The Baker Oration: A Spiritual Congress on American Affairs

Delivered at Platt’s Hall on Wednesday Evening. March 5, 1862. San Francisco: Commercial Steam Presses, Valentine & Co. 1862.

It is but justice to myself, as well as to the world, to state how the following work came to me. Being at the house of a friend one evening in the last part of December, it was announced to me that Colonel Baker was present and wished to communicate. He then said he was going to give me an Oration on the American Union. He made quite a speech at the time, giving precise directions in regard to the place and manner of the performance, and various preliminaries, all of which were faithfully carried out.

The very instant that these things were told me, I recognized a remarkable influence I had felt for some time, and which had promised to present me with a very important work which I should know as soon as it came. I did so, and directly gave some broad and characteristic traits of the man, and especially of his power and sentiment as a Statesman, which have since proved, by the best authorities, to be absolutely true, though I knew nothing of him at the time, but that he was a person of much consequence in California, who was brought home to his untimely grave not long after my own arrival.

From this time he visited me daily—almost hourly—till I became so accustomed to his presence, that he seemed far more like a living man, than a spirit. During these interviews his character was unfolded with great accuracy, especially his genial and poetic nature. His presence was always beautiful and healthful, and it was a pleasure to do as he wished.

The inspiration, or spiritual influence of this work was given in the writing, and apparently in the natural state. During this process he was with me, I think, most of the time, suggesting points in regard to it, and expressing his opinion, as it proceeded. He very carefully superintended its criticism and revision, and finally approved and endorsed it.

It may be, and is, subject of wonder with many, that he should have chosen one so incapable of representing his great oratorical power. To such I answer, it was not a matter of taste, but of necessity. He had a great and important message for the world, and he was bound to deliver it. To find a perfect instrument for such a purpose, would be extremely difficult; and what he says is probably true, that he took the best he could reach and control. In fine, I do myself verily believe these things, herein stated, to be true.

F.H.G.

In introducing the following discourse to the Public, it is necessary to give a few words of explanation. The authenticity of its reputed origin has been questioned on the ground of essential difference with the known course, both of opinion and of action, in the person from whom it claims to be derived. Baker, they will tell you, was not an Anti-​Slavery man. In reply to this, I affirm, that in principle he was—in policy, I am sorry to say, he was not always where he ought to have been. But, thank God, though Baker sometimes shirked the truth, he never defended falsehood. Though he was not always loyal to the highest right, he was NEVER the Champion of Wrong.

I need not tell you that in the pursuit of office, or any of those grand objects which the Politician seeks under the highest and most exciting stimuli, he too frequently loses hold of his early integrity. The idea of right becomes insensibly clouded, until at length, if he be not a terribly earnest and sincere man, he becomes the victim of his own sophistry, and he ceases to perceive the absolute power of Truth and Rights. He reasons only relatively. You will hear him talk hours of relative degrees of Wrong, when a single word might have cut to the very heart of the matter at one stroke. Speaking of any great Social Evil which has become a pet of the Public, as Slavery, he will tell you of fifty things that are worse. And thus, indirectly he defends it. And such are the worst enemies of Truth. The bold assault can be met and parried, but the smooth and wily windings of the Sophist, will take you under the fifth rib; and, logically, you are a dead man before you know it.

A politician is a moral barometer, and he is expected to indicate the exact degree of party feeling. But here the crooks and shams of the world will not pass current. Self-​deceit and subterfuge are alike impossible. There are no wrong ends placed before us, and hence false motives lose their power. Everything is seen in its real character. In the clear light of spiritual truth, there are no masks, no disguises. This will be understood as applying to a sphere of considerable intelligence and integrity. If a person could stand up here with all these great lights shining around and into him, and say one word, direct or indirect, in defence of Slavery, he must have a harder face than I have ever seen. On the contrary, all the power of the Spirit World goes dead against it, seeing as we now can, how it cramps and impedes the most forward Nation under Heaven, we consider it the greatest clog in the wheels of Progress.

