Isham Beasley Dedication

By The Sons Of The American Revolution

Go To Tennessee Society Sons of the American Revolution

Transcribed by Janette West Grimes

ADDRESS OF DR. EARL C. ARNOLD, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF LAW,

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT OF THE TENNESSEE

SOCIETY, SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AT THE

GRAVE OF ISHAM BEASLEY, NEAR CARTHAGE, TENNESSEE,

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 1934.

_____________________

Isham Beasley, great-great-great-grandfather of our distinguished Compatriot, who is the President of the California Society, Sons of the American Revolution, was born in 1760 and died* in 1855. His span of life was 95 years. When he was born, there were no United States, and the First Continental Congress was yet 14 years in the future. He was 16 years of age when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the ringing of the Liberty Bell. He was 27 when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia and proposed our present constitution, and he doubtless supported George Washington for the Presidency. In his old age he must have recalled that when he was about 15, at Concord "

*** once the embattled farmers stood,

and fired the shot heard round the world."

When he died, there had been 14 Presidents of the United States, and 13 of them had predeceased him. Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt, had not yet been born when he was laid in his final resting place. In 1855 there were 31 states in the Union. He had reached middle life before Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow, or Oliver Wendell Holmes, was born.

When Isham Beasley died, my own father, now past 80 years of age, was two years old. These two men, one living and the other whose deeds we honor, witnessed the entire history of our country, and the two doubtless voted at all but three or four Presidential elections, and have experienced the great changes incident to a great government and a developing civilization. Many illustrations of a similar nature would show the correctness of the Psalmist's observation that " a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." [ Psalms 90:4 ]

From the meager* data concerning Isham Beasley furnished to me, I want to call attention to two things: First, his services were rendered as a private soldier. With few exceptions*, the great monuments for war service have been erected to honor commanding officers. But now and then the people have recognized the great services of the private, as in the case of the Unknown Soldier. The heart of the American people was touched with this humble monument to the ranks of the Army more than it had ever been by the many marble shafts erected to the commandors. We have too long postponed our recognition to the unadvertised services rendered by the humble private. The action of Compatriot Vaughn in calling attention to this private soldier is to be commended far more than if he were to add a supernumerary monument to some officer.

Second, Isham Beasley was a pioneer, of whom Walt Whitman wrote in part in 1860:

"We detachments steady throwing,

Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,

Conquering , holding , daring , venturing as we go the unknown ways,

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

We primevil* forests felling ,

We the rivers stemming , vexing we and piercing* deep the mines within,

We the surface broad surveying , we the virgin soil upheaving ,

Pioneers! O Pioneers!"

From North Carolina he came to Tennessee when this State was the Western frontier. In this new country there was created the undefinable pioneer spirit. It is the spirit and not the country that is important. In the past when a section developed. The pioneer country in past generations comprehended geographical boundarier. The new settlements held a glamour* for the restless souls in the older communities. Such restlessness doubtless possessed your ancestor, Mr. Vaughn, as it was inherited by you or others of your ancestors to cause you to push on to the Golden Gate. The pioneer spirit is a valuable possession of Americans. The impulse of it has developed natural resources, discovered new modes of transportation, and established stable state governments. But our Western country is no longer pioneer in the same sense that it was when Isham Beasley was interred in this spot. In the future, the pioneer must refer to the spirit of the people rather than a geographical location. The pioneer had adjustments to make, new problems to solve, and governments to establish. Old formulas were of little use in a new civilization. Many of us are stunned to realize that amid our old surroundings there have arisen new problems of economic and social life to which old formulas seem inapplicable. In this day of a multitude* of problems, the same spirit might well be developed in the oldest sections of Tennessee, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania or California. With Tennison* we chant in a whining voice and defeatist attitude*:

"Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth:

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth;

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule;

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool."

If ever shackles bound an institution, we find education manacled by traditions and customs which the pioneers* would never have tolerated. The administration of our criminal law would have called into action the Vigilantes on the Pacific Coast in the 50's as it did in Alaska within the memory of us here. The pioneer spirit has always been found in an awakened people. In the past that spirit has been confined to the few who were willing to congregate with awakened souls* from other communities. A place of habitation was necessary for its expression. The pioneer spirit is not felt today until some tragedy, such as the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child, strikes at the fireside* in every home. The American people are complacent, comatose, unawakened. We joke about Tammany* Halls, and the Chicago and Philadelphia* political machines, and the San Francisco strike, which compatriot Vaughn was recently called upon to assist in settling. A real pioneer spirit such as pushed across the plains in* the old covered wagon, would never acknowledge the futility of local and state governments to eradicate kidnapping , reduce taxes, and solve the purely local problems. We have tried palliatives, such as the direct primary, direct elections, and woman suffrage; but these have failed. Let us arouse in every American precinct the old fashioned pioneer spirit that surrounded Isham Beasley and his compatriots, and there will be less glamour* for the nauseating increase of centralization of the power in the Federal government.

In 1855, Americans were individualists. Somewhere the soul of Isham Beasley* must be disturbed today because the selfishness of the past 80 years has been a narcotic that has required a deviation from individualism. An awakened people, with proper pioneer spirit, would avoid the trend toward socialization that threatens us today. Those whose birth preceded 1900 are prejudiced in favor of individualism. But selfishness will destroy any system. Selfishness in business life has made us acquiesce** in many* governmental innovations that our forefathers would never have tolerated. Today we are witnessing a national planning , with socialized machinery, in order to preserve for us, as much as possible, the individualism of the days of Isham Beasley. One of the leaders of the new day is a modest, self-effacing statesman who rose to renown in this community. His name is revered by all political faiths in our country, and he is respected by the chancelleries of the world. I doubt not that the ideals of your own outstanding citizen, our Secretary of State, are due in no small measure to the pioneer individualists such as Isham Beasley, whose influence in this community necessarily affected his early life.

Many of us who have come here today are bound by no ties of blood to Isham Beasley, or to those of his descendants who are here to honor his resting place. Why came we here? To some of us his name was, until recently, unknown. It is not curiosity that brought us here. Isham Beasley represented an ideal, a type of American manhood. In other cemeteries* in other sections of the country there sleep other humble* patriots who are our ancestors. They all have a common heritage, although there is no tie of *consanguinity. The ancestors of ours represent to all of us an ideal like the Renaissance. We admire this man because of the principles for the defense of which he enlisted in November, 1779, with the North Carolina troops. We are unashamed of the implications of sentimentality that brought us together, as strangers, to try to recreate in ourselves and in others the pioneer spirit that must exist if our nation does not run the entire gamut* of socialization. Perchance this service may inspire others to emulate the worthy example of our distinguished Compatriot from California, and mark other graves in this and other cemeteries. The result of these ceremonies may instill in other national leaders the spirit of devoted service which Revolutionary soldiers inspire. Your long journey across the continent, Compatriot* Vaughn, to honor your ancestor should not pass unnoticed. Your act should serve as an example to others. In this day when old concepts are found in the discard, and old notions of government and morals are labelled mid-victorian, and anything antediluvian* is classified by the inexperienced of this day as a relic of the Gay 90's, it is heartening to witness a busy man who will take the trouble to salute the ideals and heroes that made America great. On behalf of the several hundred members of the Tennessee Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and others who are in sympathy with our objectives, I welcome your challenge to us to go and do likewise.

Transcriber Note: * Represents either a error in spelling or puntuation to clearify the text.

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