Ohio History Journal

THOMAS SMITH GRIMKE

 

 

BY C. B. GALBREATH

 

Beautiful in winter, when the earth is robed in

white; beautiful in the springtime, when the grass

comes creeping everywhere, when buds open, and the

robin and the bluebird are heard among the trees; beau-

tiful in the summer twilight, when the foliage is dense

and green, when the katydid in the tree top in staccato

song answers to the chirp of the cricket below, when

the well-kept mounds are decked with flowers, "sweet

prophecies of the resurrection"; and beautiful in the

autumn sunshine, when the circuit of the seasons is

complete, when earth and sky seem to rest from their

labors, when unseen hands release the October-tinted

leaves and scatter them silently and tenderly above the

graves;--yes, beautiful the whole year round is Green

Lawn, the silent city, where strivings end, where peace

is perpetual, and where mortals on their way to a better

estate find a fitting abode for the night in this many-

chambered mansion of rest.

Hither have come the representatives of every walk

of life. Among them are those once eminent in the

affairs of the city, the state and the Republic. Of these

it were superfluous to speak. Their deeds have been

recorded. Their place in local history at least is secure.

But one of the number was a gentle stranger, who came

from the Sunny Southland, and wife or son

"Has never seen or sought his grave."

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302      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications --nor is it pointed out, there at the turn of the drive, to the thousands who pass it by on their missions of sympathy and love. But he whose ashes lie beneath the prostrate stone wielded a beneficent influence in his

day, and the classic utterances that fell from his lips were household treasures to a generation that is passing away. Some of them are still familiar, and in many a rural school are conned the rhythmic periods with which he delighted and moved his auditors in the long ago.

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Thomas Smith Grimke            303

Thomas Smith Grimke, of Huguenot and Puritan

ancestry, was one of a family of fourteen children. His

father, John Faucheraud Grimke, was born in South

Carolina in 1752, studied law in London, England,

signed a petition to George III against infringements

upon the rights of the colonists, returned to America,

fought the British in the Revolution as lieutenant colonel

of artillery; after the war was judge of the superior

court of South Carolina, speaker of the house of rep-

resentatives, and member of the convention that ratified

the constitution of the United States in 1788.

The son was born in Charleston, South Carolina,

September 26, 1786. As he approached manhood's es-

tate he manifested markedly studious and religious ten-

dencies. The former he probably inherited from his

French father, the latter doubtless from his Puritan

mother. At the early age of twenty-one years he was

graduated from Yale College.   It was his desire to

enter the ministry, but yielding to the persuasion of his

father, he adopted the law as his profession. In this

he was not at first successful, but his close application

and tireless industry triumphed over all obstacles and

he rose to enviable eminence at the bar. His law part-

ner for a number of years was Robert Y. Hayne, fa-

mous for his great debate in the United States senate

with Webster.

On July 4, 1809, two years after his graduation

from Yale, he delivered before the Society of the Cin-

cinnati, in his native city, his first address that comes

down to this day in printed form. While not up to

the high standard of his subsequent efforts on the plat-

form, it contains much of interest and indicates the in-

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304     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

tellectual and political bent of the young orator. His

theme was the preservation of the Union.

"The imprudence of some," he declares at the out-

set, "and the corruption of others have forced a theme

on the public ear at which every friend of his country

must start and tremble. They would efface from the

tomb of Washington its brightest inscription, 'The

Common Father of One Common Country.' * * *

From whatever source our arguments may be drawn,

and whatever may be the chain of reasoning we pursue,

still shall we find that Union is the vital principle of

our permanent happiness." In speaking of those who

would destroy the Union, he adds, "In vain may they

call up the spirit of Washington to hallow their rites:

like the prophet at Endor he shall look but to blast and

speak but to curse."

