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And then let us unfold before our youth his splendid career at the bar a career radiant with genius, marked by untiring industry and fidelity to the interests confided to his care, brilliant with extraordinary displays of intellect, upheld by dauntless courage, memorable as well by his triumphant successes as by the moderation of his fees and by the moral light which he diffused around him, regarding, as he ever did, rapacity, extortion, and complicity in evil-doing as the worst of crimes, and more memorable, as blending in a single character, and at an early age, those uncommon qualities which separately make the reputation of a great advocate, of a great civilian, and of a great master of the Laws of Nations; and, more memorable still, when, his high position attained, and able to add thousands upon thousands to his wealth, he, with noble self-denial, put another enticing cup away from his lips, and withdrew with a moderate competence only to the bosom of his family and to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, leaving, as an example worthy of all imitation, a broad margin which Plutus might have condemned, but which Socrates, Cato, and Cicero would have extolled, between the bar of man and that supreme tribunal before which we must all appear; how, when in the retirement which he so much loved, his country called for his services, he promptly and generously rendered them, serving a long term of years, speaking, accustomed as he was to speak, rarely, but effectively and conclusively, so that nothing was to be said after him, and winning laurels for himself in the high places of the land, and from the foremost spirits of the age laurels whose only worth in his eyes was that he might lay them at the feet of that blessed mother of us all, our beloved Virginia; how, when he had performed long and distinguished service abroad, which Virginia and the whole country were anxious to reward, he again sought retirement, relinquishing without a sigh to others those personal honors which so fascinate the votaries of ambition, but which had no charm for him; how, when he had formed with the utmost deliberation his political creed, he adhered most closely and conscientiously, and in the face of great temptations, to its cardinal doctrines throughout his entire course; yet, throning country above party in the empire of his affections, he did not hesitate to oppose as readily and as fearlessly his political friends when he deemed them wrong as he sustained them when he believed them to be right; how, though a stern upholder of the public honor, he ever sought to avoid war, when it was consistent with the public interests to defer it, and, in 1807, when a false step on his part would have brought on an instant rupture with Great Britain, he, with consummate tact and courage, poured oil upon the troubled waters, and averted a war which, under the circumstances, would have been worse than a civil war bellum plus quam civile a war to the knife; how, at a later day, when, on the eve of the conclusion of the war in Europe, it was resolved to commence hostilities with England, he sought to postpone the struggle for a season, convinced that a short delay would render it unnecessary, and how signally his foresight was justified by the result; thus recommending, in opposition to the pervading sentiment of the State, a policy which would have saved thousands of valuable lives, and a hundred millions of money, expended in our contest with England; how, at a still later day, when the Senate of the United States, unconsciously and needlessly, were about to involve us in a war with Spain, his eloquence rescued the country from the impending danger; yet, when war was declared against his will, ever ready to unite with his countrymen in prosecuting hostilities with the greatest vigor; how, alone among all the departed statesmen of Virginia, he managed, with the industry and attention of an ordinary citizen, his private affairs, into which he introduced a system which the planter and the merchant might wisely imitate, and which enabled him to compete with his most skilful contemporaries in the success which followed all his exertions; how, unseduced by a love of gold in an age of speculation, he never committed a dollar to the caprices of fortune, or lost an investment; how, though affluent with wealth, won mainly by downright industry, and waxing greater every hour by the force of that wondrous element in the accumulation of money, a lengthened lapse of years, he constantly and steadily turned his back upon the extravagance and social follies of the day, and exhibited in his household and in his life those stern and sterling virtues of prudence, economy, and thrift, which were the characteristics of the early fathers of the republic; displaying before the eyes of the people a model wherein the loftiest genius, the most varied and profound learning, the most fervid patriotism ever sinking self in country, the severe simplicity and frugality which should ever shine along the track of a true republican statesman, and an escutcheon undebased by a solitary vice, were united in all their fair and grand proportions; how, in his happy home, he dispensed, freely and without price, the marvellous stores of learning and experience which he had