In reviewing our earthly course, we feel regret in proportion as we have wandered from the direct way. Along with this comes the desire to retrieve. Not only the uncompleted work, but the work that is better and truer than we have ever done, we wish now to do. We feel an irrespressible desire to speak the unspoken word, to strike the unattempted blow. We desire to enlighten and encourage those we leave behind; and by a confession of our own faults, show them how to correct theirs. It is this which has brought, and must still bring me to you. Spirits are not divested of responsibility toward the world they have left.

One word more, and I have done. It has been said that this Discourse is treasonable. But Treason I would beg leave to suggest, is not absolutely always wrong. It is relative rather, and depends upon its associations for its character. Treason to Wrong is Right. This the brave old poet and patriot Milton, will tell you, when he says: “Since therefore the law is chiefly right reason, if we are bound to obey a magistrate, as a minister of God, by the very same reason, and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant and minster of the Devil.”

Again, affirming that the following document has the sanction of the highest Spiritual Intelligences, unto this testimony I affix my hand, confirming and endorsing the same.

EDWARD D. BAKER.

San Francisco, March 15^th, 1862.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Citizens of San Francisco:--

Before entering on the main subject, permit me a word of explanation concerning the reasons of this REUNION.

I was, as you well know, called away abruptly, and from the midst of life. A memory of promise, rather than of great achievement, lay behind; a mountain of unattempted work, towered up before. The yet unabated power of life had been germinating, growing, clasping whatever they could reach—still putting forth toward the unbloomed blessings of the great unexplored Beyond. Think ye that any bullet, blade, or bayonet, could, in an instant of time, sever all these—germs, buds, blossoms, tendrils of the soul?

Nothing is more false than this assumption.

The uncompleted Life is attached to everything around it, by the radiation of ten thousand vital interests, which are, so to speak, offshoots of the soul, and partakers of its own immortal energy. If the Life be a working and aspiring power, it will reach out still farther, still more resolutely, and shape the future by the irrepressible emanations of its own will.

You cannot crush all of life at one blow. If you cut down a green tree, though you sever the trunk, you do not kill the roots. Their unexhausted vitality will assert itself. They will push forth at random, and live their allotted term, in some shape, or by some means. But if the tree dies of itself, altogether, either by old age or disease, the separation is complete, and the transition perfect.

The human soul, as you may see by this, is not an abstract, essence, or organism, boxed up in a six-​by-​two, or five-​by-​one and a half apparatus, of insurmountable outline. Ay, by its love, its hope, its faith, its will—ay, by its necessities, more than all, it creates and sustains innumerable relations with things around, as well as beyond itself. And these ties are not independent abstractions, but they are actual emanations of its own substance—essences of its own power, and hence partakers of a nature immortal and indestructible as itself.

When the spirit is prepared for transition by the gradual operartion of age or disease, it retracts its tendrils; it reabsorbs its emanations. Like one about to take a long journey, it calls home all it may want by the way. It gathers back all that properly belongs to it—that it may go forth free, and leave no essential thing behind.

But when the cord of life is severed suddenly, there is no time for retraction. The process is wholly unnatural, and the violated law claims its own. This is the secret of Ghosts and Apparitions, with which the history of the World teems. The spirits of persons who die by accident, crime, or any other untimely means, come back, because the unsevered ties of Earth draw and compel them to return.

It has been a subject of regret, with many intelligent and benevolent minds, that I ever exchanged the Forum for the Field. But however disastrous it may seem, and in fact is, by that movement I have been thrown into the line of a truer promotion. I have been translated from the Lower to the Upper House, where not the affairs of the Nation only, but of the World, are discussed and ordered.

Imagine, if you can, the august character of that Assembly, where Cicero, Clay, Chatham, Demosthenes, Emmett and Webster, are among the Speakers; where Solon is Secretary; where Sydney, Washington, Milton, Franklin, and Toussaint, are a Committee on American Affairs; where William Tell and Leonidas are Door-​keepers; and the glorious old Greek, who sang of “Freedom with the Morning Stars,”—Homer, presides.

What could be given, or expected, more than the merest shadow of the scope, aims and plane of thought that must distinguish such an Assembly? This is no fable; no picture of excited Imagination. There are absolutely organizations of spiritual power, where the affairs of Earth are continually canvassed, and measures are taken to regulate and control them. And it is something more than mere egotism, or even patriotism, to declare that the present War in America is the subject, of all others, that now most engrosses the attention of these august Minds.

