The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/Governor Clinton’s Speech
GOVERNOR CLINTON’S SPEECH
At the opening of the New-York Legislature in January, 1825.
o Tallmadge95 of the Upper House,
And Crolius96 of the lower,
After “non nobis, Domine,”
Thus saith the Governor:
It seems by general admission,
That, as a nation, we are thriving;
Settled in excellent condition,
Bargaining, building, and beehiving;
That each one fearlessly reclines
Beneath his “fig-tree and his vines”
(The dream of philosophic man),
And all is quiet as a Sunday,
From Orleans to the Bay of Fundy,
From Beersheba to Dan.
I’ve climbed my country’s loftiest tree,
And reached its highest bough, save one.
Why not the highest?—blame not me;
“What man dare” do, I’ve done.
And though thy city—Washington!
Still mocks my eagle wing and eye,
Yet is there joy upon a throne
Even here at Albany.
For though but second in command,
Far floats my banner in the breeze,
A Captain-General’s on the land,
An Admiral on the seas.
And if Ambition can ask more,
My very title—Governor—
A princely pride creates,
Because it gives me kindred claims
To greatness with those glorious names
A Sancho and a Yates!
As party spirit has departed,
This life to breathe and blast no more,
The patriot and the honest-hearted
Shall form my diplomatic corps.
The wise, the wittiest, the good,
Selected from my band of yore,
My own devoted band, who’ve stood
Beside me, stemming faction’s flood
Like rocks on Ocean’s shore—
Men, who, if now the field were lost,
Again would buckle sword and mail on.
Followed by them, themselves a host,
Haines,97 Hurtell, Herring, Pell, and Post,
Judge Miller, Mumford, and Van Wyck,
’Tis said I look extremely like
A Highland chieftain with his tail on.
A clear and comprehensive view
Of every thing in art or nature,
In this, my opening speech, is due
To an enlightened Legislature.
I therefore have arranged with care,
In orderly classification,
The following subjects, which should share
Your most mature deliberation:
Physicians, senators, and makers
Of patent medicines and machines,
The train-bands and the Shaking Quakers,
Forts, colleges, and quarantines;
Debts, cadets, coal-mines, and canals,
Salt—the Comptroller’s next report,
Reform within our prison walls,
The customs and the Supreme Court;
Delinquents, juvenile and gray,
Schools, steamboats, justices of peace.
Republics of the present day,
And those of Italy and Greece;
Militia-officers, and they
Who serve in the police—
Madmen and laws, a great variety,
The horticultural society,
The rate of interests and of tolls,
The numbering of tax-worthy souls,
Roads—and a mail three times a week,
From where the gentle Erie rolls
To Conewango Creek.
These are a few affairs of state
On which I ask your reasoning powers,
High themes for study and debate,
For closet and for caucus hours.
This is my longest speech, but those
Who feel, that, like a cable’s strength
Its power increases with its length,
Will weep to hear its close.
Weep not, my next shall be as long,
And that, like this, enbalmed in song,
Will be, when two brief years are told,
Mine own no longer, but the Nation’s,
With all my speeches, new and old,
And what is more, the place I hold,
Together with its pay and rations.
H.