From his passionate devotion to the Union he never

wavered. In 1826 he was elected to the state senate of

South Carolina. It must be remembered that he was

contemporary with Calhoun, with whom he was inti-

mately acquainted, and that he was the personal friend

and law partner of Hayne. It was his fortune to wit-

ness the first acts in the drama of nullification and dis-

union, and against the movement he strove valiantly

with the weapons of logic and eloquence in the arena

of debate. More than a year before Webster, in the

senate of the United States, delivered his epochal plea

for "liberty and union, now and forever, one and in-

separable," Thomas Smith Grimke in the senate of

South Carolina, face to face with the champions of Cal-

houn, raised his voice not less eloquently for the same

cause, and in prophetic vision warned his countrymen

of the awful consequences of civil war. In speaking of

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Thomas Smith Grimke                305

the position of South Carolina in such a dire contin-

gency he said:

"She sends forth her children, a band of parricides to a war

of rebellion against their lawful rulers; a band of fratricides to

the slaughter of their brethren. Without the sympathy of the

world; without the acclamations of the free; without the bless-

ings of her God, she sends them forth to the harvest-field of battle

with no resource but the chivalry of the South, with no strength

but the sword. Then will she reap the reward of the sword,

cruel, remorseless, insatiable. The winding sheet of her sons

shall be garments rolled in blood. * * * Then from all her

households shall ascend the prophetic aspirations of the ancient

people of God--'In the morning would God it were even--in the

evening would God it were morning.'

"May such a night of desolation and mourning never be the

lot of Carolina," said he in conclusion. "May this season of

fearful gloom be speedily overpast, and our beloved country be

permitted again to feel all the holy, delightful influences that flow,

as from a fountain of healing waters, from the national fellow-

ship of the Union."

When May brings her garlands for those who thirty-

five years afterward followed the flag at their country's

call, she might not inappropriately drop a flower above

the dust of this early defender of the Union, who loved

it as ardently as they.

From youth Grimke exhibited the characteristics of

a naturally devout and deeply religious nature. While

he adopted the law as his profession, and was fond of

all departments of literature, he ever turned reverently

to the Bible as the greatest of classics, "the best the

world has ever seen, the noblest that has ever honored

and dignified the language of mortals." Almost with-

out exception his public addresses breathe forth this

spirit of reverence for the Scriptures.

The Sunday school, in his opinion, was a most be-

neficent institution and he anticipated for it a glowing

Vol. XXXIII--20.

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306      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

future that has not yet been realized. Perhaps the most

eloquent and famous of his addresses was that delivered

at Charleston, September 14, 1831, on the occasion of

the celebration of the Sunday school jubilee, or the fifti-

eth year from the institution of Sunday schools by

Robert Raikes. His enthusiasm on this theme is set

forth in the two opening sentences: "We have come

together this evening to close the celebration of the

Sunday school jubilee--an event more sublime and af-

fecting than a nation's birthday. Even our own, the

most favored people of the old or the new, of the ancient

or the modern world, hails not a natal day so benign,

so lovely and so glorious." His peroration is an elo-

quent comparison of Lafayette and Robert Raikes.

This found its way into the McGuffey readers,

where it is still retained. American oratory in the early

half of the last century is here exemplified at its best.

At that time the visit of Lafayette to America, six years

before, was fresh in the memory of all. Many who

were present to hear Grimke had witnessed the progress

of the nation's guest "through crowded streets, thick

set with the banner and the plume, the glittering saber

and the polished bayonet." Every school boy who read

the McGuffey readers -- and who that has reached the

years of maturity has not?--will recall the stately

periods of Grimke:

It is but a few years since we beheld the most singular and

memorable pageant in the annals of time. It was a pageant

more sublime and affecting than the progress of Elizabeth through

England, after the defeat of the Armada; than the return of

Francis I from a Spanish prison to his own beautiful France;

than the daring and rapid march of the conqueror at Austerlitz

from Frejus to Paris. It was a pageant, indeed, rivaled only in

the elements of the grand and the pathetic by the journey of our

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Thomas Smith Grimke                307

 

own Washington through the different states. Need I say that

I allude to the visit of Lafayette to America?

