, Bunker Hill, and Yorktown, that the sheeted dead
may rise as witnesses, and tell your legions of the effort to
dissolve their Union, and there receive their answer. Mad with
frenzy, burning with indignation at the thought, all ablaze for
vengeance upon the traitors, such shall be the fury and impetuosity
of the onset that all opposition shall be swept away before them, as
the pigmy yields to the avalanche that comes tumbling, rumbling,
thundering from its Alpine home! Let us gather at the tomb of
Washington and invoke his immortal spirit to direct us in the
combat. Rising again incarnate from the tomb, in one hand he holds
that same old flag, blackened and begrimed with the smoke of a
seven-years' war, and with the other hand be points us to the foe.
Up and at them! Let immortal energy strengthen our arms, and
infernal fury thrill us to the soul. One blow,--deep, effectual,
and forever,--one crushing blow upon the rebellion, in the name of
God, Washington, and the Republic!

FISHER AMES (1758-1808)

Fisher Ames is easily first among the New England Federalist orators
of the first quarter of a century of the Republic. He was greatly,
sometimes extravagantly, admired by his contemporaries, and his
addresses are studied as models by eminent public speakers of our
own day. Dr. Charles Caldwell in his autobiography calls Ames "one
of the most splendid rhetoricians of his age." . . . "Two of his
speeches," writes Doctor Caldwell, "that on Jay's Treaty and that
usually called his Tomahawk speech, because it included some
resplendent passages on Indian massacre, were the most brilliant and
fascinating specimens of eloquence I have ever heard, though I have
listened to some of the most eloquent speakers in the British
Parliament,--among others to Wilberforce and Mackintosh,
Plunkett, Brougham, and Canning. Doctor Priestly who was familiar
with the oratory of Pitt the father, and Pitt the son, as also with
that of Burke and Fox, made to myself the acknowledgment that the
speech of Ames on the British treaty was 'the most bewitching piece
of eloquence' to which he had ever listened."

Ames was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on April 9th, 1758. His
father, Nathaniel Ames, a physician, had the "honorable family
standing" which was so important in the life of most of the
colonies. He had scientific tendencies and published an
"Astronomical Diary," or nautical almanac, which was in considerable
vogue. The son, h