Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887)

“The great preacher of liberty, whose voice rang like a clarion for the Union, for the slave, and for mankind.” — Patriotic Nuggets (1899)

Selected Writings

The Battle Set in Array
April 14, 1861

The whole lesson of the past, then, is that safety and honor come by holding fast to one’s principles—by pressing them with courage, by going into darkness and defeat cheerfully for them.
If it please God to wrap this nation in war, one result will follow: we shall be called to suffer for our faith, to the heroism of doing, daring, bearing, and suffering for the things which we believe to be vital to the salvation of this people.
Give me a war redder than blood and fiercer than fire, if this is necessary that I may maintain my faith in human liberty, my faith of the fathers in the instruments of liberty, my faith in this land as the chosen refuge of liberty for all the earth!

The National Flag
May 1861

The nation has placed its flag in the hands of its children. Every star in that blue field stands for a state, every stripe for the original union. Let it float over us in war and in peace as the symbol of unity, liberty, and justice.

Speech at Liverpool, England
October 16, 1863

The institutions of America were shaped by the North, but the policy of her government, for half a hundred years, by the South. …
Great Britain has thrown her arms of love around the Southerners and turns from the Northerners. [Cries of “No, no!”] She don’t? I have only to say that she has been caught in very suspicious circumstances! [Laughter and applause.]
Those cheers already sound in my ears as the coming acclamations of friendly nations; those waving handkerchiefs are the white banners that symbolize peace for all countries.
Join with us then, Britons! From you we learned the doctrine of what a man was worth, from you we learned to detest oppression; from you we learned that it was the noblest thing a man could do to die for a right principle.

Address in Exeter Hall, London
1864

There is to be a time when liberty shall bless the nations of the earth and expand their minds in their own homes. …
The business of England, as of America, should be to strike those key-notes of liberty, to sound those deep chords of human rights, that shall raise the nations of the earth and make them better men.
More than warehouses, ships, and harvests is the treasure of a nation in the manhood of her men. Perish every material element of wealth, but give me the citizen intact—give me the man that fears God and loves man!

To the Society of the Army of the Potomac
June 1878

Every soldier should be a citizen, every citizen should be a soldier. An army ought not to be foreign to the community, but sprung from it, belonging to it, and returning to it with its own spirit.
The army is the nation’s peace society.

Eulogy on General Grant
October 22, 1885

First came the disbanding of the army. That was so easily done that the world has never done justice to the marvel. The soldiers of three great armies dropped their arms at the word of command, dissolved their organizations, and disappeared—today the mightiest force on earth, tomorrow they were not.
As a summer storm darkens and passes, leaving the sky purer, so they vanished, leaving the Republic clearer and stronger than before.