burdens on the shoulders of men;
Philip imposed burdens on the souls of men. The wrongs endured by our
fathers were trifling, venial, insignificant, compared with those inflicted
upon the Netherlands by Spain. George was a haughty tyrant, but Philip
was a fanatical bigot, ready to exterminate, if need be, half the universe if it
stood in the way of his creed.
There was this marked difference between the two wars. In our case
war followed a full declaration of principles and objects; in their case the
war came first and the declaration afterward; and very naturally our fathers
seemed to have weighed and measured the contest on which they were
entering, determined its limits at the outset. With the Dutch it was differ-
ent; they were more like ourselves in the late war than like our fathers in the
struggle of ’76. They had no policy, and we had none in this late war of
ours. Though the Dutch were fighting from the first for national indepen-
dence as well as for religious freedom, they did not dare admit that preg-
nant fact to themselves, much less to make it known to Europe. The
statesmen of that country like the statesmen of ours were under a delusion.
The Dutch thought they could successfully battle against Spanish persecu-
tion without at all impugning the authority of the Spanish King, who
claimed the right to inflict persecution just as we thought that we could
grapple and throttle a fierce and sanguinary slave rebellion, and yet be on
excellent terms with slavery itself.13The Dutch Act of Abjuration was issued on 26 July 1581 by the provinces remaining in the States General after the defection of the Catholic members. The act enumerated the Dutch grievances against Philip and, on the basis of this proof of his failed rule, formally repudiated Spanish sovereignty in the Netherlands, though it said little about where the sovereignty forfeited by Philip should be lodged. The subject of sovereignty was much discussed and debated by lawyers in the following years, and on 25 July 1590, the States General declared itself “the sovereign institution of the country, . . . [with] no overlord except the deputies of the provincial estates themselves." Parker, , 197-99, 243. (Applause)
The fact is the Dutch cowered before the doctrine of the divine right
of Kings, while we cowered before the doctrine equally absurd of the
divine right of slavery. It is remarkable that when men come across any-
thing in man that is too bad to be called human, they invariably call it
divine. We have been taught that slavery was divine. One-half of the
church of this country accepted the divinity of slavery, and the other half
accepted fellowship for a long time with the half that fellowshipped slav-
ery. The Dutch made no progress really against Spanish persecution until
they exploded this “divine right” humbug, as we made no progress until
we exploded our “divine right" humbug and consented to part with our
reverence for slavery, and called on the slaves to assist in the great strug-
gle for national existence as well as for emancipation. (Cheers) Both
nations were made strong when they discarded these delusions. It is alike
instructive and entertaining to observe how gradually and almost imper-
ceptibly these two nations are lifted from one step to another. in the shin-
ing pathway of human progress, by the simple logic of events; how the
discovery and adoption of one truth evermore prepares the way for the
discovery and adoption of another truth, and how the discovery of one
error and the renunciation of one error inevitably leads to the renunciation
and the discovery of another error. And why? Right and wrong are equal-
ly logical. Take a step in either direction, and the way is open for still
another, either downward or upward, and they are logically, as they are
equally belligerent.
I have some intellectual sympathy at any rate with those who opposed
the first principles of abolition. You see, my friends, I may announce what
subject I please, but I have never been able to ascend an American plat-
form, and get off without bringing the nigger with me in some shape or
other. (Cheers and laughter.) They were logically right when they opposed
the very first item, the very first proposition in the abolition creed. Deny
the very manhood of the nigger and you are all right—but admit that. and it
is all up with you; admit that the nigger is a man and you must admit that he
is a responsible being, and he is a subject of law; admit that he is a subject
of law, and he may be a citizen, and if a citizen a soldier, and if a soldier a
voter, and if a voter he may be voted for, and if voted for, he may go to
Congress, and if he goes to Congress, there is no telling where he may not
go. (Laughter and applause.) I am sure if the nigger is tough enough to
stand Congress, Congress ought to stand him. Every white man can’t stand
it. (Laughter.)
One step prepared the way for another in the case of both nations. After
years of suffering, after starvation and pestilence, after half the nation had
been slain, the Dutch began to comprehend the true principles for which
they were contending, and began to have a conception of what was right
and true in the premises. By suffering they were brought to see that there is
no power beneath the sky that can interpose between a man and his God;
that there is no earthly power that may innocently undertake to dictate a
creed to men; that each man for himself must determine what are his
relations to the Invisible, the unknown God. They speedily reached the
conclusion that the right to govern was inherent in man’s nature, and not the
grant of a crown or a military head. But while national self-government
was one element in the struggle, it was quite inferior in its effects to the
struggle to which I have referred for religious freedom. While men wade
through blood for political liberty, they will wade through blood and fire for
religious liberty—for mental liberty, for liberty of the mind. To think, to
reason, to believe, aye, to doubt, if doubt we must, is a right belonging to
the infinite side of human nature, and this was what sustained the Dutch in
this great war of ours.
