Sublime Christian Heroism
In replying to a letter of support from Manchester’s cotton workers, US President Lincoln showed how deeply touched he had been.
1863
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
In replying to a letter of support from Manchester’s cotton workers, US President Lincoln showed how deeply touched he had been.
1863
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Washington’s embargoes on cotton from the American South during the Civil War (1861-1865) hit the British cotton industry hard. Nonetheless, on New Year’s Eve, 1862, the day before the historic Emancipation Proclamation took effect, workers defied scare-mongering politicians and journalists to gather in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, and pledge their support to Abraham Lincoln. On January 19th, he replied.
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I KNOW and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working men at Manchester and in all Europe are called to endure in this crisis.* It has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow this Government which was built on the foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis of slavery, was likely to obtain the favour of Europe. Through the action of disloyal citizens, the working men of Europe have been subjected to a severe trial for the purpose of forcing their sanction to that attempt. Under these circumstances I cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country.
extract
* For an extract from the cotton workers’ letter, see A Letter to the President.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.