amassed during his long and eventful career, turning his modest study into a chamber of philosophy, and the well-spring of oracles more practical, more prudent, more profound, and penetrating further into the abyss of the dark and illimitable future than were ever uttered at the Pythian fane; and last, though not least, how, in the lingering twilight of his years as in their earliest dawn, he loved Virginia, not with that cold feeling which looks to latitude and longitude, to East or to West, as the limits of affection, but, first, in that tender and household light, as the home of his ancestry, the sepulchre of his sires, his own birth and burial-place, and the birth and burial-place of those who were dear to him, and then in that more majestic aspect as the bride of liberty, the first born of the colonies of Britain, and the first born of the States of the new world, as the mother of heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, "above all Greek, above all Roman fame," as the sole mistress of his heart, valuing her humblest commission, whether stamped by the greater or the lesser seal, above the highest honors which a federal executive could bestow, or the most gorgeous transcript of imperial praise, as a free, puissant, and perfect commonwealth, as an integral, independent, and sovereign State, as independent, as sovereign, as when she struck the lion with his senseless motto from her flag, and placed in their stead her own Virtue, erect, with a helmet on her head, a spear in her hand, and a fallen crown at her feet, and that ever dear and ever living sentiment, "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS," and especially and touchingly, with unutterable and inextinguishable affection, as the beneficent parent who had rocked his cradle, who had held out to him in youth the helping hand, who had honored his meridian and his setting years with her greenest bays, and who as he humbly and fondly hoped, would drop a tear upon his tomb, and hold his name not unworthy of her remembrance.
"Well, they ought to hev been thar, an' ef Patrick Henry hadn't been so fresh an' used 'em first they would a-been. But you can't go back on 'sic semper tyrannis!" "They couldn't possibly be in the declaration, Giant, because they're Latin." "I reckon the signers o' the Declaration wuz good enough to write Latin an' talk it, too, ef they wanted to."
The sure instinctive feeling of the public, that there was no resource against the oligarchy except the -tyrannis-, was once more apparent in their readily entering into every attempt by officers of note to force the hand of the government and, under one form or another, to overturn the oligarchic rule by a dictatorship.
Manus haec inimica tyrannis Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem. My judgment, as well as my enthusiasm, was satisfied with the glorious theme; and the assistance of Deyverdun seemed to remove an insuperable obstacle.
During his long journeys, and at nights when tortured by the gout, he amused himself by making Latin verses; though the only line of his that has been preserved was that intended to designate the portrait of Benjamin Franklin: "Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
Now the Sempronian constitution itself shows very clearly to every one who is able and willing to see, that Gaius Gracchus did not at all, as many good-natured people in ancient and modern times have supposed, wish to place the Roman republic on new democratic bases, but that on the contrary he wished to abolish it and to introduce in its stead a -tyrannis that is, in modern language, a monarchy not of the feudal or of the theocratic, but of the Napoleonic absolute, type in the form of a magistracy continued for life by regular re-election and rendered absolute by an unconditional control over the formally sovereign comitia, an unlimited tribuneship of the people for life.
The legend of this medallion was: "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." The King never declared his opinion upon an enthusiasm which his correct judgment no doubt led him to blame. The Queen spoke out more plainly about the part France was taking respecting the independence of the American colonies, and constantly opposed it.
"It is time to resume your studies, young gentlemen," he said, with fiendish politeness. They were his last words on earth. "Down, Tyrant!" screamed Chitterlings. "Sic him I mean, sic semper tyrannis!" said the classical Golightly.
Whether the coming forward of Marius would be the immediate prelude of a new attempt to supersede the oligarchy by the -tyrannis-, or whether it would, as in various similar cases, pass away without further consequence as an isolated encroachment on the prerogative of the government, could not yet be determined; but it could well be foreseen that, if these rudiments of a second -tyrannis- should attain any development, it was not a statesman like Gaius Gracchus, but an officer that would become its head.
"Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." The King never declared his opinion upon an enthusiasm which his correct judgment no doubt led him to blame. The Queen spoke out more plainly about the part France was taking respecting the independence of the American colonies, and constantly opposed it.
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