What makes this struggle interesting and attractive is the disparity that
existed between the parties. In our country, too, we have to thank the
extravagance of the slaveholders for the abolition of slavery, as we have-to
thank the violence of the Spanish persecution for the establishment of
religious liberty in the Netherlands. The Protestants were held together less
by any law of cohesion and attraction among themselves, than by the
external pressure of persecution. Opposed to this people, involved in con-
fusion and conflict, we have the Spanish Empire, vast, grand, compact and
powerful—a unity in all the elements of national strength. England, France
and Germany admitted Spain’s prowess, and held her desirable as a friend
and most formidable as a foe. Beside her internal resources, she was
cheered and strengthened in this contest with the Netherlands by the Catho-
lic world about her. She possessed the wealth of two continents with which
to wage war. War was the normal condition. Spain without war was scarce-
ly Spain. She had filled the Orient with the glories of her military achieve-
ments. She had expelled the Moors and humbled the crescent. The soldiers
were literally soldiers of the cross. Charged with the divine commission,
overflowing with military ardor, ready for any field however remote, and
for any foe however formidable. Her armies were sustained by the double
inspiration of loyalty to their king and fidelity to their religion.14In 1494, after their reconquest of Moorish Granada and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and their heirs received the title of “Catholic Kings" from Pope Alexander VI. He also assigned them the mission of the conversion of the bulk of the Western Hemisphere, a mission that also had the potential for great secular gain. This privileged position was subsequently shaken not only by the Protestant Reformation but by Charles's discordant relations with the papacy during the dynastic struggle that he waged with the French Valois throughout the course of his reign. Philip attempted to reassume the undivided mantle of Catholic king and emperor, reaching the height of his success in 1571 after the Spanish defeat of the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. Elliott, , 57-58, 65; Grimm, , 122-24, 424. Such a
conflict was unequal, but it was unavoidable. As ours was the irrepressible
conflict15Douglass alludes to the title of a speech William H. Seward delivered in Rochester on 25 October 1858. Seward, . of the nineteenth century, so theirs was the irrepressible conflict
of the sixteenth century. It was either the freedom of the mind or the slavery
of the mind. There was no ground for compromise. All honor to the Dutch
people, that they saw, at this moment, the duty before them, and, with
courage and wisdom, proceeded to do it. Their patience and fortitude has
made the whole Protestant world indebted to them.
The experience of this great people in the early years of their war was
strikingly like our own in the earlier years of our struggle in the late
rebellion. Like them, we suffered disaster until we learned to choose the
true man—the “silent man” of the American people. (Applause) With
them this man was William of Orange, otherwise known in history as
“William the Silent.”16William of Nassau (1533-84), ruler of the small principality of Orange in France and a major landholder in the Netherlands, was educated at the Hapsburg imperial court in Brussels. Upon his accession to rule in 1557, Emperor Philip II made William one of five members of the Dutch council of state. While serving as a ceremonial hostage to the French court during treaty negotiations in 1559, William learned of a conspiracy between the French king and the emperor to cooperate in exterminating Protestantism. His ability to conceal his vehement disapproval of this conspiracy until his release earned him the sobriquet “the Silent." His marriage in 1561 to a Lutheran princess, Anne of Saxony, alienated the Catholic Hapsburgs, and William thenceforth openly opposed Philip’s plans to use military force to impose religious orthodoxy and centralized administration over the Netherlands. In November 1576 the rampage of Spanish troops in the south precipitated a union of southern and northem provinces which assigned sovereign leadership for their defense to William. When Calvinist radicals asserted themselves, the southem Catholic provinces left the union, and William, a Calvinist since 1573, became leader of a smaller but more closely welded country. When Philip declared him an outlaw in 1580, offering a reward for his capture, dead or alive, William issued a personal defense of his opposition to the emperor on the grounds that Philip's rule in the Netherlands had invalidated itself. William was shot in his home in 1584 by a paid supporter of Philip: his last words were “God have pity upon this poor people." C[icely] V[eronica] Wedgwood, ( 1944; London, 1956); Grimm, , 438, 440-41 ; Motley, , 5: 354; Parker, , 50-51, 148. But for this man, it is not easy to see how this
rebellion on the part of the Dutch could have been successful—how any