Could you enter into the spirit of their counsels, you would enlarge your ideas of Christendom; you would pull up your old stakes, and stake our larger for the boundaries of the Civilized World.

Here are many Representatives from Heathen and Savage Nations; and many, also, from unfortunate conditions in the so-​called Civilization. Their very names may have died out from Earth, and perished with them. In their limited spheres of Knowledge and Use, they lived and died—unknown to fame, and unhonored by history. And yet, in their genuine love of Good, in their aptitude for Truth, and, above all, in their reaching and aspiring power, they have unfolded Beauty and Wisdom, that rank them with the Highest. And this should comfort and strengthen all earnest and aspiring souls. They know not the power that is in them.

Citizens of San Francisco! I bring with me, to-​night, a grander company than you have ever yet welcomed within your walls: Statesmen, Philosophers, Prophets, Poets, Martyrs, Heroes, and Demi-gods—they who lived, and they who died, for the genuine love of Right. Could you see and know them, the house would not hold you—the city would not hold you; you would flock from every quarter, to salute and entertain guests so glorious.

You might not, indeed, compliment them with floating flags and triumphal arches; but you would seek, every man, to come with clean hands, with pure hearts and uplifted eyes, with aspiring and reverent souls.

Could you only comprehend how they are working in and through you—to repress evil, to unfold good—you would not so contract, you COULD not so debase yourselves. Could you see how benignly they bend from their beautiful spheres, to reach and move you, you would come out, with one mind, to meet and to work with them. The temptations of Policy, the corruptions of Lucre, and all the belittling finesse of World-​Craft, would be left behind.

I will now endeavor to translate, or transfer to you, the sense of the House, which I have the honor to represent—the SPIRITUAL CONGRESS ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. In a general way, it may be said that the sentiment of the Spirit-​World, in regard to this subject, is the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence, of the American Revolution, and of all clear-​seeing, right-​minded people, since that period, and before. It may be resolved into one word—Humanity. This, in its most liberal sense, includes everything of right, power, possession, in the Individual, in the Nation, and in the Race. It involves the security of Life, Liberty and Happiness. Whatever comports with, or promotes these—at least in a general and generous sense—must be in harmony with it, and therefore true, whether it be national, sectional, social or individual. Being true, it is founded in the indestructible elements of things, and therefore cannot be lost. Whatever conflicts with, or is subversive of these, is false, unnatural and monstrous; and though, by a forced power, it may be sustained for a while, it must, ultimately, pass away and perish.

Here, it may pertinently be asked, What was the sentiment of the American Revolution: And, strange as it may seem in this enlightened Nineteenth Century, when, in a general way, we take it for granted we known everything, it is not only necessary to ask this question, but to ANSWER it. There are very few who absolutely know—of who, if they do know, have anything of a realizing sense of the actual basis of power in the Institutions we have fostered so reverently, and defended so bravely.

An acquaintance with the State-​papers, letters, and other public documents, both public and private, of the times, will show that, in principle, the Anti-​Slavery and Revolutionary movements were identical, and had the same supporters. A single exception to this may be safely challenged, in all their ranks, either North or South, a few extracts will suffice to show the general character and tone of this sentiment.

Washington, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, said:

In a letter to the Marquis De La Fayette, he says:

William Pinckney said before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789:

Luther Martin, also of Maryland, said, in 1787:

Alexander Hamilton, in 1784, speaking to an American Tory, said:

Again:

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under the Constitution of 1789, while acting as Minister Plenipotentiary in Spain, says, speaking of the Abolition of Slavery, in a letter from that country:

The brave and noble Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill, gives the following remarkably strong and clear testimony in this behalf:

The sentiments of Jefferson, in regard to this subject, are well known. But the following extract from his Notes on Virginia has such a terrible point for these times, I cannot refrain quoting it:

De Witt Clinton, of New York, speaking of European Despotism and American Slavery, gives the following pointed, as well as comprehensive, home-​thrust:

But I forbear. These are the sentiments of the Revolution, taken at random from the North and South; and the testimony of the States themselves, even to South Carolina, was equally strong and pointed.

The Genius of American Liberty, Part One, written by Frances Whipple