Charles Francis Stocking

“On another occasion, he opined, "But, if ever forgetful of her past and present glory, she shall cease to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave,' and become the purchased possession of a company of stock jobbers and speculators, if her people are to become the vassals of a great moneyed corporation, and to bow down to her pensioned and privileged nobility, if the patriots who shall dare to arraign her corruptions and denounce her usurpations, are to be sacrificed upon her gilded altar; such a country may furnish venal orators and presses but the soul of national poetry will be gone…That muse will 'Never bow the knee in mammon's fane.' No, the patriots of such a land must hide their shame in her deepest forests, and her bards must hang their harps upon the willows. Such a people, thus corrupted and degraded, 'Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying shall go down, To the vile dust from whence they sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung.””