successful resistance could have been made to the overwhelming power of
Spain. The crisis demanded such a man. There was not an element of his
character that could have been spared. He had the sagacity to see, the
wisdom to accomplish, the courage to venture, and the eloquence to per-
suade, and that dignified reticence withal so characteristic of our President-
elect.17Ulysses S. Grant. It was the statesmanship of William which silenced the angry
waves of religious contention to which I have referred. It was he who
brought order out of confusion and strength out of weakness. He infused
something of his own spirit into all classes, fired the hearts of his coun-
trymen with his own deathless patriotism. The statesmanship of William
was not confined to the narrow limits of his own country. The contest
would have been far simpler had it been simply a contest with Spain; but the
outside world was deeply involved, actively interested—France, England
and Germany, as well as Spain. Elizabeth,18Elizabeth I of England. Ferdinand19The younger brother of Charles V, Ferdinand (1503-64), acted as the principal representative of Hapsburg power in central Europe after reaching adulthood. On the death of his father-in-law in 1526, Ferdinand became the king of Bohemia and Hungary in his own right. Following complicated negotiations to protect the rights of their respective heirs, Ferdinand received the title Holy Roman Emperor as well as the Hapsburg's Austrian possessions when Charles abdicated in 1557. Ferdinand successfully resisted Ottoman efforts at further territorial expansion into Europe and negotiated a long period of peace in Germany's religious wars. R[oben] J[ohn] W[eston] Evans, (Oxford, Eng., 1979), 19, 82; Tyler, , 89- 91, 131, 172-77; Brandi, , 43, 82, 106-07, 136-40, 247-50, 592-99. and Henry,20Douglass alludes to either Henry II (1519-59), Henry III (1551-89), or Henry IV (1553- 1610) of France. The son of Francis I, Henry II ascended to the throne in 1547 and continued his father’s war with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Henry also strengthened his nation’s central administration and brutally repressed French Protestants. After Henry's accidental death, his wife, Catherine de Medici, exerted great influence during the brief reigns of his three sons, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The last succeeded to the throne in 1574, and during his reign, fighting between Catholic and Protestant factions reduced the nation to near anarchy. Henry alienated many leading Catholics and had to forge an alliance with the Protestant magnate Henry of Navarre, whom he designated as his heir. When a Catholic fanatic assassinated Henry III., Henry of Navarre made good his claim to the throne by a combination of force and diplomacy. He converted to Catholicism but granted the Protestants limited freedom of religion in the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Henry also made peace with Spain's Philip II and won international recognition for his Bourbon dynasty. James MacKinnon, (London, 1902), 145-81, 205-69. as
well as Philip, must be looked to, and were kept under his constant surveil-
lance.
This man, mighty in intellect and still mightier in heart, is the man now
under consideration. What Abraham Lincoln was to us when a treacherous
chief magistrate surrendered the integrity of the nation to the menacing
armies of the slave-holding rebellion, William the Silent was to the strug-
gling cause of religious liberty in the Netherlands, against Spain. But
between the two men there was a great difference. William was a reform-
er—a thorough-going reformer—a leader of the people; he did not hesi-
tate, against all the clamors of the Protestants about him, to advance, and to
demand that they advance with him. With Mr. Lincoln the case was differ-
ent; he waited for the people, and he desired to know not only what could
be done, but what the people required to be done. He answered his purpose
precisely as well in his day and generation, precisely as well as William did
in his. William lived in a monarchial age, when men looked for leaders. In
our days he is a true statesman that takes the law from the lips of the people,
I think General Grant has taken no wiser ground, said no better word than
that he will administer this Government in accordance with the wishes of
the American people.21Douglass paraphrases a portion of Ulysses S. Grant's letter in 1868 accepting the Republican presidential nomination: “Through an administration of four years, new political issues, not foreseen. are constantly changing, and a purely administrative ofiicer should always be left free to execute the will of the people." Ulysses S. Grant to Joseph R. Hawley, 29 May 1868, in , 745. (Loud applause.) Individuals may be very great,
but the masses of men are greater. The great heart of the people may be
mistaken, but it is always honest and disinterested.
Before proceeding any further in this connection, Mr. Douglass re-
marked that he never could take the unkind and uncharitable view of Mrs.