After describing in brief but stirring lines the prog-

ress of "that beloved stranger," the orator asks what

kind of reception would have been accorded to Robeit

Raikes. "Let us," said he, "imagine him to have been

still alive and to have visited our land, to celebrate this

day with us. No national ship would have been offered

to bear him a nation's guest in the pride of the Star

Spangled Banner, from the bright shores of the rising

to the brighter shores of the setting sun. No cannon

would have hailed him in the stern language of the bat-

tlefield, the fortunate champion of freedom in Europe

and America." "And who does not rejoice," he adds,

"that it would be impossible thus to welcome this primi-

tive Christian, the founder of Sunday schools. * * *

His procession would number in its ranks the messen-

gers of the cross and the disciples of the Savior, Sun-

day school teachers and white robed scholars. * * *

The fame of Lafayette is of this world; the glory of

Robert Raikes is of the Redeemer's everlasting king-

dom." The close of the address, which must be read in

full to be appreciated, has long been a household mem-

ory in thousands of Ohio homes:

The time may come when the name of Lafayette shall be

forgotten, or when the star of his fame, no longer glittering in

the zenith, shall be seen, pale and glimmering on the verge of

the horizon. But the name of Robert Raikes shall never be for-

gotten and the lambent flame of his glory is that eternal fire which

rushed down from heaven to devour the sacrifice of Elijah. Let

mortals then admire and imitate Lafayette more than Robert

Raikes. But the just made perfect, and the ministering spirits

around the throne of God have welcomed him as a fellow-servant

of the same Lord, as a fellow-laborer in the same glorious cause

of man's redemption, as a co-heir of the same precious promises

and eternal rewards.

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308     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

While Grimke was a religious enthusiast and found

occasion, even in his most secular addresses, to "preach

a little," intolerance and bigotry had no place in his

broad and generous nature. He was, perhaps, first of

all, a reformer. The friends of the peace movement

have not yet discovered and canonized him as one of

their earliest and most eloquent advocates. Yet as early

as May 6, 1832, he delivered, in New Haven, before the

Connecticut Peace Society, an address on "The Princi-

ples of Peace," so radical that even that society dis-

claimed responsibility for the portion of it relating to

the Revolutionary War, in which his own father had

served with distinction.

On this branch of his theme he boldly declared:

"I shrink not from the accountability of condemning

universally the means employed to accomplish the Revo-

lution." The results he applauded, but he would have

had the patriots of the Revolution march under a dif-

ferent standard. "Their banner," he said, "should have

been the dove, meek, gentle, compassionate, faithful;

not the eagle, fierce and sanguinary, the ensign of con-

querors and tyrants."  Himself a descendant of the

Huguenots and the Puritans, and a communicant of the

Episcopal church, he averred in the same address that

the Quakers alone of all religious denominations had

been consistent in their attitude towards war and that

"William Penn is a nobler, holier being in the sight of

God, than the war-like Puritan of New England, the

cavalier of Virginia, or the chivalrous Huguenot of

Carolina." With his characteristic optimism, he looked

forward to the time when "all the machinery of na-

tional murder, and national robbery, by land and sea,

shall be swept away forever," and the glory of men and

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Thomas Smith Grimke            309

of nations shall be exemplified "in peace, Christian in

its character, universal in its dominion."

He was scarcely less enthusiastic in his advocacy

of temperance, and before societies organized for its

promotion he delivered a number of carefully prepared

addresses.

His was a never-failing interest in popular educa-

tion, and for the system as it was known in his day he

urged many reforms that have a distinctly modern

flavor. Long before the presidency of Theodore Roose-

velt he sought, not by executive order, but by reason

and example, to bring about reform in our English

orthography. He wrote a number of pamphlets on sim-

plified spelling, and in his later published addresses

practiced the reform he advocated. The modern school-

master will be not a little surprised to learn that as far

back as 1832 Grimke was an advocate of manual train-

ing in the schools. Himself thoroughly versed in the

Latin and Greek, he nevertheless favored the study of

"agricultural and mechanic arts" as substitutes for

these in his system of academic training. "I am sure,"

he said, "that such a plan would not degrade the sciences

of literature, and I know with absolute certainty that it

would elevate and dignify the arts."

In his last speaking tour, which brought him to Ohio

in the autumn of 1834, he spoke on "The Comparative

Eloquence of Ancient and Modern Times," before the

Eurodelphian Society of Miami University at Oxford,

where, during his short sojourn, he greatly endeared

himself to professors and students. On the walls of the

university hangs today a portrait, a memento of this

visit. From this painting was made the cut used with

this article, the first portrait of Grimke ever published.