Lincoln that some men have.22Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-82) married the future president of the United States in 1842. During the Civil War, gossip circulated regarding her extravagance and thoughtlessness, and anti-administration newspapers reported on her alleged willingness to accept gifts and then to ask favors of her husband for the donors. In 1861, Mrs. Lincoln naively befriended Henry Wickoff, the New York 's secret reporter of the Lincolns’ family life. When the published part of Lincoln's first annual message to Congress before its delivery, a congressional investigation found Wickoff guilty of procuring the text; Mrs. Lincoln's reputation thenceforth included an aura of political indiscretion. Charges of treason soon overshadowed all others, however. With six siblings and nine stepbrothers and stepsisters, Mrs. Lincoln was, like many natives of the border states, the close relative of men fighting in the Confederate army and comforter of their wives. She also was an advocate to her husband of their personal needs, although the president refused substantive favors in the absence of Union loyalty. Besides general rumors of transmitting information to the enemy, Mrs. Lincoln was specifically accused of using her half sister, Martha Todd White, to send information to the Confederates. Both the Lincolns, in fact, had refused Mrs. White's requests for exemption from the requirements on transporting goods across Union lines, and both refused to see her at the Executive Mansion. White House secretary Noah Brooks firmly defended Mrs. Lincoln's loyalty. When the Committee on the Conduct of the War proposed an investigation of the rumors, President Lincoln allegedly appeared before it without announcement and gravely stated his certainty that no such relations with the enemy existed. During and after the war, Douglass unswervingly defended Mrs. Lincoln's reputation. Ruth Randall Painter, (Boston, 1953), 303-18; Ishbel Ross, (New York, 1973), 144-56; James et al., 2: 404-06. He believed she was a better woman than
many have given her credit for. (Applause) He had very good authority for
saying that when the newspapers of this country were denouncing Mrs.
Lincoln as a clog on the wheels of the Government, and holding her
husband back, that good woman was urging her husband forward to strike
down slavery. (Renewed applause.)
To proceed with the parallel, both men were loved by their people. The
countrymen of William soon learned to call him “Father William,” as we
learned to call Abraham Lincoln “Father Abraham.” For the same reason
we loved and we trusted him. There was no end to the trust and confidence
we placed in Lincoln. No matter what mistake happened, no matter what
disaster followed—a hundred battles might be lost, the nation never could
lose confidence in Lincoln.
Like our lamented President, William died by the hand of an as-
sassin;23The assassin of William the Silent was Balthasar Gérard, a cabinetmaker’s apprentice and fervent Catholic. In 1580 Philip offered a reward of 25,000 écus, a patent of nobility, and free pardon for past offenses to anyone who would rid the world of William. Gérard almost lost his chance when another would-be assassin in 1582 tried to murder William but only wounded him. Pretending to be the son of a French Protestant martyr, Gérard established acquaintance with the prince of Orange in the spring of 1584. On the pretext of needing money for shoes which would enable him to return to France to serve the Protestant cause, Gérard obtained from William the means to purchase a pair of pistols. On 10 July 1584 he easily gained access to William’s home and shot him at close range. Motley, , 5: 342; Wedgwood, , 213-14, 233, 248-51. he died uttering a prayer in mitigation of the punishment of his
murderer, and if Abraham Lincoln could have uttered a word after the cruel
bullet of Booth24John Wilkes Booth. went crashing through his brain, those who knew him
best will not hesitate to believe that his last words would have been in
keeping with that which came down from the cross: “Father forgive them,
they know not what they do.”25Luke 23: 34. He had malice toward none, charity to
all.26Douglass paraphrases words from Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered on 4 March 1865. Basler, , 8: 333. The secret power of both men can be found in this very element of
their character, in their charity, in their love for their fellow-men, even
though these fellow-men were erring and criminal. Pilgrims pay their vows
at the tomb of William the Silent, and while liberty has a home in our land,
dusky pilgrims, at least, will find their way to the place where reposes the
body of Abraham Lincoln.
The true character of William, and the controlling inspiration of his
grand life, breathed out in his dying moments, in pity for the fanatical
assassin that murdered him. At that moment his was the only Protestant
voice thus raised. How much we owe him as a grand pioneer of religious
freedom I shall not undertake to say. We have no scales in which to weigh
his worth—no standard by which to measure him. It is easy to say the
world moves since his death. It is easy to reach the American continent
since Columbus; it is easy to walk in the night when the stars are bright in
the sky; it is pleasant to occupy the fruitful land where the industrious
pioneers have expelled the noxious vapors. It is easy for the Englishmen to
talk of British liberty, since Magna Charta. Any man can be a Catholic in
Rome. The pulpit can be abolition since the proclamation. Anybody can
preach toleration since William the Silent.