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310      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

His address at Oxford was delivered September 23.

October 8 he spoke in Cincinnati, before the Western

Literary Society and College of Professional Teachers

on "American Education," and set forth at length his

objections to the then existing system and his plans for

its modification and improvement. He objected strongly

to the prominence given in the higher institutions of

learning to mathematics and the Greek and Latin

classics. "The whole body of pure mathematics," he

said, "is absolutely useless to ninety-nine out of every

one hundred who study them." He would emphasize

the study of modern English and send youth from col-

lege with the knowledge and culture gleaned by asso-

ciation with the great writers of the mother-tongue,

through the medium of their works. In his view there

is "more power, fidelity and beauty in Walter Scott

than in a dozen Homers and Virgils." His plea was

for an education essentially religious and thoroughly

American. Educators, and especially educational re-

formers, even at this late day, may read with profit this

scholarly discussion, the last of his formal public ad-

dresses.

On October 10 Mr. Grimke left Cincinnati by stage

for Columbus, to enjoy a visit with his brother, Fred-

erick Grimke, long a resident of Ohio and afterward

one of the judges of the Ohio supreme court. That

journey was his last, and he never saw the city within

whose purlieus he was to find his final resting place.

On his way hither he was stricken with the cholera

at "Anderson or Gwyn's Farm," twenty miles west of

Columbus, where he breathed his last, October 12. "So

quiet were his last moments," it is written, "that he died

as if he had fallen into a restful sleep."

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Thomas Smith Grimke            311

From the Episcopal church in Columbus he was

borne to the old cemetery north of the city. In later

years the loving hands of former students of Miami

University transferred the remains and the marble slab

beneath which they repose, to their place in Green Lawn.

His modest grave, on which the sunlight freely falls, is

in keeping with his character. The inscription on the

marble slab provokes a smile at the vanity of his pro-

test against the ancient classics. It is wholly in Latin:

THOMAS S. GRIMKE,

Conjugi et Patri Optimo,

Uxoris Amor,

Filiorum Pietas

Natus ad Charleston, S. C.

A. D. MDCCLXXXVI.

Decessit A. D.

MDCCCXXXIV.

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus

Tam cari capitis.

 

Grimke was the father of several children. Two of

his sisters, Angelina and Sarah, became famous as re-

formers. They had liberated their slaves, gone North,

joined the Quaker church and become prominently

identified with Garrison and Phillips in the anti-slavery

movement. He had visited them in the East on his way

to Columbus.

Grimke had acquired a fortune adequate to his

needs. It was his purpose to retire from the practice of

his profession and devote himself wholly to literature

and reform. In conviction and sentiment he belonged

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312       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

to the North, rather than the South. He was not am-

bitious to attain political eminence, nor was he attracted

by the spectacular and temporal movement on the sur-

face of human affairs. He preferred to be as he was,

a power among the forces of the profounder depths,

slowly but surely building upward the substantial struc-

ture that shall rise to the light of a better day. His

faith and his optimism are set forth in his own words:

 

The navigator traverses the vast Pacific in his voyage for

the encirclement of the globe. How little does he know, how

little does he realize the wonderful works of creation that are

ever going on beneath the surface! He understands something

of the sun and the moon and the stars above, of the winds and the

storms and the waters around him; but the secrets of the great

deep are invisible to his eyes, mysterious to his comprehension.

What a striking analogy exists between him on the boundless

Pacific and the ruler of a nation, looking abroad from the heights

of ambition and power over the surface of society. Whilst he is

employed in analyzing the interior details and harmonizing the

external action of the machinery of government, I see that he does

not even suspect the existence of a system of influences, which de-

scending to the very depths of society, are building upwards the

coral islands of a new and better order of things. I behold the

storms of ambition tempesting the deep; I behold the waves of

popular tumult dashing in terrific agitation over the surface; yet

I know that millions of unseen agents are silently but unceasingly

and irresistibly at work beneath the surface. I know that in

depths where the howl of the storm is never heard, where the

conflict of waves is never felt, they are forever building upward,

and that in due season, according to the appointments of Provi-

dence, their eternal edifice will appear above the subject waves,

glorious in majesty, beauty and power.

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